The title of my homily is, “Murdering, Maiming, and Minimizing the Innocent.”
Today - December 28, has the feast of the slaughter of the Holy Innocents.
It has many possible messages. Bastin, Pinckers and Teheux in their God Day By Day Spiritual Reflections on the Readings
of the Day, Volume Four, write,
about this text, Matthew 2:13-18, “Are they symbolic, those children who were
massacred in Bethlehem? Or course they are, but we should not forget that
symbols are always rooted in human realities, and the reality here is that of human
suffering - people dying of hunger, the bitter complaints of exiles and the
silence of frightened prisoners.” [Page 84]
With that in mind I put together this reflection for today.
In our lifetime we’ve seen the slaughter of the unborn - the Holy
Innocents.
In our lifetime we have seen the slaughter of millions of children,
women, men in the Holocaust.
In our lifetime we have seen the murder of all kinds of babies, children
because of race and religion issues in Serbia, Macedonia, and the former
Yugoslavian countries.
In our lifetime we have seen the same thing happen with the slaughter of
so many in Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, in so many other African and Middle East countries.
In our lifetime we seen the Killing Fields in Cambodia and so many other places
on the planet.
In our lifetime we have heard about various many priests and bishops who
were not protective of young people in the sexual abuse stories in the Catholic
Church.
In our lifetime we have heard how kids can get shortchanged in education
- which can be a ladder out of poverty.
In our lifetime we have seen some rich get richer because of scams and skim
offs and manipulation in the markets.
In our lifetime we have heard lies and “claimed innocence” when it comes to
public people - in sports, the arts, politics - who try to explain ways out of
living a life of lies, cheating, and misbehaving - giving bad example to the young.
In our lifetime we’ve seen and heard people whose ethics and truth
telling seems to have disappeared and they have walked in the dark and not in
the light as we heard in today’s first reading from 1 John 1: 5-2:2.
In our lifetime we have heard people show little concern for the many
migrants and their children who are “pitchforked” - as one preacher put it -
from one place to the next.
In our lifetime we have heard politicians - and dictators - and elected
officials - concerned more about the
polls and their numbers than the number of people who are suffering, starving
and homeless.
In our lifetime we have heard people criticize prophets, priests,
preachers, writers, world leaders, who have preached the Catholic Church’s Social
Justice and Human Charity teachings - or have only been selective when it comes
to these issues - with no concern for the hurting and the humbled - but only
for their agenda.
In our lifetime we have seen and heard people who claim innocence when
it comes to caring for our earth - not being aware of the health of all - for
example poor children in West Virginia, Kentucky, China - whose lungs are
damaged because of earth dumping and disregard of the reality of carbon emissions.
In our lifetime we have heard people screaming at children - hitting
children - hurting children - with no concern for what they see with their eyes
and hear with their ears.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
December 27, 2015
FAMILY
The place where we know each other’s cough,
step, moods, laugh, idiosyncrasies, stories, hurts, favorite cream flavor, cereal, fears, friends, gripes, TV programs, buttons, and
yes, oh yes, what we hate, broccoli, cauliflower and talking about __________________________.
[This Sunday the Church celebrates the Family - calling each family to be a Holy Family. Here is
a list of 10 blessings - amongst others - that a family ought be giving to each
other. If I see at least one of you reaching [GESTURE] for a ballpoint pen to
jot one of these down, that would make my day. I’ll put this on my blog - which you can access
from the parish web site. If you check out and reflect upon all 10, that too
would make my day, but only if you would
take and make at least one of these 10 blessings a challenge and a call for you
to put it into practice in the New Year - because you want to make your family
even better - holier. Amen.]
Number One: A
family is a place where one learns one’s first words, first language. “Ma Ma” -
“Da Da” - “Look!” - “Want” - “Need” - “Help” - “No” - “Yes” - "More" - “Love” - "Please! Please!" and
“I’m sorry.” May the words and language
spoken here in our home - be words of love and kindness, gentleness and joy,
giving and forgiving. Number One: The words we learned and the words we use.
Number Two: A family is a place of memories and stories -
history, herstory, moments, incidents, time together, experiencing the twists
and turns of life - where one is creating one’s unwritten autobiography - and
reading the unwritten biography of those with us on the same shelf - the same
house - that we are together in. As
someone once said, “When an old person dies, it’s as if a library burnt
down.” Number Two: We are history books - in process -
becoming who we are page by page. We are talking books - hopefully taking the
time to read - to listen to - to talk to each other.
Number Three: A family is a place where not only mom and
dad are honored, so too grandparents, visitors, the little ones - teenagers - and ourselves as well. Number Three: A place
of honor.
Number Four: A family is a place where people know the
difference between an argument, a
disagreement, a spat - compared to an angry tirade that can leave acid spill at
the table, the bedroom, the heart - where kids know the difference between a
pillow fight and a real fight. Number Four: There are
fights and there are fights.
Number Five: A family is the starting place where one
learns the ability to compromise, readjust, reconsider, renegotiate, recalculate - because one has seen
these attitudes and qualities in the ones above us - instead of experiencing
others who are unwilling to adjust or change or recalculate. Number Five: Learning to compromise.
Number Six: A family is a place where members learn to
laugh and love - love being with one another - wanting to be with each other - not just on
Thanksgiving and Christmas - but 365 days a year for those in the same house -
52 times a year - for those who have moved into new families - new homes - using
“techie” stuff well - for communication at a distance - and turned off when up
close - like at the dinner table. It’s a place where people eat with other -
and eat up each other - seeing the sacredness of the family table - receiving
in communion the other - if Christian, seeing each other as the Body of Christ
and saying "Amen" to Christ within the other. Number Six:
Experiencing the Real Presence of each
other.
Number Seven: A family is a place where one learns about
faith and hope - in God and in one another - knowing the primary church is the
home - where mom and dad are priests - and kids are parishioners - and members
worship, pray, play with each other - and the classrooms and playgrounds in our
homes are always open. Number Seven: A home is a church
and a school.
Number Eight: A family is a place where the truth will
set us free. It’s a place where we can be the real me - the real we. It’s a place where we can be at home to each
other - without masks or titles - walk around in t-shirt and sweat pants - but
that doesn’t mean we can be PITA’s to each other. To make a family work, takes
work. Go back and check Number Six. Number Eight: A home
is a place where we can become truly free - but that takes work.
Number Nine: A family is a place with a door - where
people make significant - key - wonderful comments to each other - when another
is leaving and when another is coming back home through that door - and those
comments sculpt us into better and better persons. Number
Nine: We’re aware of what is said coming and going in and out the door of our
home.
Number Ten and Last: A family is a place where people
learn to overlook, forgive, understand, accept differences and peculiarities,
as well as sin - but the messy gets cleaned up, people try to speak better, be
better, and learn to understand each other. A “Holy Family” does not mean a
sculpture or statues of people with hands folded [GESTURE] as in prayer - but
hands that clap for each other, hands with a deck of playing cards in hand,
forks in hand, hand in hand, hands on shoulders, hands in prayer and support of
each other. Amen.
Number Ten: A family is a place where
we are joined by hand and have to hand it to each other - generation after
generation after generation.
December 26, 2015
THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS
’Twas the Day after Christmas,
when all through the house,
there were remnants of wrapping
and boxes and presents, glasses
and plates and every sort of just this
and just that - just resting and sitting
there on tables and rugs, and under
the edges of chairs and the couch,
just here, just there, just everywhere.
So the Mrs. of the house, after just
this and just that - put on her coat
