Readings:

Isaiah  55, 10-11,   My word shall not return to me void.

Psalm 65,   The seed that falls on good ground will yield a fruitful harvest.

Romans 8, 18-23,  We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains.

Matthew  13, 1-23,  A sower went out to sow.

Kevin says, "Welcome, Everybody, It is good to be back home.

Isaiah, The Great One, observations—

Who:  One of the Big 3 prophets, the greatest in my estimation.  Jeremiah and Ezekiel are the other two.  Actually, the book includes the work of 3 prophets.   Our selection is the last chapter written by Isaiah 2.

Time:  Isaiah 2 was living during the Babylonian Captivity, ca. 555.  Isaiah 1 writes before the Captivity, maybe 150 years.  Isaiah 3 writes after the return to Jerusalem.

Georgie also says, "Hi, Everybody, It is fun to be home again."

Subject today: better times will come.  I am expanding today’s passage, because it is so good.

Isaiah 2 has some of the most beautiful passages, many of which are seen as foretelling the coming of the Savior.  His readings are used all through the Advent & Christmas readings, as well as in Lent.  Handel uses Isaiah 2 in his marvelous work, The Messiah.

Both the Isaiah reading and Psalm 65 are beautiful.  

And Zoe, Tori, and Buddy all say, "Hi, Folks, it is so fun to be back again."

And My Seed Landed Where?

This morning I would like to talk about how Jesus is said to describe how the farmer’s seed is scattered on four different types of ground, the path, the rocks, the thorns, and the fertile.  Where did your seed fall?  Where did my seed fall?  I’m sure a lot of volunteers would be happy to let me know where my seed fell.

If you are a sinful gambler poker player you would look at this explanation and notice the bad odds, one out of four.  I would propose, however, that we all landed on fertile soil.  Let me offer some examples. 

I’ve shared this example once before, so you might remember it, but probably not. 

Cupcake of The Week to John on his birthday.

When I was a little kid about 5 years old, I was playing in the driveway of our house in University Park.  There were no fences and the drive went from the street, through the space between our house and the neighbor’s, and to the back up against the alley. 

The neighbor was Sam Berger, who owned a hat store in downtown Dallas.  He was Jewish and lived next to us all during the Holocaust.  I was oblivious to it all.  He & his wife had a big black lady who not only worked in the house, but lived in the back in an apartment attached to the garage, the servant quarters.  This black lady was not nice to me.

And a Cupcake of The Week to Beth on her birthday.

So this day as I am playing in the driveway, the lady steps out of the kitchen door & stands on the steps.  Without thinking, I say, “You are a big fat elephant.”

To the lady’s credit, she marches right across the drive and tells my mom.  My mom comes out of the house, drags me in, and spanks me.  Thinking back, I am impressed that my mom respected the lady.  The spanking, however, and her treatment of me confirmed my suspicions that my seed had fallen at least on the path or rocks, if not right on the thorns.   I definitely grew up with the belief that I was a bad kid. 

And a Cupcake of The Week to Harper for her 3rd birthday about 3 weeks late.

Despite the fact that you folks might agree with that assessment, I would propose that I was just a normal little boy doing silly things. 

This habit of doing silly, not bad things, can continue into adult years.  I know a guy who gets on his bike and rides off for an hour leaving the driver’s door of his car wide upon. 

I know a lady who last week let her Lincoln run out of gas in rush hour traffic.  Her husband, a bit nettled, brought gas, but then could not start the car.  It had to be towed.

Zoe seriously at work.

I know a dear friend who drove into her garage with a canoe strapped to the top of her car. 

You do this stuff and you begin to believe the bad news, ‘I am a loser, I am bad, my seed obviously landed in the ditch.” 

And then there are the malicious acts.  You know where I come in on this.  Kids hurt and abused grow up to hurt and abuse.  They are not bad.  They are damaged. 

So, who landed on fertile soil?  All of us.  God don’t make bad seed.

So, what do you think about all this?

Emma and her pal say, "It is so nice to be here."

The Feast of the Holy Family, Fr. Tony

The Church for the Feast of the Holy Family is generous in offering us several readings to choose from.  I have selected for our First ReadingFirst Samuel 1:20-22, 24-28, and the Letter to the Colossians 3: 12-17 as our Second Reading, the Gospel is from Luke 2: 41-52.

The story in our first reading about the birth of Samuel to Hannah and her presentation of the boy Samuel to the priest Eli happens at a time of great change for the Israelites.  The time is around the year 1000 BCE. 

Remember that after the People had been lead from slavery in Egypt, passing thru the desert with Moses and then coming to the Promised Land, they had basically invaded the place under Joshua.  After this they had continued their worship of Yahweh as a loose Confederation of Twelve Tribes.  They would meet each year at Shiloh, which we shall hear referred to in our reading today.  But external forces were beginning to invade. 

At this time they were under pressure from the Philistines and also the Ammonites.  The Tribal Federation was not proving effective in defending them.  In this period the People were ruled by a series of Judges and our boy Samuel turns out to be the last of these Judges.  He is the one who anoints Saul as the First King, and of course King David immediately follows Saul.  

And so the People move from this Tribal Confederation to a Monarchy.  One which was to split after the death of Solomon into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah.

Homily for the Feast of the Holy Family

The gospel reading today from Luke tells of an incident in the early life of Jesus.  It serves as a bridge between the Infancy stories of the Birth of Jesus and the beginning of His public ministry with His baptism by John at the Jordan.

The reading itself is interesting.  If we were to put it into today’s world, it would be like taking a trip from Dallas to San Francisco by bus.  Imagine the scene.  A couple, with their 12 year old, going all that distance in say a caravan of buses.  They spend a few days in San Francisco and then are heading back. The first overnight stop on the way back is in Salt Lake City.  The parents have been in separate buses and figure the kid is with the other!  To their consternation, he is still in San Francisco.  Imagine the dialogue as they try get back to the City. Imagine three frantic days of searching for a 12 year old!  And then in desperation going to the Cathedral of the day and finding him there.  I am not too sure my dialogue would have been as gentle as Mary’s, and I certainly wouldn’t have appreciated the comment about being about my Father’s business!! 

All families are different!  But they seem to have a common purpose.  A safe place for humans!  At least that would seem to be the current intended purpose.  I suspect in earlier times the purpose had much more practical terms, namely making kids who could become helpers in the fields so that we could produce more crops. 

I want to turn to the second reading though as a kind of recipe for a successful family.  In Paul’s time it was for a successful community, which indeed I feel a family is also.  I would like to think that our community here is an extended family, where we can care for each other and support, encourage, and share in success or cry with loss and failure.  Paul talks about putting on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, and then over all these put on Love.  What kind of a family would you have if we could follow this advise! 

As we begin another year, a time when we take stock of our lives, perhaps we can try to implement this behavior.  Imagine what it would be like.

Picture 1:  Tony Begins the Mass of the Holy Family

Picture 2:  Vivian Miller's baptism

Picture 3:  Vivian's family

Picture 4:  The Beautiful Zoe

: Great clip on the Nativity Drama (if pressing the arrow does not start the video, move the red dot)
 

Readings: Daniel 7, 13-14; Psalm 93, The Lord is King, He is robed in Majesty; Revelation 1, 5-8; John 18, 33-27

History of the Christ the King Feast: date, author, reason it was declared

Date: Not during the early church, not during the time when Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Empire, not during the time of Luther & the Reformation, not during the time of Pius IX with the Italian Resorgiamento & his Infallibility statement (1870), but in 1925.  Fairly Recently.

Author: Pius XI, pope 1922-39

Reason(s): at least 2 factors–The Times and Modernism/Secularism

1.  The Times:

a) End of WW I and build up to WW II   

b) Mussolini & Hitler: the same year Pius XI became pope, Mussolini became prime minister.  By 1925 he had become a dictator.  The feast was to counter the dictatorship.

2.  Modernism & Secularism:

a) Modernism.  Despite being scholarly and pro-scientific methods, Pius XI was suspicious of biblical scholarship which questioned, for example, biblical inerrancy, the nature of bible miracles, the virgin birth, the resurrection, the atonement theory that God demanded his son suffer & die for a single sin by a human.

b) Secularism coming out of the Enlightenment said that all people were equal, people should have a say in government as in democracy, and backed the separation of church/state, like proposed by Jefferson. 

Sources: Living with Christ, Nov., 2009; Wikipedia

Requiem for a Chevy Pickup

When I first returned to Dallas after my time in East Africa, I determined that I would like to stay here and I would help to make Dallas a prettier place to live in by planting a few trees.  I started the fall of 1987 by planting on the Jesuit campus 88 trees plus.  The next year, with no more room on the campus, we went down Inwood Road and Willow.  I watered the trees out of buckets in the back of a Chevy Celebrity sedan.

A year or so later I was using the school pick up.  I remember it conking out on us the Sunday we planted Royal Lane.  The red trailer was tearing up the transmission. 

So I said to my Jesuit community brothers, "Hey, I am needing a new truck."  And they said, "Sure.  But you got to get the money yourself."  "Thanks, guys."  This was early in 94.

I'm thinking to myself, 'where can I get all this money?'  I called Claude Smyth.  The former pastor of St. Mark's, Monsignor Claude Smyth.

I ask him, since this is my community, may I contact some of the parish people whom I know?  He says yes, but then gives me a long list of things I cannot do under any circumstances, like no appeal at Mass, no public announcements on Sundays, and so forth.  "No problem," I say.  Then I proceed to contact maybe a dozen families I think can help me personally or who can spread the word quietly that I need help. 

The following Sunday, after saying the Mass in the main church at 9:00, I am walking the breezeway over to the cafetorium for the 10:30.  I run into Marcia Kolar and some other women passing out pages saying John Stack needs help to buy a new truck.  I walk into the cafetorium and there are plastic containers saying the same thing.  A few minutes later, Jim Herman, the lector is announcing the message from the podium.

At that instance, guess who walked in.  'Walked in' is an understatement.  'Stormed in' is more like it.  He was taking the pages out of people's hands, running back & forth.  Anyway, after screaming at me for a while, I walk up the aisle and start the Mass. 

The couple responsible for that event is here today.  Fred & Maureen.  I will always be grateful to you two.  In fact, just before Christmas, that year, 1994, I went over to the old Doran Chev. and paid $15,000 for that white truck I've used all these years to drag the red trailer around watering hundreds of trees.

Today I hand over to Janette Monear and the TX Trees Foundation the keys to the truck & trailer, so the rig can continue to maintain baby trees around Dallas.  The truck was given to me for that project and now that I am semi-retiring, I hand over the truck to Janette. 

Picture 1:  Tree people: Rosemary, The old Geezer, Gayle, Janette, Hugh, Sandra & Chuck

Picture 2:  The transfer of the keys to the truck

Picture 3:  Janette Monear of the TX Trees Foundation receiving the keys to the pickup and giving everyone a baby live oak tree

Picture 4:  Julie reading (Emily's mom)

Proverbs 8:   "The LORD possessed me, the beginning of his ways,  the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago; from of old I was poured forth,  at the first, before the earth." 

Romans 5:  Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God.

John 16:  But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.  He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.

David reads from the Book of Provers

Thanks…     

Music,   Ben 

Willow is baptized

Outreach: $   200.00

Thanks again, Folks, for doing what you can.

Mary and Bernadette, the birthday girls

Rosemary's Blessing:

Readings:

Amos 8, 4-7,  Never will I forget a thing they have done.

Psalm 113,  Praise the Lord who lifts up the poor.

 1 Timothy 2, 1-8,  I ask that supplications & prayers be offered for everyone.

Luke 16, 1-13,   The rich man and the dishonest steward.

The Campers enjoy a meal before going into the wilderness.  Andy, Mike, Bill, Ray, Beth, Lynn, and John

Homily

A hint I’m taking from the Service of the Word is how do we, like Jesus, or like Mother Theresa, attend to the poor?

From the Responsorial we have the verse from Psalm 113, “He raises up the lowly from the dust; from the dunghill he lifts up the poor…”

From the Alleluia verse we heard, “Though Jesus was rich, he became poor for us.”

John, ready for Mass

I heard about a new book by Patrick Phillips (on NPR, Terri Gross or Diane Rheem):  “Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America” by Patrick Phillips.  It’s about how the entire Black community of Forsythe County, who were also poor at that time in the early 20^th century, were forced to leave that county in Georgia.  The author moved there as a kid in the 50’s from outside Atlanta …..there were no Blacks at all….why….rape….lynchings, robbed of houses and land…

Kevin, Georgie and Buddy are ready.

Abbeville (Louisiana where I grew up)– how protected and insulated we were from the poor, how very little we knew about the poor and the Black members of our community. 

Dallas – we still protect our image today.  Remember a few weeks ago the city made the many poor of tent city under highway bridges just East of down town move out; now we’re talking about moving the poor out of their new tent cities that are even closer to Fair Park (near Haskell and I-30), with the State Fair about to open. 

Joe, Meredith, and Brent help with The Offertory

Ways this community has opened itself to the needs of the poor:

• Love for the children with Bill Hammond’s group—before Christmas is for disadvantaged kids, kids from poor families, to have a fun day and receive clothes and other presents
• Habitat for Humanity with Tom Fleming helping people build their homes, those who would probably no have a home otherwise
• Helping fix up and paint houses and do yard work for those needing this help
• Tornado damaged areas in Texas, in Oklahoma and beyond with Bill and Bona Responds
• I remember this community helping with the census of the homeless in Plano area of Collin Co.
• The generosity of community in providing financial outreach to Soul’s Harbor, and also giving items for their thrift stores.

Shonda getting ready to sing

This list of examples of your generosity of spirit is amazing. You are not slackers; you consistently attend to and care for the poor and needy.  We respond to the poor among us as a community and also as individuals.  E.g., Thursday evening on Abrams going to DARCC (Dallas Area Rape Crisis Center) event, car stopped, guy behind car with gas can….  Or greeting a new neighbor.

Genevieve enjoying herself

Today’s question: How do you challenge yourself to see the poor, and care for the poor?   Maybe you have other ideas for this community helping the poor?  Will you pass on your ideas? 

Tori and Zoe working hard

Readings:

Luke 19, 28-40, The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem

Isaiah  50, 4-7,  I gave my back to those who beat me (a Suffering Servant)

Psalm 22,  My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?

Philippians 2, 6-11, He emptied himself

Luke 22-23,   The Passion

Buddy says, "Welcome in, Everybody."

Sorry, Everybody.  Because of the length of the Liturgy of the Word, we have no homily today….Easter is coming.

Genevieve, with her pal, John, says, "Hi, Everybody, I'm 11 months old this week.

Victoria, too, says, "Welcome in, Folks."