Sunday Homily, November 30, 2014, 1st Advent, Cycle B

 

 

Readings:

Isaiah 9, 1-6,  The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Psalm 96,  Today is born our Savior, Christ the Lord.

Titus,  2, 11-14,  The Grace of God has appeared.

Luke 2, 1-14,   In those days a decree went out from Caesar  Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled.

 

A Christmas Gift

I want to tell you about a Christmas gift this afternoon.  It is one of my biggest gifts of this season and it came to me yesterday afternoon by surprise.

In our neighborhood we have alleys behind the lots.  Garbage trucks and service vehicles us the alleys.

 

 

Once a week on Mondays we are visited by the trash trucks and the recycle trucks.  The trash trucks are all mechanized, so only a driver runs the show.  A mechanical arm grabs the trash can, empties it, and replaces it.

 

The recycle truck, however, has three people, one driver and two men who empty the recycles into their truck.  I often see the recycle guys because they start the day’s run at our alley and at our house.  We are on the corner.  We wave.

I got this idea from a guy I helped to do his memorial a few years ago.  He would give a small gift to his mail man and trash collectors.

 

So Monday morning I am watching at 7:00, hoping to give the recycle guys a gift of a few bucks.  They don’t come.  I am afraid I will miss them like I did at Thanksgiving.  So I place a note on the recycle bin.  And I continue to watch.  I can hear them usually, because their big truck makes noise.

 

 

Suddenly about 3:00 I hear the truck.  By the time I grab my coat and head out, one of the guys is coming in the back yard, because my note told them to come to the door.   They are friendly as ever.

I give them each $20.

This was when my present arrived. 

 

 

Their gratitude.  It was over the top.  They thanked me over and over.  One guy says, “I’m rich, I’m rich.”  They head off down the alley with more thanks and well wishes for a Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

I was so touched I got choked up when Rosemary asked me how it went.  So small a gift on my part, so great a gift to me on their part.

Want to receive a gift like this?  When are you going to do it?

 

 

Readings: 2 Chronicles 36; Psalm 137; Ephesians 2, 4-10; John 3, 14-21

Chronicles:

Author (s): Unknown

Date:  ca. 450-350 BCE, at least after The Babylonian Captivity.  You will see why. 

Subject:  a summary of the entire span of history to the time the people returned to Jerusalem, i.e., from Adam to the end of the Babylonian Captivity, 450 BCE.  Therefore, it begins with Adam & a genealogy up to King Saul and King David, through David's son Solomon & the building of the temple to the Babylonian Captivity with Nebuchadnezzar to Cyrus the leader of the Persians who defeated Nebuchadnezzar & the Chaldeans and allowed the Hebrews to return to Jerusalem.  Note that Babylon was near Baghdad in Iraq, while Persia was Iran.

Our selection: this is the very last chapter of ca. 60 chapters, including Chronicles 1 & 2.  A bit of a summary chapter, it says that Yahweh was so mad he got Nebuchadnezzar to defeat the Hebrews and cart them off to captivity in Babylon.  Then some 50 years later he gets Cyrus to defeat Nebuchadnezzar and free the Hebrews to return to Jerusalem, which they do. 

Sources: Wikipedia, Catholic Encyclopedia.

Two Questions

Last week I saw a story that struck me.  A couple in their mid forties were at home watching TV Tuesday about 9:00 in the evening.  The husband's brother was with them and the couple's 3 youngest kids were playing.  The family lives in Pleasant Grove, which is about 5:00 o'clock on the circular map of Dallas. 

Suddenly the door was forced open and a kid around 24 came banging in demanding money.  The brothers work construction, but they had no cash on them.  The wife, Carmen, emptied out all she had in her purse, $2. 

The kid was angry and demanded that they get the money they had hidden.  He had a pistol and slapped around Alfredo, the father.  He tied up the brothers and shoved them into the bathroom.  He then said he would kidnap Carmen or one of Alfredo's daughters if he did not hand over more money.

So Alfredo and Carlos, the younger brother, in order to defend Carmen and the kids, tried to break loose attack the kid.  They were both shot dead on the spot.

Meanwhile, one of the older children, a boy, snuck out a window and ran for help to a neighbor.  They called 911 and the police arrived while the shooting was still going on.  The kid ran out the door, saw a cop, fired at him, and ran around toward the back of the house where he encountered a second cop.  This cop shot the kid and now he is in the hospital in critical condition. 

Apparently the kid did not know the family and just chose them at random.  All for $2.

Which, taking into account our readings today, leads to two questions.

First, does God get angry and punish bad people?  The Bible certainly seems to think so. 

• For example, Chronicles says today that the "anger of the Lord was so inflamed that there was no remedy."  As a result he had the Hebrews killed, burned out, and carried away as slaves in Babylon.  For a symbolic 70 years, which seems to suggest that the Hebrews had neglected to rest on the sabbath.

• For example, Yahweh got so mad at his earlier creation that he sent the great flood, killing everybody except Noah, his wife, and the animals.  

• For example, in John this morning you find out that you will be condemned if you do not believe in the name of Jesus.  So you better be Christian or even better Catholic according to the messages I heard growing up, or you are condemned.  To what?

• For example, it is held that Jesus had to come and die on a cross as he did so as to take away the Father's anger at us for our ancestors' sins.  Thus, the gates of heaven, closed up to that time, would be reopened.  True? 

Was the family in Pleasant Grove watching TV Tuesday night bad?  Had they sinned so horribly that they must be punished like happened to the Hebrews in Jerusalem?

So, what do you think, what do you believe?  Does God get angry and punish bad people as we see repeatedly mentioned in the Bible?  Which leads me to my next question:

Second question, who are the bad people?  Or who are the good? 

Obviously the 24 year old kid who barged in on the family is bad.  He deserves what?  Be condemned?  Forever? 

From my experience as a priest and as as psychotherapist, I have discovered two things. 

First, that nobody is totally bad, and nobody is totally good.  But what about that kid?  He is bad!  John says, "He who does wicked things hates the light."  That boy must really hate the light.

Secondly, if I had grown up in the environment of many of these kids and been forced to live in the horrible surroundings they saw daily, I probably would have done the same things.  I do not know how many times I have talked with people who have done similar things and discovered that they were horribly wounded people.  Inside they were deeply hurt.  Outside they vented their hurt through anger and, watch out, through violence.   

As a balance to this negativity and tragedy, let me remind you that we likewise see beauty in people.  Remember the 50 St. Bonaventure students who dedicated their spring break to hurricane relief work in Galveston.  Remember the heroic work of the Collin Co. Adult Clinic.  I even saw it on the DART train Thursday when I went downtown to have lunch with Rosemary.  Three times I saw a guy get up and offer his seat to a woman nearby.  I was moved.

So, reconsidering our Pleasant Grove family and all the Bible stories about God being angry and punishing people, what do you think?

Sources: The Center for Liturgy, St. Louis U.  Online Ministries, Creighton, U.  All on line.

AUDIO:  http://mysite.verizon.net/reso7rjy/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/2009-03-22.mp3

Picture 1:   Mass with Hue on the sound, Wendy, Ray, & Celeste

Picture 2:   Birthdays–Angelo (Blair's boy friend), Bob McGrath (80!), Christine, & T.J.

Picture 3:   Ryan, Jackie & Bob McGrath, Tom, Morgan, & Tyler McGrath

Picture 4:  Tom & Daniel Fleming & Louie Federico

 

Readings:

1 Kings  3, 5, 7-12,   The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream one night.

Psalm 119,   Lord, I love your commands.

Romans 8, 28-30,  All things work for good who love God.

Matthew  13, 44-52,  The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field.

                                                                                                        

 

Homily

Some of you are aware that Judy and I were recently in Iowa for a memorial celebration of her mother’s life.   Judy’s mother came to what would be our birthplace in Iowa from a farm in Missouri to take Nurse’s training from nuns of the order of St. Francis who came from Peoria, Illinois. They had had been sent there some years earlier to serve in a hospital and to assist doctors who were also being trained in Keokuk.  These nuns served another purpose for us by catechizing Marie; she received the sacraments of the Church there when she was 21. The good news of Jesus Christ, the treasure buried in the field, the pearl of great value, the net used by the disciples to catch men, and the instruction on the kingdom of heaven had become the desire of her heart.

 

 

 

 

This town where Judy and I were born has a beautiful park.  It is the heart of the town and Judy began the first part of our memorial celebration of Marie there, with a reading from the Proverbs 31; the reading was part of the old spoken of in today’s gospel.  The theme of our celebration was Marie as a giver of goodness and justice.   I carried the theme forward with a reading that I gave to begin the service we had at the gravesite.  It was from the Letter of James where he reminds a sect of Jewish Christians of the Perfect law, we are to love one another as Christ has loved us.  This new way of loving had fulfilled the Royal law from Leviticus of the OT, to love your neighbor as yourself.  

 

 

 

 In our first reading today from First Kings, Solomon has asked God for an understanding heart so that he could better serve God’s people wisely.  How were we shown this in 1 Kings? Recall the parable where Solomon determined which of the two prostitutes was the true mother of the child they had brought to him.

 

  

The wisdom that a scribe had read or heard about Solomon inspired him to construct that parable.   We were told last week that the seed sown by Christ spoken of in the parable was the Father’s word given to us by his Son. Today we were told that the treasure buried in the field, and the pearl of great value and the net sown in the sea to capture people is the good news of Jesus Christ that fulfills the wisdom of Solomon of the first reading.

  

 

When the Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, the priests disappeared.  Scribes who were the interpreters of the Law and Prophets were still involved in the Sabbath Synagogue Service for Jews.  Recall that this service was built around a calendar of readings from the Law and the Prophets  and the singing of the Psalms to praise God and a teaching by the Scribes on the OT reading.  [It was the liturgy of the Word of the Jews.] For the Jews who became Christians, disciples of the kingdom of God, the Christian Liturgy of the Word would fulfill the Sabbath Synagogue Service. The gospel reading would  fulfill the expectation of the coming of the Messiah given in the OT reading; the homily given on the gospel reading replaced the OT teaching.  [This couldn’t happen, however, until the first gospel was written, copied and given to the Scribes. But who were the inspired writers of the gospels and its parables, and where did they come from?

 

 I propose to you that today’s gospel reading suggests to us that a good number of Scribes had been waiting for the coming of the Messiah. They believed that the sayings and teachings and writings of Jesus fulfilled that expectation given within the Law and the Prophets. They not only believed but wanted a good news of the Messiah preserved. Inspired Scribes, who were rabbis and disciples of the kingdom of God, were like a head of a household who took from their treasure both the new and old. The old was taken by the scribes from the OT; the new taken from the writings, teachings and sayings of Jesus, or in the case of this Matthew gospel, from earlier gospels.  The Sabbath Synagogue Service that kept Judaism alive they fulfilled by writing the gospels in parables so that Christianity, in harmony with the Law and Prophets, would be preserved.

 

 

 

 

Readings:  Wisdom 9, 13-18; Psalm 90, In every age, O Lord, You have been Our Refuge; Philemon 9-10, 12-17 (expand, 4-22); Luke 14, 24-33

 

Philemon observations:

Author: Paul in prison in Rome.

Time: around 60 C.E.

 

Actors:

—Paul

—Philemon, a leader of the Christian community in Colossae ( in Turkey today), maybe a slave owner

—Onesimus, maybe a run away slave, maybe a brother to Philemon.  This letter was used for centuries by slave owners to justify slavery.  Right up to the Confederacy.

 

 

What is going on:  Paul is writing to Philemon to request a warm welcome to Onesimus, who, as slave or brother, has apparently run off with money or goods of Philemon.  When Onesimus ran away, he met Paul and they became close, with Onesimus helping Paul while he is imprisoned.

 

 

We’ll read verses 4-24 for a broader picture of the letter.

 

 

Wisdom observation:  a book of counsel on behavior.  Basically, be good thrive, bad burn alive.  Not written by Solomon.

 

 

Sources: Good News Bible; Christian Inconnect (on line); New Interpreter’s Study Bible, pp. 2147 & ff.

 

 

Hate My Parents?  Renounce My Possessions?

 

 

I would like to talk this morning about the Hotter 'N Hell Hundred bike ride in Wichita Falls last Saturday.

 

Approximately every ten miles of the HHH there is a rest station.  You can get water, gator aide, pickle juice, pickles, bananas, watermelon, and other specialties.  The pickle juice & bananas are for potassium to prevent muscle cramps, which I have to fight.

 

 

I stop at every rest station except the ten mile station.  Last Saturday I was at the 30 miles station, a favorite because the ladies there bake chocolate chip cookies.  Trouble is, I can only eat one.  Or I’ll throw up.

 

 

I had made a resolution to lie down at each stop for a few minutes.  So I lie down in the grass near my bike.  Almost immediately another rider says to me, “You okay?”  I was perfectly okay I told him.  Thanks.

 

 

This caring for one another really touches me and seems contagious throughout the event.  Other people have asked me how I’m doing (maybe they think the old geezer can’t make it) and I ask others. 

 

 

My buddy and mentor Hammond tells me another story of people helping people.  He goes by a girl with a flat tire.  He remembers her well because she was all in pink, pink jersey, pink pants & shoes, pink helmet & bike, long blond hair.  Bill said there were about 5 guys all helping her.  I asked him if shortly there was a sixth.

 

 

Bill said he was telling Greg Moldovan the story at the next rest stop.  A guy near them in the crowd said, “Hey, I was one of those guys and we were only three.”

 

 

I tell stories about caring for one another to broaden Luke's demanding  message today.  Hate my parents?  Maybe not so hard to do sometimes.  My brothers & sisters?  Renounce all my possessions?  Hey, I’ve done this, actually twice.  It ain’t the answer.  What is the healthy approach?

 

 

Three observations.

First, we have here the old Christian dynamic of infinite demand—coupled with infinite acceptance.  It is not meant literally, but symbolically.

 

Secondly, this infinite demand can be healthy & useful.  What about healthy detachment for a greater good?  High school & college football practice is in full throttle right now.  When I played a bit of high school football, in order to get in shape we did all sorts of conditioning exercises. We did pushups so often I hated them for the rest of my life.

 

 

To achieve a greater good I may have to detach from my parents & my possessions. 

 

Thirdly, I have 4 examples of the caring-for-others-way being a greater good.

a.  Paul’s care for Onesimus in the second reading.

b.  Luke’s very own story of the Good Samaritan.

c.  The guy asking me if I was okay.

d.  Greg Mortenson’s stunning book, Stones into Schools, about building girls’ schools in Afghanistan

 

Whom do you care for?

 

Picture 1:   Mass Begins

 

Picture 2:   Mass Ends

 

Picture 3:   Georgie & Zoe enjoy the celebration

 

Picture 4:   Normally the one taking the pictures, Jan is caught by the eye of the camera.

 

Pcture 5:   The Gang, Sandra, Mike, John, Chuck, & Geri

 

 Readings: Zecharia 9, 9-10;

Psalm 145, I will praise Your Name forever, My King and My God (Plus the great line, 8-9, The Lord is Gracious & Merciful, slow to Anger & abounding in Love);

Romans 8, 9-13;

Matthew 11, 25-30. 

Zechariah:  Zechariah is the 11th of the 12 Minor Prophets and lived just when the Hebrews were released from the 70 year long Babylonian Captivity, in other words around 535-520 B.C.  In Jerusalem he encouraged the people to rebuild the temple.

He is called a minor prophet only because his little work has simply 14 chapters, unlike the Big 3, Isaiah, Jeremiah, & Ezekiel, who have many chapters.

He was a favorite of the N.T. writers because he is rich in messiah predictions.  Today we have one of those visions.   You might picture how this message is coming across.  The people have been crushed, they have been slaves in Babylon, and the Jerusalem they have returned to is nothing but a mess. 

Psalm 145, 8-9: here it is again, The Terrific line: "The Lord is gracious & merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness."

 

July 4, Independence Day

 July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence signed.

 50^th anniversary, July 4, 1826: two signers of the Declaration died, the only 2 to serve as presidents, mutual friends, Thomas Jefferson & John Adams (excellent source, David McCullough’s John Adams).

 

You Call This Burden Light?

 It was a Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago, a beautiful day.  Rosemary & I left the house about 8:30 to come to Vines.  We drove down Royal Lane to Central.  As always at that corner, we caught the red light.  A guy drives up behind us in a silver or gray Mercedes.

 The light turned green and we drove left up the on ramp to the northbound lane of Central.  The Mercedes is behind me, right behind me, like I can see the color of his eyes in my rear view mirror. 

 I get up on the freeway and move to the left to get into the first lane.  The Mercedes guy whips to the right as I move left, he floors it, and with a roar and a friendly hand sign he races by us and up Central. 

 

 How did I react?  Actually, I feel fortunate because I didn’t.  I even felt a bit sorry for the guy.  A beautiful Sunday morning, no traffic and he has already lost it.  Who knows?  Maybe it was somebody from the community in a hurry to get here. 

 This poor guy exemplifies what is not being talked about in today’s readings.  Unfortunately, he exemplifies the obsessive behavior of a lot of people, especially on weekdays and probably especially on Central. 

 These folks are not rejoicing or shouting for joy, they are not peaceful or restful, and certainly they don’t seem to have a light burden even if they are driving a Mercedes. 

 I grant, maybe he is unemployed now for six months or a year, like people we know.  Maybe he’s like the 30 year old divorced mother of a 10 year old boy, a mother in Medical City right now taking heavy doses of chemo because of the bad kind of leukemia.  Maybe he is the father of the 15 year old boy who hung himself this past week. 

 Are these burdens light?  I must respectfully disagree with you, Jesus, not all your burdens are light!  Some pain and some stress can be unbearable.

 

 So how do I handle this in the light of the observation?  Do I pray and it all goes away?  Not according to my experience.  So what would I do?  I can offer only two ideas to people with great pain or suffering, and at the time the ideas can seem pretty lame. 

 First, the biggie, acceptance.  This is not the acceptance of give up.  If I am unemployed, for instance, I continue to muster up the courage each day to make contacts and search.  This acceptance is surrender to the state of things in my life, ultimately the surrender to death, my own death and the other deaths that take place in my life.

 Secondly, contemplation.  Contemplation of the beauty, the physical beauty, the people beauty, the Spirit-God beauty.  The psalm line that says so much to me might touch you, gracious, merciful, never angry, abounding in love.

 I don’t know what pain or stress was pushing the man in the Mercedes.  Obviously he was not peaceful.  What might help him?

 How do you handle pain & stress?

 Picture 1:   Leo with Wendy & Shonda & Ray

 Picture 2:   Offertory with Sir Charlie & Cliff

 Picture 3:   Alesia with some of her grand kids

  

 

 

 

"Welcome in, Everybody," sez Beth & Emma.

 

Readings: 

Acts of the Apostles, 5, 27-32, 40-41  We gave you strict orders to stop teaching in that name.

Psalm 30, I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.

Revelation 11-14, I, John, heard the voices of many angels.

John 21, 1-19, Jesus appears to the apostles at the Sea of Tiberias.

 

 

 

Watch out, Bill, you are a marked man. 

 

 

I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me.

I would like to talk this morning about how the Lord has rescued me.  Like from my fears.

There was this happy hour.  About 6 to 10 of us first year Jesuit theology students put it together our first semester in Toronto.  Probably all of us had spent the last 3 years teaching in various Jesuit high schools from Seattle to NY, through Chicago, and Dallas where I taught at Jesuit.

It was great fun squeezing into each others’ small bedrooms for a drink and chatter about 5:30.  Lots of laughter & camaraderie.

 

 

 

Sophia & Georgie, you make a great candle lighting team. 

 

As the second semester began a number of us began to be a bit concerned that we were drinking a bit much.  Like one drink on week nights, 2 or three on weekends and holidays.   

So we decided to replace the happy hour to bundle up (Toronto gets lots of cold & snow in January) and run our half mile driveway to the entrance gate & back.  I even stopped drinking at this time for about 6-8 years, until I went to East Africa.

 

 

 

And John, Hue, Connie, and Patricia, what an offertory team you make.

 

Our property was a beautiful east west park like campus.  On the north side was the back yards of a row of, say 10 nice middle class houses.  Our drive passed along the row of houses.

Though I loved my Jesuit buddies and even enjoyed running  through the snow in the dark under occasional street lamps, I was sad that I would not have a warm house, kids, and a wife, like lived in those houses.  I even got close to a local Catholic family who had 6 kids.

 

 

 

A bikers' consultation.

 

Looking back now, the Lord was rescuing me, whispering in my spirit, You do not have to give up this life to be okay and to make a difference.

The next time I got the message was when I went to East Africa and saw how lots of good priests, bishops, and even a cardinal had common law wives.  The people cheered them for being normal.

 

 

 

Charlie, are you looking in somebody's pocket?  I caught you!

 

 

 

Getting kicked out of East Africa sent me back to the States different, open to a relationship, but certainly not knowing anyone .  I got into dancing and guess who came along, Rosemary.

And now a little story about our relationship which some of you have maybe heard piecemeal.  

 

 

Would you trust your cupcake with these two?

 

I asked Rosemary if she would marry me in 1990.  There was one enormous condition: that we wait to formally marry until 2005, when I would be 65.  Why?  Because once I  left the Jesuits I would have no insurance.   I had seen some of my guys leave, have a disease or accident, and cripple that marriage.  Guess what.  She agreed and this morning, Cinco de Mayo, we celebrate our 14^th. 

How has the Lord rescued you from your fears?

 

 

 

What a handsome group  of Romeos.  Eat your hearts out, Juliets.