DOING YOURSELF A FAVOR

   

A wound can be bandaged and an insult forgiven.

Sirach 27:21 

I read that Amazon.com lists more that 165,000 books on the topic of forgiveness. That’s more than 32,000 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 spinelessness 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 55 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 someone who had wronged me over the years. I finally realized that taking offense is just as toxic as giving offense.

THE DESPERATELY NEEDED VISION OF POPE FRANCIS

THANK YOU POPE FRANCIS! MAY YOU REST IN THE PEACE OF CHRIST! 

 

A BREAKDOWN BEFORE A BREAKTHROUGH

 

They have taken the Lord from the tomb and we don’t know where they put him.

John 20:9

Obviously, none of Jesus’ friends expected him to rise from the dead. In fact, they all assumed the grave had been robbed and the body had been snatched. Once the news gets out that the body was missing, everybody in today’s gospel runs around like chickens with their heads cut off! The word “ran” is used three times in this one story. It sounds like a typical Easter Sunday morning at our small house when I was growing up in a family of eight - chaos as far as the eye could see! If you are here with a bunch of kids you got ready for church today, you know what I mean! 

Mary Magdalen got there first, not because she expected Jesus to rise and wanted to be there when it happened, but because she wanted to do what was traditional to do after the burial of a loved one. It was customary to visit the tomb of loved ones for three days after the body had been laid to rest. It was believed that for three days the spirit of the dead person hovered around the tomb, but then it departed because the body had become unrecognizable through decay in that hot climate. 

Jesus had died on Friday. By religious law, Mary Magdalen would not have been allowed to travel on Saturday, the Sabbath. That meant she had to wait till Sunday morning before she could make her first visit. She couldn’t wait till the sun came up so she got there before dawn. When she arrived at the tomb, she was shocked to find that the stone had been rolled back and the body was missing! She concluded that the grave had been robbed so she ran back to town and got Peter and John out of bed. All three ran back to the tomb together. John, being younger, outran Peter and got there first, with Peter soon following out of breath.  Before Mary Magdalen could catch up with them on her way back to the empty tomb, Peter and John ran past her on their way back to town to tell the others.

One by one, his disciples began to believe that Jesus had indeed been raised from the dead, beginning with John and ending with Thomas. From their mouths to others’ ears, from their mouths to others’ ears, from their mouths to others’ ears, this story has been passed down to us some 2,000 years later and here we are gathered today to celebrate what we have just heard in St. John's account of the resurrection!

Yes, this is the Easter story, but what does it mean and what does it have to do with us?

The point of Easter is not simply that life is sometimes troubling and difficult but that, by its very design, it needs to be troubling and difficult. This is because it is not ease but affliction that enables us to develop our very best. Those who grow the most are simply the ones who have weathered the most, endured the most, and struggled the most. Because such trials have been borne in the right spirit, they have been strengthened, enriched, and deepened the most by it. Think about any of the heroes and heroines of the faith, and one will always identify persons for whom hardship, sacrifice, and pain are no strangers. All breakthroughs are usually proceeded by a big breakdown. No pain, no gain! No cross, no crown! 

In short, we must view this death and resurrection not merely as just another historical event from the distant past, but as a life-giving way of living today. We are not here today to celebrate this death and resurrection as an event that just happened once in history, but death and resurrection as a way of living our lives today.

People in recovery programs understand death and resurrection as a way of life. People who have unilaterally forgiven their enemies understand death and resurrection as a way of life. Parents who have had to let go of their children and see them thrive, understand death and resurrection as a way of life. Anybody who has lost a job, only to find a better one understands death and resurrection as a way of life. Anyone who has lost a spouse, only to find another chance at love, understands death and resurrection as a way of life.

This Easter is special to me personally. Several times in the last 55 years of priesthood, I have gone from one of the worst years of priesthood to one of the best. The year I retired, I was in the pits. I knew I was in the pits, but I also knew in my guts that, if I would just hang in there, things would get better – and they did, in spades! It has happened at least three times just since I retired. For me, my breakdowns have always preceded the beginning of yet another amazing breakthrough! I am not that special! Whatever breakdown you are going through right now, with an Easter faith, could be a breakthrough for you as well! You can bet on it!

I always remember that engineer in Switzerland who designed a great tunnel between Switzerland and Austria. I have told the story often because it is so appropriate for today. He proposed they dig from both ends and meet in the middle, a risky method. When the day came when diggers were supposed to meet but didn’t, he killed himself thinking that he had made a great mistake. On the very day of his funeral, the workers broke through and the connection was perfect! He gave up one day too soon! An “Easter faith” means that you don’t give up, no matter how hopeless things seem to be at the moment. 

In a nutshell, we are here to celebrate a way-of-living, not just an historical event! By embracing difficulty, we can overcome it. After a lifetime of embracing difficulties and overcoming them, we can finally embrace our own deaths knowing that there is eternal life on the other side of that!  Just as Jesus was raised, we who believe in him will also be raised - to live with him and each other forever!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP" 2025 #16

 

FATHER WHO? FATHER WHAT? FATHER WHEN? FATHER WHY? FATHER HOW? 

This year is the 55th anniversary of my First Mass at St. Theresa Church down in Rhodelia, Kentucky. I thought it might be a good opportunity to recall some of my favorite situations where my priesthood was called into question. Almost all of them took place in my first 10 years when I was stationed down along the Tennessee border where Catholics make it one-tenth of one percent of the population. 

Disapproval for what I had become came very soon after my ordination. At one of the receptions, either after my ordination or after my First Mass, I was confronted by a young woman who asked how many years I had gone to school to be a priest. When I answered, "Counting  eight years of grade school, four years of high school, four years of college and four years of theology studies, I guess you could say twenty years altogether!"  She took a step back and responded, "My God, you could have been something!" Obviously, she was thinking "doctor" or "lawyer" or "scientist" - the professions that really "count?"

----

Not too long after I arrived in the southern part of the state, I went to a barbershop to get a haircut. It was my day off and I was dressed "down" as they say. Like most people in that area, he was curious about this stranger sitting in his barber chair. It didn't take him long to ask the "big" question, "What do you do? I took a deep breath and answered "Catholic priest." He was obviously taking his time thinking about how to respond. Then he asked his second question which surprised me. Instead of questioning me about why I was Catholic, he asked, "Was your father a priest too?" Obviously, he knew very little about "priests" so I decided to give him my short answer. I simply said, "Oh, I hope not!" He didn't "get it" so we moved on to other topics, leaving him still trying to understand what I just said!  

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Not too long after I settled in the the southern part of the state, I took 12-15 young adults from the parish to one of the Lake Cumberland's local beaches. As we got in and out of the water and interacted with each other, the young adults were calling "Father this" and Father that!" Not being used to having priests in that area, this caused a woman not far away to come over and ask about the young adults who were calling me "Father," "Excuse me sir, but you look very young! Just how many kids do you have, anyway?" 

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In a few years down there, I volunteered to do some campus ministry at Somerset Community College. I was probably reaching more non-Catholic students than Catholic students. Once in a while, they would come by the rectory and ring the doorbell looking for me. One day, one of them came by and rang the doorbell. Instead of me, answering the door, the other associate pastor answered. This caused the young man who came looking for me to panic. He had a momentary lapse of memory and in his panic, he could not recall my name "Father Knott." Instead, he asked to see "Father Bump!" 

----

So many of the students down there had grown up with Protestant warnings about Matthew 23:9 that said you should "call no one your father."  They were comfortable calling their male parents "father," but they were reluctant to call a Catholic priest "Father." As I result, I was given the nickname "Pad," which is short for "Padre!" To this day, over 55 years later, some of the people down in that area of the state still address me in their Christmas cards and texts "Pad."  Others addressed me as "Reverend," "Brother" or "Preacher." 

COMING SOON

A COLLECTION OF SATURDAY BLOG POSTS FOR 2025

DEDICATION

To Fergal Redmond, my good friend from Ireland and fellow-missionary volunteer in the Caribbean country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, with whom I have enjoyed many good laughs, several memorable successes, a few mishaps and lots of gin and tonics.

A Companion To My 2018 Humor Collection 

I JUST HAD TO LAUGH: available already from Amazon Books

use this link 

ronknottbooks.com 

EXTRAVAGANT LOVE

 

Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil

made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed

the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair.

John 12:1-11

Jesus had a large circle of friends, both men and women. On the fifth Sunday of Lent, we got an inside glimpse at three of those friends: Martha, her sister Mary and their brother Lazarus from the little town of Bethany, on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It was that special place in the life of Jesus where he and his disciples could stop in, get some rest, enjoy a good meal and then go on their way!

If you pay attention to the details of John’s gospel story about Martha, Mary and Lazarus, you soon realize just how close Jesus was to these people. Martha was the famous extrovert who complained from her kitchen about getting some help. Mary was that famous introvert who would rather sit in the living room with the men and listen to Jesus talking. It was this Mary, in today’s gospel, who kissed Jesus’ feet in public, rubbing them with perfumed oil and drying them with her hair. You must be pretty close to do that, not to mention a woman doing that in public!

Sunday before last, we read down the text and saw how John underlined, again and again, just how intimate these friends were with Jesus. Here’s what it says: “Lord, the one you love is sick.” “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus very much.” “See how much he loved him!” They are even so close that both of these women can “chew him out” and get away with it: “Lord, if you had been here, (meaning if you had not dilly-dallied around so long) my brother would never have died!” Remember the text told us that Jesus had delayed two days after he heard that Lazarus was sick!  And finally, seeing Mary weep, we are told that “Jesus began to weep,” too.  What we have here is a continuation of that story of intense love colliding with intense stinginess.

Mary may not have been a good cook or a hopeless extrovert like her sister Martha. Mary may not have been the head of the household or the subject of a great miracle like her brother Lazarus, but her dramatic all-in gestures of love for Jesus were breath-taking! Let’s compare her full-throated gestures of love with the narrow minded and self-serving reactions of Judas and the religious authorities. 

First, we see Mary’s extravagant love. She gave the most precious thing she owned – a vial of very expensive ointment. Second, we see her humility. It would have been a great honor to anoint the head of Jesus, but out of humility, she anointed his feet. Third, we see a total lack of self-consciousness. After anointing them with perfumed oil, she dries them with her own hair. At the time of Jesus, no respectable woman would appear in public with her hair unbound. It was the sign of being an immoral woman. Mary loved Jesus so much that she did not care, or even notice, what others thought about it.

Then we have Judas. Judas ungraciously questioned her action as sheer waste and then hiding his flawed self-serving nature behind the excuse that it “could have been given to the poor” while he himself was guilty of regularly stealing from the poor. Jesus probably knew at this point that his days were numbered. He accepted Mary’s lovely other-focused gesture of generous love. He exposed the hypocrisy of Judas who turned this loving gesture into a story about his own greediness!

Finally, for the religious leaders who were there, it was a chance to “check out both Jesus and Lazarus.” From there they plotted not only to kill Lazarus, but also Jesus, because they were drawing followers from their ranks. Like Judas, they were filled with self-serving stinginess, while Mary was filled with other-serving love. 

 

 

 

 

 

PALM SUNDAY

 

Picture it! Jerusalem 32AD! Things were crowded and tense in Jerusalem when Jesus arrived for the Passover. It was worse than Derby Day in Louisville the year cruising was outlawed on Broadway! Jesus; popularity with the masses had reached fever pitch. The jealousy of religious leaders had reached the boiling point! The government’s worry bordered on paranoid.  The whole city was on edge that year! 

Everyone in authority, as well as Jesus himself, knew that his arrival in the city under these circumstances smacked of a showdown. Everybody seemed to know that the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem during the Passover could set off a riot!

When the great crowd that had come to the feast

heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they

took palm branches and went out to meet him,

throwing their coats on the road.

Palm waving and the throwing of coats on the road was not just some spontaneous gesture of welcome. These two actions had serious political overtones. People threw their coats on the road when a new king arrived to ascend his throne and palm waving was a symbol of Jewish nationalism akin to a rebel flag.  Even though the people had tried to make Jesus a king, in hopes that he would be the one to throw the hated Romans out of their land, Jesus had said “no” on more than one occasion to being the political revolutionary they wanted.  This was one of the temptations presented to Jesus in the desert even before he began his ministry. With the crowds in that frame of mind, no wonder the Roman authorities were nervous about the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem that day!

In response to the people’s misguided reception as some kind of political revolutionary, Jesus deliberately came into the city, not in a chariot pulled by white horses, but on the back of a jackass. By choosing that kind of animal, the animal of the poor, Jesus made the statement that he did not come with political power, but with spiritual power! The people just didn’t want to hear it. They wanted a powerful Jewish king and so this symbol of humility simply went over their heads!

Palm Sunday has a lot to teach the Church, even today! My friends, our power is not to be found in political power, no matter how many preachers still try to snuggle up to politicians even today. Our power is even more powerful than political power. Empires and kingdoms have come and gone, but Christianity is still around. We have spiritual power – the power of Jesus himself! Now we only need to own it and unleash it for the good of the world!  We have Pope Francis leading us there! The less worldly power he claims, the more powerful he becomes!  

"YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP" 2025 #15

HOW VICIOUS RUMORS GET STARTED

Back in the days when we were remodeling the Cathedral of the Assumption in downtown Louisville, we had to dig under the foundation on the back corner to stabilize the walls do that we could add a sacristy, a chapel and a dining room for the homeless, we had a horrible crack develop that almost brought down the whole building in a pile of rubble. 

I remember standing on Muhammad Ali Street watching little puffs of smoke coming from the brick wall as it cracked around the big window of the Assumption. It started at the top, went around the side and under the window and all the way to the ground before it stopped. Along with the puffs of smoke coming from the cracking brick work, there was that low crunching sound that remined me of the sound of a dentist pulling a tooth! 

It took the whole city, practically, to the rescue the situation and hold the building together with steel beam bracing and quickly poured concrete. They ended up having to take down over 22,000 home-made bricks around the window and relay them. That left a huge hole in the wall around the big window. You could stand in the center isle of the church and see several high rises behind it all at one time! 

During all this, one of our local radio comedians, had a sketch on his morning program entitled, "I hear they are doing "crack" behind the Cathedral on Fifth Street!" ("Crack," of course, is also a free base form of cocaine that can be smoked!) I was not offended by his humor. It actually broke the fever of so much stress that had been building around the "cracked wall!"    

THE SIN OF PROJECTION

 

                            GIVEN AT LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR HOME 4-7-2027

When the old men saw her enter every day for her walk, they began to lust for her. They suppressed their consciences; they would not allow their eyes to look to heaven, and did not keep in mind just judgments.

Daniel 13: 1-9, 15-17, 19-30, 33-62

Projection, in a psychological sense, refers to the act of attributing one's own thoughts, feelings, or motives to another person. In a biblical context, projection can be understood as a form of self-deception or misjudgment, where individuals may ascribe their own faults or intentions to others, often leading to misunderstanding and conflict.

While the Bible does not explicitly use the term "projection," the concept can be seen in various narratives and teachings. One notable example is found in our first reading today. Two old men, who were officially judges of other people, used to visit the house of the rich man Joakim and his wife Susanna. They noticed that Susanna liked to walk in the garden alone every day. After lusting after her and her refusal to give into them, they project their own sins onto her and accuse her of adultery. The story ends with them being trapped in their own lies.

Projection can lead to false judgments and accusations, which are cautioned against in Scripture. Jesus teaches about the dangers of judging others without self-reflection: "Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?" (Matthew 7:3). This teaching underscores the importance of self-awareness and humility, encouraging believers to examine their own hearts before casting judgment on others.

Projection is closely related to self-deception, where individuals fail to recognize their own faults. Jeremiah 17:9 states, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" This verse highlights the human tendency to deceive oneself, which can manifest as projection.

Projection often leads to hypocrisy, where individuals criticize others for faults they themselves possess. Jesus warns against this behavior, particularly among religious leaders, as seen in Matthew 23:27-28 : "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of impurity."

While the Bible does not directly address the modern psychological concept of projection, its teachings on self-awareness, judgment, and humility provide a framework for understanding and overcoming this tendency. Through introspection and reliance on God's wisdom, believers can strive to align their perceptions and actions with biblical truth.

some ideas borrowed from BIBLE HUB

LIVING ALONE AND LOVING IT

I love being "with people," but I love "being alone" as well.  I always laugh to myself when people let me know, sometimes not so subtly, that they feel sorry for me for "never having married" or "having to live alone!" I chalk it up to them never having experienced what I experience, so I just laugh to myself and let it slide!  I do know one thing for sure. I could never write homilies or publish a blog if I had to live in a noisy house! I have also learned that I need to be "away from people" so as to be able to enjoy "being with people." I guess you would say that I am a true "introvert," one who gains the strength he needs to be "with people" by withdrawing for a while "from people." 

I know there are priests who fear living alone and want and need to live with other priests. Personally, I have known for a long time that I do not want to end up living in a house with other old priests! There is nothing wrong with wanting that, but personally it sounds too much like "seminary warmed over" to me! 

One can never know just how one will "end up," but I have tried to plan as best as I can for my senior years since I was first ordained. I bought my first house in 1975. It cost $6,500.00. I had $2,500.00 in Christmas Club money that I had saved over five years and borrowed the rest. I remember being so worried about how I was going to pay off a $4,000.00 loan. My salary back then was $90.00 a month with room and board. My long-term goal was to fix-up and flip houses until I owned a house in which I could retire. I reached my goal a few years ago. I have flipped seven houses over the last forty years and ended up in a paid-off two-level condo. 

The people who sold my condo to me called the downstairs level a "mother-in-law suite." One of their mother's lived separately downstairs. It has it's own kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, large living room, walk-in closets and a deck.  I bought it precisely because it was actually two small condos connected. I wanted to anticipate the day I would need a caretaker close, but not sharing the same space with me.  I had even bought an in-home health care policy when I was fifty to pay my care-taker who would be living downstairs.  

In my experience, extroverts seem to pity introverts while introverts seem to pity extroverts.  However, "One size does not fit all!" Rather than force everyone into one type of living arrangement, we just need to have several options. As far as priests go, if that is to happen new priests will have to plan for it and work for it starting when they are first ordained or else inherit it or win the lottery! When I was teaching soon-to-be priests at St. Meinrad, every year I would give each of them $100 to open an IRA to start saving for retirement with the this warning. "Do not trust the Church to take care of you in your old age! It is "supposed to," but what if it has so little money that it "can't? Give yourself some options!" 

One can never know just how one will "end up," but I have done some home-work and I hope that I can use the options I have prepared or at least be able to adapt to unforeseen changes as they come!  

LOOK WHO'S TALKING!

  

Let the one among you who is without sin

be the first to throw a stone at her. In response

they walked away one by one,

beginning with the elders.

John 8

Like many people today, I have had more than one job. I grew up milking cows, feeding chickens, herding pigs and loading lumber. I once loaded semi-trucks at a pickle factory. I have been a groundskeeper at a hospital, an orderly in an emergency room, a house painter, a garbage truck driver, a desk clerk, a bar tender and a campground minister for the United Church of Christ in Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. As a priest, besides being a pastor of several parishes, I used to write for THE RECORD every week for 15 years. I served as one of the trustees on the J. Graham Brown Foundation Board here in Louisville, making large monetary grants to charitable and educational organizations all over the state. I traveled all over this country and nine other countries giving retreats to priests, bishops and seminarians. I was a campus minister at Somerset Community College down in southern Kentucky and here at Bellarmine University. I developed a major continuing education program, did spiritual direction, built a teaching kitchen and coffee shop and taught classes at Saint Meinrad Seminary over in Indiana. I have published a few books, renovated several houses, and in retirement, renovated my old grade school and unused rectory down in Meade County into a new Family Life Center and Guest House. I was a volunteer in the Caribbean Missions for several years. Right now, I am sponsoring a seminarian in Tanzania and trying to finish building a church in Kenya. After all that, you might say that "I've never been able to hold a job!" 

One of the last jobs I had over at Saint Meinrad Seminary, before I retired, was to teach two classes a week to the guys who were about to be ordained priests in the spring. That class was entitled "The Transition Out of the Seminary and Into Pastoral Ministry." We covered most of the issues they would face in their first several months. Some have compared their transition out of the seminary and into parishes to that of leaving home, graduating from school, beginning a career, getting married and starting a family - but all at once. Some things we covered were of a very practical nature, like paying taxes and starting a saving plan for retirement, while other things were more psychological like dealing with the grief of going off and leaving their seminary friends after many years and the anxiety of entering a strange new community of people as a new priest.

One of the important subjects we covered was "how to enter a parish." I spoke of things like going in and establishing trust and building a bond with people before they even thought about correcting people from the pulpit. It seemed that some priests just couldn’t wait to get ordained so they could condemn other people’s sins! I spoke specifically about how unwise it is for them to say things in a homily like "you people" and how much better it is to say things like "we sinners." I warned them specifically about obsessing about condemning sexual immorality all the time. In my book, doing that always says more about the people doing the condemning than those they condemn!

This is exactly the issue Jesus dealt with in today's gospel – a bunch of salivating religious fundamentalists who just couldn’t wait to have a poor woman stoned to death for committing adultery!  The last time I checked, it takes two to commit adultery. Since the text says she had been “caught in the very act of committing adultery,” I have always wondered where the man was and why they were not as eager to stone him! This story has three scenes. Let's look at them one at a time.

(1)The religious authorities drag a poor woman into an open area where Jesus was teaching and make her stand there humiliated. She had just been caught in adultery. Yes, she was obviously used in the committing of adultery, but the religious authorities were also using her themselves - this time to trap Jesus in his speech so they could have something for which to condemn him! They thought they had a perfect trap because, on one hand, if he was too lenient, they could say "Aha! See! He teaches something different from Moses who told us that such women were to be stoned to death!" That could get him labeled as a heretic. If he were to be in favor of stoning her, then they could say on the other hand, "Aha! See! He is not as merciful and forgiving as he has been saying he is!" That would turn the crowds against him!

(2) In the second scene, Jesus realizes that they are using her to set up a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" trap for him, so he doesn't answer one way or another! Instead, he just stoops down and writes on the ground with his finger. What was he writing? No one knows, but some say he was simply making a list of their sins in the dirt. Once he had written his list of their sins, he stands up and says to those who were so anxious to stone the poor woman, "Let the one among you has never sinned yourself be the first to throw a stone at her!" With that he stooped down again and continued to add to his list of their sins.

(3) Jesus did not have to say much after that because her condemners began to drop their heads, to drop their rocks, and to drop out of the crowd one-by-one. It even says, "They walked away, one by one, beginning with the older ones." I suppose the longer we live, the more sins we commit. This leaves Jesus and the poor woman there alone. He stands up and says to her, "Neither do I condemn you! Go, and don't commit this sin again!" 

By saying that, Jesus does not wink at the seriousness of the sin committed, he merely means that we would all be better off if we spent more time being outraged at our own sins and less time being outraged by the sins of others. Rather than focusing on the woman's sin alone, by his actions Jesus simply says that everybody that day was in need of forgiveness. Jesus offered the grace and mercy of God to all equally - scribes, Pharisees, the woman, all who witnessed this event and all of us who have heard it read aloud again today.

Fellow Catholics! Jesus spoke to us often about judging others. He told us not to judge, lest we be judged. He told us not to go around looking for specs of sin in other people eyes when we have a 2 X 4 sticking out of our own and that we need to remove that 2 X 4 first. He told us that the measure we use to measure others will be used to measure us! He told us to forgive and we will be forgiven. He told us that all we can see are externals and only God can see into the heart! Sin is real! Sin is destructive - to ourselves and to others! We need, each of us, to become as outraged about our own sins as we do the sins of others.

When I taught young priests of tomorrow, some of whom were so anxious to get out there and condemn sin, I would tell them a story from my early priesthood that I am reminded of every time I read this gospel. There was a radio preacher in the area where I worked who loved to be on the radio to rant and rave about "sexual promiscuity in our culture today." He even went so far as to host a huge bon fire in front of his church one Saturday where he invited people to bring what he called their “dirty magazines, obscene clothing and other filth." The fire that day was huge. The following Monday, he ran off with the church's teenaged organist! As Shakespeare said. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks!" Personally, I have always preferred how Billy Graham put it when he said, "It's the Holy Spirit's job to convict, God's job to judge and my job to love."

Fellow Catholics! With what's left of this Lent, let us examine our own consciences, let us resolve to let go of our own sinful ways, let us rely on the mercy and compassion of God and let us offer that same mercy and compassion to our fellow believers who have also sinned!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP" 2025 #14

 

MY TIME AS A DESK CLERK, BARTENDER AND WINE STEWARD  

In the summer of 1968, when I was working at Crater Lake National Park in Oregon as part of the United Church of Christ's "A Christian Ministry in the National Parks" program for seminary students, I had a paying job in the main Lodge - several paying jobs in fact. My main job was the night desk clerk. Because I was 24 and most of the other student workers were under 21, I was a fill-in for the bartender in the bar and wine steward in the dining room. 

As the night desk clerk, I had to check people in who came late, answer the phone for calls from the rooms and be a guard over the front door. There was a "snack rack" at the desk where people could buy late night snacks. I am sure the Lodge lost money on that enterprise because every time I turned my head or got distracted by a phone call, the other student workers would steal candy bars and bags of peanuts and pretzels by the hands full. I never got blamed because I don't think anyone ever took an inventory of the situation. 

One night, a couple arrived late for their reservation which they had guaranteed. I helped them take their luggage up the steps (no elevator) to the third floor. I put the key in the door of their room and turned on the lights. I heard a young woman and a young man dive under the covers and yell out it shock! I quickly, turn off the lights and shut the door. I told the couple that I must have read the room number wrongly. I apologized and we went back downstairs and found another room for the night. What actually happened was two of the student workers, thinking the room had not been bought, decided to "occupy" it for their own entertainment! I said nothing and they said nothing the next day!

The only real "disaster" that summer was the night some parents brought their little girl in the front door who had been "slapped" by a bear. She had opened the camper door to go to the nearby bathroom and the light scared a bear who was prowling right outside. The light scared the bear and so he slapped at the light and his claws drew several lines down her neck from her ears to her chest! Her clothes were soaked with blood. Her parents were screaming and holding her out toward me and looking at me to "do something." I really did not know what to do, but call the Park Ranger Station to come get her and take her to the hospital or at least offer first aid! It was so cold that night that the blood had quit flowing from her multiple scratches. The coldness made it coagulate. The Park Rangers got there in a few minutes and took her and her parents away - supposedly to the hospital. 

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In the dining room, my job was to filet a cooked trout at the table. I learned how to remove the skeleton of a trout in one piece. Another of my jobs was to open bottles of wine and champagne bottles for special occasions.  I knew how to uncork a wine bottle, but I knew nothing about opening champagne bottles. I remember clearly my very first effort at table side. It was the couple's anniversary. I stood near the table, not paying attention to where I was pointing the bottle, easing the cork out with my thumb. All of a sudden the cork came out and hit the woman in her temple with a loud pop! One of the waiters came rushing over to tell me that I needed "to always put a white towel over the cork when opening champagne!" The woman was very gracious about the catastrophe and the man did not insist on suing the Lodge for my mistake, but I learned an important lesson that I remember every time I open a champagne bottle!  

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As a bartender, I was what you would call "definitely untrained." I knew so little that I had to read the book discretely placed under the bar and out of sight each time I mixed a drink. People knew I was a student and so sometimes they would tell me what they wanted and how to mix it. I am sure they got more liquor in their drink than I was supposed to pour, but nobody mentioned it out loud. 

I especially remember an older woman who sat at the bar on a bar stool so she could talk and enjoy one martini after another. At some point, I thought she was getting to her "limit" so I prepared myself to say "enough!" As she started on the "last" martini I served her, she tried to drink it all with one sweep! She leaned forward at first and then started to lean back, but continued to lean back until she fell completely backwards and onto the floor! She got up, brushed herself off, wiped her lips with a cocktail napkin and said "thank you very much" as she disappeared waddling up the steps to her room! 

On my last night as a fill-in bar tender, there was a "tradition" that I did not know about! To celebrate the occasion, bartenders had to consume a famous "Volcano" drink which consisted of a jigger of everything in the bar! I am not much of a drinker, beyond a gin and tonic maybe once a month, but I was not about to break a sacred Crater Lake "tradition." It was a nasty drink, but I did finish it. As I was finishing it, I could feel my limbs going numb so I timed myself to head to my room as soon as I could finish. 

I started up the steps. I made it up to the second floor. As I started up the steps to the third floor I was using my hands to reach for the steps until I reached the third floor. By the time I reached the fourth floor, I was on my hands and knees. Having reached the fourth floor where the student workers lived, I crawled down the hallway to my room and pulled myself up by the doorknob and fell into my bed. I don't remember the rest of the night, but I certainly woke up with one gigantic headache the next day! 

I found out that day that I had earned the right to have my name engraved on the bar's "hero plaque" for finishing a "Volcano!" I guess you can say that that was the last time I have been called a "traditionalist" - right there in a national park bar back in 1968! 

MY SIX SIBLINGS

 

EASTER 1958?

FRONT ROW L to R: Nancy Louise, Lois Ann and Catherine Marie (Kaye) who died a few years ago of a brain tumor. 

BACK ROW L to R: James Ronald, Brenda Jean and William Gary

In 1958, my youngest brother, Mark Anthony, had not been born yet. He was born June 2, 1961 while I was in minor seminary at St. Thomas Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.  

Yesterday, he found out that he had just escaped a major health crisis - the second in his life. When my mother was pregnant with him, her doctor told her that she would almost certainly deliver a "dead fetus." He came out very much alive! He spent a few days in an incubator, but has been healthy ever since. 

He attributes this recent escape from a major health crisis at age 63 to the many prayers offered for him even by people he does not know. 

THE JONAH COMPLEX

    The Convenience of Playing Small

THE SIN OF WHAT WE HAVE FAILED TO DO

The word of the Lord came to Jonah: Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it; for their wickedness has come before me. But Jonah made ready to flee to Tarshish, away from the Lord. He found a ship, paid the fare, and went away from the Lord.

Jonah 1:1-3

In the first pages of the Bible, we are told that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. This mystery both triggers fear and fascination causing us to attempt to be more than we are or less than we are, but not fully who we are. As Abraham Maslow said, “We both crave and fear becoming truly ourselves.”

This is a very old problem. It goes all the way back to the story of Adam and Eve. According to that story, at the end of creation God, humans and the animals lived in harmony. They were interconnected and interdependent. As a colorful Baptist preacher said at one of my graduations, “In the beginning, God was happy being God. The animals were happy being animals. Human beings, however, have never been happy being human beings. They've wanted to be God one day and animals the next!” Because we are created in the image and likeness of God, we all have the chance to become our very best selves. We all feel something inside, a quiet “maybe” that is often silenced as quickly as it surfaces. We enjoy and even thrill before the godlike possibilities we see in ourselves and simultaneously shiver with fear before these very same possibilities. As a result, the overwhelming majority of people fail to achieve a life even close to what they are capable of achieving.  In face of their godlike possibilities, they let their fear of possibilities overpower their thrill of possibilities. Afraid of being different, afraid of being uncomfortable and unsafe, afraid of failure and ridicule, they give into their innate tendency towards mediocrity and conformity, even to the point of sabotaging their dreams for the sake of comfort and safety. However, if they deliberately settle on being less than they are capable of being, they will be deeply unhappy for the rest of their lives.

“We both crave and fear becoming truly ourselves.” I read recently that obesity is growing in our culture, but narcissism is grower even faster.

Narcissism is the term used to describe excessive vanity and self-centeredness. The condition was named after a mythological Greek youth named Narcissus who became infatuated with his own reflection in a lake. He did not realize at first that it was his own reflection, but when he did, he died out of grief for having fallen in love with himself. 

Narcissistic personalities are characterized by unwarranted feelings of self-importance. They expect to be recognized as superior and special, without necessarily demonstrating superior accomplishments. They exhibit a sense of entitlement, demonstrate grandiosity in their beliefs and behaviors and display a strong need for admiration which might explain a rise in bullying among the young.  

Some believe that our culture’s present narcissism epidemic, the fixation on indulging and exalting oneself, can be traced to the heyday of the self-esteem movement that baby boomer parents, teachers and media gurus promoted several years ago. Rather than stoking healthy self-confidence, as was their intent, such messages may be responsible for a decline in the work ethic and a growth in feelings of entitlement and inflated egos.

When narcissistic people talk about church attendance, they usually say things like “I don’t go because I don’t get anything out of it!” “I, I, I!” When they say things like that, they put themselves in the center of the picture. It’s all about them! Church attendance is really about giving, not getting. We go to Church to give God worship and praise! We go to learn to give and serve others!  

When narcissistic people talk about marriage, they talk about what it will do for them. They are like that woman in an old Guinness Book of Records with the most marriages. When she was asked about it, she said, “All I ever wanted was someone to love me!” No wonder she failed at it so many times. People who marry successfully get married to be love-givers, not love-getters! As Jesus said, “It is in giving that one receives!” Receiving is not a goal, but a by-product, of the marriage or ordination commitment. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “There are two sacraments directed toward the salvation of others: Holy Orders and Matrimony. Just as priests are not ordained for their own benefit, but for the benefit of those they serve, married people marry for the benefit of their spouses and their children.”

When narcissistic diocesan priests talk, they tend to focus on what the Church owes them, focus on the imagined privileges other priests have that they don’t have and even act out to stand out. They demand to be treated as special, even without demonstrating any special qualities.   

When narcissistic young people talk about what to do with their lives, they usually ask themselves “what do I want to do or what do I want to be” that will make me happy? The real question is not what do we want to do, but what is God calling us to do and be” that will lead us to happiness?  Jesus was right, “Those who seek to save their lives will lose them, while those who seek to give their lives away, will save them.”  Albert Schweitzer was right when he said, and narcissistic people will never get it, “The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found out how to serve.”

Pope Francis talks a lot about a “self-referential church,” in other words a narcissistic church. He says that when the Church does not look beyond itself, when it is always focused on itself, it gets sick. The Church is the moon and Christ is the sun. The Church exists to reflect the light of Christ to the world, not to live within herself, of herself and for herself. 

The other extreme to narcissism is self-deprecation or the minimization and devaluation of oneself. Humility is about accepting the truth about who we are, without exaggerating it or minimizing it. “Humility” comes from the Latin “humus,” meaning “earth.” “Humility” means “grounded.” A truly “humble” person, truly in touch with his strengths and weaknesses, neither inflates his worth nor devalues it. Humility is ultimately about truth.

It is this truth that Jesus spent his ministry trying to teach. He taught it to the religious leaders of his day who were so arrogant and self-inflated that they started out talking about God and ended up thinking they were gods. He taught it to the marginalized of his day who were so beaten down that they did not recognize their own goodness and the image of God within themselves.  All this is summarized so well in the Magnificat when Mary talked about the “mighty being pulled from their thrones and the lowly being lifted up from their dunghills.”

God has entrusted gifts to us to be used! When we do not use our gifts, even deny we have them, we neither serve God nor the people we are called to serve. Jesus told us that we are the light of the world, our light is not to be hidden, but shared with the world.  When they are shared, the credit is not to be absorbed by us as if we were the source of that light, but that credit is to be reflected back to God. Seeing our light, people are to give God the glory and praise.         

This is why I love that little sawed-off guy in the gospels, named Zacchaeus! He wanted to get a glimpse of Jesus coming down the road, but he was too short to see above the crowd! He could have said, "Oh, well, maybe next time," but he didn't. He found an alternative. We are told that he "ran ahead" and "climbed a sycamore tree"  alongside the road where Jesus would be passing by.  Because of his ingenuity and determination, Zacchaeus not only got to see Jesus,  but because Jesus was able to see Zacchaeus in the tree and because Jesus admired his determination, Jesus invited himself to Zacchaeus' house for dinner!

”Nothing stings like the realization of a missed opportunity, but what stings even more is the realization of a refused calling. In that arena, the prophet Jonah is a patron saint.

Jonah was called to preach to the people of Ninevah.  He considered himself a poor preacher on one hand and the Ninevites not worth saving on the other. To get away from his unwelcomed call, he went down to the docks and bought a ticket on the next ship sailing in the opposite direction from Ninevah. He thought he could outrun God!

In his version of a get-away-car, Jonah is pictured going to sleep in the bottom of his boat while a storm raged, a symbol today of “denial.” The psychologist Abraham Maslow calls such spiritual and emotional truancy the Jonah Complex: “The evasion of one’s own growth, the setting of low levels of aspiration, the fear of doing what one is capable of doing, voluntary self-crippling, pseudo-stupidity, mock humility.”

We are afraid of failure and success. A calling makes us wonder if we are good enough, smart enough, disciplined enough, educated enough, patient enough, and inspired enough. We manage our fear by “going to sleep,” “settling for too little” and “self-sabotage.”

The truth is this: all of us have answered “yes” in some areas and “no” in others. We both crave and fear becoming who we are called to be!

There is also the underlying fear of being seen by others as self-centered, arrogant, and living a life’s that extraordinary and hence unacceptable. Here we reserve a special kind of ridicule and resentment against those who are more successful or talented than the majority. We often punish our best talent and coddle mediocrity. There is a lot of pressure to conform, as mediocrity is granted more acceptance while giftedness often means being differentiated to the point of isolation, and standing out can mean getting shot down more easily because the target is clearer that way. It is understandable why many people would prefer succumbing to a simple life meeting their basic needs, and actually being rewarded by the institution for it, instead of battling it out in the bloody road towards self-actualization.

Thomas Merton was right, “The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.” Sometimes,  under mock humility, we set low aims for ourselves and call it virtue. The possibility of becoming remarkable shoots a thunderbolt of fear into many unremarkable people.  As the Confiteor says, maybe our biggest sin is not what we do, but what we fail to do! Michelangelo put it this way. “The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”