"YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP" 2025 #3

Last year, every Saturday I featured  a post called "Wisdom for 2024" This year, every Saturday, I will post a series of unusual personal experiences from the past under the title "You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up." Sometimes, names or locations will be changed or disguised to protect the guilty! Besides, I am retired! What can they do, fire me?

ODD TIMES FOR CONFESSIONS

I must confess something that I have told very few people. I went to Churchill Downs race track on my ordination day! After I was ordained, I knew I did not want to go down to my home parish that day because my mother, my sisters and my aunts would all be busy getting ready for my First Mass reception the next day. I also knew that all of those ordained with me would be busy doing their own thing with their families.  

I was stationed at St. John Vianney Church as a Deacon, which was close to the famous Louisville Churchill Downs race track, so I made plans to go there in order to have something to occupy my time! It wasn't like I would be going on a "honeymoon" or anything like they do after a wedding. 

I knew that I had just enough time to change clothes at the rectory and still have time to get there for the first race. When I got to the rectory, I was met by a crying woman who wanted to "go to confession." I looked around for one of the priests that lived there, but no one was to be found! Then it hit me! "You are a priest!" I don't remember much about it, but one thing! She said it had been fifty years! 

I panicked because I couldn't remember what I was supposed to do! I remembered that we practiced in class, but my mind went blank under the pressure. We did get though it, but I don't know who was more nervous, me or her! All I knew for sure was I was going to miss the first race! 

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Eleven years later, I remember another question about an inconvenient confession. I was a country pastor. I had gone to bed early and was sleeping upstairs.  About midnight, I heard a terrible noise that sounded like someone breaking through the front door of the rectory downstairs. I could hear a man talking to what I thought might be another man. I heard the first man say, "Let's try around back!" Without turning on the lights, I peaked out the window at the shadows of what might have been two men. I grabbed the phone and hid in the closet to call one of the neighbors. As I was looking up his number, the phone rang. Not wanting my intruders hearing the phone ringing, I answered it in a very low voice. It was a friend in Louisville. I whispered, "I can't talk to you now. I am being robbed!" Then I hung up and dialed my neighbor who arrived in minutes. He had a bright light and finally found my "intruder." It was not two men. It was a drunk man on a horse who wanted to "go to confession!" My neighbor talked him into going home and coming back "tomorrow." Relieved, I went back to bed, but I could not go back to sleep until I called my friend in Louisville and explained what had happened.

What scared me most was the story I had heard about one of the former pastors there who was robbed of what the robbers thought was the money he had on hand from a recent church picnic. The only problem was, the robbers picked the wrong church! The picnic was held at a neighboring parish. However, they tied the pastor and the housekeeper up, face-to-face, on one of the beds, made the pastor swallow the tobacco he was chewing and left them both there until somebody found them! And I thought I had a problem with my "late night confession" request!  

  

A NEW WAY OF SEEING

Given at the Little Sisters of the Poor - St. Joseph Home

January 6, 2025

 

When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea. From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Matthew 4:12-17

Details are important! Let’s set the stage. From his birth, Jesus had lived in Egypt and with his parents in Nazareth. He was drawn to the preaching of his fiery cousin, John the Baptist, and had allowed himself to be baptized by him. Coming up out of the water, we are told that the heavens opened and Jesus heard the voice of God say, “This is my beloved Son.” He heard the voice, but he did not know exactly what that meant. That question led him into the desert for a 40-day retreat.

On that retreat, he discerned what being “God’s son” would mean for his life. The three options are known to us as “the three temptations.” They all fall into one category – they all call for external change. Jesus realized that he could resort to performing magic tricks like turning rocks into bread. That would certainly attract followers. Jesus could resort to dramatic public stunts like leaping from tall buildings and being saved by angels at the very last minute. That too would attract followers. Jesus could resort to political power and let himself, as a result of all those showy events, be crowned a fabulous king. That would appeal to a whole lot of people. He rejects all of that stuff and left the desert with God’s answer deep within his heart and looked for an opportunity to announce it to the world.

Once he settled on the direction of his ministry, and upon hearing that John had been arrested, Jesus goes home to Nazareth, packs his bags and moves to Capernaum, a sea-side town. Today’s text tells us that Jesus, once settled in there, announces publicly for the first time the direction of the ministry given to him by God with these words: “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

During most of my early life, I operated out of the assumption that “life is something that happened to me and all that I could to do is to accept it and make the most of it.” Later, I operated out of the notion that I needed to crusade for various structures changes, believing that if I could change things around me, I would be happier. These days, because I took the time to reflect on the word “repent,” I now operate out of the belief, that with a changed outlook on my part, I can experience life differently, I can experience the church differently and I can even experience God differently, no matter what happens or fails to happen around me.

This insight came from my study of the very first word to come out of Jesus’ mouth as he begins his ministry. The word is metanoiete! Metanoiete, translated here as "repent," means a whole lot more than “to feel remorse for the bad things we have done.” What Jesus is really asking for here is not so much feelings of remorse as a radical change in how we see things and how we think about things. He calls for us to become radically new people through a change of heart, a change of attitude and a change of outlook!

The first time I can remember consciously changing the way I looked at things in my life was during my junior year of college seminary at Saint Meinrad. I was not very happy with my life. I was a “feverish little clod of grievances and ailments complaining that the world and the church would not get together and make me happy.” I was bashful, backward and scared, scared of people and scared of life. I wanted other people to change things so that I would be more comfortable. One day, I decided to reverse my thinking by facing my fears instead of running from them. With God’s help, I decided to grab my life by the horns and accept God’s help in making myself happy. In that great moment of conversion, I decided to do some serious changing myself, not wait for others to change and make me feel better. I shudder to think what my life might be today if God had not helped me change the way I looked at myself and the things going on in the world around me. I quit waiting for the world to change. I decided to change myself.

Here’s another example. I remember talking to a man many years ago. He had come to me about his daughter who was pregnant out of wedlock. He was disappointed and angry with her. He wanted to snub her, cut her out of the will and never speak to her again. My advice to him was simple: since he was powerless to change the situation, why not change his mind, the way he was looking at this new reality? Instead of running from it, why not turn and embrace it and see what wonderful things might come out of it? Because he was open to it, God was able to help him change his mind and see that unwanted situation in a new way. Today, he is on great terms with his daughter, helped her raise her baby and wouldn’t take anything for his prized granddaughter. If he had not be able to change the way he looked at the situation, they might be estranged today and still carrying that grudge would have made him a bitter old grandfather who knew he had disowned his own innocent granddaughter.

What is it for you? What is it about your personal outlook, cherished opinions and hardened perspectives that cause you to be constantly torn up and in need of correcting because you are waiting for others to change? Ask God to help you change the way you look at things and let God help you achieve a new way of thinking and a new way of seeing – beginning today! “It’s easier to put on slippers than carpet the world.” That means, for our own sanity, it’s a whole lot easier to change our minds, our outlook, our opinions than it is to try to change everybody else’s mind, outlook and opinion. You can go through life mad about something, or someone you don’t like, and be miserable or you can change the way you look at that situation or that person and live in peace! It’s up to you!

A WONDERFUL PRAYER TO SHARE WITH YOU FOR 2025

LEARNING CHRIST

St. John Henry Newman

 

Teach me, my Lord, to be sweet and gentle in all the events of life: in disappointments, in the thoughtlessness of others, in the insincerity of those I trusted, in the unfaithfulness of those on whom I have relied.

Let me put myself aside, to think of the happiness of others, to hide my little pains and heartaches, so that I may be the only one to suffer them. Teach me to profit by the suffering that comes across my path. Let me so use it that it may mellow me, not harden nor embitter me; that it may make me patient, not irritable, that it may make me broad in my forgiveness, not narrow, haughty and overbearing.

May no one be less good for having come within my influence. No one less pure, less noble for having been a fellow-traveler in our journey toward eternal life. As I go my rounds from one distraction to another, let me whisper, from time to time, a word of love to You. 

May my life be lived in the supernatural, full of power for good and strong in its purpose of sanctity. Amen.

THE BAPTISM OF JESUS

 

You know, after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

Acts of the Apostles. 10:34-38

 

Today, we celebrate the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River by his cousin, John, that led to the beginning of his ministry of "going about doing good," "healing those oppressed by the devil" and knowing that "God was with him."  

Today, we also remember our commitment to be a partner with Jesus in “going about doing good,” and “healing those oppressed by evil” and knowing that "God is with us!"  Most of us were baptized as infants. Our parents and godparents spoke for us and taught us by their examples to honor our baptismal commitments until we were able to personally take over the responsibility to live out our commitment - usually at our Confirmation. 

Since so many of us are being challenged these days about our practice of baptizing infants, today I thought it might be a good idea to do a little catechesis about the practice of infant baptism. 

Why do we baptize children? We baptize children because the practice of baptizing children has been a consistent tradition in the Church, both in the East and in the West, since the very beginning. It was challenged, of course, during the Protestant Reformation of the 16^th century when they broke from that practice and adopted the practice of what they called “believer baptism” for adults only. That was about 400 years ago. The practice of infant baptism precedes that change by about 1600 years.  

The Scriptures, of course, say very little about infant baptism because the New Testament Scriptures were written at a time when adult Jews and Gentiles were being converted to Christianity. However, there are several passages in Scripture where we are told that “whole households” were baptized. The stories about Stephanas, Cornelius, Lydia and the Philippian jailer are cases in point. The language of the New Testament was Greek and the word used when “whole households” were baptized is oikos which has traditionally included infants. There are no examples in secular or Biblical Greek of the word oikos being used which would restrict its meaning only to adults.   

Even more amazing are some of the extent writings outside the Scriptures. Hippolytus, in his manuscript “Tradition of the Apostles,” writing 1800 years ago, only about 100 years after the Gospel of John was written, describes, in detail, a typical baptism in 215 AD.  It is amazingly close in detail to what we still do today. Listen to his 1800 year old description of a baptism. 

At dawn a prayer shall be offered over the water. Where there is no scarcity of water the stream shall flow through the baptismal font or pour into it from above. If water is scarce, then use whatever water is available. Baptize the children first; and if they can speak for themselves, let them do so. Otherwise, let their parents or other relatives speak for them. Next baptize the men and last of all the women. 

It goes on to describe the anointings, the rejection of evil and the profession of the Creed.   Remember, he is describing the way baptisms were celebrated in the church 1800 years ago! 

What we do today is not very much different from what was done at baptisms very, very early in the church: rejection of sin, profession of faith, the pouring of water and the anointings for men, women and children in the presence of a congregation! 

Personally, I was baptized by my grandmother, a country midwife who had just delivered me, because I almost died in the process of childbirth. (Today is her 135th birthday!) I am told that I was taken to church later, not to be re-baptized, but to supply the official anointings and the other symbols that traditionally go with baptism. When Catholics receive new members into the church, it is important to remember that we are forbidden to re-baptize them, because we accept valid Protestant baptisms. Also, we already consider them members of the church. All they need to do is profess the Catholic faith as understood by our church. 

Let me point out a couple of things that are especially important in the baptismal ritual. 

(1)  The first question is about the name the parents have given to their child – a name of a saint to inspire him as he grows up. My parents chose the name "James," one of the apostles, brother of another apostle, "John." They chose the first name of my father who's was “James.” St. James is the only apostles whose martyrdom is recorded in the New Testament. (Acts 12:2) He and his brother, John, are nicknamed “Sons of Thunder” in two of the gospels, perhaps referring to their fiery personalities. St. James was beheaded by King Herod Agrippa in 44 AD. Sadly, this tradition of being named after a saint, is slowly being replaced by names like the weather, the seasons of the year, some natural phenomenon, a movie star or a musician. Sometimes, you have to talk them into adding a saint's name at the last minute or a derivative of a saint's name so they will have an example of how to heroically live the Christian life.  

(2) Even though parents and godparents “speak for the child” in infant baptisms, they are asked point blank, “Do you accept the responsibility of training the child in the practice of the faith?” The emphasis is on training the child in the practice of the faith! How sad it is when parents and godparents bring their children for baptism without themselves practicing the faith or being seriously committed to training the child they present for baptism in the practice of that faith! It can be an uncomfortable moment while they publicly renew their own baptismal vows with no intention of living them!   

(3)  When the child is anointed on the chest, with a prayer, that he will be protected from evil, that comes from the world of Roman wrestling. Before a wrestler entered the ring, he was completed smeared with oil so that his opponent could not get a secure grip on him. The early church thought that was a great outward sign that the new Christian would not be overcome by evil and evil could not get a grip on him.  

(4)  Those being baptized are baptized into a “community of believers.” We will all hopefully be models of faith for him or her, practicing what we believe. Therefore, we are all given a chance to renew our profession of faith and our own baptismal commitments.

(5)  When the child is anointed on the top of the head with the perfumed oil called chrism, the same oil used in the coronation of kings and queens of old (England’s Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III were anointed with chrism at their coronations) and used even today to anoint the hands of priests when they are ordained, poured on the heads of bishops when they are consecrated and used to anoint the baptized at Confirmation, they are designated as royal children of God,  royal heirs to his kingdom and sent as ambassadors of Christ to the world.

(6)  The baptized were dressed in a white garment to wear and their old clothes burned symbolizing their new life in Christ. If you saw a person on Roman streets in the early days dressed in a white robe, you might assume that they were newly baptized.    

(7)  Most baptisms took place early in the morning in a place separate from where the Eucharist was celebrated – maybe a stream. They would need a light to walk that path – probably a torch. The symbol of a candle was adopted to remind the new Christian that he would need the light of Christ to walk in the dark world. The words used when a lighted candle, taken from the big Christ candle, is handed to the parents is quite pointed. “Your child has been enlightened by Christ. He or she is to walk always as a child of light. This light is temporarily entrusted to you to be kept burning brightly. We pray that, someday, he or she will still be carrying that light himself when he goes out to meet Christ along with all the saints.” 

(8)  Finally, my fellow baptized members of the church, we will have a chance to remember our baptisms every Sunday when we dip our fingers in holy water font and sign ourselves with the sign of the cross. It’s a “little baptism.” Finally, when we are brought to church for our funerals, our caskets will be sprinkled with water from the baptismal font and our caskets will be covered in a white baptismal pall – recalling our baptisms.  

(9) We completed our initiation into the church by celebrating our Confirmation and First Communion. In the early church, all three of these “Initiation Sacraments” were given at one time, even to children. The Eastern Orthodox Churches still carry on that ancient practice today. In the Roman Catholic Church, in the West, they are normally separated from Baptism over a few years – traditionally at @ 7 years of age for Eucharist and @13 for Confirmation.

I suppose the last, and most important point of our baptisms is the fact that we are “commissioned for ministry,” become "ambassadors" for Christ,” and sent into our world so that we can “go about doing good,” “healing those oppressed by evil” and showing others that "God is with us!"