THIS IS MY PRAYER
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this Second Sunday in Advent - Year C - is, “This Is
My Prayer.”
I saw that comment in today’s second reading. Paul says the following in
a Letter to the Christian Community in Philippi - which is part of Greece,
“And this is my prayer:
that your love may increase ever more and more
in knowledge and every kind of perception,
to discern what is of value,
so that you may be pure and blameless for the
day of Christ,
filled with the fruit of righteousness
that comes through Jesus Christ
for the glory and praise of God.”
Those words, “And this is my prayer….” triggered
for me a series of questions:
·
“Do I have a prayer?
A deep inner ongoing prayer?”
·
“If I do, what is
it?”
·
“Are their various inner
deep prayers that I have?”
·
“If I have an inner
prayer, have I changed it through the years?”
·
“What are other
people’s prayers, if they have an inner ongoing prayer?”
SAINT PAUL’S PRAYER
Let’s take a closer look at St. Paul’s
prayer.
I would rewrite it. Greek New Testament
sentences tend to be long and have few periods.
Paul prays that those he is writing to
have an increase of more and more love in their lives. Good. Don’t we all want
more and more love in our lives. That’s a good prayer.
But Paul refines what kind of love he’s
talking about: in how they know life and
how they perceive what’s going on around them in their lives.
Next he prays that those he is writing to
discern - figure out - understand - grasp
- what is of value - that is, that they are pure and blameless and do what is
right till they meet Jesus Christ. And lastly that they do everything for the
glory and praise of God. Those of you who went to Jesuit schools know that’s
the Jesuit motto: AMDG - “Ad maiorem Dei gloriam” - “For the greater Glory of
God.” Isn’t that what athletes are doing
when they make a great catch or hit or basket. [Gesture: the point towards the
heavens.]
So Paul is giving us a handful - a
mindful - of basic prayers there….
Love - knowing and seeing what’s right
and of value - and doing all for the glory and praise of God. Good prayer. Good
prayers.
MY PRAYER
I’m going to end my homily this morning by asking all of
us: do I have a basic prayer - and if I do, what is it?
I did my homework on this yesterday. I ask you to do your
homework on all this today and this week. Right now my prayer would be for peace in the
world. Enough with the shootings. Enough with the wars. Enough with the bloodshed. Enough with the
craziness.
The other day when the San Bernadino killing stuff was
coming in and as I was watching the news, I was hoping [Hoping was the word I was using.
Is hoping a prayer?] I was hoping that the killers were not Moslems. They
mentioned there were three. Then I sensed that some TV commentators were hoping
they were Moslems or Isis. I’m not sure of this - but I sensed they were saying
that. I said this out loud to a couple of folks and they were hoping the same thing:
that they were not Moslems.
Obviously, this is horrible stuff - and we wouldn’t want
anyone to be doing this.
What would it be like to be living in Syria or Northern
Iraq? I’m sure the majority of folks there - Christians and Moslems - are
hoping and praying for peace - security - and an end to violence. What happened
here in one day is happening every day in some places in our world.
So is that my answer to my first question which is: Do I
have an ongoing deep inner prayer?
As I thought about all this - and these are just first
draft thoughts and questions, I realized that I don’t think that’s my inner
ongoing prayer. But the other day and recently that was my current inner
prayer.
I sense that my ongoing prayer is different.
DROP OUTS AND
THOSE WHO HAVE LOST THEIR FAITH
I’m hearing and reading and noticing that it looks like
our Church numbers are down.
I have also been
hearing lately that we have to reach those who have dropped out as well as the
unchurched - and we need to come up with programs to do just that.
I heard of one parish in Pennsylvania who were asking for
volunteers to stuff letters - letters of invitation - to folks who are not
going to church to come back home this Christmas - no questions asked.
I would like to know how many people who have dropped out
- got that thought to come back home to Church when Pope Francis was on TV -
24/7 - visiting the United States September 22 to 27, 2015.
That hope triggers for me a sense of what my inner prayer
is. It’s for people to have faith - faith in God - that the Lord be with them.
Pope Francis keeps using the word “mercy” - which means
“kindness” and “understanding”, “forgiveness”. It means “welcome home” - as in
the Prodigal Son story.
I have gone crazy inwardly when priests make digs -
sandpaper quips -stupid comments to folks in church on Ash Wednesday - Easter -
and Christmas - to once or twice a year Catholics. I want to scream out,
“Welcome!”
I began to notice at weddings and funerals that folks
would say afterwards: “Now that wasn’t too bad.” Better folks in the back of
church after weddings and funerals would say, “I might be coming back to church
Father.”
So I have found myself praying for folks at weddings and
funerals that God makes sense to them - that faith and hope and trust in God -
as part of their life - is triggered.
So this Christmas give your seat to those who look lost - who are looking for
room in this Inn.
FRANCE PAGAN
I’ve been saying and reading and hearing how we have been
moving into a period called “post-Christianity” - for many Catholics and Christians.
That means they are not seeing life with the
Christian and Catholic value system that
they were given.
As I was working on this homily yesterday, I remember
first hearing this about France - when I was in the major seminary in the
1960’s. I was hearing the phrase “France Pagan” - that less than 10 % of the
people of France were going to church.
I heard mention of a book entitled, France Pagan - which I saw but never read. I looked it up in
preparing this homily. It was entitled, France
Pagan: The Mission of Abbe Henri Grodin. In the late 1930’s and early
1940’s he was in on Worker - Priest movement. Pope John 23 of all people suppressed
this movement. Pope Paul VI started it again. Then it was stopped again.
Abbe Henri Grodin used the phrase “the deChristianization
of Europe”.
The message he screamed was to reach out to the French
working class. What better way than to get out of the rectory and get into the
working places.
I remember my first day in my first assignment as a
priest. I put down my suitcase to shake hands with my first pastor and he said
within one minute pointing to the floor of the rectory: “Andy, this is not the
parish. It’s out there in the streets and homes of this neighborhood.” I became a priest to go to Brazil - but here
I was on the Lower East Side of Manhattan - right in East Village - and along
with Haight Asbury in San Francisco - it was the center of the whole thing
called, “The Hippie Revolution.”
It was right after Vatican II and that meant nothing to
all kinds of folks I bumped into all through those few streets called, “Most
Holy Redeemer Parish.”
I noticed as I read about this stuff yesterday mention of
another book, Not Cassocks But Coveralls. It had the same message:
be out there with the people.
Last month we had a province meeting - a convocation -
and one of the speakers was Bishop Joe Tobin - who was our former Rector Major
in Rome. He’s now Archbishop of Indianapolis. Talking about coveralls, he told
the story about when he was pastor in our church - Most Holy Redeemer in
Detroit - that he was in his coveralls working on a toilet of a poor lady in
the parish. Joe can fix anything. Well, he gets it fixed - walks back to the
rectory and they tell him, Mother Teresa is down the street in her nun’s place
there and she wants to see you. He say, “I got poop all over these coveralls -
and I gotta change and take a shower first.” “Nope,” they said, “right now. She
wants to see you right now.” So he meets
Mother Teresa, he told us, in his poop and coveralls. I loved the story. I
never liked pomp and circumstance. Now I’m going to restate that: I like poop
and circumstance. And isn’t that what Pope Francis told bishops and
priests? Be out there with the people.
Smell like the sheep.
So I have to think about all this. Do I end up doing what
Father Eddie Byrne did when I was working on the Lower East Side. His parish
was very poor so he drove a taxi cab at night. The last and probably only job I
had in life was working one summer during college delivering Coca Cola. That’s
the real thing. Isn’t the call of the gospel to make all this real? Yes, we
come to church, but real gospel life is to be lived out there with the people -
at work and with their families.
CONCLUSION
So thinking about all this, my deepest prayer would be:
Faith - faith in God - faith in Jesus Christ for us Christians - and Catholics.
What’s your deepest prayer?
These are just first draft thoughts on paper about all
this. I sense this is what Paul was about. I sense this is what I hear lots of
parents saying about their kids who have dropped out of Church - especially
when they say, “I don’t know what my kids will do when the tough stuff of life
hits them big time.” Or to say the same thing with a better translation - part
of which I can’t say in church: “when the s_ _ _ hits the fan.”
