Sunday Homily 4-10-11, 5th Lent

Harper says, "Welcome in, Everybody."

Readings:  

 Wisdom 2, 12, 17-20,  The wicked say.

Psalm 54,  The Lord upholds my life.

 James 3, 16-4 3, Where jealousy & selfish ambition exist, there is disorder.

Mark 9, 30-35,  Whoever receives one child.

Our Candle Lighter of The Week, Victoria.

 Wisdom observations:  

What:One of the 14-15 books of the deutero-canonical books of the bible.  Not OT nor NT, but in between and the subject of controversy over the centuries.  The “in between books.”  Were they really part of the bible or not?  How do you know?  Catholic church accepts the books.

Subject matter: the book makes use of traditional Jewish material, as well as ideas borrowed from Greek philosophy, in order to teach that God rewards those who are faithful to him.

Georgie reads the Blessing of the Autumn Candles.

Author: not Solomon, but a Jew living in Alexandria, Egypt who wrote and spoke excellent Greek.  The book is sometimes called “The Wisdom of Solomon.”

Date: ca. 100-200 before Christ.  How do we know these facts?  Because of text analysis.  For example, while the author wrote in Greek, he uses phrases and expressions that have a Hebrew flavor.  Also, he mentions rulers and places that reveal date and locale. 

Our Selection: what a wicked person thinks should be done with a good person–beat & kill.  This links up with the suffering servant poem from 2 Isaiah last week.  Jews think the good person getting beaten is the Jewish race/nation.  Christians think the person is Christ.

James:  presents a pretty negative image of people.  What would be a compassionate image? 

The Best Music, Ben at his Best.

Says the child, “Numero uno or last??”

This morning I would like to talk about receiving the child. In particular, I would like to focus on the inner child, the child inside all of us, even in old geezers like myself.  

I also want to say a word about the notion of being  first or last.

What did you do, Gil?  You got Gene, Bern, and Loretta all laughing.
 

To exemplify the points, a story.    I have used the story before.  It is too good to bury.   The story, the musical play Most Happy Fella.

The play is about a guy named Tony, middle aged Italian American, successful wine maker from Nappa Valley, and a bachelor.

He eats in a restaurant one evening in, say, Chicago.  He likes the waitress and leaves her a note with his tip, despite his shyness.   They begin a long distance correspondence and start to get close.  Both are looking for partners.

The Offertory Team (all characters!): Jan & Sir Charlie, Teresa & Tom (who lost all their checked luggage before they began their cruise.)

 They decide to exchange photos.  Tony, who has been taking a lot of risk because he is so shy, is afraid to show her his picture.  He thinks he is too old & too ugly.  So he sends her the photo of his handsome young farm foreman.  The foreman has already told Tony he is planning on moving on anyway.

So Tony and his girl decide to wed at the farm.  On the day of her arrival and the big wedding, Tony discovers that the foreman decided to hang around for the wedding & party.  Tony loses it.  He goes out, rolls his pickup, and almost kills himself. 

Is this not a Full Service Community?  Even to a play room.

Meanwhile, the girl arrives and thinks the nice foreman is the groom.  In fact, they get rather enamored of each other.  Then Tony is brought in on a stretcher.  Guess what happens then.  I’ll tell you at the end.

Let me make 2 observations about Tony. 

A tremendous team when one has parkinsons.

First, Tony might have had ambitions about being numero uno, but he really thought he was the last, a loser, ugly, and old.  His challenge: get away from thinking best or worst.  Both are traps.  Just accept Tony as okay.

Secondly, when Tony let himself leave the note for the waitress, he was letting his inner child out for a minute.  In his correspondence he was letting that child play.  The child wants to be loved and to play.  Trouble was, the child was not used to getting out and was afraid.   So he tries the picture trick.

Happy Birthday to our Dearest Twins.

I can resemble Tony.  Thinking I am first, numero uno in anything, or last, both are traps.  I would propose it is irrelevant.  I am okay just as I am.

Like Tony I have an inner child.  Want to know what the child wants?  Just watch our kids here.  To be loved and to play.  I think this is what I am doing when I ride my bike across Iowa or in the Hotter N' Hell Hundred, and when I hike around  Yosemite.  These are great times for my inner spirit, that is, my inner child. 

Happy Birthday, Dearest Georgie.  I remember when you were just a cute little girl.  Now look how pretty you are.  What happened??   Whatever happened, you are a terrific young girl.

So, two questions today:

First, where do you think of yourself, first, last, or just okay?

Secondly, how do you let your own inner child out to play? 

What happened to Tony?  He eventually became a most happily married fella.  

Happy Birthday, Jackie, and thanks so much for all you do for the community.

Readings:

Wisdom  3, 1-9,  The souls of the just are in the hand of God.

Psalm 23,   The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.

1 John 3, 1-3,  See what love the Father has bestowed on us.

John 6, 37-40,  I will not reject anyone.

Emma says, "Hi, Everybody, Welcome."

All Souls Day observations–

Let me give you a bit of history and the thinking behind this All Souls' Day.  Five observations: the theology, purgatory-limbo, a legend, pre-Christian practices, and today.

1.  The Theology.  All Souls' Day is part of a package with All Saints.  The idea is: on All Saints' Day we honor all those who are enjoying the beatific vision, that is, heaven, the saints.  On All Souls' Day we honor those who have died but have not reached heaven because they had penance to do. 

We are talking mortal & venial sin here.  If the person died with mortal sin, they are you know where. Those with venial sins have to go through purification and purging, which brings us to All Souls' Day and purgatory.

And Georgie, too, "Come in, Everybody."

2.  Purgatory & limbo.  People ended up in purgatory to purify themselves with suffering, before being allowed into heaven.  Limbo was for whom?  It was for people, especially children who died without being baptized.  They remained there how long?  Forever.  Can you imagine a baby there or even in the old purgatory?

At least the Catholic Church recently acknowledged that the limbo idea was bogus.  The pope said it does not exist and never did.  Though many consider purgatory to be in the same class, it still exists.  Want to know how we know?  A previous pope was offering indulgences.  The indulgence is for the soul in purgatory.  It speeds up the process.  There are partial & total indulgences.  We can win them for these souls and get them out or we can win them for ourselves. 

For instance, on the last feast of Peter & Paul Rome offered an indulgence if you visited a church named after one or both of these two, and you recited a prescribed menu of prayers. 

And Zoe says, "It's fun here."

3.  The legend.   It happened around 1000 A.D. that a monk, St. Idolo, from the French monastery of Cluny was shipwrecked on a desolate island as he returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, i.e., Israel.  On the island he met a poor hermit.  The hermit told him that among the rocks was a crevice from which came the anguished voices of the many suffering in purgatory.  Likewise, listening carefully you could hear the devils cursing that living people were speeding up the sufferings of these souls by praying and doing penance for them. 

Some time after this, i.e., 1000 A.D., the Cluny Monastery established an All Souls' Day.  Ca. 1300 Rome followed suit.  

Buddy asks, "Any cupcakes left over this morning?"

4.  Pre-Christian times.  There is evidence that at least in Mexico numerous tribes had a day or period when the departed ancestors were honored.  The purpose was to honor them, remember their example, and to communicate with them.  Today in Mexico & in Hispanic families the Day of the Dead is still celebrated.  This custom has been celebrated for 3,000 years.

5.  Today.  Limbo has been discarded by Rome and many scholars consider purgatory a dinosaur idea from antiquity.  Consequently, All Souls' Day celebrates Samantha, my mom & dad, Rosemary's mom & dad, and all our loved ones pictured on the stage.  All Saints' Day handles the canonized.   Hell is also considered today a mental concept, not real.

So we say, What special blessing did you receive from one of these people pictured or whom you remember in your heart?

Arianna, another one of Our Saints.

Today's Saint

I would like to talk today about a saint for the day.  Every day has its saint. I want to talk about one.

Ever hear of a 67 year old black guy named Johnny Lindsay?  I read about him in the Dallas Morning News this summer.   Another of the army of exonerees. 

Johnny spent 26 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. He got out in 2008.  Can you believe that, 26 years!  Oh, but how he had grown.  

Richard Froebe painting The House.

He came out of prison without anger, bitterness, or desire for revenge.  In fact, he came out with a desire to do one thing positive for someone.  He had reached that acceptance state where peace lives.  

Ever since Johnny was 12 years old music had touched his spirit.  What kept his spirit alive those 26 years was music.  He sang in a choir the prisoners formed.  He said music was his saving grace and he dreamed all those years of finally being exonerated one day and doing one thing good for others.

Richard Eshelbrenner doing fence removal ai the yard of The House.

At his release he was given $2 million.  So his wife, Sherita, and he decided to actually take piano lessons.   He met Debbie Beach and she became an inspiration for him.  She taught them and shared her dream to have her own music school.  Johnny & Sherita bought her all the keyboards she needed to open her school. 

Has Johnny come out of prison eager for revenge?  Does he hate?  Is he angry?   I think I would be.  However, he, like so many, many of these  exonerated men is at peace. 

Jackie painting The House, her house with Rick.

Even this past Wedneswday, two men were exonerated and released after 14 years in prison.  They are not angry and not looking for revenge.   Johnny loves and accepts others.  He is at peace, with others and with himself. 

With whom are you not at peace?  What do you need to do to attain the peace Johnny has?

Reference:  Dallas Morning News, June 23, 2014. 

The Malphurs, Arianna with her parents, Ryan (an old friend) and Nicole.

Mike helping us with the persistent widow.

Readings: 

Exodus 17, 8-13  Joshua mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.

Psalm 121,  Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

2 Timothy 3, 14-4, 2,  Remain faithful to what you have learned.

Luke 18, 1-8, Because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her.  

Grace enters, sans bike.

Introduction to Exodus:

 Recall that the Book
of Genesis ends with the Israelites still in Egypt.  When the Book of Exodus begins, a new Pharaoh
ordered that all newly born Hebrew males were to be thrown into the Nile River
to die, for he feared the sheer number of the Israelites. The Egyptian men
would continue to take their young women and use them as slaves, the older
would die, and the Israelites would vanish from the face of the
earth—genocide.  

Cole ready to take off.

The inspired writers tell us that God had something else in
mind.  He used Moses, who had been hidden
at birth, to have Pharaoh change his mind and set the Israelites free.  The ensuing journey of the Israelites to
receive the Law, a covenant with God, and finally their own land is presented
in the rest of the first five books of the Bible.

That journey would take forty
years.   Our First Reading from the Book
of Exodus is from the first month of that journey.  

The reading from Second Timothy is also part
of today’s theme of having faith in God.

Georgie ready for service.

Homily

 Jesus presented a
parable to his disciples to teach them to pray always. Widows, along with the
orphans, are the poorest of the poor.  The
widow who had been ripped off in our gospel was from apparently a very small
village.   The judge is her worst
nightmare!  He does not respect God or
neighbor. He’s unwilling to even listen to her.

 However, we are told
that she doesn’t lose heart.   Why?  Because Jesus’ words have taught her that
women do have rights and power, and that ‘one with God is a majority.’  In faith she perseveres; and her prayer is
answered.  

Cupcakes of The Week to Bill and CC (on opposite edges of the age spectrum).

I visualize her using a walking stick as she comes to the
gate of the village where this judge arrogantly resides for business.  Each day she stands a little closer to him as
she speaks; and each day, to the judge, the size and appearance of her walking
stick becomes a little larger and more ominous. 
Finally, standing very close to him one day, he decides that he will
deliver her a just decision so that she will not strike him! 

Harper accepting Cathy's Cupcake of the Week.

Jesus states that his Father will bring justice to those who
put their faith in him.  But today’s
parable story ends with the question, ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory
will he find faith on earth. 

Offertory, Brent and Meredith.

The answer was given by the poor widow of the parable.  His faithful bride, who prays without ceasing,
who listens to, and obeys his words, will be waiting for him when he comes in
glory.

Harper happy with that Cupcake.

Today, as always, we have come together to be united in
prayer. We have come to pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks,
for that is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus.’  

Robyn and Brian .

This Liturgy is the Prayer of the People of God, and it
joins us at this moment with people celebrating it all over this world as we
ask the Spirit to come upon us through the Gospel and the Bread about to be
blessed and broken. 

Mr. Leo, the photogenic.

We are Christ’s body
especially when we join our hands and raise them toward God in prayer with the
words that Christ taught us to bring about his kingdom by forgiving others,
like the unjust judge, as we have been forgiven.

Rosemary with her blessing.

Christmas Eve Readings: Isaiah 9, 1-6; Psalm 96, Today is born our Savior, Christ the Lord; Titus 2, 11-14; Luke 2, 1-14

A Review of Isaiah:

 Author: there are 3 writers of this work of 66 chapters.  Our writer today is Isaiah I.

Date of Writing & of Composing: the work was put together probably after the Babylonian Captivity around 550, a time when the Babylonians with King Nebuchadnezzar defeated the two tribes of the southern kingdom of Judah, where Jerusalem is.

Isaiah I wrote much earlier, like around 700, before the Syrians annihilated the northern kingdom and led the 10 lost tribes off into captivity where they vanished in the DNA of the middle east with intermarriage.  He was warning them their evil ways were going to bring Yahweh's wrath down upon them.

Our Selection: a prediction of an optimistic & hopeful future when the people will be freed from walking in darkness and gloom because a child will be born who is a God-Hero and The Prince of Peace.

Where is He?  Who is He?

Rosemary & I have a love of riding our bikes.  In particular, we love to ride around White Rock Lake, which is about 10 miles around.  We can access it close to our house where the White Rock Trail runs north crossing Royal Lane near Central and heading up past Medical City to Valley View.

One sunny day we were riding as usual.  Most likely Bernadette & Gilberto and maybe Chris Phipps were with us.  We all go at different speeds and we meet half way at a boat house on the south end of the lake near Garland Road. 

On this particular day, I had arrived at the boat house and was waiting as people came in.  No sign of Rosemary.  I was beginning to get concerned when I see her approaching.

She is fine, but says she was delayed because her chain fell off and she did not know how to replace it.  So she started walking.  As she walked numerous people passed her both riding bikes and walking or running. 

Suddenly out of the stream of people a guy asks her if she needs help.  When she tells him her problem, he says, "No problem."  He can fix it, which he did. 

She got back on her bike and continued on to the boat house.

We are in the process this Christmas season of looking around and searching, searching for this God- Hero, this Prince of Peace.  Where is he?  What does he look like? 

I would propose that the man who helped Rosemary is that person.  That is what he looks like.  That is what he does. 

There is another example of this person's presence in the story by our friend Steve Blow in this morning's Dallas Morning News.  A repo man was so touched by the plight of a woman whose car he was repossessing that he got his buddies together & they bought her another car.. A good story.  Read it.

I was so impressed with what the man did for Rosemary that it has made a small but significant difference in my own life.  I have resolved to ask people if they need help when they are broken down, especially on my bike, when I can get hooked often into an obsession with maintaining my average speed or whatever. 

This evening as we look around, this room is full of people who are like our God.  This is what he looks like, like the man who helped Rosemary.

Who is the Prince of Peace in your life?

How are you a Prince of Peace to others? 

Picture 1:   Charlie lighting the Advent & Christmas candles   

Picture 2:    4 of the 5 Bambini, Sienna with her dad, Payton; Leo with his mom, Shonda; Buddy & Torri with their mom, Michelle; Beth 

Picture 3:     All but Emma on the right

Picture 4:     Angels

Picture 5:     Joseph, Dillon, & Shepherd, Hunter

Picture 6:     Angels, Chloe, & Shepherd with Mary, Georgie, & Joseph, Dillon

 Readings:

Jeremiah 1, 4-5, 17-19,  Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.

Psalm 71,  I will sing of your salvation.

1 Corinthians 13, 4-13, Love is patient, love is kind.

Luke 4, 21-30, No prophet is accepted in his own native place.

For those who don’t have a decent Bible or a book of the readings, here are two links that I use,

The Bible at Your Fingertips (http://st-luke-church.org/bible-at-finger-tips.php) and USCCB, The New American Bible (http://www.usccb.org/).  

The difference?  The first is Protestant more or less, and the second is officially Catholic and has the 12 little books in between the O.T. & N.T., called Deuterocanonical or Apocrypha. 

Both are good translations.  

Buying a bible?  The Jerusalem Bible.

The Reads, Taylor, Teresa, and Doug.

 Jeremiah observations:

Who:  One of the Big 3 and my second favorite behind Isaiah, whom we will hear from next Sunday.  Why a favorite: because he shares his feelings with gusto. 

Time:  you can guess it, before and during the Babylonian Captivity.  Notice how much prophetic energy is concentrated around this one event?  Shows how big it was in Jewish history.  Keep 500 before Christ as the beacon date.  

What: you can guess this, too.  Criticism of behavior, warning of punishment from God, and eventually a better day.

What today: Jeremiah’s call by God to be his man, really Everyperson’s call to be God’s special.  This call theme carries through our next 2 readings, especially the next one, The Big One.

Georgie arriving with free hugs.

 1 Corinthians, 13 

Here it is: Paul’s famous treatise on what love is.   

I used to get 1 Corinthians 13 fatigue, I heard it so often at weddings.  Lately, however, I appreciate it more because I never cease to need to be reminded of what love involves.   

Karina with her little doggy, Pelusa

 The Greatest of these is love.

When I returned from East Africa in May of ’86, I decided to study Spanish because I wanted to stay in Texas.  Plus, I discovered I had a gift for languages in East Africa learning Swahili.  So I went to Cuernavaca, Mexico where I spent 2 five week periods. 

The second 5 week period I stayed in the small house of a lady named Maria Luisa.  She had a crippled daughter named Karina.  Maria Luisa had two Mexican girls renting a little space in her house.  One of these girls was one of our teachers at the language institute.  I stayed in a little hut in the back and I stayed there because I wanted to live with people who spoke only Spanish.

Karina at the grave of her mom, Maria Luisa, who died last year in a car accident after surviving 3 cases of cancer. The little fenced area contains also the parents of Maria Luisa. An old cemetary in Cuernavaca.

When I returned to the States after running the Mexico City Marathon in September of ‘86, I continued to keep in contact with mother & daughter. A year or so later they lost their little house and had to move into the garage which had been an attached part of the house. 

Year by year I used to visit them, usually around Christmas when Rosemary & I would take a break in Mexico.  I think what started me helping the two women was when Karina fell down at some point, broke the apparatus she wears on her withered left leg, and did not have the money to buy a new one. 

CC and Emma.

Each Christmas we would visit with hopefully enough money to help them get through the year.  With the help of numerous people at St. Mark’s and then our community from 2004, I gave them as much as $2400 a year,$200 per month.    This was especially true when Maria Luisa started coming down with what turned out to be 3 cases of cancer. 

Six year ago, as Karina reminded me, we brought an extra thousand to help them establish a small shop.  They did and we were able to back off the support.  However, there were times when Maria Luisa was hospitalized and dependent upon Karina.  These times the shop did not get opened and I would help them with maybe a thousand. 

Sisters, CC and Kayla arriving.

This past fall, after having survived 3 cases of cancer, Maria Luisa was killed in a car accident.  Karina was panicked.  In fact, she feared she was going to be kicked out of the garage.  I sent her $600 and she seemed to level out.

Though I did not expect to get to visit Mexico again this year because of the rising cost of air fares, Rosemary & I decided I needed to check on the woman.  And so I went last Monday, coming home Friday.  Three points came up.

Zoe arrives.

1.  It was excellent that I went.  The visit calmed and encouraged Karina.  I gave her $700. 
2. She said she is afraid she cannot run the shop alone, is looking at selling out, closing, and taking up cleaning houses in her neighborhood.  There are some middle class homes in the area.
3. I asked her what can I help her with so that she can get her peace back.  Reluctantly, she said $2000 will help her clear all the bills from her mother and her own apparatus recently broke.  Then she won’t fear getting kicked out of her garage, which she says that she owns. 

Brother and Sister, James and Kara arrive.

For my part, I told her I would consult about the money.  I also suggested that now was the time in her life at 45 when she could put to use her considerable mental capabilities.  I suggested, too, that she broaden her contacts, especially with a couple of influential women I personally know in Cuernavaca who would empathize with her.

Why do this?  Why not work to alleviate the suffering of the thousands running from Syria or even poverty in Mexico?  Mostly I have never known how.  But I do know I can help a person here or there whom I care for.  I can show my love for one.  I don’t know how to do it for thousands.

“The greatest of these is love,” says Paul.  You people in this community are good at this.  But I will ask anyway, ‘To whom are you showing your love?’

Dembneys, Chris, Kate, and Susan arriving.

Readings:

Isaiah 7, 10-14,  Ask for a sign from the Lord

 Psalm 24,  Let the Lord enter, he is king of glory

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

 Matthew 1, 18-24,   Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son.

Say Ray and Genevieve, "Welcome in, Everybody, to the 4th Sunday of Advent.  Next time, Christmas Eve, 4:00, in the gym."

Observations on Isaiah:

What: This is Isaiah 1.

When:  Isaiah 1 lived before the Babylonian Captivity and predicts the downfall of Jerusalem.

Our selection: Optimistic.  

Hi, Cody, Hi, Ben.

Finding The Presence

I would like to speak this morning on finding the presence.  What is this?  It is a feeling of consolation and peace of heart when something special happens.  Around the season of Christmas I tend to reach out for these events, many of which are repeats from former seasons of Christmas.  

Leo, our Candle Lighter of The Week.
 

I've had two of these moments this past week.

The first was our visit to the Meyerson to hear the Christmas presentation Friday night.  This event every year puts me in touch with the presence.

First, the concert hall itself is a visual feast, just beautifully decorated.  It takes my breath away almost every year when I walk in.  It was at its best this year.

Welcome home from college, Darbianne and Dana.

The concert itself is an auditory feast and presents so many of my favorite Christmas carols.  This year the conductor, Laurence Loh, was in rare form, teasing the audience, inviting participation, dancing on his podium, and just being congenial.

I was also surrounded by about 30 of my best friends.

So, I felt the presence in my friends, and the visual and auditory artistry.

"Yippee," says Victoria, "My mommy loves me."

Secondly, I had a wedding yesterday, Saturday, in Austin.  The presence was everywhere.  

First, the bride, Samantha, was the daughter of Charlie Fechtal, a student of mine at Jesuit when I was teaching there as an intern Jesuit priest in the latter half of the '60's.  Charlie and his wife, TJ, live in our neighborhood.  As I told him during the wedding, I love him as much now as I did then.  Even more tears of consolation during this wedding than usual.

Time to celebrate.

After the wedding I was talking with Charlie and a classmate, Mark Goedeke, another guy I have loved.  His wife Liz is with us and she reminds me that I had done their marriage also.  43 years ago!!   Talk about feeling the presence.  Very consoling and very humbling.

Dear old friend, Charlie Fechtel.

A footnote to this homily is that I took the special luxury bus from Dallas to Austin.  It has received rave notices from people like Beth & Rob.  It lived up to its reputation.  3 hour trip non stop, comfortable seat (19 only in a full sized bus), a stewardess who offer drinks and snacks on the house (or bus).  $99, heart of Dallas (Love Field) to heart of Austin (Congress & 2nd).

During this season of Advent, how are you finding the presence? 

Mark Goedeke and Charlie.