USEFUL WISDOM FOR 2024 #48

 MAKING FAMILIES GREAT AGAIN - A NEW POST-ELECTION FAMILY CHRISTMAS TRADITION

DREAM BIG! HAVE FAITH! STAY FOCUSED!

 

Your ways, O Lord, make known to me; teach me your paths.

Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior.

Psalm 25

What is it about certain people that makes them successful in achieving what they set out to do and reach their greatest potential? Is it luck? Do they have better connections with people of power and influence? Does God have favorites? I don’t think so! I believe they have two things: singleness of purpose in where they want to go and the disciplined personal habits that will take them there.

The problem is, many people are not clear about what they want, have no passion for any specific goal and lack the discipline that it would take to get there. As a result, they settle for lives of mediocrity and superficiality. Because it takes courage to dream big, many settle for too little.  Because they are fundamentally ambivalent in their approach to life, instead of being a force of nature, they become feverish, selfish, little clods of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making them happy, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw.

Clarity about what one wants out of life must be combined with focused attention and disciplined habits. The habits that diminish us require no effort and are usually the result of acting without real thought, while the habits that will help us reach our goals require effort and laser-like focus. In other words, we must truly want what we want.   

St. Charles Lwanga, one the Ugandan martyrs, a convert to the faith, with laser-like focus on his new-found faith and with unbelievable personal discipline and determination, was able to endure a painful death, inspire his companions to do the same and march through the gates of heaven to claim his prize!

I am certainly not martyr material, but I do know, from personal experience in my own small way, that once one is truly committed to clear goals and disciplined habits, God has an uncanny way to make sure he or she has his help and grace to reach great heights.  

I have always been inspired by the teaching of Jesus in this regard when he told us that if we ask, seek and knock, what we look for will be given to us. The real secret in this regard is not to be ambivalent in asking nor lacking in confidence that God will give it to us in due time, if it is truly right and good for us to have. In fact, that help usually comes from some of the most unlikely sources, from even unknown people and quite often at a time that truly surprises. 

Looking back over my life, I am amazed at the help that seemed to come from nowhere to help me in ministry. When I really wanted to learn to preach as a seminarian, the United Church of Christ gave me an opportunity in Crater Lake National Park. When really I wanted to learn parish revitalization, the Presbyterian Church USA gave me a full scholarship for a Doctor of Ministry degree. When we restored the Cathedral of the Assumption, sixty-seven percent of the funds came from non-Catholics. When I needed funds to build spaces for the new retired priest program at Saint Meinrad, one column in The Record, the Archdiocese of Louisville's weekly,  attracted over a half million dollars. The biggest dream of all, of course, is to reach the end of my life as a priest – not a former priest, not just a priest in name only – but a happy, faithful and effective priest in whatever way God calls me! I will get there if I let God “teach me, lead me and guide me,” as the psalm says today! …. or as the Rule of Saint Benedict says, “Listen carefully, my child, to the master's instruction, and attend to them with the ear of your heart…”

Brothers and sisters! Dream big! Have faith! Stay focused! Watch what happens!

THE SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION

 

I hid your money because I was afraid.

Luke 19:1-27

I've been “hearing confessions” for almost 55 years. I don't count my summer as a bar tender in Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. If you want to test your sanity, try listening to a couple hundred grade school confessions in one afternoon. It’s like the drip, drip, drip of a water torture. If you want to test your threshold for shock, try listening to confessions some afternoon in about any center-city Cathedral. The stories on the trash TV are puny by comparison. And if you want to be stoned with marshmallows, try the saintly confessions of retired nuns at your local Motherhouse!

Seriously though, as an obvious sinner myself, I have great empathy for those who have failed. There is something wondrous about the privilege of announcing God's unconditional love and forgiveness to a truly repentant sinner. Over the years, I have had people write me, many years after the fact, about an especially moving experience of reconciliation they have experienced in this sacrament. But there is one common type of confession among some traditional Catholics that sends me up the wall! It goes something like this. “Bless, me, Father. I really haven't done anything wrong. I didn't kill. I didn't steal. I didn't commit adultery. I didn't miss Mass or take God's name in vain!” In that situation, I have probably sinned on some occasions by wanting to rip the curtain back and strangle them on the spot! How often have I wanted to scream, “Well, goodie for you! You are now at zero! When are you going to start living the Christian life?”

I realize where this comes from. Many Christians have tended to equate sin only with doing bad things. The Christian life, in fact, is not just about avoiding evil, it is also about actively doing good things. That is why the church's Confiteor is such a powerful old prayer. It reminds us that we can sin by what we fail to do, as well as what we do!

I hid your money because I was afraid.

The “sin” in this parable is what the third servant “failed to do.” To cover his inaction, he uses the lame excuse of “being afraid.” He even blames his fear on his master, calling him “a hard man.” But behind this fear and blame is the root of all sin: pure old laziness The fact of the matter is: we are all abundantly blessed with talents and gifts to be used, to be “invested” as the parable puts it. Spiritual and personal growth is hard work and there is a part of us that is lazy, that wants to take the easy way out, that backs off from the demands of life. There is a part of us that does not want to exert ourselves, that clings to the old and familiar, fearful of change and effort, desiring comfort at any cost and absence of pain at any price. It is the call of sin. It must be stood up to!

It seems to me that all sin, both what we do and what we fail to do, has laziness at it root. To avoid all the work we need to do, we often look for an easy way out! We seek to feel good about ourselves, not by building ourselves up, but by tearing others down through gossip and character assassination. We cheat and steal from others as a way to get what we want rather than doing our own work. We lie to appear good rather than actually being good. We rationalize and rename our sins, rather than owning them and eliminating them. We mask our problems and pains with alcohol and drug abuse, rather than confront them. Rather than doing the hard work of developing real intimacy, we fall for the short cuts: promiscuous sex and pornography. We “fail to do” because we are afraid; we give into our fears because we are lazy.

We are here, first of all, to celebrate God's unconditional love and willingness to forgive our sins. We are here, secondly, to express sorrow for the negative impact our sins have had on others. We are here, thirdly, to pledge our “firm purpose of amendment.” The process of healing our sinful habits begins with our willingness to name them. When we name them, we have the possibility of standing up to them. Standing up to them, with God's grace, we can eliminate them.

 

A PEACE-FILLED HEART

 

                                                                                                                   

Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-9

I would describe myself, in my early years, as an “anxious” person. To be “anxious” is to be “uneasy and apprehensive about something uncertain” or to be “worried.”  It’s all about that awful thing that might happen next.  This was especially true when I left Meade County, at age 14, and entered St. Thomas Seminary High School in Louisville. I experienced being “a lost ball in tall weeds” as I entered culture shock! Those of you who have lived with spouse abuse or lived with a raging alcoholic or drug addicted person also know what I mean. Living in anxiety is a lot like living with a ticking time-bomb strapped to your leg – only day and night every day. It is living in dread, living on “pins and needles,” “waiting for the other shoe to drop,” waiting to “hit bottom” after falling. It is no way to live and only those who have been there understand what I am talking about.  

As a small child, anxiety was a simple passing experience – the terror of hiding under covers, wide-awake, after my older sister, Brenda, had told convincing ghost stories or during the height of a crashing, booming rainstorm.

As a fifteen-year-old from “the country” in a high school seminary in “the city,” my anxiety was about the fear of failure, the fear of not being good enough, the fear of rejection, the fear of being laughed at for being a “hillbilly,” the fear of being bullied because I was “skinny” and the fear of not having enough money to live on during the school year.

As a young priest, anxiety was about being threatened by the Klan, being scorned in public by some Protestant ministers for being a Catholic and for being a liberal Catholic by fundamentalist Catholics, being stalked by a knife wielding schizophrenic for welcoming fallen-away marginal Catholics back to church, watching years of work and dreams crack and almost fall to the ground in front of me, sleeping with one eye open for years after having my home burglarized three times, being ashamed of being a priest and of maybe being falsely accused during wave after wave of bad news during the sexual abuse scandal and waiting for the results of a biopsy that might have been cancer. 

As an older priest, anxiety had to do with three major disappointments when one great assignment ended and my plans for what I expected to do next burned and crash on the launch pad. It was only then that I found out that the Plan B that God had in store actually turned out better than the Plan A that I wanted to happen. It was then that I realized that all my anxiety had been one big waste of time.  

At 80, this may be the most anxiety free time of my life. Today, I know “peace,” the opposite of “anxiety.”  I have a safe place to live. I have enough saved to live comfortably and a little saved for the future. I have a few successes behind me and I have a variety of wonderful small jobs to wake up to every day. I feel accepted by myself and loved by most of those who know me. 

Most of all, I discovered the cure for “anxiety.” I am more at peace now. than I have ever been, because I have discovered the “good news” that Jesus came to bring. I have come to understand and know that I am loved by God, without condition, and in the end that everything is going to turn out OK, even if I may still have to face the challenges of old age, bad health and, God forbid, a painful death.  Yes, I have to admit that heading into 81, I have that feeling I used to get when I was walking across thin ice wondering when it would crack and I would suddenly find myself in a real crisis. However, because of the peace that God gives those who believe in his “good news,” I am confident that he will help me handle the rest of the way whatever comes my way because his way is always the better way!     

"Peace!" These words of Jesus were not only addressed to the terrified disciples, huddled together and cringing in fear, in that upper room after his crucifixion, as well as Paul to the anxious Philippians, these words are addressed to all of us Catholics today; whether you are a student worried about grades, finances or the fall-out of a bad choice made in the heat of passion; whether you are living in abusive relationship or an unsafe environment or with constant discrimination for being different; whether you are unemployed and in debt up to your ears or barely handling a chronic health problem; whether you are a single parent trying to make it on your own; whether you are religiously scrupulous and live in constant fear of a punishing God and can’t let go of it. Jesus addresses his words to you today. ‘Peace be with you! Calm down! It’s going to be OK! When all is said and done, things are going to turn out just fine. I am with you! Trust me with Plan B!’

Anxiety is worry about what might happen. Peace is the awareness that everything will be OK no matter what happens.  Trust in God is the only way to peace. Peace is God’s gift to us and it is based on the “good news” that we are loved and that great things await us – because God said so!

Let me end with one of my favorite prayers by Saint Francis de Sales. 

Do not look forward in fear to the changes in life;

rather, look to them with full hope that as they arise,

God, whose very own you are,

will lead you safely through all things;

and when you cannot stand it,

God will carry you in His arms.

Do not fear what may happen tomorrow;

the same understanding Father who cares for

you today will take care of you then and every day.

He will either shield you from suffering

or will give you unfailing strength to bear it.

Be at peace, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

USEFUL WISDOM FOR 2024 #47

 

I'LL BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW......

 ....... that a  Native American Chief and Medicine Man is in the process of being canonized by the Vatican?

As a person interested in such things as Native American spirituality, I am reading the book pictured below. This extraordinary man was somehow able to bridge the spiritual traditions of the Oglala Lakota and the religion of Roman Catholics, without losing respect for either.  

What attracted me to this man as well, is the fact that several years ago, I led the priests and their bishop of the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, in their annual convocation. Our meeting was close to the South Dakota border and close to Mount Marty College in Yankton in the Diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. 

As a student and later a staff member of St. Meinrad Seminary, I was familiar with the first Abbot of St. Meinrad, Martin Marty, who had come from their founding abbey in Switzerland. In 1876 the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions sent him to Dakota Territory. In 1879 he was appointed Vicar Apostolic for Dakota Territory. In 1889 he was named Bishop of Sioux Falls, the first diocese of the state of South Dakota at the time.

On Tuesday, June 25, 2019, at St. Agnes Catholic Church, Manderson, SD, Bishop Robert Gruss of Rapid City SD, presided at a Mass celebrating the completion of the diocesan phase of the Cause for Canonization of Servant of God Nicholas Black Elk. At the conclusion of Mass, the final documents were signed, sealed and bound with a red cord, readied to be taken to the Congregation for Causes of Saints in Rome, Italy. Fr. Louis Escalante, the Roman Postulator for the Cause, will deliver the final documents.

Below, Bishop Robert Gruss prays at the grave of Servant of God, Chief Nicholas Black Elk,  with some of his Native American parishioners.

 

The Official Canonization Prayer 

MY MIXED AND CONFLICTING EMOTIONS

I have many, many mixed and conflicting emotions about all this! The more I learn about how the Native American Tribes of this country were treated by European Christians in their expansion across this country, the more sinful and tragic it appears to me, especially when I learn more about how they were often forced to embrace a white Christian culture and religion, accept the seizing of their ancestral lands and give up their own languages, cultures and spiritualities. 

I have the same conflicting emotions about how black people from Africa, forced to come here as slaves, had to give up their own cultures and spiritualities. 

The best I can do is to try to learn the truth of their stories, share what I learn the best I can, give them the respect and honor they deserve and, in all honesty, call a sin a sin! I am a Christian, but I am not a Christian Nationalist - one who is determined to force my religion onto the people of other religions in this country. I believe that Christianity is a religion of invitation and lived example, not of  force and exploitation. I believe in the separation of church and state as the best way to honor the many religious traditions of this country.