Sunday Homily, November 19, 2017, 33rd Ordinary Time

We are sorry that the Blog has not been published these past 2 weeks.  We had a tornado and lost our internet connection among other things (we still don't have internet).  I am down at a neighbor's house who has internet.  Thanks Jane for letting us use your internet.

 

Homily:

 

All Saints, 2019-11-02

I want to talk about saints I’ve known, not from years ago, not from this year, but from last October 21, The Morning After.  For me a saint is anybody trying to dance a good dance.

First, a couple of young dads with their young sons.  Yes, I’ve already mentioned them last Sunday.

These guys just walked up and started moving tree branches from around the house to the curbs.  The house was battered and our trophy trees were stripped of their branches.  These guys worked all day.  These dads & their sons are saints for me.

Next, the St. Marks boys.  They started roaming the Preston Hollow neighborhood with water.  As the week progressed they began distributing food.  You realize that I say this as a former Jesuit student & teacher.  St. Marks was always our opponent in sports & debating, everything.

Some of the food the boys were distributing came from a corporate saint.  Central Market, which is just around the corner from us, a ten minute walk.  The store was devastated.  So what did they do?  They set up a large white canopy tent in the parking lot and they distributed breakfast, lunch, and dinner for four days, free! 

On Saturday Rosemary got 6-8 lunches which she shared with the truck drivers and chain saw workers who were cleaning up our debris.  And let me confirm, the meals were not just cold cuts and energy bars.

Then, of course, I saw 8-10 saints from our community, Tom Goode, Tom Froelich, Grace & Doug with his chain saw, John & Connie, Loretta who fed us enchiladas, Andy & Mike (Mike Moran??!!,  a saint?  Maybe I need to clean my lens a bit.)

Finally, another group of saints, the Dallas police, in particular the guys who spent their nights in the cars all lit up with red & white lights.  They were all night and day right at our corner of Royal & Camellia.  The guys’ flashing lights were a comfort, knowing we were safe.  I offered them coffee, but they always declined.

These are some of the saints I have been privileged to meet just these past 2 weeks.

Your saints?

 

 

Readings:   Exodus 20, 1-17, God delivered all these commandments; Psalm 19, Lord, You have the words of everlasting life; 1 Corinthians 1, 22-25, The weakness of God is stronger than human strength; John 2, 13-25, He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple.

 

Exodus: 2nd book of the Bible & of the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible.

Date of Composition: put together ca 450-400 BCE, though elements come from 1000 BCE at least.

Author(s):  Moses, no.  At least 3 sources, maybe 4, e.g., the Yahweh (J) source, the Elohim (E) source, the Priestly (P) source, and even the Deuteronomy Source.

 Subject:  The 10 Commandments–observations:

 Our Subject today: 10 Commandments–Observations

 

1. Academics see 3 maybe 4 versions of the 10 commandments, Exodus 34 (the oldest), Exodus 20 (our selection), Deuteronomy 5 (the last)
2. The versions come from the sources composing at different times, for example these 4

• The Yahweh Source, 10th Century BCE, therefore, Exodus 34    
• The Elohim Source, 9th Century BCE, therefore Exodus 20
•  The Deuteronomy Source, 7th Century BCE, therefore Deuteronomy 5    
• The Priestly Source, edited all the sources in 6th Century BCE (450-400 BCE, at the end of the Babylonian Captivity).  The 7 Day Creation Story comes from this source at this time.

Source:  Bishop (Episcopal) John Shelby Spong (Excellent Biblical Scholar)

 

 

How to keep the Inner Peace

Some months ago Rosemary & I were flying back to Dallas from Toronto on the first Friday morning in October.  Canadians that morning were beginning the long weekend of Canadian Thanksgiving.  Everyone was taking off. 

Rosemary & I had gone to celebrate the event with Kay Reddick & her family the week just before Canadian Thanksgiving. 

Our plane was scheduled for sometime around 9:00, so we arrived very early, like 6:30.  We walked into the huge single room terminal and noticed a long line.  No problem, we had everything prepared.  We checked in and asked where we entered security, a one stop area like in Atlanta, everyone going through the same big security post.  The girl said the line was for security. 



 Wow!  Gulp!  This line must have been more than 100 yards long, running from one end of the terminal to the other with numerous double backs.

Initially I thought the line was just volume.  Nope. Turns out security is staging a labor slow down.  We are in that line over 5 hours, folks.  Naturally, we missed our plane.  Everyone missed their plane.  In fact, I thought we might not even get out that day.  Clearing security was only half the problem.  Once inside everyone was mobbing the service desks to change their ticketing. 

One thing about the day that really struck me positively was that I never saw anyone lose it or have a hissy fit.  On the contrary, people were friendly, joking, lying on the floor while waiting.  There were Canadians in that line near us who were missing their flights to Hawaii.  We talked to them in the waiting line and we talked to them inside where they had booked a flight to San Francisco that afternoon. 

 If I had been in Lagos, Nigeria, I would expect that I would have witnessed a riot.  Not in Toronto that morning.  I’ve seen check-in riots for a lot less. 

 I mention this event because it comes to mind when I see the story of Jesus getting all steamed up at the vendors in the temple.   I have to laugh.  Lucky he never flew.  Our experience and his probably had some common elements, like chaos and crowds.  

What is he so hyped up about?  Was he having a bad mood day?  Can he have bad moods?   If you look at these scenes with detachment, you might want to laugh.

On the other hand, Jesus might have had some significant reasons, like:

    1.  he was angry because the vendors were supposed to remain in the outer courtyard and they were inching into the inner sanctum, the holy place.  The law.

    2.  he was angry because he was watching the vendors cheat.  Injustice.  Maybe his mom had been cheated by one of these guys some years ago and he still was angry about that.

    3.  he was angry because he saw the obsession of some of these people with money.  He was seeing the Bernie Madoffs, the Stanfords, and the Ken Lays of his day.

 But, note that

 

1. it was customary for animals to be sold at the temple.  These animals were destined to be bought by people, taken to the priestly cast inside the temple, and given as a sacrifice.  These people were heavy into sacrifice.  The idea: I sacrifice something to God, I get something from God.  Maybe it was gratitude for already getting something. 

  2.  it was customary that the temple was a center for all sorts of trade.  People went there for sacrifice, giving thanks, and socializing.  The market naturally set up near, in, and around the temple.  The markets I saw in Tanzania when I lived there were probably similar and were fascinating events. 

So why was Jesus so angry?  Maybe he was caught off guard.  He expected better.  That was what amazed me about the Toronto airport.  Everyone was caught off guard.  Everyone expected better.  Yet, no one got so mad they lost it. 

There is a little trick that helps with this craziness.  I would call it expectation adjustment.  The idea comes not from my head, but from a man named Albert Ellis (American Psychologist, developed RET, Rational-Emotive Therapy, d. 2007, 93). 

 The idea is that I have an expectation about how a person should behave & how things should be.  If the expectation is frustrated, then I can go off.  What do you think is the dynamic behind road rage? 

Want to fix it?  Adjust my expectation, change it.  Or look at it positively.  It is another way of accepting.  A trucker is in left lane.  So what.  Someone is in such a rush they are right on my rear bumper.  I have to wait so long in security that I miss my plane.  Expectations?  Yes.  Hey, it could be worse.  Rosemary & I made it out, after all.  Jesus seems to have done some expectation adjustment, because in his condemnation by the Pharisees at the end of his life he does not fight back.  The result: my inner peace.



 

How do I react when I see someone going through the express check out with 18 items?   Or leaving the shopping cart in a parking place?  How do I react to road craziness? 

How do you respond to frustrated expectations?

 Sources:  Center for Liturgy, St. Louis U.; Alfred Ellis

 

 

Readings:

Isaiah 25, 6-10, On this mountain the Lord will provide for all peoples a feast

Psalm 23, I shall live in the house of the Lord all the days of my  life.

Philippians  4, 6-9, I can do all things in him who strengthens me

Matthew 22, 1-14, The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast.

 

Thanks to the Team

Music,  Ben & Shonda 

Readers,  Tom & Mary  & Buddy, the candle blesser

Gospel,  Deacon Mike 

Homily,  Stack 

Eucharistic Prayer A & B, Stack & John Cade

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

Final Blessing, Rosemary

For hosting us at Legacy, Becky

 

 

 

 

Remember?  3 years ago, South Rim, Grand Canyon.

 

Isaiah observations:

Who:  Any idea which Isaiah this is, 1, 2, or 3?   We had Isaiah 1 last week talking about the vineyard.  That was chapter 5.  Pretty easy to guess, Isaiah 1.  But, this is chapter 25.

It seems out of character for Isaiah 1, who criticizes the people.  More like Isaiah 2, which John Cade loves and which we will read this Advent. 

Remember Isaiah 1 is pre-Babylonian Captivity, around 555 before Christ.  This selection is a marvelous vision of peace and sensual satisfaction, one of my favorites.

Yep, it is still Isaiah 1, all the way to chapter 39.  Basically he is saying that a great day will come, after you people have paid for your sinful, selfish ways. 

 

 

Remembering…..

 

Download Readings Week 28
 

 

Homily:

As a boy, Jesse was a chicken plucker.

He stood on a line in a factory and spent his days

pulling the feathers off dead chickens so the rest of us

wouldn't have to.

It wasn't much of a job, but at the time

Jesse didn't think he was much of a person.

His father was a brute of a man

thought to be mentally ill,

and treated Jesse roughly all his life.

Jesse's older brother wasn't much better.

He was always picking on Jesse and beating him up.

Yes, Jesse grew up in a very rough home in

West Virginia.  Life was anything but easy,

and he thought life didn't hold much hope for him.

That's why he was standing in this chicken line

doing a job that few people wanted.

Jesse was always sick.

Sometimes it was real physical illness,

but often it was all in his head.

He was a small child, skinny and meek.

That didn't help the situation.

 

 

Remembering….

When he started to school he was the object of every

bully on the playground.

He was a hypochondriac of the first order.

For Jesse, tomorrow was not always something he

looked forward to.

 

 

But he had a dream. He wanted to be a ventriloquist.

He found books on ventriloquism. He practiced with

sock puppets and saved his hard-earned dollars until

he could get a real ventriloquist dummy.

When he got old enough, he joined the military,

and even though many of his hypochondriac symptoms

persisted, the military recognized his talents and

put him in the entertainment corps.

That was when his world changed.

He gained confidence.

 

 

The Wizards Hue & Rich.

He found that he had a talent for making people laugh,

and laugh so hard they often had tears in their eyes.

Yes, little Jesse had found himself.

You know, the history books are full of people

who overcame a handicap to go on and make a success

of themselves, but Jesse is one of the few I know of

who didn't overcome it. Instead he used his paranoia

to make a million dollars and become one of

the best-loved characters of all time doing it!

That little paranoid hypochondriac, who transferred

his nervousness into a successful career, still holds the

record for the most Emmys given in a single category.

The wonderful, talented, nervous comedian

who brought us

Barney Fife (The Andy Griffith Show)

was

Jesse Don Knotts.

(July 21, 1924 – February 24, 2006)

There is a street named for him and his statue in

Morgantown, West Virginia, his home town.

At this stress filled time in our lives, how are you reaching out  to peace & beauty?

 

 

Remembering….

 

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 is recuperated!!;    For David Dismore's bad shoulder from a biking accident;  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 Sir Charlie & Jan;  Shonda's mom & Cody & Ben & Leo & 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, 

Richard & Mike Zooming. 

 

For Jackie's mom, sister, & friend, Lynn;  For both Jean & Cliff Wright;  For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg; For Meredith, cancer free;    For 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.

 

 

Birthdays: Bill Hammond, Celeste Colmanero, Rich Eschelbrenner

 

 

 

Hammond, you are so missed around here!

 

Community Finances, October 11, 2020

Expenses: $710.00 

Outreach   $180.00    (often for Souls Harbor, Legacy, etc.)

Thanks, Folks, for doing what you can.

Rosemary's Blessing:

 

 

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

 Joshua 24, We will serve the Lord

Psalm 34, Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

Ephesians 5, Wives should be subordinate to their husbands

John 6, Many of Jesus' disciples said, "This saying is hard."

 

 

Good News for Aggie & Alan, The doctor discharged Alan with a clean bill of health.  Congratulations!!

 

 

Thanks……

Music,    Ben & Shonda

Readers,  Jackie, Mary, & Buddy, our candle blesser 

Gospel,     John Cade

Homily,   John Cade

Eucharistic Prayer A & B,  John Stack & John Cade

The Magic Zoom makers,     Richard & Hue & Mike

Final Blessing, Rosemary

For hosting us at Legacy for all these years & will miss you enormously, Becky

 

 

Thanks for excellent reading, Jackie.

 

Readings:

Download Readings 21st Ordinary Time 8-22-21

 

Homily by John Cade

Download Homily John Cade 08-22-21

 

 

And you too, Mary, great reading!   Thanks.

 

Remember these special people:

For John & Karen Anderlick's unborn grandson;  For Alan Stryker;    For Rosemary's great niece, Rylie;  For Richard's grand daughter, Madeleine;   For Esparza's new great grandson baby, son of Monique, & Frank;  For all the medical personnel struggling to treat the tsunami of sick people, in particular, locally, Cindy's staff at Presby, Dallas, and at Frisco Presby, the mother of Harper and Betsy, Kendle, working in labor & delivery, and for Hue & Linda's daughter, Doctor Rosemary Beavers;   For Mary & Dave Hall's g-daughter Allison Keller working at St. Lukes, The Woodlands,   For Sir Charlie & Jan;  Shonda's mom & Cody &  Leo & all of Shonda's dear family; For Ursuline Sr. Mary Troy,

  

 

Today's team, John & John

 

Jackie's mom, sister, & friend, Lynn;  For Rick Turner searching for a kidney donor, Type O neg.; For Meredith, cancer free & John Schanot;    For John O'Donnell & Jean;   For Jean & Cliff Wright;  For Dee, and for her daughters, Lisa & Lauren  ;  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; from Barbara, a little 12 month old baby boy named Ford recuperating from an operation; for David McKeon's brother, Hugh; For Beth's friends & brother;   for the medical staffs, teachers, and coaches in our public & private schools.

 

 

Peace, Cindy, Peace, Dee.

 

Birthdays:   Marilyn Ackerman

Anniversaries:   Banzhafs, 50

 

 

Richard sharing communion with Dee & John.

 

Community Finances,   August 22, 2021

Expenses: $200.10

Outreach: $300.00

Thanks again, Folks, for doing what you can.

 

 

Rosemary reading her Special Blessing.

 

Rosemary's Blessing:

May you learn to see your self

With the same delight,

Pride and expectation

With which God sees you in every moment.

 

To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue

 

 

Cheryl, the Dog Whisperer, and Aviana.   More Peace.

 

 

Readings: 2 Samuel 5, 1-3; Psalm 122, Let us go Rejoicing to the House of the Lord; Colossians 1, 12-20; Luke 23, 35-43. 

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.  "Christ is king, not you."

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.  The Catholic Church was against democracy.

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

 
 

Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Woods

 

And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

                        Robert Frost

                                                                                                   

 

A few weeks ago this past fall Rosemary and I received a special gift.  We were given two tickets to a Notre Dame home football game, a game against Pittsburg. 

This had special meaning for me because when I was 18 I was enrolled in Notre Dame for college.  I had even bought some winter clothes.  Until I changed my mind and joined the Jesuits, to my mother’s rather lengthy irritation. 

Never in the following 50 odd years of my life did I ever get to visit the campus where my life might have been totally different.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving I want to give thanks for three things connected with this event.

 

First, I finally had the opportunity to reunite with one of my best old buddies from high school and even grade school, Pete Wacks.   He  has spent almost all of his adult life in Chicago working as an F.B.I agent.

 There is an amusing quality to this.  Here are two kids who seemed to get into trouble together and who spent some evenings in the University Park jail.  One ends up a Jesuit priest & the other works as an F.B.I. agent.

 After 50 years it was like we just picked up where we left off.  Rosemary & I spent the whole weekend with Pete & Margie.  We stayed at their house and they drove us to South Bend and joined us at the game.  One of his buddies even met us when we arrived at the campus and toured us around in a golf cart.  

 I am really grateful for this.

 Secondly, I was grateful for the opportunity to visit what I had heard was one of the beautiful campuses.  I got to meet touchdown Jesus, to witness a game in a fabled stadium, and to walk the campus.  The trees were just changing colors and it was a beautiful, warm fall afternoon.  It was fun and touching to walk around imagining how my life could have been different had I ended up there for 4 years.

 Thirdly, I was grateful that I had chosen the second road the summer of ’58.  It has been a good road.

 

As we look forward this week to Thanksgiving, I invite you to reminisce.  Look back.  Not often in life do we encounter two roads in a wood.  How grateful are you for the roads you have chosen?

 

Picture 1:   Curtis guarding our food drive

Picture 2:   Ryan & his mom, Michelle

Picture 3:   Connie & her family 

Picture 4:   Mark & Isabella & Donuts

Picture 5:   Wendy & Ray

 

 

 Readings:

Genesis 2, 7-9, 3, 1-7,   The Lord planted a garden in Eden.

Psalm 62,  Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.

Romans  5,  12-19,  Through one man sin entered the world.

Matthew  4, 1-11,  Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.

 

 Romans observations :

What :  Paul writes this letter to the Roman community before he travels there.  It is one of the most dense and difficult books in the New Testament.  It is the longest letter.  I find about 8-10 lines in the whole letter that touch me.  Usually I dread seeing the letter as one of our readings.  Today is one of those days.

Date: around the year 55

 

 

Genesis observations:

What: a great marvelous book about the origins of us people.  It includes Creation, Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, Noah & the flood, the tower of Babel, the Patriarchs of the Jewish tribe, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and finally Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob, and how Joseph ends up in Egypt, leading to the next book, The Exodus.

Note: the book is folk tale, myth, and fable.  It is not literal.

Date:  guess.  It seems to have been put together from at least 4 oral streams that were combined during the Babylonian Captivity, 555, before Christ. These stories were orally passed down, generation after generation for 900 years. 

Authors:  these people are shrouded ancient history.  Some stories reflect folk tales of other groups of people, like the creation stories of Babylon.

Subject today: the second creation story, the one with the snake & apple tree.  It was from this story that Paul came up with the original sin notion, a notion that Augustine picked up and gave it legs.

 

 

Matthew:  Even today's gospel is mythical. 

Sources: Good News Bible, Bishop John Shelby Spong, Wikipedia

 

Lent, Fully Alive

This first Sunday of Lent I want to talk about how to have a fully alive Lent in light of an event that took place this past Thursday in the lives of Rosemary and me.

Thursday morning about noon our postman, Doug, rang the doorbell.  Rosemary went.  Doug said that across the street and down one house the guy who lived there had not collected his mail in a few days and the garage had been open with the car inside all that same time. 

 

 

I had noticed the newspapers piling up near the curb and driveway, but this guy who was really reclusive occasionally let them pile up before he would pick them up.  I had also noticed the garage open a couple of days, but that, too, the guy did occasionally.  From our house I could not see his garage because of a bush. 

I had thought in the past years that this guy has no one that I can see.  He is totally alone.  He has never had a job, did not take great care of his house and property, but always drove a new Jaguar.  Just in the last year I mentioned to Rosemary that the guy actually waved at me from his car on occasion.

 

 

So I decided to call the neighborhood police who patrol our large neighborhood. 

Fifteen minutes later I see the police car.  Then I see the fire truck.  “This could be bad,” I mention to Rosemary.  “Go see what is going on.  I have a 1:30 luncheon with Kathey, my sister.” 

 

 

Before I can even get into the car and back it out of the drive, she returns to tell me the guy is dead. 

I am stunned.  I feel horrible.  How could I have lived for years across from a reclusive guy, not even know his name, and let him lie dead in his house for who knows how many days?  Moreover, Rosemary & I are the Tulip Lane coordinators for the neighborhood organization.   He is on Camellia, but he is just across from us, we being on the corner.

 

 

This all happened the day after Ash Wednesday and I thought to myself, ‘Is this a Lenten invitation to me?’

I’m thinking it is.  I found out the guy was called Gary.  Even his next door neighbors did not know his name.  Our neighborhood coordinator knew it and gave me an emergency number to call, which I did.  We are now in touch with his brother and the brother’s wife, both of whom said they knew this dreaded day would come some day.  They, too, had not had contact with Gary in a bunch of years.

 

 

What this is saying to me is, in my life and in our community I will not leave any Garys to die alone, if I can help it. 

I even asked my sister if she would like me to phone her the nights of her days off from work.  She declined, saying she is in touch enough.

So, during this Lent, 2 challenges for me:

1. Who are the Garys in our community, my neighborhood, or in my life anywhere?  Keep in touch.
2. No Fear Lent. 

I figure you are not a Gary if you are here. 

Therefore, who are the Gary’s in your life?