Readings: Revelation 7, 2-14; Psalm 24, Lord, this is The People that longs to see Your Face; 1 John 3, 1-3; Matthew 5, 1-12

All Saints: intro & a brief history

  

Intro: 3 feasts—

      

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

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

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

 

 

  

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

    

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

   

Year 300: during this century the early Christians, reeling from persecution, celebrated feast of All Martyrs.  This is really the foundation of the feast.

 

Year 600: a Pope Boniface dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to Mary & All Martyrs.  May 13 was the celebration because it was also an ancient pagan day of celebration.

 

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

  

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

 

 

The East:

  

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

   

Note:  later, three big events happen:

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

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

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

 

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

 

Special Poems for All Saints:

SMILE BECAUSE THEY LIVED (Jackie McGrath)

You can shed tears because he is gone

Or you can smile because he lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back,

Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left.

Your heart can be empty, because you can’t see him

Or you can be full of the love that you have shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow

And live in yesterday,

Or you can be happy for tomorrow

Because of yesterday.

You can remember only that he has gone

Or you can cherish his memory and let it live on.

You can weep, and close your mind,

Be empty and turn back,

Or you can do what he would want –

Open your eyes, smile, love and go on.

DEATH IS NOTHING AT ALL (Geri to read)

Death is nothing at all
I have only slipped away into the next room
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other
That we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes
We enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me,
Let my name be ever the household word that
It always was.

Let it be spoken without effort,
Without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was
There is absolutely unbroken continuity.

Why should I be out of mind because I am
Out of sight? I am but waiting for you
For an interval
Somewhere very near
Just around the corner .
All is well.

Today's Saint

Know any saints around here?  I told the story of Mother Teresa recently and propose that she is a saint.  Trouble is, I look at her and think her example is quite a bit out of my reach.  I have a story that may be more in reach.

This guy is 44 years old.  His name is Adam.  A year ago he was 70 pounds overweight.  He took medication for blood pressure, he took cholesterol meds, he even had to use a breathing machine to sleep sometimes.  He had tried to lose the weight a million times, he says, but never really put his whole spirit into the project. 

This is one aspect of being poor in spirit.  This is what it means to take up thy cross and follow The Man. 

His dad who died some years ago of heart disease had told him that if you believe in your project you can sell anything.  The guy says he did not believe in his product any more, the product being himself.  Even though he had a marvelous wife, Trayce, and two young kids, he could not move.

Then one day Adam had one of those moments.  He is a doctor and caught himself telling one of his patients that they should more carefully monitor their weight.  The patient responded, "You know, doctor, I'm not the only one who needs to lose weight."  In one way a body slam, in another a wake up call.  A beatific vision?

For Adam it was a wake up.  He realized suddenly that he had to turn his life around for his patients, for Trayce, for their kids, and for The Product, himself. 

He joined Weight Watchers.  He started walking 30 minutes a day.  Ounce by ounce the 70 pounds began to come off.  He joined a running class and found an Adam he had never known.  He even began to rise at 4:00 A.M. to join an early morning running group.

One evening while he was on line he came across information about The Marathon.  The one going on right this minute.  It said that if you collected money for a charity you could register for the marathon, 26 miles.  At that moment he decided he could collect the money and that he would run the marathon.  He was so pumped he ran in to tell Trayce. 

At this moment, this man, Dr. Adam Kaplan, has lost his 70 pounds, has renewed belief in The Product, and is with our own beloved Tom Fleming.  They are running the New York Marathon, all 26 miles. 

I found this Adam Kaplan story in The Dallas Morning News, Tuesday. 

Why is Dr. Kaplan for me a member of the All Saints Team?  And all of you?  Take a guess, take two guesses.

Source: The Dallas Morning News, Tuesday, Oct. 27, p. 12E, Healthy Living section

Picture 1:  All Saints Celebration with Wendy & Ben

Picture 2:  Chloe dancing to the music

Picture 3:  Birthday Man, Rob

Picture 4:  Our Father

Picture 5:  Birthday Man, John hugged by Sabrina, his daughter

Picture 6:  The Community

 

Readings: Jeremiah 317, 7-9; Psalm 126, The Lord has done Great Things for Us; we are filled with Joy; Hebrews 5, 1-6; Mark 10, 46-52.

Jeremiah.  One of the “great prophets”.  The book covers one of the most turbulent times for the Jewish people, a time we have been discussing with a number of our other prophets of recent weeks, namely “The Exile”.   Jeremiah witnessed the fall of a great empire, the Assyrian, and the rise of the Babylonian Empire!  His writings cover a period of about 40 years. 

 

  

 

The main issue he deals with is the People's turning away from Yahweh and towards worshiping idols.  Due to the nature of the period, the major political convulsions in the region, we find there were several prophets at this time.  Jeremiah stands out from this group in his ability to show God’s love for his people and the People’s duty to God through the covenant ties.

   

Our passage today is very interesting in that it shows God’s loving care of His people compared to that of a Father for his firstborn.

 

 

The Way  (Tony O'Donovan)

  

The very last sentence in today’s Gospel is what I want us to focus on this morning!  “Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way”.  I want us to spend a little time on this “Way of Jesus”.  Remember two weeks ago we had the gospel story of the rich young man, who was quite anxious to do whatever to “inherit eternal life”.  Remember he had observed all the laws from his youth, but when Jesus challenged him to sell all and “follow me,”  he went away sad.  He was unable to follow Jesus.

 

I want to step back a bit and take a look at where we are in Mark’s Gospel.  Remember Mark wrote the first Gospel, it is the shortest of the Gospels.  If we look at how it is written we find that it neatly falls into two parts, the first beginning with the Baptism of Jesus at the Jordan by John, and ending with the famous confession of Peter to the question “Who do you say I am?”. 

 

The second part is the Journey to Jerusalem and the death of Jesus.  This “journey” begins with a miracle, the gradual healing of a blind man.  He declares that he can see shadows, and gradually his sight returns to him.  And then the one we have today, just as Jesus arrives in Jerusalem.  There is a strong suggestion that these “blind stories” are there as a comment on the apostles inability to see what Jesus was about.  Remember last weeks gospel had James and John asking Jesus if they could sit on his left right side in heaven!!

 

 

 

Now, back to the way of Jesus.  If we are familiar with the stories about Jesus from the Gospels, we will begin to discern very easily a pattern as to what was Jesus’ Way.  He went about trying to get people to understand what God wanted of us.  He summed up the commandments to two, “love God and love your neighbor.”  And he practiced that in his actions of healing the sick, and most especially showing that the society had become trapped by the rules.  He reached out to sinners, he dined with them and worst of all, in the eyes of the authorities, he forgave people their sins!!  This was Jesus’ Way.

  

We are here this morning because presumably we have accepted the invitation “come follow Me”.  How are we doing on the Way, on that journey we call life?  Human nature is interesting, particularly as I reflect on my own life.  I have had the best of intentions but the reality of my actions often fall way too short!  Thankfully I have a forgiving and loving God who is constantly inviting me to get back on “the Way,” and supporting me with the community I belong to, the Church and its sacraments. 

 

Picture 1:  Tony

   

Picture 2:  Our Man in the NY Marathon this Saturday, Tom Fleming receiving the blessing of The Community

 

Picture 3:  Sean & Cara with their parents, Ed & Christine

 

Picture 4:  Bill with Nancy & Helen

 

Readings: Isaiah 53,10-13; Psalm 33, Lord, let Your Mercy be on Us, as We place Our Trust in You; Hebrews 4, 14-16; Mark 10, 35-45

Isaiah:

A review:

  

Authors: at least 3 because there are 3 distinct parts to Isaiah the book. 

  

Time of Composition: near the end of the Babylonian Captivity, i.e., ca. 550 BCE.

 

   

Subject Matter: warnings about impending doom because of the badness of the people in part 1 up to chapter 39.  The remaining two parts are called the Book of Consolation, letting the people know that a more peaceful & prosperous time is coming. 

   

Today’s Selection:  (read all of chapter 53) 4 observations—

A. This chapter in 2 Isaiah is not included as one of the 4 Suffering Servant Songs, though it presents the same theme. 

  

B. The he, the servant that is talked about is

   –for the Hebrews, the Jewish nation/people;

   –for Christians, Christ.

   

C.  False Belief number 1?  The Jews thought Yahweh demanded suffering or sacrifice of valuable items ( e.g., sacrificial lamb ) as payment for badness. 

 

D.  False Belief number 2?  Not for the first 200 years, but eventually Christians were taught to believe that an original great sin had been committed by our ancestors & that sin could only be paid for by a human-divine hero, Jesus.  He had to be sacrificed to this god.  Or as the first line of our official reading says, “The lord was pleased to crush him infirmity.”  Do you think God really crushes people with infirmity?

Was there really an original sin?  Contemporary theology says no. 

 

   

The Greatest

 

August, 2007, there was an article in the N.Y. Times.  It focused on a work called Come, Be My Light, a collection of letters by Mother Teresa.  I mentioned Mother Teresa last week as an example of a person who gave it all up and went out into the street to help the disadvantaged.  Why did she do this?  Apparently because of her faith in Jesus and his message.  The N.Y. Times article, however, noted that Mother Teresa confesses in her letters that for years she harbored doubts about her belief in God, this while she was rescuing homeless people off of the streets, living out the role of servant mentioned in the gospel. 

 

I mention this event because despite people's accomplishments, we are all human, and because many of us have the similar doubts.  Mother Teresa got a lot of criticism for these doubts, people even calling her a fraud or hypocrite.  I would propose that she was more genuine because of her doubts.

 

Two observations that seem relevant to this issue.  The observations come from an excellent book, The Future of Faith by Harvey Cox (loaned to me by John Cade). Cox has been teaching divinity at Harvard for 40 years and wrote the famous Secular City in '65.  The observations are, first, a short history of Christianity and, secondly, where is Mother Teresa and where are we.  

 

 

 

First, Cox says there have been three stages of Christianity, the stage of faith, the stage of belief, and the stage of the spirit.  

 

He suggests that we have been living in the third stage for the past 50 or more years.  It is characterized by a desire on the part of many people to become spiritual.  Not necessarily religious with all the rules and dogmas.  This period is reflective of the first stage. 

 

The Age of Faith lasted around two hundred years after Jesus.  During this time there was a spiritual excitement about the prospect of a new world coming.  Jesus called it the kingdom and it was a this world event.  There were many little Christian communities, a variety of liturgies, a democratic process, and an anti Roman Empire stance.  There was a sense of being touched by the spirit of Jesus, with his vision for a better world where the poor and outcast would be welcomed. 

 

Despite an excitement of spirit, the time was marked by persecution.  The Roman Empire did not tolerate groups of people who would not worship the emperor.  It was during this time when the Christians were the entertainment in the Colosseum.

 

The second stage, the Age of Belief, officially begins in 313, when the emperor Constantine granted freedom to Christians. Fairly quickly Christianity became the religion of the empire.  Sounds good so far.  But as Cox notes, when the Empire made Christianity official, Christianity became an empire and lost much of its spirit.  Faith was measured by belief in dogmas, belief in things about Jesus. 

 

A clerical class developed, the class became rich and powerful, they began to lay down beliefs that had to be held, writings were revised so as to create a fiction to support apostolic succession so these clerics would appear entitled.  Creeds multiplied.  Only 12 years after Constantine's Edict of Milan of 313, a council of Christian leaders, now called bishops, met at Nicaea in 325 and came up with the complicated Nicene Creed.

 

In 385 CE a particularly ominous event took place.  For the first time ever a meeting of bishops, condemned of heresy and had killed 7 Christian men.  The group under the leadership of a man named Priscillian encouraged abstinence from meat & wine, recommended study of the sacred writings available to them, and allowed what could be called charismatic praise of God. 

 

So where are we and where was Mother Teresa?  I was born about 30 years after Mother Teresa, but she & I both were brought up in the Age of Belief.  I had to memorize the Baltimore Catechism.  The more I memorized, the more faith I must have.  I don't think Mother Teresa ever moved totally out of the Age of Belief.  However, her life exemplifies the Way of Faith 

 

 

Today I find lots of Catholics & Christians, like myself, trying to return to that original time of faith & spirit.  Dogmas like the infallibility of the pope, the Assumption, the Immaculate Conception, & canon law are not vital.  A spirituality that deepens faith is vital.

 

Where are you on this journey?

 

Source: The Future of Faith, Harvey Cox (excellent)

 

Picture 1:  Mass begins with Kevin helping

 

Picture 2:  Sebastian welcomes the Community

 

Picture 3:  The Community

 

Picture 4:  The Coffee Shoppe with Joan & Jerry, Bob & John