NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

 

 

   

 

 

HOLY FAMILES IN ALL THEIR MARVELOUS VARIETY

 

Husbands love your wives. He stores up riches who reveres his mother. Whoever honors his father (and mother) atones for sins. Parents do not provoke your children. Children, obey your parents and take care of them when they are old. Even if their minds fail, be 

considerate of them.

Book of Sirach and Letter to the Colossians

Christmas is a special time to reconnect and recommit as a family. Two Saturdays before Christmas, all five of my brothers and sisters got together for lunch instead of dinner this year. Happily, we stopped the stressful gift-giving years ago. We have been getting together like that for many years. As a single person with no family of my own, it is my way of connecting to a sense of family. Like always, we had a great time laughing and talking and telling the same old stories from growing up years. We do have one very strict rule - absolutely no mention of politics!

Several of my siblings pointed out how lucky we are just to be able to get together. Some families we know cannot even gather together because of divorces, hard feelings and old grudges. If they do get together, the getting together atmosphere is tense, strained and uncomfortable. 

As a person who is still a member of a family of six siblings, but who does not have a family of his own, I pay attention to families. I take notice. The thing that I see most is that having a family brings both joy and pain. Those who attempt it have my deepest admiration. Not having a family of my own, I realize that I miss out on both its joys and its pains.

A couple of times, as I have flipped though the channels, I have been compelled to stop and watch one of those live birth experiences that you see once in a while. I am not ashamed to admit that I usually get choked up and watery-eyed when I watch new parents at the moment of birth of their children. While I am proud that it can move me so much, I am very aware that what those new parents are experiencing is a thousand times more intense. It is a joy that I will never experience. 

Not all families are "happy" families! A few years ago, about 10:00 at night I realized that I had not eaten supper. The closest fast-food restaurant to my house was a White Castle about five or six blocks away. What can I say? I was desperate! I ordered three cheese hamburgers and a diet coke and sat down to watch a fascinating show that only happens late at night in a White Castle.  No sooner than I sat down than a distressed young mother with a toddler came in and asked the women behind the counter to call the police. Her “boyfriend” had locked them out of the car and was threatening them in the parking lot. She paced back and forth, one minute trying to appease her whining child who needed to go to bed and the other minute peeking out the window to see if her boyfriend was still out there. Sadly, like many abused women are wont to do, she went back to him before the police got there. A few minutes later, a wild-looking young woman, probably bi-polar, came in and ordered some cheese fries and ate them standing in the middle of the floor, spilling some of them and stepping on them, while muttering to herself. Before she finished, an older woman, her distressed mother, came in telling her that she had been combing the neighborhood looking for her to take her home. Her mother apologized to all of us and finally coaxed her daughter into the car and left. As I left that night, I realized once again how many things some families have to deal with. Anyone who is trying to hold a family together these days has my deepest admiration.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Family. It is not the easiest feast to preach about.  In a world where family life is a painful experience for so many, I have always shied away from those romanticized and idealized sermons that I grew up with. They certainly did not describe my experience. Because my family was not at all like the “Holy Family” our nuns and priest talked about, I always left church feeling defective as a family. My religion teachers of the past were so driven to hold up the “holy family” as a model for all families that they may have read about in the bible. They were obviously reading those stories about the “holy family” with rose colored glasses because they ended up with a religious version of a 1950s TV family. Because their reading of the stories was so idealized, by the 1960’s, people began to reject that brand of piety, and even laugh at it, as totally unrealistic and impossible.

A few years ago, I came to realize that maybe the real “holy family” is more like today’s families than we have traditionally become accustomed to think.  The facts show that the “holy family” was not that sugary little family that we use to hear about growing up!

We only have a few stories about Jesus’ childhood and the family from Nazareth, and none of them would be what you would call "nice and sweet."

(1) The family started out with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy.  Mary and Joseph were engaged, but not yet married when Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Joseph came within a hair of divorcing Mary, but backed off because of a message from God in a dream. (2) When it came time for Jesus to be born, Mary and Joseph were called out of town for a census. Away from home, Mary and Joseph end up having to deliver their baby in a barn, right there in a donkey stall. (3) No sooner that their baby was born, a maniac king tried his best to kill all the Jewish children he could get his hands on. To protect Jesus from that fate, Mary and Joseph crossed the border, becoming refugees in a foreign country, until the coast was clear to come back home. (4) When Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the temple for his circumcision, they were so poor that they had to make an offering to the temple of two common pigeons, instead of the traditional, more expensive, doves. (5) When Jesus was twelve years old, he got lost on a trip to the big city, Jerusalem. His panic-stricken parents spent a few hellish days till they finally found him. (6) On one occasion, hearing some of the things he was preaching, his family came to do an intervention on him because they really thought he had lost his mind. (7) A symbol of all sorrowing mothers, Mary finally had to witness her son, stripped and beaten, being executed as a common criminal.

No, this holy family was no “goody-two shoes” family that I had idealized for me as a child. This family had problems, big problems, but they managed to remain faithful to each other and to God through it all. I think this family has a better chance of being a model if we simply accept the fact that they were like us in so many ways. 

This feast does offer an opportunity to say a few words about family life. The problems are easy to list, the solutions are not so easy to come by. The most obvious fact facing us is that families have changed. There is no use pretending they haven’t or wishing they hadn’t. They have! Instead of pretending or wishing, we need to develop new ways to help and support modern families, including single parent families, blended families, adoptive families and the many other new varieties of families that exist today.

Families and couples cannot take anything for granted. The forces against family life are hard at work. Families must be intentional about being family if they have any hope at all to work against the forces that are trying to pull them apart.  To let things slide in marriages or families is to invite disaster. Families need all the support the community and church can give, not judgment and condemnation. You certainly have my support! I don’t know how you do it!  

The readings today give us an impressive list of “family values,” values that can guide and strengthen even our modern families in all of their marvelous varieties: honoring your father and mother, taking care of them in their old age, offering heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, obedience, patience, forgiveness, peace, thankfulness and love, just to name a few of the “family values” listed in our readings today. Family is not something that we can take for granted these days. It is something that must be wanted and worked for. Whatever family you have been given or whatever substitute family you have pieced together, may the Holy Family bless you abundantly in 2025!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

USEFUL WISDOM FOR 2024 #49

 

MY NEW BOOK FOR BISHOPS, PRIESTS AND SEMINARIANS

Cover Photo - The Bishop and Presbyterate of the Diocese of Ogdensburg, New York

AVAILABLE ON "AMAZON BOOKS" IN A FEW DAYS

 

INTRODUCTION 

This is a collection of live presentations, published magazine articles and addresses to specific groups, presented and written over several years. I decided to publish them in their original form as they were written and presented at the time, rather than trying to update them as if they were written as part of an academic cohesive whole which is evidenced by some repetition of the presented matter. 

In June of 2001, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops published their book  “The Basic Plan for the Ongoing Formation of Priests” as a follow-up to Pope John Paul II’s 1992 Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation “I Will Give You Shepherds.” 

During that time, I was the Vocation Director for the Archdiocese of Louisville from 1998-2003. I was very much influenced by both books – to the point that I practically had them memorized or at least heavily marked up. 

While I was Vocation Director, I was influenced so much by the USCCB’s “The Basic Plan for the Ongoing Formation of Priests” that when I was invited by the monks of Saint Meinrad Archabbey to address the whole community during a Day of Prayer on any topic I chose related to vocations, I chose to talk about Chapter Three of The Basic Plan, “The Ongoing Formation of an Entire Presbyterate.” I focused especially on this quote at the end of the book: “To pursue the ongoing formation not simply of priests, but of a presbyterate as a whole, brings us to new territory. The corporate sense of priestly identity and mission, although not fully developed even in official documents, is clearly emerging as an important direction for the future.” This quote gave me my direction for the future. 

In my two presentations, entitled “A Modest Proposal,” I asked the monks to consider adding a post-ordination ongoing formation program as serious and focused as the initial formation of their seminary. At that time, both the seminary and most dioceses were offering haphazard, hit and miss, stand-alone, often repetitious, day-long programs.  

The monks thought it was a great idea, but they said they did not have the funds for such an ambitious program. A year or two later, as I was finishing my stint as our archdiocesan Vocation Director, the Lilly Endowment announced their “Making Connections” grants. hearing of my “modest Proposal” to the monks of Saint Meinrad Archabbey, they invited us to apply for one of those grants. We ended getting an almost $2,000,000.00 grant. 

At the end of my term as Archdiocesan Vocation Director, and right before the monks hired me to develop the grant application, I wrote a small book in 2004 entitled “Intentional Presbyterates: Claiming Our Common Sense of Purpose as Diocesan Priests.” I simply gathered as much material as I could find about “presbyterates” from church documents and published articles and put it in that little book. 

With funds from our Lilly Endowment grant, we mailed out free copies of that book to every bishop in this country and Canada. many bishops followed up with orders of multiple copies to give to their priests as Christmas presents. It has been re-printed several times and has even been translated into a couple of languages (Spanish, Vietnamese and Swahili). 

Bishop Edward Burns of the Diocese of Dallas, when he was a priest serving as the Executive Director of the Secretariat for Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations at the USCCB in Washington, D.C. from 1999-2008,sent me a note saying that “the title of your book itself has captured the imagination of priests and bishops across the country.” 

When Saint Meinrad Seminary received the large “Making Connections” grant from the Lilly Foundation and we started designing our new ongoing formation program for priests, I was adamant that it be called “The Institute for Priests and Presbyterates” so that it clearly included not only the formation of individual priests after seminary, but the ongoing formation of presbyterates as a whole as well. 

For individual priests, I personally developed and taught a pre-ordination “Introduction to Presbyterates” class in Second Theology and “Transition Out of Seminary and Into ministry” class in Fourth Theology in the School of Theology. Our Board of Directors helped design several programs like: “Settling into Priesthood,” “Gearing Up to Be Pastor, “First Pastorates,” “World Priest Program,” “Mini-Sabbaticals,” “A Cruise Retreat for Busy Priest,” “Pre-Retirement” and “Retirement” programs.  

During this time, for presbyterates as a whole, I was committed as part of the grant to design and lead six Presbyteral Convocations in several American dioceses. In all, I designed two Presbyteral Convocation models: Intentional Presbyterates I: “Made Holy by Our Shared Ministry” and Intentional Presbyterates II: “Claiming Our Responsible Freedom as Individual Priests.” I presented well over 100 of these convocations in dioceses in ten different countries: all over the US and Canada (sometimes returning to do both models), as well as Europe and the Caribbean. I was so busy in those days that I turned down invitations to India, Nigeria, Singapore and Tonga in the Pacific region. 

During this time, in 2011, I put together another book entitled “A Bishop and his Priests Together.” It contained my own reflections as well as the reflections of several US bishops. Complimentary copies of this books were mailed out to bishops, mostly those in English speaking countries, around the world. I was also invited to address the body of USCCB Bishops at their spring meeting in Florida (2007) and the Bishops of the Antilles Bishops’ Conference in Trinidad (2016) on the subject of how bishops could build more unified presbyterates. 

Retired now, it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to offer, in print, many of the presentations and published articles that I wrote on presbyteral unity over the years and put them in one book for those who might be interested and find them useful even today.

A "BLUE" CHRISTMAS MESSAGE

A Pretty Messy Event

ORIGINALLY GIVEN ON CHRISTMAS EVE 2011

Our Lady of the Woods Chapel, Bellarmine University 

When the time came for her to have her child,

she gave birth to him in a barn, wrapped him up

and laid him in a feeding trough for animals.

Gospel of Luke  2:1-14

If you read the story carefully, the first Christmas was a pretty sad event, even pathetic! If there hadn’t been a census that year, Jesus would have been born at home, in Nazareth, in a warm bed, surrounded by family and friends. If there hadn’t been a census that year, Jesus would have been laid in a new baby-bed, hand crafted by Joseph himself, right there in his own carpenter shop. If there hadn’t been a census that year, one of his aunts would probably have come to stay with Mary a month or two to help her before, during and after her delivery. If there hadn’t been a census that year, neighbors, friends and local Nazareth musicians would have gathered outside the house as the birth drew near, a traditional Jewish practice at that time. If there hadn’t been a census that year, those musicians would have struck up the band and the whole neighborhood would have erupted in singing and dancing when it was announced: “It’s a boy! It’s a boy!” 

For reasons known only to God, it didn’t happen that way! As usual, God had a different idea. Instead, Mary came due at the very same time that Joseph was required by law to register in a rotating, fourteen-year Roman census. Because of that census requirement, a very pregnant Mary and a very worried Joseph were required to pack their bags and travel 80 miles, across country, on donkey-back, to Joseph’s ancestral town of Bethlehem. All this happened so that the foreign government occupying their country could have a better headcount to collect their taxes. Away from home, with labor pains coming on and unable to find a place to stay, this scared and exhausted young couple took refuge in a barn. Mary delivered her baby, right there in the barn, using an animal’s feedbox for his bed. How pitiful can you get!

Luke, the writer of this narrative, knew that if this birth had taken place at home, things would have been very different, but here he is telling us that the Savior of the world was born in the most desperate of situations. Looking at all this through the eyes of faith, Luke paints a pathetic picture and then heaven wrapping it up in wings of love. Shepherds take the place of celebrating neighbors and family members back home in Nazareth. Singing angels fill in for local musicians. Luke turns this pathetic situation into a heavenly event. In his story, he shows us God kissing the whole earth and every human being on it.

We know all the details of the Christmas story quite well, but do we know the point of this story? Do we understand what it means? Luke is not merely reporting historical facts here: he is making a religious point. He is telling us that by sending his Son, Jesus, into the world in this strange way, God is saying to us that he wants to be intimately involved in our lives, even in the most pathetic and unlikely situations, even when things seem hopeless and even when God seems absent. By sending his Son, Jesus, into the world in this way, God is saying that he loves us, all of us, including the weakest and most vulnerable of us, even those of us the world considers worthless. 

The story, of course, does not end here. The Christmas story is just one part of a much longer love story. This God-child grew up and preached the ongoing reconciliation of heaven and earth. This Jesus revealed the soft-spot in God’s heart for the marginalized of society – the poor, the sick and the suffering – and gave them a sense of their own dignity, no matter how desperate their situations. 

What does this incredibly loving God want from us for all this? What kind of response does God want to his incredible incarnation? In a nutshell, God wants to be involved in our lives in an intimate way. God wants nothing less than a love relationship. He wants to shower us with love and he wants us to love him back by trusting him, especially in time of doubt and sorrow. No matter how much we have been through, he wants us to know that he has “been there and done that” with us and that someday we will understand how it all fits together! 

My friends, on this Christmas Eve we gather again to celebrate the embrace of an incredibly loving God! So let us realize again tonight that, no matter whom we are, what we’ve done or failed to do, what we’ve been through or what we cannot seem to get over, we are being held right now in the embrace of God’s unconditional love. His name is Emmanuel, which means “God with us!” 

My friends, some of you reeling from incredible losses, some of you are hurting and some of you are sad to the core. I cannot take that away or make it all better this Christmas, but I do hope you know that the first Christmas was not all that merry either! For Mary and Joseph it was a time filled with fear, homesickness and disorientation. Just as the angels wrapped their wings around their pathetic situation, may the angels of God wrap their wings around you and your situation! I don’t know why some people suffer, but I do know that God loves us! In spite of the hard time you may be experiencing, I hope you know down deep that in giving us his Son, he has given us his heart!  

THE UPS AND DOWNS OF BEING BLESSED

 

Elizabeth cried out in a loud voice and said, "Blessed

 are you among women, Mary. Blessed are you who believed 

that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled."

Luke 1:39-4

Back when I was a young priest, about a hundred years ago or so, while I was associate pastor at St. Mildred Church in Somerset (Kentucky), I designed several large banners for the church. Banners were very popular back in the 1970s. The people seemed to appreciate most of them, but one of them raised more than one old lady's eyebrows. It pictured a very pregnant Mary, sitting in a rocking chair deep in meditation, her arms folded carefully over her swollen abdomen. I was trying to capture the words of the gospel in the Annunciation story: “Mary was deeply troubled by the angel's words and pondered what his greeting meant.” I tried to imagine Mary sitting there in her chair trying to figure out what her surprise pregnancy meant and where her life would lead. After all, she was an unwed mother in the eyes of the Jewish law of her day. Well, the banner was considered a bit blasphemous in the eyes of some of the very pious. l stood my ground and it went up every Advent while I was there. The people finally got used to it and many came to love it.

In the first chapter of Luke, Mary is called “blessed” no fewer than three times, once by the angel Gabriel and twice by her cousin Elizabeth in today’s text. “Blessedness” is not all it’s cracked up to be! It’s certainly not all peaches and cream, not by a long shot. Mary was granted the blessedness of being the mother of the Son of God. Because of the blessedness, her heart was filled with a mixture both joy and sorrow. It was almost as if she could smell a rat! Her blessedness became a sword piercing her heart. It would lead someday to seeing her son hanging on a cross, spit on and despised by a mocking crowd.

To be chosen and blessed by God has its ups and downs. It means great joy and it means great sorrow. Ask anyone who has ever had such a call from God! Ask Peter, Paul, John the Baptist, any of the martyrs, Theresa, Augustine, Joseph, Abraham and Sarah, Jeremiah, Jonah or Isaiah. Ask any of the millions of parents, priests and sisters – anyone who have been called by God for some special task. The raw truth is that God does not “choose” a person for ease and comfort, but to “use” that person for his special designs and purposes. To be “called” by God is a scary adventure. With that honor and privilege comes awesome responsibility. Nowhere can we better see the paradox of “blessedness” than in the life of Mary. She had the joy of being the mother of the Son of God but she also had to face the ridicule of her neighbors, the possibility of being abandoned by Joseph, the disappearance of Jesus for three days when he was a boy, the possibility that he had lost his mind when he was a young rabbi and, finally, his cruel and tortured death when he was a young man.

Mary was “blessed” alright. However, the gospels honor her not so much for her unique and privileged position as “mother” as for her total trust in God no matter what! “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” As the privileged mother we can admire her. As one who totally trusts God, in good times and bad, we can emulate her!

Like Mary’s “blessedness,” this holiday season will, no doubt, be a confusing mixture of joy and sadness. I have heard story after story of happy engagements, heroic generosity, new families being reunited, reconciliations among old enemies, beautiful celebrations and jobs found. I have also heard a lot of sad stories about unemployment, terrible sickness, old people in nursing homes who cannot die, broken marriages, family fights and auto accidents. In fact, for me, being “blessed” by God means being in a position to be able hear and absorb these stories. One minute I will get a letter from a parishioner who tells me how much closer he or she has drawn to God because of a homily I have given or something I have written; the next minute the phone rings telling mg me about a newly discovered cancer or upcoming surgery. One minute I am going to a Christmas party; the next minute l am on my way to a friend's funeral. One morning I am stopped by someone in the street who gushes with compliments about something I have done for them; by midafternoon I get a royal chewing out by someone else for something I have overlooked or forgotten. 

A priest’s life, much like a parent’s life, is often a blessed life and often a pain-filled life. Many of you parents have told me about one of your children who brought you so much joy as a child, but who now brings you so much pain as a young adult with their addictions and bad choices. The life of a priest and the life of a parent can often be very much alike. We can be forced into situations where we laugh one minute and cry the next, all in a day’s time!

Most evenings, when it all quiets down and I am alone with my thoughts, I like to just sit down in a big chair with my journal and wonder what it all means. Some evenings, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Like Mary in her rocking chair in that old Advent banner I designed years ago, I just sit and wonder what it all means and where it will all lead. Like Mary kneeling before the angel Gabriel, I am reminded of words like, “Do not fear,” “God is at work here," "trust God, believe in yourself and dare to dream.”

My friends, on this fourth Sunday of Advent, the church holds Mary up to us as a model of one who has complete trust in God - in good times and in bad, through thick and thin. Somehow, many of us have gotten the impression that problems, pain and disillusionment are signs of God's absence. Mary teaches us that all our confusing mixture of joy and sorrow is actually a sign of “blessedness,” a sign that God is indeed active in our lives and all our troubles can eventually be turned to good.

My friends, don't let Advent go by this year without a few minutes in a rocking chair with Mary, pondering what the events of your life mean. Advent is a time to renew our commitment to trust God no matter what, and patiently wait for insight into what it all means and direction on how to proceed! When we don't have answers is when we need to trust - to trust that God is in charge and that all things will eventually turn out for the good. 

"Blessed are we who have believed that what was spoken to us by the Lord will be fulfilled."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.   

 

SOME TIMELY ADVICE

copied from locally produced

THE NOTEBOOK

THOUGHTS, IDEAS & UPDATES FROM POPLAR TERRACE AND FRIENDS

Issue 43, November 2024

Thoughts on Finding Hope in Despair By Brene’ Brown

Despair is a claustrophobic feeling. It’s the emotion that says, “Nothing will ever change.” It’s different than anger or sadness or grief. Despair is twinged with hopelessness. People who subscribe to power-over leadership often weaponize despair. They count on people giving up on themselves, their work, and each other. I get it. I’m looking at people I know with suspicion. I’m questioning the value of my work. I’m wondering if courage, kindness, and caring for each other simply don’t matter anymore. I’m desperate for someone to blame because blame is an effective way to discharge pain and it gives us a sense of counterfeit control. The research shows that people hope is a powerful antidote to despair. What’s interesting, however, is that hope is not an emotion (C.R. Snyder). Hope is a cognitive-behavioral process. It’s about having a goal, a pathway to achieve that goal, and a sense of agency or “I can do this.” Right now, the thing that is helping the most is micro-dosing hope. I have no access to big hope right now, however, I am asking myself how I can support the people around me. The people on my team, in my community. How can I make sure that, in the maelstrom of my emotions, I stay committed to courage, kindness, and caring for others regardless of the choices that made by others? Doing the smallest next right thing is hard […] but sometimes it’s all we’ve got.

How will you stay committed to kindness?

In times of challenge, we have the power to choose how we engage with our communities. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve been reflecting on ways we can infuse a sense of lovingkindness, hopefulness, and hope back into our beloved city. It is as Brene’ Brown suggests: We must find the smallest, next right thing to do. “When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist Being a responsible and compassionate neighbor begins with listening and learning about the needs of those around you and staying open to how you can help. It also includes listening to and learning about yourself. What will you do to take care of you? And once you can offer that kindness to yourself, consider what can be done to lift up someone else who is struggling. Small actions for self-care: Go on a mindful walk, make a quick phone call to an old friend, pick up a book, visit a park, take a nap, turn off the TV one night a week, doodle, meditate, try a new recipe, try a new restaurant, reconnect in some small way to spirituality, go to the library for an hour, speak gently to yourself when you look in the mirror. Small actions for neighborly love: Strike up a chat in at the checkout line, donate unused or gently used resources, make eye contact and smile warmly, help someone with a small task like carrying in the groceries, volunteer for a cause you care about once a month, mentor a younger person interested in your hobbies or career, never let a compliment go unsaid. To keep moving forward with optimism and generosity, join us in learning, nurturing, and thriving at one (or all!) of the many inclusive and uplifting events happening across town. Let’s continue to cultivate a community built on hope, kindness, and mutual support. We can do this—together.