Sunday Homily 6-6-10, Corpus Christi

Readings:

Ezekiel   33, 7-9,  You duped me, Lord, and I let myself be duped.

Psalm 95,   If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Romans, 13, 8-10,  Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another.

Matthew 18, 15-20,   Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I.

Sorry, no homily today.

Mass begins.

Kathy and Harper

The Offertory

Mike and Dee celebrating 57 years

Kevin

The Dinsmores

Readings:

Isaiah, 55, 6-9, As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways.

Psalm 1,  The Lord is near to all who call upon him.

Philippians  1, 24, 27,  Conduct yourselves in a way worthy

Matthew 20, 1-16,   The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner…

Thanks to the Team

Music,  Ben & Shonda

Readers,   Mary Jane (Happy Birthday!) & John & Buddy, the candle blesser

Gospel,  Deacon Mike 

Homily,  Stack 

Eucharistic Prayer A & B, Stack & John Cade

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

Final Blessing, Rosemary

For hosting us at Legacy, Becky

Download Readings Week 25

When did you last see God?

Next Sunday after our Sunday morning celebration of life I have a baptism.  Remember the Braun family from St. Marks?  It was easy to see them because both Debbie & Don were tall.  In fact, Don must be about 6'10" and they were visible.   They have three grown kids, a boy & two girls.  I've done backyard baptisms for them.  Heather, one of the daughters has a baby daughter.

Mary Jane reading Isaiah.

For a long time I have always asked the people gathered together for the baptism, when was the last time you saw God.  This can be very touching.  Of course, probably everybody there says they saw God and see God now when they behold the little baby being baptized.

Reflecting upon this in my own life, I am stunned.  Two events have left me speechless and humbled.  Almost exactly a year ago, October 20 to be exact, Rosemary & I were visited by that tornado.  I cannot say I saw God's presence in the tornado.  No, it was the aftermath and especially the next morning.  Neighbors whose houses were not damaged came in waves to clear downed tree limbs, clean up all the junk dumped in our yard, and to offer us food.  Boys from St. Marks Boys' School brought bottled water & food.  

John Schanot reading Philippians.

Doug LeBlanc & Grace came with some of their friends, coming with plywood & tools which they used to board up the smashed bay window on our house.  Connie and John Bresson, Mike Moran, Andy, Tom Good, Tom Froelich and others moved tree limbs, cut branches down and generally cleaned up. Just that day was overwhelming itself.  But people continued to come every day, some of which were community members.  One day Loretta Garcia Williams fed a whole group of our community.  I still am humbled and grateful.  I saw God those days.

Deacon reading the Gospel.

A few days later a tall junior from St. Marks School and a neighbor kid from a big delightful family 4 doors down came to our front door and knocked.  It was a mild & sunny afternoon.   He said he wanted to simply tell us that he admired us and was happy we're his neighbors.  You know me, I was in tears.  

It was hard to leave the neighborhood, as you can imagine.  So I was not expecting anything special when we moved into our new neighborhood.  Dream on.  We took possession of the keys about 1:00 on Monday, the 31st of August from the delightful couple who had fixed the place all up.  Before long while we were bringing stuff in with Grace LeBlanc's help, neighbors began coming over to welcome us.  With welcome gifts.  We got food & wine.  We got a home made chocolate cake with chocolate chips!  It was so rich!  I saw God in those people, especially in the lady who brought the chocolate chip chocolate cake.

And you?  When was the last time you saw God?

The brains of our team, Hue, Richard, and Mike.

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 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.

Shonda & Ben making the best music.

For Betty from Helsem; 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.

Our Anniversary kids, Tom & Becky, 41 years!

Birthdays:  Mary Jane Stevenson, Sophia  (12), Ben's daughter 

Anniversaries:  Tom & Becky, 41

David double checking the out put.                                                     

Community Finances, September 13, 2020

Expenses: $  580.00

Outreach   $  200.00  (often for Souls Harbor, Legacy, etc.)

Thanks, Folks, for doing what you can.

A new member of our community?

Rosemary's Blessing:

… May God bless you with enough foolishness
to believe that you can make a difference
in this world, in your neighborhood,
so that you will courageously try
what you don't think you can do, but,
in Jesus Christ you'll have all the strength necessary.

"Troubadour: A Missionary Magazine," published by the Franciscan Missionary Society

 Readings: Zecharia 9, 9-10;

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

Romans 8, 9-13;

Matthew 11, 25-30. 

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

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

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

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

July 4, Independence Day

 July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence signed.

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

You Call This Burden Light?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 How do you handle pain & stress?

 Picture 1:   Leo with Wendy & Shonda & Ray

 Picture 2:   Offertory with Sir Charlie & Cliff

 Picture 3:   Alesia with some of her grand kids

Readings:

Exodus  20, 1-17,  God delivered all these commandments.   Special reading for Rita's memorial,    Song of Songs, 2, 8-14

Psalm 19,    Lord, you have the words of everlasting life.

1 Corinthians  1, 22-25,   The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom.

 John  2,  13-25,   He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out.

Our Beautiful Georgie says, "Welcome in Everybody, it's fun."

Song of Songs, observation :  Special reading in honor of Rita

What :  A dialogue between a man and a woman who love and long for each other.   No reference to God or the law. 

When:  probably after the Babylonian Captivity, 555 before Christ. 

Our Subject: The girl is speaking to her lover.

Buddies Leo and Cole say, "Hi, Folks."

Rita Dore

I would like to tell you a few stories about Rita, just to give you an idea of how neat and fun a person she was.

I don’t remember when or how I met Rita.  Toward the end of Msgr. Claude Smyth’s life she was just there as the house keeper.  More than anybody else, Rita took good care of Smyth, tending to him day and even night, helping him to move to the other side.

During this time, Matt Bagert was acting pastor and when Msgr. Smyth died Matt opened up the rectory a bit.  He even threw a birthday party once, to which I was invited, along with another young Jesuit, Gene Sessa.  Things went along smoothly this way for some months until…The Big Event happened.  Fr. Duffy Gardner arrived. 

Harper says, "Cupcake time yet?"

Three little vignettes.

First, when Duffy settled into the rectory, the place went from being totally closed up to being wide open.  He was platinum level hospitality.  With Duffy welcoming everyone was the house keeper in the kitchen, Rita.  They made a marvelous one-two team. 

After doing the 9:00 Mass in the church and the 10:30 Mass in the cafetorium, I started going over to the rectory.  I was usually worn out.  I would go upstairs, take a 20 minute nap in an empty bedroom, then come down and join Duffy at the dining room table where he held forth.

Cupcakes of The Week to Grace and Dee.

Meanwhile, Rita had been cooking.  In particular she made chocolate chip cookies the size of dinner plates and homemade vanilla ice cream.  Guess what I ate for lunch.  Wow, did I love Rita.

At the same time that she worked as housekeeper, Rita took on the training of the little kids for first communion.  Two or three times a year I joined Duffy and a handful of other priests to do her kids' first confessions.  My penance to each kid, 2 Hershey kisses.  Think my line was long?

Tom & Lynda, first time grandparents Monday, the 9th.

Two years in a row at this time Duffy hosted the whole gang of kids for first communion on a Saturday.  Both years, Duffy at the homily would ask the kids questions and he would give out a dollar or two for correct answers.  The big final question both years worth $5 was, ‘Who is the holiest priest in St. Marks?’  Hands would go up.  Both years Duffy called on a timid little girl whom I happened to know.   Both years the little girls said, “Fr. Stack.” 

Well, as you can imagine, this brought down the house.  Duffy would put on a display of incredulity.  I don’t know if the first little girl got the $5 or not, but the second year I was there and I jumped up from the stage, ran down, and gave the girl $5 of my own.

Vivian, speaking into the mike, says, "Patience please, I'm coming." With her mommy, Bethany.

Rita loved all this, the penances, which some parents did not think was so good, and the questions from Duffy.

At the same time, Rita volunteered one day to help me with all the weddings, acting as wedding coordinator.  She had made wedding dresses in Birmingham or somewhere in her earlier, married life.  Consequently, we had great fun meeting with the kids, usually over dinner at Jason’s or El Fenix, and celebrating the weddings.

Buddy and Zoe wondering, 'Where is this Vivian?"

One wedding among all of them really stands out.  Two musicians, evening wedding, the big church, big crowd.  After exchanging vows, we had the couple light the unity candle, standing behind the candle and facing the people. 

Just before they lighted the candle, the mothers lit their candles, and then walked up the main aisle lighting a taper at each aisle before returning their candles to the unity candle.  Meanwhile the tapers in the hands of all the people were getting lighted.  Then we turned off the lights in the church. At the same time the couple had two singers, a guy and a girl, sing The Prayer that Bocelli and Celine Dion made famous.  It was stupendous.  Even remembering sends chills down my back. 

Tori, "Have you seen Vivian?"

An amusing footnote to the wedding took place.  A woman, who wanted to hire out as a wedding coordinator, asked if she could sit in.  “Sure, of course,” we said.  After the wedding a staff member asked the lady what she thought of the wedding.   “I just saw a wedding from hell,” she responded. 

As a result of that, every time Rita and I would depart the rectory to perform a wedding in the church, Duffy would ask if we were doing another wedding from hell.  It became our handle and provided lots of laughs. 

Thanks, Rita, you have been a fun and tremendous friend.  Rest well.  

Our Beautiful Zoe says, "Have a good week, Everybody."

Readings:  Jeremiah 20, 7-9; Psalm 63; Romans 12, 1-2; Matthew 16, 21-27

Jeremiah: One of the 3 great prophets, called the "broken hearted prophet,' because he had a heart rending life predicting punishment of death and destruction for the Hebrews for their sinful ways. 

He wrote from Jerusalem ca. 600 B.C. and his predictions came true when Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem in 588 B.C., defeated the Hebrews, and took them off to Babylon-Baghdad as prisoners.  Jeremiah wore a wooden yoke as a visual aid to his message.  He may have been ultimately killed by the Hebrews.

Deny Yourself, Take up Your Cross, and Follow Me

This simple little line from Matthew can be very tricky.  It can be approached healthily or in a less than healthy way.  I can witness to the latter in my own life.  I have already described how as a young Jesuit I was expected to do penance and deny myself in various ways, like the practice of using little whips to scourge our backs and little chains with points to wear around our thighs.  This was supposed to bring me closer to God.

I can laugh at this now, but I am humbled at how easily I can be programed.  When I read this line and others like it in the Bible and remember my experiences with such spirituality, I pick up the scent of an ancient philosophy that still influences a lot of religious activity which is not spiritually so sane.  The philosophy: dualism. 

The idea is simple.  Reality comes in pairs, hot & cold, rich & poor, order & chaos, and, in particular for this discussion, body & soul or flesh & spirit or mind & matter.  So far so good. 

The trouble enters with a judgment about the flesh & spirit.  Specifically, flesh is bad, spirit is superior.  Consequently, so that my spirit may reach an elevated plane of purity & perfection, and ultimately closer union with God, I attempt to control the flesh by disregarding the body's existence & appetites, ultimately aiming to live without it.  How about that!

There is a healthy, in fact, a rich approach to the line.  But first a couple of facts.  Dualism is identified as far back as 1000 years B.C. and came out of Zoroastrianism, a religion that worshiped one god and believed in an afterlife.  Did it come from Egypt as so much did at that time?  No, from  Persia, the area we call Iran today.  Zoroastrianism was widespread until Muhammad arrived on the scene around 650 and established Islam.  Through the ages lots of people picked up on dualism, for example, Plato, Augustine, Descartes.

I have two stories about people who healthily acted out self denial.

First, a girl I know who when she was 11 years old thought that she would like to join a swimming team here in Plano. She tried out, more than once, failing each time.  Undaunted, she practiced.  When she was 12 she not only got on the team, but she won the state championship in her age bracket. 

She continued to swim through grade school and into high school, practicing 2 hours early in the morning before class and two hours after school.  She even went to Providence College on a swim scholarship.  This girl, Megan, whom I love tremendously could have slept in two more hours every morning when she was in high school, she could have come home after school and watched TV.  It would have been easier.  This is healthy self denial and because of it she is a girl more alive, more whole, more fully alive with a vibrant spirit.  She is now the mother of Liam, who was our Baby Jesus in the Christmas drama, and the daughter of Rob & Beth.

Saturday we celebrated with a parade in Parker another girl like Megan, Nastia, home from the Olympics.

The second person is Thomas McGowan, 50 years old.  You might have read about him in the paper a few weeks ago.  He was just released from prison after spending half of his life there for a crime he did not commit.  The Innocence Project obtained permission to run a DNA match & he was exonerated. 

I came to know more about him through an old friend and classmate of mine, Tony Levatino, who in his retirement works at the Holy Trinity Center, the outreach arm of Holy Trinity Parish, just like ours.  Tony got familiar with him because his sister works at Holy Trinity and happened to talk with her.  Turns out he could not find a job.  Tony had a connection with the Anatole Hotel and got him hired.

Besides being moved by what Tony was able to accomplish, I was also moved whenTony said Thomas was an excellent man, cheerful, without anger, not wanting to blame anyone.  He accepted his fate while hoping for exoneration.  He was peaceful.  Thomas was a man who denied himself and took up a cross.

These two people have both denied themselves.   Megan strove to achieve, Thomas accepted.

How & why do you deny yourself?

AUDIO:  http://mysite.verizon.net/reso7rjy/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/2008-08-31.mp3

Readings: Acts 1, 15-26; Psalm 103, the Lord has set his Throne in Heaven; 1 John 4, 11-16; John 17, 11-19.

Acts: a review–

Author:  Luke, the author of The Acts & The Gospel

Date: ca. 50 years after the death of Jesus

Our Selection: Believe it or not, we are now back to chapter 1 after getting as far as chapters 9 & 10.  What is going on is this.  The chapter opens with an introduction and then a description of the Ascension, Jesus going up in the sky.  Apparently the event took place about a half mile outside Jerusalem on the Mt. of Olives. 

Afterward, all the community come together in the room they had been hiding in. About 120 are present and Peter gets up to speak.  We read Peter's words. 

John's letter: There is a great line in this selection.  See if you can spot it when you hear it.  I'll tell you after the reading, but a hint, it is the last line.

The World

Last Sunday evening I took Rosemary to the emergency room at Presbyterian on Walnut Hill.  Many of you may not know that for years she has endured a condition where her heart would spike up to ca. 180 and lock in there.  Normally when she felt a spike coming she would lie down and it would subside.  Occasionally it would take a longer, like an hour or two. 

Sunday, after the spike continued for 4-5 hours and she was feeling nauseous and lousy, I called our doctor who assured me the event was not life threatening, not a stroke or a heart attack, and that I should take her to the emergency room so they could arrest the spike. 

So I rush over to Presbyterian reassured that she was not in danger from the spike, but anxious about going to the hospital.  Flashing through my mind are stories about hospital mishaps, overworked nurses, scissors left inside incisions, mixed medications, and people going in with a hang nail and coming out with a staff infection that kills them. 

However, I was humbled and impressed with the efficiency, the care, and the cleanliness of what I encountered.  We arrived about 8:00 and I did not leave until shortly before midnight.  It actually took most of that time to bring the spike down and keep it down.  It would come down, then immediately spike.  The phenomenon is called SVT, supra ventricular tachycardia. 

When we walked into that emergency room, I only had to put Rosemary's name & date of birth on a piece of paper, and they whisked her into the care of numerous teams of nurses, a doctor, and eventually one of her heart specialist team.

Then a great thing happened on Tuesday morning when they did a procedure on her called an ablation, where by they run a little wire up from the groin, through a vein into the heart cavity, and zap the malfunction.  Rosemary came home and donated her heart medications to the CCAC.  She does not need them anymore.

The people in Presbyterian were terrific, amazingly professional, caring, and warm.

This has been on my mind a lot and I thought about the experience when I noticed the John reading about the world.  Did you notice that he uses the word world 9 times in a small paragraph, always in a negative context?  Like, the world is a bad place.

We have talked about this before and I would like to propose again that, while the world around us has a lot of pain & suffering, the world also has tremendous beauty.  And, moreover, you and I can increase that beauty, helping to minimize the suffering. 

As I've mentioned before, I pick up here the scent of the old philosophical principle of dualism.  That is, the whole world is divided into two opposites, hot & cold, dark & light, spirit & matter, and especially, good & bad.  Moreover, bad & good covers other doubles, for example, light is good, darkness bad.  And especially, matter is bad, spirit is good.  Consequently, the world full of material & stuff is seen as the enemy.

This extends to my person.  My material body vs my spirit, my thinking and feeling.  To free the latter I must discipline and control the body.  Taken to an extreme people get into hurting themselves, so as to free the inner spirit.  I did not have enough common sense as a young Jesuit to realize that some of the penitential practices we were encourage to do we just self abuse.

Where are we today?  Today we are encouraged to treasure our world and to improve it.  We see this all over the place.  I was at the CCAC, the Collin Co. Adult Clinic, Thursday and here are all these people providing medical care to the poorest people pro bono, no salary or stipend. Ken Cramer sent me a note, "When can we have another food drive?"  Great reminder.  We'll do it next week.

I saw recently where Groundwork Dallas had another Trinity clean up.  Hundreds showed up to remove trash and in particular a hill of dead tires illegally dumped in the forest.  I wished I could have been there, like the time Ron Kovatis got many of us down there.

I propose that our challenge is not to hate the world, but the treasure it and to make it even more beautiful. 

How are you beautifying our world?

AUDIO: http://mysite.verizon.net/reso7rjy/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/2009-05-24.mp3

Picture 1:  Mass with Kevin & Sabrina

Picture 2:  Sabrina, who graduated Friday from 8th grade at St. Monica with a Presidential Award for excellence, reading her poem Download Bread_by_sab[1]

Picture 3:  John Doherty preparing to receive a blessing on his employment away from home

Picture 4:  Donut Shoppe with customers Kevin, Chloe, & Denni