Come One! Come all!
"about a 75 minute drive from Louisville"
Come One! Come all!
"about a 75 minute drive from Louisville"
I read that Amazon.com
lists 160,510 books on the topic of forgiveness. That’s 31,629 more than on
sexuality. What does that tell us about the human heart and what it hungers for
most?
You haven’t experienced
freedom unless you have experienced the freedom that comes when you let go of
resentments that sear your soul, preoccupy your thoughts and drain your
strength. Yet, there are so many people who hug their hurts and nurse their
wounds in an all-consuming preoccupation because they cannot “let go.”
When they refuse to
forgive, they choose to be “right” over being free. Catherine Ponder said it
best when she said, “When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to
that person by an emotional link
that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link
and get free.”
The biggest mistake people
make when it comes to forgiveness is to believe that it
is a favor one does for the one who has wronged them. It was Suzanne Somers who
said it best when she said, “Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.”
Lewis B. Smedes said it
this way: “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner
was you.” Alan Paton pointed out, “When deep injury is done us, we never recover
until we forgive.”
Another mistake people
make when it comes to forgiveness is to believe that forgiveness is a sign of
weakness and spine[1]lessness if you don’t
“stand up for yourself.” Actually, as Mohandas Gandhi pointed out, “The weak
can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
The refusal to forgive keeps one imprisoned in
the past. Paul Boese put it this way: “Forgiveness does not change the past,
but it does enlarge the future.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa said,
“Without forgiveness, there is no future.” Forgiveness is basically a choice to
have a future over a past.
The biggest obstacle of
all to forgiveness is the belief that the one who wrongs you needs to
apologize, make amends and show evidence of change. While that is certainly
part of justice, it is not essential.
Forgiveness is most
powerful when it is unilateral and unconditional. Unilateral and
unconditional forgiveness is a sign of ultimate strength, because when you
forgive unilaterally, you take charge of your situation and refuse to be
someone else’s victim any longer.
I have been a priest for 43
years. I can honestly say that the most spiritual experience of my life was not
the day I was ordained, not the day I said my first Mass, baptized my first
baby, married my first couple, anointed my own mother before she died or
presided at my first funeral. The most spiritual experience of my life was the
day I decided consciously to forgive and seek forgiveness. I finally realized
that taking offense is just as toxic as giving offense.
I live on a busy street.
You can see the world from my front porch. It walks by, drives by and shuffles
by like a marvelous circus parade. It is some of the cheapest entertainment
available.
Some passers-by are
regulars. Some pass by only once. There is the middle-aged woman with a
distended belly who walks like she has had one shock treatment too many. There
is the scruffy drunk carrying a beat-up, old guitar who likes to aggravate cars
with a few in-your-face chords from an old Elvis tune. There is the screaming
married couple, with windows rolled down, who decide to have it out with each
other while waiting for the traffic light to change. There is the elderly couple,
shuffling hand in hand, savoring every squirrel, baby and flower they pass.
There are the U of L
athletes, tanned, lean and rippled with muscle, strutting their stuff, proud as
peacocks. There is the African-American nurse’s aide from the local hospital
with grocery bags in each hand, waiting in the rain for a bus to take her to
another day’s work at home. Too tired to stand, she sits on a wet set of steps.
There is the overweight, well-intentioned, if not short-lived, jogger who huffs
and puffs his way to that leaner and trimmer waistline in his mind’s eye.
What do you see when you
see people like these? Do you judge them or bless them? I am embarrassed to
admit that I found myself judging some of these people one day as I sat and
watched them go by. I was reminded of a line from the movie “On Golden Pond.”
Katherine Hepburn says to Jane Fonda when she was terribly frustrated with her
aggravating, old father, “If you look closely enough, you will realize that he
is doing the best he can.” Remembering that line, I decided to bless those who
walked by my house and pray for them. Who knows how lonely, scared, abused or
stressed they are? “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”
Prayer has the power to
help those who don’t even know you are praying for them. Why break the “bruised
reed?” Why quench the “smoldering candle?” Jesus says, “Do not judge and you
will not be judged.” St. Paul says, “The member who hurts the most needs the
most attention.”
Judging others, especially those we do not know, is a bad habit that says as much about us as the people we judge. This bad habit can be replaced with the good habit of blessing others. All we have to do is monitor our own thinking, check it and replace it with new thinking. A new world is often only a changed thought away.
St. Paul is famous for his comparison of the church to a human body! Understanding how the human body works is certainly an effective way to understand the church. Jesus is the head of the body and together we members of the church make up the various other parts. Jesus is the head so we follow him, listen to him, and let him guide our steps, just as own heads do for our own bodies. Likewise, this analogy to a human body acknowledges how good diversity is for the church. The body needs its many parts working together to function properly just as we believers need to work together to accomplish the mission Jesus handed over to us. Rather than expecting everyone to be alike and do the same thing, each of us can contribute to the health of community by using whatever individual gift or talent God has bestowed on us in particular.
St. Paul goes on to explain our diversity this way, “If the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.”
Each believer is valuable to the church and each of us is a needed part of the body of Christ. This diversity is something to be celebrated and recognized as part of God’s great design for the church. We have all heard the expression "It runs like a well-oiled machine." That's what St. Paul is trying to tell us about the church today, that just like a healthy body the church needs all its members working together in harmony - like a "well-oiled machine." A disciplined group with a goal, like a “well-oiled machine,” can take on any action it chooses. Through hard work and allegiance to each other, this church can grow and accomplish great things, but only if we support one another and only if we work together as a team.
I just had my annual physical a few weeks ago. The doctor checked out my blood, my heart, my lungs, my joints, my balance, my ears, my eyes and my reflexes and more. He gave me a list of tune-up ideas to help my body continue to function smoothly. He told me that “to get to my goal" I needed to watch my "sugar intake" and to “engage in more vigorous exercise.” These days, because I am headed toward 80, I get maintenance physicals "twice a year" to make sure there are no damaged parts in need of attention.
If healthy parishes are like human bodies, then every member must be active and doing his or her part to serve the rest of the body. One of the things that I have heard over and over again during the Family Life Center project is this: "You can't get anybody to do anything for the parish anymore!" If that were actually true, it would be tragic indeed! If that were actually true, these two parishes would be sick indeed - so sick that they could both be dead in a few more years! Let me be perfectly clear! I do not believe that opinion to be true at all! I believe that what many small parishes have these days is a spiritual leadership crisis. I am not taking about a management crisis. Spiritual leadership is about “doing the right things.” Management is about “doing things right.” As hard as it is, building a parish hall has always been easier than leading a congregation into a deeper level of discipleship.
Effective spiritual leaders have the ability to influence people to move from where they are to where God wants them to be – the ability to inspire them to become people who willingly serve others. This means that if parishioners are not inspired by their leaders to use their gifts, have their gifts recognized and appreciated, parishioners quickly get used to not offering them. They shut down like any unhealthy organ in the human body putting the rest of the body at risk. Just think how long we would last if our hearts stopped, our digestive systems failed, our lungs no longer functioned, our kidneys quit working? That's exactly what happens when most of the members of the parish are not pulling their weight, playing their part and sharing their gifts to build a community where people can grow closer to God.
I do not believe that "you can't get anybody to do anything for the parish anymore." I do believe, however, that people will not step up until they are asked to step up and shown that their help has been used, appreciated and found helpful. Managers help do the “right things” right. They organize and manage human resources! I know from 53 years of experience that people will help if the goals are clear and they have committed leaders to guide them! When it is up and running smoothly, the Family Life Center will need a capable manager if its potential is to be unleashed. If people volunteer and no one is in charge, no one is around to answer the phone and they are never trained or shown appreciation, they will soon lose heart, engage in turf wars and finally give up. In a spiritual leadership vacuum, nobody knows what the goals of the parish are! In a management vacuum, the “crazies always take over the asylum” and the situation usually sinks into chaos!
Friends! I didn't give my life to serve the Catholics of this diocese to see our small faith communities dwindle, shrink and wither away. I have spent time in ten different countries promoting parish revitalization. I have taught the basics of parish revitalization to Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, thousands of priests, hundreds of seminarians quite a few deacons and an unknown number of lay people. I have published books about parish revitalization. I cannot believe that the last fifty-three of my life doing all that has been a waste! What I learned, when I got my doctorate degree in Parish Revitalization from a Presbyterian seminary in Chicago, can be boiled down to this! The bishop doesn't close parishes. Parishes starve to death and then the bishop is forced to close them! The bishop, of course, is always blamed when the real blame should be directed to the parishioners who were absent and withheld their gifts. "Where were you when we needed you?"
Parishes are like marriages. If both partners do not feed their marriage, it too will die of starvation. Then there is nothing left but divorce. Parishes are like pot luck dinners. If everybody contributes something, the meal is absolutely fabulous, but if most of the parishioners show up only when they are hungry for something (a baptism, a wedding or a funeral), expecting somebody else to have brought enough to feed them then everyone goes hungry, even those who did their part and brought something to the community meal! People who don't do their part tend to treat the parish like an in-and-out fast-food restaurant where quick, easy and cheap is the name of the game! Not too long after that, people stop showing up saying, "I don't go anymore, because I don't get anything out of it!" The real reason they didn't get anything out of it is probably because they never put anything in to it. (I know I am talking to the wrong crowd here because many of you are obviously very involved. The parish owes you its deepest gratitude! I realize that what I am saying should be addressed to the people who are not here!) The death of a starving parish is more like a slow-growing cancer than a quick heart attack!
Let me list a few practical suggestions. (1) Everybody can surely do a little something to strengthen the parish, but if you feel you can't do anything, at least thank those who are doing something and tell them you appreciate what they do for the community! When I restored and revitalized our Cathedral, raising over $22,000,000 (67% from non-Catholics) and helped to grow the parish from 110 members to 2100 members, the work was hard and long which I was happy to lead. What hurt was the fact that out of 120 priests in our diocese only 6 said anything positive to me about it! Thanking those who are doing something motivates them to do more. Withholding gratitude makes the "doers" want to give up and quit!
(2) “No one has ever become poor by giving.” That is a quote from Anne Frank who gave her life helping hide Jews during the Holocaust. I remember the day when one of the street people that we fed daily at the Cathedral rang the rectory door bell. I assumed he was begging. When I opened the door, he opened his hand with a few coins in it! "Here, Father! I want to donate this to the Cathedral restoration project!" I took it, because I did not want to rob him of the opportunity to be generous too, but I felt ashamed of myself for assuming he was a beggar instead of a donor. I was so moved by his generosity that I actually wanted to cry!
Give some of your time. Offer some of your talent. Share some of your treasure. Think about leaving something to your parish in your will. Personally, I have already given what I had previously designated in my will to Family Life Center. I wanted to give it to you before I died so I can see some of the good that it will do. When my niece Terry Stull sent me photos of your Confirmation Retreat in the new Family Life Center, I knew that I had done the right thing! There are tax laws that can help you do that without taking anything away from your kids! Talk to a professional! Wouldn't you rather invest in the future of your parish than give it to the tax collectors?
(3) This end of Meade County needs these two parishes! We need everyone
to be involved in standing up to the worst tendencies of our culture.
Selfishness, laziness and me-me-me are epidemic! We have got to show the next
generation how to care for these communities, rather than join the "every
dog for himself" way of life that is so very popular right now. Selfishness
is not something the government can fix! This epidemic of selfishness, laziness
and me-me-me is a serious spiritual disease! Building two thriving
parishes, seriously committed to building stronger Christians, is the most
effective way I can think of to fight the spiritual diseases that are now
infecting even small communities like ours!
One of the questions
priests get regularly is, “Father, what should I do about my adult children?”
Usually, the question
involves situations about them living together with a partner outside marriage,
not going to church, involvement with drugs or alcohol, not having their babies
baptized and the like. Over the years, I have come up with my only bit of
advice to parents. It does not always work, nor can it always be applied to small children who
need discipline, but I have been surprised at how often it has worked with
adult children over whom they have little power anyway.
I tell them to “sit on
God’s front porch for a while.” This idea comes from the parable I quoted
above. We often call it the “Parable of the Prodigal Son,” but it is better
called the “Parable of the Loving Father.” It's not about the son's sin, but about the father's the unconditional love! The father is the hero, not the repentant son!
What was the response of
the father in this parable to the unwanted, destructive behavior and abrupt
departure of his beloved younger son? He sits on his front porch and prays and
keeps his eye on the driveway for any sign of him coming to his senses. It
doesn’t say how long he waits, but we might recall that St. Monica did this for
many years over her wayward son, St. Augustine.
When the son hits bottom,
comes to his senses and realizes he has no place to go except back home, he is
not met with “I told you so. I hope you learned your lesson. I knew you would
come crawling back. You have no idea how much you have disappointed me and your
mother.”
It says the father -
realizing that his son had come to his senses and had learned his lesson, realizing that his son would have
to live with the consequences of his bad judgment and realizing he did not need to have it
rubbed in - welcomes him back with open arms!
He does it without folded
arms, cold frowns, thumping feet, piercing stares, but with kisses. hugs and a new outfit of clothes. The father's gushing responses contrast with his older son’s pouting, withholding
and punishing self-righteousness.
If you have a child,
brother, sister or friend who has “been gone” following a path of
self-destruction and you don’t know what to do after exhausting all your pleas and
offers of help, try “sitting on God’s front porch” for a while. Pray, wait,
keep your heart open and be ready to open your arms, no matter how wounded they
may be.
When it comes to brothers
and sisters, nieces and nephews, parishioners and friends, I have always tried
to treat them as I would want to be treated — with the love of the father in
this parable, with the same love that God extends to me when I make mistakes,
choose badly and let myself and others down.
Be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for
a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and
reverence.
I Peter 3:15-18
I can remember exactly
what she said! “Why in the hell are you wasting your time in that stupid
church? I finally wised up and got out of that silliness a long time
ago! I can’t believe that anyone as intelligent as you appear to be is
still a Catholic, much less a priest!” I can remember her words almost
word for word. I stood there in freeze-frame as if I had been shot at
close range waiting for the pain to register. I was both shocked and
embarrassed!
This situation is not made
up. It actually happened to me several years ago at a reception after my
ordination. The young woman was in her thirties. She was a college
graduate and very aware of all that was going on around her. When she saw
that I did not turn and run, she proceeded to go through her, obviously
well-rehearsed, litany of all that was wrong with churches in general and mine
in particular. She went w-a-a-a-a-y back! She covered the Spanish
Inquisition, the Crusades, Galileo, infallibility of the Pope, sexual
repression of the masses, grade school child abuse, the slavery of women, dull
Masses, trivial sermons, money grubbing TV preachers and Vatican finances.
I think I even got blamed for Tammy Faye’s make-up and hairdo! I stood
there squeezing the life out of my ginger ale, cringing as if being whipped as
she went down her list! My face was beet red! My knees started to
buckle. I wanted to melt into the floor.
After the initial shock, I
realized one day – after several days of worrying about it – that her
tongue-lashing was actually good for me! I was forced to admit that I
hadn’t taken the time to think in depth about why I still believe! I
realized that I really hadn’t thought much about the “hope that is within
me!” I realized that had not taken the time to really answer that
question: “Why in the hell am I still in this
less-than-perfect old church?”
It was not the first time
I have been seriously challenged for being a Catholic. When I worked in
the home missions of our diocese, down along the Tennessee border, I was often challenged
as the first Catholic priest to live in Wayne County! I was attacked by
name by a preacher on the radio. The whole ministerial association was
asked to leave the church we were meeting in after I showed up. The host
said he could “no longer in conscience” be part of the group “now that it had a
Catholic in it!" He then asked all of us to leave his church!" I had
a Sunday morning radio program, but while I was away on vacation, a group of
ministers went to the radio station and had me thrown of the air! I was once
verbally attacked at the Post Office. I was snubbed a couple of times in
grocery stores, ignored in restaurants and tolerated at meetings simply because
I was "one of those Catholics."
Those experiences have
helped me answer that question - “the reason for my hope." Besides
that, some of my friends have been neither church members nor believers. All of
them have asked tough questions. It seems that I have been surrounded by
people asking for an answer. It’s about time, I thought, that I answered
today’s question!
Be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for
a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and
reverence.
Those words from our first
reading today, the First Letter of Peter, are unbelievably appropriate even
today. When they were first written, Christians were a despised
minority. They stood out like sore thumbs in a pagan culture.
Neighbors, friends and even family members had serious questions to ask.
Often those questions were asked in hate and anger.
It took guts to be
different then, just as it does today. The writer of the First Letter of Peter
writes to encourage believers to stand their ground in the face of ridicule,
rejection, persecution, and possible death! “If you are questioned,
give a decent answer,” he says “but give it gently and respectfully.”
“Even if you are defamed, libeled, abused or ignored, do not answer with
hate. If you have to suffer, at least you can say you suffered for being
good.”
Those words are as fresh
today as they were then. The young woman at the party may have picked the
wrong place, chose the wrong time and asked her question in bitterness, but her
questions are valid. “Why do I stay in a church with so
many problems? Why do I believe when so many people my
age do not? Why am I a Catholic, instead of a member of
some less complicated denomination? Why am I a priest
when so many have left and so few are coming in? When I saw the second
reading today, I said to myself, “OK, today is your opportunity! Tell the
people why you believe, why you stay,
and why you are hopeful!”
Let share with you, then,
my five “reasons for the hope that is within me.”
REASON #1
GOD IS MADLY IN LOVE WITH THE HUMAN RACE
The only reason God broke
into human history in the person of Jesus is that we were not getting the
message – the message that God is madly in love with us. Because we were
not getting the message, God came in person! I cannot believe how many
so-called “religious” people still wonder whether God loves them or not, people
who worry about going to hell over trivialities, people who even cringe in fear
at the name of God. I cannot believe how so many so-called “religious”
people wring their hands in anxiety about how the world is going to end – as if
it is still up for grabs! When Jesus announced the Kingdom, he said that
it would start growing quietly and almost imperceptibly, but it would keep growing
until all evil was crowded out. Jesus said that the battle between good
and evil would meanwhile continue, yes! Jesus said that evil would win
many more battles, yes, but it would not win the war! Jesus promised that
the outcome had already been decided! When all is said and done, good would
win out over evil. He told us that since the victory over evil has
already been won, all loss and suffering would be temporary and that everything
would turn out for good ultimately!
So, my friends, as we face
our set-backs, disappointments and losses, we must keep this good news in the
back of our minds and remember it when we are discouraged. I did not make
this promise! Jesus did! As for me, I don’t care how many more
priests resign, how many more empty seminaries and convents are sold, how many
more crooked preachers are arrested! I already know how things will finally
turn out! The victory over evil has already been decided!
REASON #2:
IF GOD HAD WANTED A PERFECT CHURCH, HE WOULDN’T HAVE
PARTNERED WITH THE LIKES OF US!
The church is a gathering
of people – real flesh-and-blood human beings, not angels! Therefore, it
is a mixture of the stupid and the wise, the silly and the serious, the gutless
and the heroic, the vicious and the loving, the sinner and the saint.
There is no “them” and “us.” There is a mixture of good and evil in each
one of us. It’s just a matter of degrees. So, how can we get so
upset about the splinters in our brothers’ and sisters’ eyes, when there is a
plank in our own? It has been that way from the very beginning. Jesus
knew that when he got involved with human beings, he was bound to get in
trouble. He did it anyway. He did it on purpose. He did it
with forethought and deliberation. He chose the weak, the idiot, the
prostitute, the reject and the sinner on which to build his church. He
has been choosing the same types ever since. So the next time you call
the parish council a bunch of imbeciles and the parish priests idiots, just
remember people like that have been in the church family since Peter, Judas and
Thomas; a liar, a traitor and a non-believer! If they were good enough
for Jesus himself, I am certainly not leaving the church or losing hope just
because it is still filled with human weaknesses and human problems today. To
those who want to buy a lot down the street so they can build a problem free
church, “not like all those other churches," I would say, “Get a grip and
wake up and smell the coffee!” Remember the words of Jesus, ‘Healthy
people do not need the doctor, sick people do!’”
REASON #3
I TRUST THE TEACHERS OF OUR CHURCH MORE THAN GRADUATES
OF SOME TALK-SHOW SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY OR SOME KNOW-IT-ALL ON FACEBOOK
I am happy the church is
not controlled by what is trendy and what most people think. It both
speaks to the modern world and listens to it! For that, it can both stand up to
the world and take some heat from the world! Even when I disagree with
its conclusions sometimes, I am proud of the struggle it is making to renew
itself and deal with a gamut of complicated problems that face the world
today. That renewal is messy, uneven and confusing, but at least it is
not putting its head in the sand! The church does not have answers for
everything, but I choose to stay like St. Peter who asked Jesus, “To whom else
shall we go?”
REASON #4
WE ARE NOT IN THIS ALONE AND BY OURSELVES
Before Jesus left this
earth, he said this to us, his church: “Do not be afraid. I will not leave you
orphaned! I will give you the Holy Spirit as your Helper, to be with you
always! He remains with you and will be within you!”
We, you and I, received that Spirit when we became members of the church.
We still have that Helper always. With that assurance, there is no reason
to lose hope! We are invited to help the Kingdom come, but we are not
responsible alone for making it come! God is! So let us concentrate on
doing our very best, forgiving each other when we don’t and quit worrying as if
it were our responsibility to control the world! With the power of God
within us, there is no reason to lose hope. There is, on the
contrary, every reason to have hope!
REASON #5
OUR ONLY OBSTACLES ARE LACK OF FAITH, LACK OF GUTS,
AND LACK OF IMAGINATION.
The world has many
problems and I believe the only thing that stands in the way of solving them is
our fear and failure to believe the “Good News,” that “blessed assurance” that
everything ultimately is going to be okay. If we really believe that God
is on our side, that God is madly in love with us and that God has seen to it
that the end will be wildly festive then the only thing that stands in the way
of dealing with the world as it is, is lack of nerve and a shortage of guts to
stay in the struggle. “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is
for enough good people to do nothing!” If we really believe the basic “good
news,” we will hang in there no matter what. If we don’t believe what
Jesus promised, there are a million good reasons to quit and any of them will
do!
Much ranting and raving
about the church is done by people who still equate the church solely with its
leaders. When we do that, every problem is the responsibility of somebody “up
there” to fix! We are the church and we will go on no matter how weak and
rigid our leaders might be! The validity of the message has never depended
on the goodness of our leaders! We are individually called to fidelity no
matter how many other so-called believers jump ship!
It was cynicism,
pessimism, rigidity and despair that killed Jesus and still tries to defeat
him. Too few of us go through life like we believe anything beyond what
we see in front of us. Often we are just as gloomy, just as
hand-wringing, just as anxious about the future as any atheist! That is sad
indeed!
These are a few of the
reasons I have hope. In the end, the church is a lot like my old
grandma. She had a wart on her nose. She was a little rigid and
cranky. She was not perfect, but she was all the grandmother I had.
I loved her. I didn’t love her in spite of her
shortcomings, I loved her because she had problems. You
know, my grandma, my church, and me have one thing in common. We’re not
perfect, but we are certainly "good enough" for God!