5th Sunday of Lent, March 21, 2021

Readings:

Genesis  9, 8-15,  The waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all mortal beings. 

Psalm 25,    Your ways, O Lord, are love and truth to those who keep your covenant.

1 Peter 3, 18-22,   Christ suffered for sins once.

 Mark 1, 12-15,   The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert.

 

 

Genesis:  observations–

What:  First book of the Bible, starts with creation & ends with the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob (Israel).

Author: Not Moses as was thought for centuries before people began to study the work.  At least 3 sources: 

• a Y (or J) source for the group that addressed God as Yahweh;
• an E for the group who addressed God as Elohim (Like two historians calling NYC The Big Apple or New York City, or Denver by its name or Mile High City);
• and a P group that focused on the priestly class, activities, & customs.

 

 

Time: compiled and put together from 950 to 500 BCE.

Today's Selection: the flood has just receded and Noah is receiving a promise (called covenant) from Yahweh that never again will people be wiped out by a flood.  Guess what the sign of the promise is.

 

 

A Happy Lent

I want to talk this morning about having a happy Lent.  Why?  Because God created us to be happy. 

I admit again that this is my least favorite season of the year.  I always look for something positive to do and am never really satisfied with what I come up with.

 

 

However, this past week I got something good.  During the week Diane McClurg sent me a facebook note that she had something.   Then she sent me another more insistent facebook saying she was waiting.  So I opened it up.  And am I grateful.

What she had sent was a copy of an article by a woman named Karen Ehman.  Karen Ehman says, ‘For this Lent don’t give something up; take something up.’  She has five ideas that are pretty good.  Here they are.

 

 

 

1. Take up note writing to people with whom you don’t communicate that often, but who are friends.  She says she buys 40 cards, envelopes, and stamps.  Each morning she sends one out to a friend, just saying that she likes the person.
2. Take up the phone and call someone every day or once a week and tell them you are calling just to tell them thanks for being a good friend.  
3. Take up a simple gift for a friend or family member.  Like bring flowers to someone, bring a Starbucks, offer to wash the dishes, or clean or dust the house, mow the grass (welcome to Tulip Lane).  Invite someone to lunch.  This is a once a week or occasional take up.

 

 

 

1. Take up a simple gift for a stranger.  Like the recycle men, the garbage men, the checkers at the grocery.  Compliment the checker on her finger nails, give $10 to each of the garbage men (watch out for their over the top gratitude). 
2. Take up visiting someone in retirement or in a hospital.  (This is my addition, not Karen’s)  We got lots of people you may choose from, starting with Rita. 

 

 

 

As you can see, some of these suggestions are occasional or once a week ideas.  Plus, what we have here are only seeds.  Even while you were listening to the five I put forward, you may be been thinking about other possibilities.

How can you have a happy Lent?

Source: Karen Ehman, on line.

 

 

Readings:

 Ezekiel, 34, 11-12, 15-17, As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. 

 Psalm 23,   The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want. (good one)

1 Corinthians 15, 20-26, 28,  Christ has been raised.

Matthew 25, 31-46,  He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

 

 

Ezekiel  observations and reminders:

I've mentioned how Ezekiel is one of the Big 3 Prophets, #3 after Isaiah & Jeremiah, 48 chapters vs 66 in Isaiah.  I also mentioned how he lived smack dab in the middle of one of the two or three biggest tragedies of the Jewish people, the Babylonian captivity, say 555 before Christ.  He was there.

In American history we can look back and identify special presidential leaders, Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt.  They came forward in crisis times. 

Ezekiel was this type of leader in Jewish history.  He saw what had happened to other Jews of the northern province of Israel (Jerusalem is in the southern province of Judah) after they had been carted off as slaves after a defeat by the Assyrians (Syria still).  They intermarried and simply disappeared in the DNA of the middle east.

Ezekiel is in Babylon and is determined that his community would not lose its identity.  He did three things to help maintain the spirit of the community: he emphasized  1. observance of the Sabbath, 2. kosher diet, and 3. male circumcision.

 

 

Eventually after ca. 50 years the community still was a cohesive unit and it returned to rebuild Jerusalem, at least the second or third generation.  The Jews are one of the few peoples to be defeated and scattered, and still return to their original homeland.  They remained there until the Romans defeated them in 70 C.E., returning when?  1948, after the Holocaust.

Today's reading comes to us from an Ezekiel captive in Babylon, and has Ezekiel promising the people a return, a brighter day after the captivity.  He uses the figure of speech, I will.  But I is Yahweh. 

Note on both Ezekiel, Psalm 23, and Matthew: There are two consoling readings this morning, Ezekiel and Psalm 23, The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.  

At the very end of Ezekiel’s consoling passage and in Matthew there is talk of the sheep and goats.  Beware of taking this literally.  This is either/or spirituality.  Guess what: we are all goats.  I see heaven full of both sheep and goats.  And I can’t find any evidence of hell.

 

 

 Thanksgiving History: Everyone knows about the first Thanksgiving in 1602 with the Pilgrims and the Indians eating together, the Mayflower, and Plymouth Rock.  

When did our Thanksgiving begin?  Our ancestors have celebrated end of harvest feasts of gratitude for centuries.  Lincoln first focused on a national feast; FDR established the national holiday in 1941. 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving

This morning I would like to talk about Thanksgiving and in particular I would like to tell you about my top three blessings of the year.

Rosemary & I have a habit at the end of the year of writing down all our blessings and gifts of the year.  We usually begin tagging them at Thanksgiving.  And since she is in Princeton, NJ, for her niece’s wedding, I get to say things about her I would not admit if she were here. 

Looking back over the year I have a ton of blessings, but in particular I have three I would like to mention.

 

 

Guess what number One is.  Yep, Rosemary.  I know, and Rosemary reminds me frequently, yes, I married up.  But this marriage  with Rosemary is one of the 3 biggest blessings of my whole life.  10 years in East Africa and my Jesuit career are the other 2. 

You people should have told me how good it can be.  I know, for sure,  all of you gave Rosemary about a year before she had enough of the old geezer bachelor.  However, because of living in community my 40 odd years as a Jesuit I really never was a bachelor.  I loved living in a community with other guys, like in a fraternity.   But it does not come close to life with Rosemary.  And this May we celebrate 10 years. 

 

 

 

My third blessing of the year is my splendid summer filled with fun events.  It started, as usual, with our 5 Boro bike tour of NY with the McGinn family reunion.  The next big one was the bike ride across Iowa with Bill Hammond and about 15 thousand others.  This event is like 8 days of 4^th of July, all the little towns overflowing with spirit and hospitality.  I just try to slow the clock down and absorb it all.

Then comes the Hotter ‘N Hell Hundred bike ride the last Saturday of August, out of Wichita Falls.  This takes preparation and planning on how to survive.  Finishing that event produces such a spirit high in me.

 

 

 

Then in September came our 8 night back pack trip in Yosemite, my favorite National Park among all the ones I have seen.  This was as fun as ever, the campfires, the meals, the views, the quickie bath in the cold river or stream after a sweaty hike, and the exhilaration of climbing into my tent and and into my down sleeping bag on a near freezing night at about 10 thousand feet.

Finally there was the Viking River cruise on the Danube with Rosemary.  I love riding trains.  But, listening to the water swish by our cabin window beat the train by a mile.  And more beauty.

Can summer get better than this?

 

 

 

And the final blessing, number two, this marvelous community, you people.  When I departed to get married, I never expected to be doing this, especially 10 years later.  I thought it was over.  You people are a treasure in my life and I will continue to celebrate with you like this until I get called to the heavenly homestead.  You are so much fun and make my life so rich.  Thank you.

And your Blessings of The Year? 

 

 

 

 

Readings:

Ezekiel, 18, 25-28, The Lord's way is not fair!

Psalm 25, Remember your mercies, O Lord.

Philippians  2, 1-11, Humbly regard others as more important than yourselves.

Matthew 21, 28-32, Which of the two sons did his father's will?

 

 

 

Thanks to the Team

Music,  Ben & Shonda (on Air Force duty)

Readers,   Connie & John Bresson & Buddy, the candle blesser

Gospel,  Deacon Mike 

Homily,  John Cade 

Eucharistic Prayer A & B, Stack & John Cade

The Magic Zoom makers, Mike, Ben & Hue, Richard 

Final Blessing, Rosemary

For hosting us at Legacy, Becky

 

 

Download Readings Week 26

 

 

 

 

John Cade's Homily  (above, Remembering…)

 

Homily on Priesthood  First, a little bit of history of the Christian priesthood; and second, a little bit on blessings in my life.

The Apostle Peter, In Chapter 2 of his first letter, vs 4, wrote, “Present yourselves as building stones for the construction of a sanctuary vibrant with life, in which you serve as priests offering Christ-approved lives up to God”.  And he continued in vs 9, “You are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him.”  (As far as I know, among Christian churches today, it is the Morman church that asks all its members to exercise their priestly role.)

        Saint Jerome, around 380 CE, gave his view of the Christian priesthood, derived no doubt from the traditions and practices of the early church. He wrote, “The priestly dignity is the personal possession of the Christian; it does not belong to the Christian because of membership in a church which has a hierarchical priesthood.  Rather, the layman’s priesthood, as all priesthood, is a sharing in the priesthood of Christ.” 

He continued, “It’s the reality of the Christian’s priesthood which distinguishes members of the ‘royal priesthood’ from the rest of humankind.  No distinction between one member of Christ’s priestly body and another, can be compared to the distinction between those baptized and confirmed and those not—there is a basic unity that underlies the threefold character of baptism, confirmation and priestly orders.”  It is clear that Saint Jerome placed the origin of priesthood in Christian baptism.  

But jump about 800 years ahead and you are into Medieval Scholasticism, in universities all over Europe.  Scholasticism was a ‘philosophy of learning’ with emphasis on reasoning to extend knowledge.  You take a topic and dispute it in the form of a question, with counter proposals and opposing arguments.  It began as an attempt to harmonize Christian theology with philosophical antiquity such as with the Greek philosopher, Aristotle.  One thing scholasticism was not based on was early Christian tradition and practice. 

Saint Thomas Aquinas became scholasticism’s most famous member.  One of the founders of scholasticism, Alexander of Hales (in England), obscured participation in the priesthood of Christ by the baptized/confirmed Christian.  For him priesthood no longer has its origin in Baptism, but in the separate sacrament of Orders.  His thinking and conclusion was approved in the Council of Trent, in 1550, and stands today.  

In our time, most of us who lived as adults during the papacy of John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council, had high hopes for a more collegial understanding of how leadership could be structured and lived out in the church.  Many of us today support a return to greater opportunity for service by all baptized & confirmed Catholics.  Opportunities clearly were there in the early church.  Don’t tell me we can’t figure out how to make it happen now.  Isn’t it time already, for greater inclusion and equality of opportunity in the church?  I can hear RBG, that extraordinary Jewish woman and Supreme Court justice, giving us, her own – Amen.

Secondly, a little bit on my personal history of blessings.  I experienced the call, in my mid-teens, to greater closeness with God—of course, to ‘save my soul from hell’. After two semesters in college, I entered the seminary, and eight years later was ordained a priest on Sept 30, 1961.  I felt then and feel now the blessing of that day.  I loved living and working as a priest, ‘saying’ Mass, doing homilies, being invited into others’ lives through counseling, visiting the sick, teaching in high school, and leading retreats.  

Six or seven years later, when I was in the psychology program at Loyola Chicago, I began to experience a deep loneliness…and also disillusionment with the American hierarchy’s negative reaction to calls for reform by Pope John XXIII and the Vatican Council.  Some of you will remember the great number of priests who left in the late 60’s and early 70’s.  I was one of them.  Having a psychology degree was a blessing, as I could continue one of the things I loved as a priest—counseling with people having a difficult emotional time.  I married and helped raise four kids, including two as stepfather.  Some of the big blessings:  my relationship with a marriage partner (twice), being part of a family with kids (and now grandkids), relationships with friends, mentors and colleagues.  My marriage relationship with Lambrini is amazing; we are a couple now for 28 years and counting.  Also, even with diabetes and cardio-vascular disease, I am blessed with overall health. It’s a huge blessing to be able to enjoy the Autuum time of life. 

An unexpected blessing came 15 years ago when you, this community, welcomed me back as a Catholic priest. Simply being part of this loving community, seeing the way you live your lives, is a blessing that keeps on giving.  Why?  Because every Sunday, and often between Sundays, you help me ‘see’ the blessings in my life, and you help me live with gratitude. 

My question:  How do you see yourselves as a ‘royal priesthood’, sharing in the priesthood of Christ?  How do you live with acceptance and love for others, and also see your daily blessings?   

                              

 

The Zoom Wizards at work.

 

Please Remember these special people:

For Alan Stryker;  For John Doherty with back pain; For Becky's dad who has moved to the other side;  For Cindy recuperating at home;    For David Dismore's bad shoulder from a biking accident; For Esparzas, Frank & Mary,  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;   For Mary & Dave Hall's g-daughter Allison Keller working at St. Lukes, Woodlands,  For Joe Hogan with cancer;  For Loretta's aunt Alicia;    For Sydney;  & For Sir Charlie & Jan;  Shonda's mom & Cody & Ben & all of Shonda's dear family;   for all the students and teachers and coaches returning to school, for Geri's sister with heart & circulation problems, David Dinsmore in a bike crash.

 

Ben bringing his Vitality to our music, alone today because Shonda has Air Force duty.

 

For Jackie's mom, sister, & friend, Lynn;  For a friend & a doctor, Karen, with brain cancer; For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg; For Meredith, cancer free;    For Hue;  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.

 

 

Mike working on elevating our Zoom quality.

 

Birthdays:  Judy Carrell (today), Leo (10), Tori & Buddy, (10) 

Anniversaries: John Cade, 49 years ordained, Fred & Patricia,10th; Erin McClurg & Greg, 3rd; Claire Z & Andrew,9th, Ron & Nancy Kovatis, 48th.

 

 

                                                

                 

Community Finances, September 27, 2020

Expenses: $450.00  

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

Thanks, Folks, for doing what you can.

 

 

Rosemary's Blessing:

Rivers do not drink their own water;

trees do not eat their own fruit;

the sun does not shine on itself

and flowers do not spread their fragrance for themselves.

Living for others is a rule of nature.

We are born to help each other.

No matter how difficult it is.

Life is good when you are happy

but much better when others are happy because of you.

Let us remember that pain is a sign that we are alive,

problems are a sign that we are strong and

prayer is a sign that we are not alone.

If we can acknowledge these truths and

condition our hearts and minds, our lives will be more meaningful,

different and

worthwhile.

 

Pope Francis

 

 

Just in case you missed our new address, 7017 Helsem Way  75230.   (notice the same Zip Code as Tulip Lane?)

 

Readings:    

Deuteronomy  6, 2-6,   You shall love the Lord

Psalm 18,   I love you, Lord, my strength.

1 John 3, 1-3,   See what love the Father has bestowed on us. (this is from the All Saints readings, p. 75)

Mark 12, 28-34,  Which is the first of all the commandments.

 

All Saints presentation with pictures

All Saints: intro & a brief history

   Intro: 3 feasts—

                      All Saints: (or All Hallowes) those who have achieved the beatific vision according to Catholic Church, based on miracles.

                    All Souls: those who have not achieved the beatific vision and are considered paying for their sins in purgatory.

                    Hallowe’en: the vigil of All Hallowes, a Celtic-Irish harvest, end of summer celebration. 

   History in 2 parts: the Western Catholic Church & the Eastern Catholic Church

                     The West: 4 significant dates, 300, 600, 700, & 800

    Year 300: during this century the early Christians, reeling from persecution, celebrated the feast of All Martyrs.  This is really the foundation of the feast. Year 600: a Pope Boniface dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to Mary & All Martyrs.  May 13 was the celebration because it was also an ancient pagan day of celebration.

  Year 700:  a Pope Gregory set up in St. Peter’s Basilica a side chapel dedicated to All Saints.

   Year 800: Dec. 25, Charlemagne is crowned Emperor by Pope on the red stone in St. Peter’s.  Charlemagne, an advocate of All Saints, established it on Nov. 1, coupling it with a Harvest Feast. 

                    The East:

   Year 900, the Byzantine Emperor Leo the Wise had a beloved, devout wife, Theophano.  She died & Leo built a church which he intended to dedicate to her.  The religious authorities said no, so he dedicated it to All Saints, assuming his wife to be among the saints.

  Note:  later, three big events happen:

          a.  Crusade #4, on its way to fight the Muslims in the Holy Land, captures and wrecks Constantinople, ca. 1200.  J.P. II apologizes for this in 2004. 

          b.  Ottoman Turks or Muslims capture Constantinople, 1450 and rename it Istanbul.  It is Muslim to today.

          c.  Post 1540, Rome condemns Eastern Catholic church as schismatic over theological disputes, i.e., the nature of Jesus.

 Sources: Practicing Catholic by James Carroll, Catholic Encyclopedia on line, Wikipedia.

 The Most Difficult Commandment

Today we have the greatest commandment or the first commandment.  I want to talk about the hardest commandment.

Rosemary has a passion for these British dramas on PBS.  One of her favorites comes on tonight at 7:00, Call the Midwife.  The story takes place ca. 1950 in London on the East Side, a rough ghetto of good people trying to make a penny.  In particular it is about midwives who serve the women.  The group has been set up by some nuns, Anglican, in fact, and they invite help from other trained women.

There is the kind nun, the tough on the outside nun, the young pretty girl shocked by so much drama she is seeing for the first time, and there is Chummy. 

Chummy is a warm and tender midwife with no self confidence.  She acts clumsy and insecure.  She is not from anything like the East Side, rather from a wealthy, cold family where she received little love.  In fact, she spent most of her life in boarding schools.  How she came to work as a midwife in the East Side nobody has said.

Turns out Chummy has attracted the interest of the nice local police man and they have developed a special relationship.  She meets his parents and all goes well.  He wants to meet her mother.  Ugh, oh.

And that’s where we are tonight.  Rosemary tells me that she read or saw in one of her sneak previews on line that Chummy was turning herself in for some infraction and that she was talking about being a nun.  Which leads me to think her relationship with the police man ran aground.  Because her cold, class conscious mother did not approve?

Sorry, I don’t know what happens.  I can tell you in the blog or you can tune in tonight.   Channel 13, 7:00.

Rosemary says, “So why the story??”  Because this exemplifies the way I have approached the Great Commandment forever. 

 There are really 3 commands here, love God, love my neighbor, and love my neighbor as I love myself.  What is the hardest?  For me the third, loving myself.

We get messed up & even ruined as kids in two ways: abuse & neglect.  A kid messed up this way can be messed up for life. We see it all the time, like in the news.  Angry, violent adults and angry, violent kids.

And Chummys.   People without self confidence and courage to risk.  People afraid.  People neglected as children, Chummy. 

I don’t know the outcome, but I can conjecture that Chummy will be afraid to confront her mother and marry the policeman.  Yes, I’ve been sucked into watching this program.  The moral, ethical, and psychological dilemmas are riveting. 

We are called to love ourselves. 

How?

Readings: Isaiah 56, 6-7; Psalm 67, O God, let all the Nations praise You; Romans 11, 13-15, 29-32; Matthew 15, 21-28 

Isaiah:

    1.  Author:  This is Isaiah III, the one who writes after the Babylonian Captivity, therefore, probably in Jerusalem after 550 B.C., more or less.

    2.  Today’s message:  this selection is used to support the gospel, a message of inclusion of all peoples.  His house will be open to all. 

 

Romans: For months we have been using as our second reading Paul's letter to the Romans.  I have not mentioned it or even included in the homilies for two reasons:

1. It is not related to the other two readings. The Gospel & the first reading attempt to follow a theme. The second reading continues the same book week after week and if it relates it is accidental.  Romans will be with us another 4 Sundays into mid-September.
2. It is dense. I really don’t like it, except in a few sections.  7 letters are considered written by Paul who wrote this one probably around 55 A.D., while he was in Corinth, Greece, and in anticipation of a visit to Rome.  Some scholars consider it his masterpiece, but it is often difficult to understand.  

 

The Assumption

Often I mention that a line from the readings is one of my favorites, or a certain passage, maybe from Isaiah, is a favorite.  Today I cannot say the Matthew passage is a favorite.  In fact, I do not like the way Jesus insults the Canaanite woman.  A dog!  No way!

For maybe two days I thought about talking about this, but I could not find what I was looking for.  Like, was this Matthew, not Jesus, speaking?  And why?  I searched all my resources.  I even phoned my ace in a jamb, my friend, fellow ex-Jesuit, and excellent scripture scholar, Francis Vanderwall.  He admitted he had not a clue. 

So, I am going to cop out.  I want to talk on a much more favorite topic, the Assumption. 

 
 

Tomorrow the Catholic Church celebrates one of the big feast days, the Assumption of Mary into heaven.  The meaning: Mary, after she finished her time on earth, was taken bodily into heaven.  I would like to make 4 observations.

1.  The history of the belief.  The idea that Mary was taken up bodily into heaven got going by at least the 5th century.  People thought that she was rewarded for her role in redemption by this action on God's part. 

2.  The history of the declaration.  Really fascinating.  In November, 1950, Pius XII declared this event to be a dogma of the Catholic Church, that is, you have to believe it if you are a Catholic.   It was the first and only doctrine declared under papal infallibility, a doctrine proclaimed by Pius IX in 1870.

 

The story behind both of these dates is quite revealing.  1870 is the date of Italian unification.  Up to this time there was no united peninsula, no Italy like today.  There were at least three big parts: north, south, and right in the middle the Papal States. 

The people wanted those states to be part of the whole.  Pius IX was adamantly against ceding an inch of papal property.  When the people won the property deal, Pius withdrew into the Vatican, declared himself a prisoner of the Vatican, appealed to France who did not help him, and finally declared that what he said as pope on faith & morals was infallible, despite the advice of the majority of his consulters.  Sort of  'And I'll show you!' action.

 

In 1950 the Second World War was finished and the world was stunned into shock by the revelation of the Holocaust.  Pius XII himself was downcast by the Holocaust.  Moreover, he was getting heat because he did not stand up more strenuously to Hitler.  He had been Vatican ambassador to Germany during the build up of the Third Reich, so he knew the atmosphere well.  On top of that, there was evidence that at least one senior Vatican official was complicit in sending Jews to the death camps. 

Pius XII might have experienced some shame.  In the face of the brutality of the Holocaust, Pius decided to make a dramatic statement to show the sacredness of the human person, body included, by declaring the assumption of Mary's body into heaven a dogma.  

3.  The basis in Scripture for the doctrine.  There is none.  What is taking place here, is that Pius is articulating what has been considered a belief for centuries.  People have believed this for, say, 10-15 centuries.  Therefore, it took place.  There is a weakness here, of course.  What can be asserted a fact without evidence, can be discarded without evidence. 

 

4.  The Assumption in my life.  53 years ago tomorrow I walked into the Jesuit novitiate in Grand Coteau, LA.  30 of us entered more or less together.  Two of my classmates are still Jesuits. 

On that day 50 years ago my life took a 180 degree turn from being a typical  bratty teen- ager to a monk.  From days spent with friends, cars, and radios, I entered a world of silence, meditation, physical work, and study.  Feast days were eagerly anticipated and the Assumption was one of the big ones.  The date is still big with Jesuits and it brings back fond memories.  It comes at a convenient time at the end of the summer and before the school year. 

I still celebrate August 15, not at all with the same belief pattern that I had when I entered the Jesuits August 15, 1958, 18 years old just out of high school.   I celebrate because of a fondness for Mary and a fondness for my years as a Jesuit.

 

The Assumption is celebrated tomorrow.  What do you think about it?  What do you believe?

Picture 1:    Celebration

Picture 2:   Communion

Picture 3:   Cliff

Picture 4:   Emma

Picture 5:   Leo

Picture 6:   Wedding of Victoria Looney (an old friend since her childhood) & David Cline

Picture 7:   Wedding at the gazeebo, Plano City Park

 

       

Readings:

Exodus  34, 4-9,   A merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.

Psalm from Daniel,  Glory and Praise forever.

2 Corinthians 13, 11-13,  Rejoice.

John  3, 16-18,  God so loved the world.

 

 

Father’s Day History:

 Four steps:

     1.  The Civil War started thinking about a Mother’s Day.  Anna Jarvis pushed it ca. 1907 and it was made official in 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson.

       2.  Monongah, WV mining disaster, 210 fathers killed, Dec. 6, 1907 (just before Christmas & after the Mother’s Day activity).  Fairmont, WV.   Grace Golden Clayton pushed the idea. 

        3.  Spokane, WA, Sonora Dodd & influence of Mother’s Day.  Dodd’s dad had fought in the Civil War and all by himself raised Sonora & her 5 siblings.   

        4.  Pres. LBJ made it special, 1966.  Pres. Nixon made it a national holiday, 1972.

 

 

Exodus Story: 

So the Israelite people have been wandering around in the Sinai desert for many years after escaping from old Pharaoh in Egypt.  Moses has been invited up Mt.Sinai to receive 10 Commandments.  

He comes down all loaded with two stone tablets written on both sides and discovers that the people have become  exasperated with him and the wandering in the desert.  They have created a gold bull to celebrate with and to worship.

 

 

Old Moses, all angry, throws down the tablets and breaks them.  He calls Aaron, his lieutenant, tells him to gather the Levite tribe, the priestly tribe, and he tells them to slaughter all the rest.  They do.

Then, and here we take up the reading, Yahweh tells Moses to make two more tablets and to return to the top of Mt.Sinai, where he will get another set of commandments.  It is here where that marvelous line about the nature of God is mentioned again, "The Lord is gracious & merciful, never gets angry, and is abounding in love."

This is ancient folk tale literature at its best.    

 

 

Responsorial Psalm from the Book of Daniel: 

Another great folk story is behind this song.   Characters: three Jewish boys, a gold statue, and the great King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, what a name.   Get the names of these boys, Shadrack, Mechak, and Abednego.  Terrific.  I had a dog in East Africa I called Shadrack, a German Shepherd.

Seems like old Nebuchadnezzar decided to cast a gold statue.  He wanted everyone to bow down to it.  Three Jewish boys said no.  Even though they were favorites of the king, he had to throw them into a flaming furnace.   

Far from being burned up, the boys started dancing around in joy and they sang the song we have for today’s responsorial psalm.  Though this is totally a mythical story, you can picture them.

 

A Father, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and rich in kindness

Letme talk this morning about fathers.  I would propose that, among all the qualities of a father, one that enables a father to reflect the image of God is my favorite line, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and rich in kindness.  These qualities are attributed to God  and I think men can image the same qualities.  An example.

Ever hear of a guy named Kenny Thompson?   He is an elementary school tutor at Valley Oaks Elementary in Houston and a father.  One day Kenny reads a news report about an elementary school in Salt Lake. 

 

 

Turns out a bunch of kids were not getting their normal lunch because they owed money to the cafeteria.  Not a lot f money.  After all, the lunches ran about 40 cents. 

So Kenny enquires about the cafeteria at Valley Oaks where he is a tutor.  He discovers about 60 kids not getting their normal lunch, just a cheese sandwich.  Moreover, many of the kids are so embarrassed they skip going to the cafeteria for the cheese sandwich.

 

 

Kenny Thompson pays up all the kids’ cafeteria bills, totally almost $500.  He says these kids don’t need to be worried about their lunches, for many the only whole meal they will have all day.  They are in the school to learn and they cannot learn on an empty stomach or embarrassment.  

Kenny’s story got picked up by a local TV station and now he has gone national, creating  a fund under the title Feeding the Future Forward. 

 

 

Kenny Thompson is godlike, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love. 

Know anybody like this?  

How about you?