Sunday Homily, November 5, 2017, 31st Ordinary Time

Readings:

Isaiah 63, 16-17, 64, 2-7,  No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen any God but you.

Psalm 80, Lord, make us turn to you.

1 Corinthians  1,  3-9, I give thanks to my God always on your account.

Mark 13, 33-37, Be watchful, be alert.

Note:  Watch out in the readings for fear based spirituality.   For instance, in Isaiah, Behold, you are angry and we are sinful; Mark, Watch, you do not know when the lord is coming; may he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.   Gratitude based spirituality says, watch so that you spot & appreciate  the gifts. 

Have a Blessed & Happy Advent.

Thanks to the Team

Music,  Ben & Shonda, 

Readers,   Mary Jane & John & Buddy, the candle blesser

Gospel,  John Cade 

Homily,   Stack

Eucharistic Prayer A & B, Stack & John Cade

The Magic Zoom makers,   Hue & Mike & Richard

Final Blessing, Rosemary

For hosting us at Legacy, Becky

Download Readings Week Advent 1

Download Homily for Sunday

Please Remember these special people:

For Paul & Carrie recuperating;  For Alan Stryker;  For Joe Sullivan;  For John Doherty recuperating;   For Rosemary's great niece, Rylie ;  For Richard's grand daughter, Madeleine; For David Dinsmore's bad shoulder from a biking accident;  For Esparza's new great grandson baby, son of Monique;  For all the medical personnel struggling to treat the tsunami of sick people, in particular, locally, Cindy's staff at Presby, Dallas, and at Frisco Presby, the mother of Harper and Betsy, Kendle, working in labor & delivery, and for Hue & Linda's daughter, Doctor Rosemary Beavers;   For Mary & Dave Hall's g-daughter Allison Keller working at St. Lukes, The Woodlands,   For Loretta's aunt Alicia;  For Sir Charlie & Jan;  Shonda's mom & Cody & Ben & Leo & all of Shonda's dear family;  

Tranquility.

For Jackie's mom, sister, & friend, Lynn;  For both Jean & Cliff Wright;  For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg; For Meredith, cancer free;    For John O'Donnell;   For Dee, and for her daughter, Lisa; For John Schanot's continued health;  For Anthony & Sabrina;    For a young man who is suffering from depression;  John Cade's mother in law, Kalliopi Piskiouli and Lambrini, plus John's daughter, Joey, with cancer,  For the students, teachers, and coaches in our public & private schools.

Song Sheets for Sunday's Mass can be found online at 
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1IOrhygLoXEtbwb3Jws3-JMXMUOzESA8l
Thanks to you, Mike

Birthdays:  Mike Moran 71 (impossible),  & Cathy Bambanek

Anniversaries:

Brent & Meredith, 8th

Shonda & Cody, 4th

The Laboratory on air.

Community Finances, November 29, 2020

Expenses: $1100.00

Outreach   $100.00  (often for Souls Harbor, Legacy, etc.)

Thanks again, Folks, for doing what you can.

And again double thanks to all who jumped right in within 1 week to help the 50 families Becky adopted for special Thanksgiving help.  Our marvelous little community has been so generous that the same families already are covered for Christmas.  I feel humbled and privileged to be part of our most generous community.

Rosemary's Blessing:

Author Unknown

Readings: 

Romans 1, 1-7,  Grace to you and peace.

Matthew  1, 18-24, She was found with child through the Holy Spirit.

Georgie arriving ready.

 Christmas observations:

1.  Celebration of Christmas was banned in Boston up until ca. 200 years ago.  The Puritan influence.  They had seen the corruption of Rome and the inquisition.  They feared and hated Rome and Catholics.
2. Rome had a feast of Saturnalia, which was connected with the Winter Solstice.  It was a feast of the harvest and of light, light returning in the northern hemisphere.  For centuries Roman Catholicism refused to honor the feast, but eventually adopted it as a date for Christ’s birth.
3. The winter solstice had been celebrated for 10,000 years, back when humans started farming.
4. Christmas Eve, Kinshasa, Zaire, 1977.  I was in Kinshasa, Zaire (now, The Congo), Christmas, 1977 and attended a Christmas Eve Mass that was marvelous, singing that went on forever and dancing on the part of the African priest in a very colorful set of vestments.  Having a good set of kidneys helps because the celebration goes on  2 ½ hours.  

Emma saying, "Welcome, Everybody."

Seen The Spirit Lately?

Ever get the feeling that the world is just getting worse every year, more wars, more killing, more kids being hurt, everything worse?  Where is the spirit of peace and caring?

I would like to propose the spirit is here.  Good things are taking place.  Let me give you 4 examples that have just taken place.

Buddy lighting the 4 Advent Candles.

The first I heard about took place during the ice storm the week after Thanksgiving.  I35 going north through Denton became a parking lot when 18 wheelers got stuck and blocked the highway.  This happened that Friday afternoon and the highway was probably down for the night. 

The pastor of some church in the area heard about the people on the highway.  He gathered a bunch of his community and out they went to the highway with food, hot drinks, and blankets for those who needed them.  Some people were even invited into people’s homes.

You folks would do this.

For all your work with the candles, Buddy, you get a cupcake of the week.

At the same time that afternoon our neighbors called to invite us to lunch on the grill because our electricity was off.  They had a gas grill.  The lady across the street offered to let us stay at her house.  She had electricity.  We were on the second of our two day return drive from Thanksgiving at Rosemary’s sister’s house in Hilton Head.

Secondly, you remember that I worked in Oklahoma after the tornado.  I heard of a lady who is making special Christmas ornaments for people who have lost all their precious ornaments.  I thought about those people whose houses I helped to clear out and thought what a nice idea.

Aiden arriving with hoodies for Soul's Harbor.

Thirdly, three celebs, two sports stars and one singer.

Ever hear of Andre Johnson of the Houston Texans, a wide receiver.  For the 7^th year in a row he took 12 underprivileged kids on a shopping trip at Kids R Us.  They had 80 seconds, his number, to grab what they wanted.  He even chipped in an Xbox 360 for each kid.  17 thousand bucks.  Sounds like Love for the Kids.

Leo baby sitting Claire.

Also, Damien Lillard, 23, a hot new player for Portland.  He took a whole bus load of kids on a shopping trip.

Then, the singer Beyonce went into a Wal-mart, bought 750 $50 gift cards for everyone that moment in the Wal-Mart. 

Cathy & Connie accepting Cupcakes of the Week for their birthdays.

Fourth.   Out of bad stuff, good stuff.  A grandmother was caring for 9 young kids somewhere here in Dallas.  She had bought their presents and had them hidden in her apartment.  Yes, you guessed it, they all go stolen.  The story got out and she received more presents than she could ever have afforded. 

Where are you seeing The Spirit of peace and caring this Christmas?  How are you contributing to it?

Can we trust this guy? Accepting Meredith's cupcake because she is sick.

Readings: Acts of the Apostles  2, 1-11; Psalm 104, Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the Face of the Earth; 1 Corinthians 12, 3-13; John 20, 19-23

Intro to the readings

 I would just like to draw your attention to the reading we have today from Acts of the Apostles.  Luke is very clever in the way the scene is described and unless we are aware, much of what he is doing can easily be missed.  We will be told that there were “pious Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem”.  Even though this Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, was one of the three major Jewish pilgrimage feasts when the Jews would have traveled to Jerusalem, these Jews that Luke mentions are actually “living” in Jerusalem, not just visiting.  And he goes on to list what is most likely all of the places that the Jews would have been scattered to over the many invasions they have experienced, in other words this is the “Diaspora” the scattered Jews. 

 It has dawned on me that to really understand a lot of the subtleties in the New Testament it would help to be Jewish!  Today is Pentecost Sunday.  The word pente means fifty.  And so we are counting backwards and I always thought it was back to the resurrection, but in Luke’s mind it was counting back to the Feast of Passover.  Passover for the Jew was “the moment” when Yahweh freed his people from slavery in Egypt.  For the Christian, it is Jesus’ death and resurrection, laid right on top of this feast of Passover.  Now for the counting bit, and the Jews did in fact count the days from the Passover to the next most important event, described in the Book of Exodus chapter 19 v 16ff, namely the time Moses receives the Torah, the Ten Commandments!  How was that event described, we are told of the sound of thunder and God descending in the form of fire, this was the Old Covenant between God and His People.  Now it is quite common in the bible to have the sound of thunder or wind used when God appears, but nowhere else do both this sound and fire appear together except at Mount Sinai and today in the room with the disciples!

 Speaking about Moses, for Luke, Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise.  When Jesus is baptized and receives the Holy Spirit, Luke immediately gives us this long genealogy of Jesus and Luke takes it all the way back not just to Abraham, but to Adam!  Now we look in the other direction and Luke has Jews from every nation present for the gift of the Spirit.

Pentecost Sunday – Homily

 If today’s gospel sounds familiar, it should, because it is a shorter version of our gospel reading from the Second Sunday of Easter.  It is a similar description of the gift of the Holy Spirit, which we also have in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles.  Today we celebrate the birthday of the Church.  It is the day the church officially recognizes the coming of the Holy Spirit on the apostles from today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles. 

 The Holy Spirit is third person in the Trinity.  That is about as much as can be said without wandering into heresy of some sort!  But what we can do is talk about the effects of the Holy Spirit.  We see in today’s readings that it totally transformed the disciples from fear to faith!  But if we look around other places we find the Spirit descending on Jesus at his baptism and then He begins his public ministry.  The big discussion in John’s gospel was that until Jesus left the Holy Spirit could not come.

 If we think about Luke’s description from our first reading, he takes only four verses to describe the descent of the Holy Spirit, very brief. He is mostly interested in describing the results brought about in the disciples by that event.  And I think it makes sense for us to do the same.  We have been promised the Holy Spirit, we receive the Holy Spirit and so the question is – so what now, what happens, how are we different?

 There was an interesting little event described in the Old Testament Book of Numbers chapter 20.  The folks have been wandering in the desert for a few months, and they have arrived at a place where there is no water.  God tells Moses to take a branch and strike a rock.  Unfortunately Moses kind of thought it was up to him, and so when he hit the rock the first time, nothing happens, so he hits it again.  He got in trouble, because it seems he was thinking that the miracle was going to happen by his efforts.  For me this is a powerful lesson about God and each one of us.  Remember, the gift of relationship with God is a freely given gift, and our response is really and truly free.  We have many great stories from the Old Testament of how many times the people strayed from their covenant with God, and each time when they got into trouble they came crawling back.  They are not too different from us. We can too easily forget that God is in charge.  When we do that, forget who is in charge, we get into all kinds of trouble and fear.  Then we start to worry about stuff that we have no control over.  I believe that is where the disciples were in our readings today, in fear, forgetting that Jesus had told them he would be with them.

 Sometimes when I look at the church today, I see the same thing happening.  The church authorities seem to have forgotten about the presence of the Spirit and instead try to keep the folk in line with rules and threats.  The problem is that threats only work with little kids and only for a short while.  Adults will ignore threats. 

I believe that the Spirit is very much present in each one of us.  But He can only be present when we acknowledge that He is in charge.  When we try to run things, then the messes happen!  We tend to forget that Jesus did tell us he would be with us.  And when we do forget, it seems that then we are in charge.  It was when Paul became helpless by blindness that he was able to listen.  And we know how effective he became once he allowed the spirit to work in and thru him.  This weekend, as we celebrate the birthday of the church, we might we ask ourselves, who is in charge!

Picture 1:   Mass Begins

Picture 2:   The Team

Picture 3:   Communion Volunteers, Joanne, Jackie, Mike, Nancy, Jan, Don, John, & Patricia

Picture 4:   Communion with Nancy & Tony, Richard & Bernadette

Picture 5:   The Kites, Doug & Julie & Emily on their 25th Anniversary

 Readings:  Isaiah 45, 1-6, Who is Cyrus?; Psalm 96, Give the Lord glory and honor; 1 Thessalonians 1, 1-5; Matthew 22, 15-21, Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar.

Isaiah observations: This selection comes from what is considered Isaiah 2, the author of the Book of Consolations, written after the first 39 chapters and during the Babylonian captivity.    Isaiah speaks from Yahweh's perspective and He is calling someone by name.

So, who is Cyrus?   Cyrus the Great of Persia, modern Iran, built the first great empire, which extended as far as Athens in Greece.   He was a benevolent emperor of his people and the people he conquered, for instance, the Israelites.

Isaiah 2 is championing Cyrus because he hears of Cyrus coming and hopes Cyrus will defeat the Babylonians and set the Israelites free to return to Jerusalem.  This is exactly what Cyrus does.  Where is Babylon?  Try 50 miles south of Baghdad on the Euphrates River.  What is left?  Rubble. 

Thessalonians:

• Time written: ca. 50 A.D.   Considered Paul's first letter, and, in fact, the earliest written document in the N.T.
• Place: Paul was writing in Corinth, Greece to the town in northern Greece, Thessalonica, at the northern corner of the Aegean Sea.  He had founded a community there.
• Purpose of writing: to comfort and encourage the new Christians of Thessalonica, most of whom were Gentiles.    He sent Timothy to see how things were going.   The report Timothy brought back was largely favorable—hence the warm tone of the opening thanksgiving, which forms the main part of today’s reading. But there were also a few problems in Thessalonica; we will meet them on the thirty-second and thirty-third Sundays.

Resources: The New Interpreters Study Bible; St. Louis U. Liturgical @ Liturgical.slu.edu

Matthew observation: Render to Caesar

Matthew lifts this story right out of Mark.  The story is a game that was popular among the intellectuals in Jesus time, like a game of verbal chess.  The object was to confound your opponent so that choosing either one of two answers springs a trap. 

Watch the smarmy language of the Pharisees and you can almost see them salivating at the impending kill.  

The trap: do you think it lawful to pay the tax to Caesar or not?  Jesus confounds them by choosing both.  Jesus wins the game. 

Why do Mark & Matthew use this story?  To show how Jesus is superior.  He is worthy of being followed and listened to.

Me, a Light in the World? 

I want to talk about the alleluia verse, “Shine like lights in the world.” 

After getting ordained at old St. Rita’s in June of 1971, I was sent to Miami to work as a chaplain in the big medical complex known as Jackson Memorial.  It was like Parkland and Southwestern Medical.  

The Jesuits of my southern province had a big parish right in the middle of downtown Miami, and part of the team worked the hospitals.  I was a summer helper and loved it. 

One day after I had been there about a week, a little blond  girl of 10 or 11 was brought into the burn ward.  Ever been in a burn ward, a children’s burn ward?  Tough places.  I spent a lot of time in these wards.

The girl, Anna, had been with her family on a sail boat.  Somewhere along their trip the boat had passed under a bridge.  Anna was standing on the edge of the boat with her back leaning against one of the guy wires.  

As the boat went under the bridge, the mast touched an electrical line.  The electricity went down the mast and the guy wire.  Anna was electrocuted and burned.  Fortunately, she was hurled into the cool water which helped to stop her burns.  

However, her back and the insides of her thighs and legs were seriously burned.  She would stay in Jackson for 2 to 3 months, even after I had to move on.  

I got really close to Anna & her family.  I visited her first & last every day and I was privileged to be allowed by the doctors to hold her hand when her bandages had to be changed.  Her parents had to leave the room.  You know how this is such a high tension time.  It used to leave me shaken.  

I talk about this because the alleluia verse tells us to be lights in the world.  I think this is what it means.  I was privileged to be with that little girl & her family in such a horrible experience.  It is reciprocal: she was a light in my world.

The good news is that Anna finally did leave the hospital all healed up.  I never had the opportunity  to see the family again, but I corresponded for years with the mom.  Somewhere during my time in Africa, the connection got broken.  I know that maybe 15 years later her mom wrote me that Anna had married and had a little kid.

In whose world are you a light today?  

Picture 1:    Mass Begins

Picture 2:    Bethany       

Picture 3:    Miguel

Picture 4:    Delgado Corner with Fred

Picture 5:    Justin

Picture 6:    Emma  

Readings:  Deuteronomy 30, 10-14; Psalm 69, Turn to the Lord in Your Need, and You will Live; Colossians 1, 15-20; Luke 10, 25-37

Apologies for a late blog.  The Editors are in Lindsay, Ontario where wireless is fairly non-existent on Sundays.

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Introduction to the Readings

Our first reading today comes from the Book of Deuteronomy, which is the fifth book of the Pentateuch.  The section is from the closing chapters, which are best identified as “The Final Discourse of Moses”.  It may seem strange to us, that having lead the people from captivity in Egypt and spent some 40 years wandering thru the desert, received the famous “Ten Commandments” on Mount Sinai, which set up the covenant between the God and the Jews, we find that Moses is not going to enter into the Promised Land, because of some unnamed fault (Numbers 20: 12).  In the reading today, Moses emphasizes the nearness of God’s commandments to the people.  

Paul’s Letter to the Colossians gives us what is clearly an early liturgical hymn about Christ.  The reason for the letter to the Colossians was that there were some folks creating problems in the community with false teachings.  In using this hymn, which was probably part of a very early liturgy, he is working with a concept that faith is not only needed for liturgical worship, but that through liturgical worship faith is deepened.  The hymn can be broken into two themes, Christ’s role in creation and Christ’s role in reconciliation.

Our gospel continues the journey to Jerusalem.  On the way a lawyer tests Jesus and we have the great story of the “Good Samaritan”. 

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. – Homily

What is our image of God?  In our lives our image of God must go through many changes.  If we reflect on what happened to Moses after all he had done in helping the Jews escape from Egypt, lead them for 40 years thru the desert towards the Promised Land, only to be denied entry himself, it would seem that God is harsh. 

If we look at the image of Jesus presented to us in the Second Reading from the letter to the Colossians, we find a God who is more in fitting with what modern writers are calling the Cosmic Christ, who is present in the entire universe and holding all creation in existence.  This Cosmic Christ is a difficult image to have a relationship with for humans.

And finally in our Gospel, we are told clearly that the way to live our lives in relationship with God is to love one another, especially those whom we wouldn’t consider our friends.  Elsewhere in the gospels we are told “as often as we did it for one these, the least, we did it for Jesus”.  So to live our lives as God wants us to, we do need to pay special attention to what we read in the gospels.  If I look at the balance in Jesus’ life, he certainly took care of his neighbors, but he also went off to pray quietly.  Do we have that balance?

Picture 1:  Mass with Tony and Kevin

Picture 2:  The Choir, Wendy, Shonda, Ray & Celeste

Picture 3:  John Cade

Picture 4: Cora Elizabeth Shadrick, daughter of Megan and Dave, granddaughter of Rob and Beth.

Readings:

1 Kings  19, 9-13,  There was a tiny whispering sound.

 Psalm 85,   Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation.

Romans 9, 1-5,  My kindred according to the flesh

Matthew  14, 22-33,  Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.

Georgie says, "Welcome, Everybody, Come in."

1 Kings observations:  

What:

There are really 2 books, 1 Kings & 2 Kings.  Or originally, it was all one work.

Even though 1 Kings focuses mostly on King Solomon & his accomplishments, the latter half of the work shows how at Solomon's death the kingdom split into two hostile & petty states, Israel in the north & Judah in the south around Jerusalem.  2 Kings ends with the Babylonian Captivity.

As I have pointed out concerning prophets, Elijah condemns the behavior, especially of the rulers, and promises punishment. 

When & Who:  The two books were put together by numerous people and the latest putting together took place, you guessed it, around the Babylonian Captivity, around 555 before Christ.

 Today’s selection: The prophet Elijah is running scared to get away from Jezebel.  She is out to kill him for his killing her fake priests.  We catch up with him in the desert.  

I love this little story.  See if you can figure out why.

Carol & David, too, say, "Hi, Folks, Welcome."

A Tiny Whispering Sound

We are having a run on delightful scripture passages these days.  The passage I love today is the scene where Elijah stands outside a cave and he sees wind, earthquake, and fire.  No God visit.  Then he hears a tiny whispering sound.  The God visit.  I would suggest we have these god visits daily, and we are often deaf or blind to the visit. 

To exemplify, our story of the week.

It is Wednesday.  Guess where.  Yes, Iowa.  The 4^th day of our ride from the Missouri River to the Mississippi.  We have only 40 miles to go from Forest City to Mason City, the city on which Meredith Wilson based his musical, Music Man.  We have only two pass through cities, Verona and Clear Lake.

Emma says, "Hi, Everybody."

So, I am thinking, ‘How can I extend this day.’  I want to savor the joys of the ride as long as possible.  Two or three miles out of Forest City I decide that at least I will stop at a coffee stand for a good cup of coffee.  Take my time, enjoy it, and watch the hundreds of people passing by.  This is the day after I was so moved by the man playing the National Anthem.

I see a sign for coffee in a hundred yards, pass by the stand, and pull over to the shoulder of the road, careful to get out of the way. 

The coffee shop is simply a four poster tent perched on the slope of the shoulder just a bit above the bottom of the irrigation ditch and dangerously close to the road for me. Very low tech.  A kid about 17 is serving coffee, muffins, bananas, watermelon, water, and who knows what else. 

Tori in her stylish attire.

He has a line of about a dozen people and is a bit frazzled trying to take money, cut watermelon, and prepare coffee, all of which is coming out of the back of his van which was perched sideways on the shoulder.  This is not Starbucks. 

However,  as people order coffee, he asks them to form a line on the other side of the stand.  I even regretted later that I did not help him, but at the time I thought I would be there all day long.  As it is, we are all trying to keep to the very edge of the road to avoid getting hit by one of the hundreds of bikers swishing by.

Zoe and her dad, Randolph.

Finally, the lady ahead of me gets to the kid, asks for what she wants, and discovers that she is $2 short.  I say, “Hey, I got $2,” and I give it to her despite her protests.  “Loan it to the next guy,” I say. 

Later that morning, say about 11:00, I pull into this gorgeous green, tree shaded, people filled park in a town called Clear Lake, on the northern edge of a lake by the same name.  For an hour we had ridden along the shore of this lake until I see the park.

I put my bike against a tree and settle on a park bench in the sun (it was so mild) in front of a band stand.  People are all over the place, hundreds, lounging in the sun, eating, chatting.  Between the park where I am and the lake the bikers are passing through.  I am facing the lake.

A shy Harper, for the moment.

I hang out there probably an hour.  I watch a group of guys ride up, bring out their electric guitars using batteries, and play for us.  I even get interviewed by a young girl from the De Moines Register.  These are my wind and earthquake.  I can see God's presence in both.  

And then it happens, the tiny whispering sound, a God visit.

From behind me a lady comes around, hands me $2, says, “Thanks,” and then vanishes back into the crowd leaving me speechless except for a quick, “Sure.”  It was the same lady from the coffee stand.

Cupcakes of the Week, Marsha, Denni, John & Jean, Mike & Carol, and Marlene.

I admit that the Iowa days were full of God moments for me.  This lady, however, was especially touching, a tiny whispering sound.   I never saw her again and she probably identified me in the crowd because of the Aviana beany baby on my helmet and the Mardi Gras beads I wear around my neck.  Moreover, Hammond says I look like a bum in my choice of attire.

When was your last God moment, your tiny whispering sound?

It's The 50's, Jean and John at 56, Mike and Carol at 50!