"YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP" 2025 #5

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?

 

I ONCE HAD A DOG WHO WAS SO SMART THAT HE COULD READ AND TELL TIME

I had never owned a pet until I was talked into taking an English Sheep Dog, named "Bear" back in the mid 1990s. I knew better, but I was told that my personality would "bloom" if I owned "something to take care of." I resisted for a few weeks until I was assured that Bear had "gone to obedience school" and I would be given a number of "dog toys" and lots of "dog food." Worn down by friend's insistence, I decided I would accept Bear on a trial basis of a few days, on the condition that if it didn't work out the previous owners would take him back.

I barely made it about 5 days, before I called the owners to come and get him because I "just couldn't take another minute" of that dog. It wasn't because Bear was mean or barked all the time. It was because he was so "needy" for attention. He would follow me from room to room, lay down in the floor, stare at me and pant! When I moved to another room, he would repeat that behavior from one room to the next all evening long! Even his toenails clicking on the hardwood floor annoyed me as much as his constant staring and panting!  

The very first day I had him, I had a Parish Council meeting that evening. I could not concentrate on the meeting realizing that Bear was home and needed to be "let out." The stress kept building and building.  When I opened the door, he stood on his back legs and licked my face with delight before I could take my coat off and lay my keys down!  When I mentioned his behaviors to other dog lovers, they told me that that breed of dog needed a big family to interact with him and work together as a team to meet his needs for attention and affection.  I should have read up on this breed of dog before I accepted him, but I didn't!

I know it sounds uncanny, but I believe Bear could actually tell time. No matter when I set the alarm, Bear would be there bedside with his nose close to my ear and start his loud breathing as he waited for the alarm to go off in two or three minutes or so. I had never had an emotionally needy girlfriend, much less a huge hairy dog, trying to lick me all over when I was trying to wake up in the morning!

On another occasion, getting home after a long day, I went into the room where my bookcases were and there were several books pulled down and onto the floor. Just one of them was really chewed up! I mean really chewed up! It was a book about  "loneliness." The rest of them were undisturbed. Because I thought I might have a dog who could read, I actually kept that chewed up book for years as a souvenir - long after I got rid of the dog. Maybe Bear couldn't actually read, but he certainly had amazing communication skills in letting me know when he was lonely! 

To this day, mostly because I used to travel a lot, I have managed to live happily without a room mate who needs entertaining, without a pet that needs attention and without a living plant that needs watering! I learned my lesson. My personality type should only keep stuffed animals and plastic plants for company, not an emotionally needy English Sheep Dog! 

JEALOUSY AND PETTINESS IN MINISTRY

GIVEN AT THE LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR HOME

January 27, 2025

The scribes who had come from Jerusalem said, "He is possessed by Beelzebul,"and, "By the prince of demons he drives out demons."

Mark 3:22-30

 

What we have here, with the religious authorities, is an example of pettiness and jealousy in ministry that has been around since the beginning. This gives me a chance to tell you about one of the things I addressed in the retreats for priests I gave around the world - over 100 of them in 10 countries!  Pettiness and jealousy in ministry, unfortunately, is not restricted to the clergy. Anyone of you who has ever been involved in ministry knows that it can happen here as well. So, what I have to say today about priests can apply to other ministers as well. 

 

There was one thing the religious enemies of Jesus could not stand and that was his success in ministry. Since it was obvious that he was doing good things, the only tactics they had left to fall back on was to discredit his success by attributing that success to the fact that he was in cahoots with the devil. Since it was obvious to all that he had power to cast out demons, they attributed his power, not to God, but to the devil. Jealous of his power to do good, they slander him by telling people that his power to do good came from evil itself.

 

Jealousy and competitiveness have been the dark side of clerical culture for a very long time and is alive and well today. When the apostles, James and John, were caught making a move to grab the best seats in Jesus’ new kingdom, they had to face the jealous indignation of the other ten apostles as well as a stern reprimand from Jesus. You may remember the story about John trying to put a stop to someone who was driving out demons in the name of Jesus because he was not “a member of the inner circle.” Then there is the story about Joshua doing pretty much the same when he complained to Moses that Medad and Eldad were prophesying even though they had not been “in the tent” with the others when the spirit came to rest on the other prophets.   Snubbed by some Samaritans while on their way to Jerusalem, James and John asked Jesus if it would be OK to call down fire from heaven and burn them up! 

 

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Basic Plan for the Ongoing Formation of Priests dedicates quite a bit of space to the subject of clerical envy and competition. Whether you like his work or not, the late Father Andrew Greeley made a similar point in one of his books. He talks about the leveling that goes on among priests, whereby they are reluctant to applaud the work of other priests for fear that it will take away something from themselves.

 

In my August transition out of seminary class with the deacons, I always ended with a class on the spiritual practice of blessing people. Blessing people is not about waving crosses over them but looking for goodness in them to affirm. For some reason, this does not seem to come naturally to ordained ministers. It is a spiritual discipline that must be intentionally cultivated.

 

Sisters and brothers, our sin may not be so much about “what we have done,” even the mean and nasty things we say about each other, but “what we have failed to do,” our withholding of clear and unconditional compliments when we have the chance!

 

One famous American Protestant preacher described our sin best when he said, “The meanest, most contemptible form of praise is to first speak well of a man and then end it with a “but!” We need to get off our "buts" and give each other unconditional compliments when we get the chance! Jealousy is an awful trait when it rears its ugly head in ministry

           

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT ALWAYS WHAT YOU GET

 DIRECTING VOCATIONS and RAISING CHILDREN

The Role of Social Media 

The discovery I most remember from my years as a Vocation Director was when I finally realized that there were two "formation programs" going on in many seminaries. (1) There was the above-ground "official" formation program offered by the seminary - the one each seminarian was evaluated against. (2) There was the "unofficial" under-ground internet "formation program" that was going on secretly between seminarians across the country who held ideological points of view that conflicted with the "official" formation program offered by their seminaries. It revealed itself in this way - what you knew about the seminarian from his "official" evaluation did not always match what you saw in the "new priest" pretty soon after ordination - sometime starting with their "First Mass." I have had other seminarians tell me that "we saw it all along while you "formation directors" were kept purposely in the dark." 

With the rise and expansion of "social media," parents are experiencing a similar situation with their children. The values parents are trying to instill at home are being smothered by conflicting values being fed to their children through the internet while their parents are being kept purposely blind.  It reveals itself in this way - one day parents who thought they knew their children wake up to the actions and behaviors of perfect strangers - leaving the parents scratching their heads and asking themselves, "Where did they get this?" Even suicide is being presented to young people more and more as a viable option through social media for the stresses and pressures the young feel. Even the stresses and pressures that used to be considered "normal," are now causes for ending one's life! 

There is much good in many of our young adults and what I am saying is not universal, but being wise is not the same as being smart. Information makes people smart, but wisdom is earned through experience. Whether it is a young priest or a young professional, those responsible for their formation can only hope and pray they do not need to be pulled out of parishes because their personal ideologies are running people off or have to watch them ruin their futures by popular indiscreet and impulsive decisions regardless of the investment their teachers and parents have made in them. 

Both Vocation Directors and parents need to know about icebergs. What you see above the surface may tell you one thing, but what is hidden below the surface may tell you something else!  

 

"WHAT WAS ONCE LOST CAN BE FOUND AGAIN"

 

Ezra the priest read plainly from the book of the law of God interpreting it so that all could understand what was read. All the people were weeping as they heard the law read.

Book of Nehemiah 8-10

 

When was the last time you cried when you “heard the Scriptures read aloud” in church? When was the last time you cried during a homily when you heard the Scriptures “interpreted by the priest so people could understand?” When was the last time you cried because you were so happy to be able to attend Mass again? Maybe for that to happen around here, it would take having this whole community being carried off into slavery by foreigners, this church being burned to the ground and there being no one left who even remembered hearing the Scriptures read here fifty years ago!

Fifty years later, imagine your great grandchildren finally being able to return here to rebuild this church, to celebrate Mass again and to hear a homily for the first time in fifty years. Imagine them being so filled with joy that they all started to cry when they heard the Scriptures read aloud here once again!

That is exactly what our first reading is all about today – the return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem after having been hauled away in slavery by invaders, having their Temple completely destroyed and their descendants forgetting their own religious history.  

This is what happened to the Jewish people between the years 587-537 BC! The Babylonians had destroyed the city of Jerusalem, burned its Temple and had sent the Jewish people into slavery. Fifty years later, they were freed by the Persians to return home to rebuild Jerusalem, restore its Temple and reclaim its religious traditions. This practice of resettling conquered people on a large scale in another country was common in the Middle East in ancient times. This policy of deportation was devised to detach people from their land in order to cripple their resistance and suppress their sense of national identity, with the hopes they would forget their religious traditions.   

In today’s reading they are coming home to their ancestral lands from a fifty-year exile. The Prophet, Jeremiah, had urged them to learn from their exile experience because he believed that God had allowed it as the result of their own infidelity. Jeremiah saw their exile very much as a case of “if you snooze, you lose!” He reminded them that they had not valued what they once had, so they had to lose it so as to be able to appreciate it once again!  

As I reflected on today’s first reading, it occurred to me that we too are being “conquered,” but this time not by an invading army of foreigners out to burn our churches to the ground, carry us off into slavery and make us forget our religious roots, but a rotting culture determined to close our churches, entice us into the slavery of materialism and make sure we forget our religious heritage. Our “enemy” is not “invading” us. We are “inviting” it in! Our faith is not being attacked from without, as much as it is being starved to death from within! 

If more of our small parishes close, we will not be able to blame the archdiocese for closing them, it will be our own neglect, our own lack of determination to keep them life-giving, that will cause them to be closed!  It’s just like the Prophet Jeremiah, told the Jewish people who were forced into exile because of their infidelity to their religious traditions, we are “losing” because we are “snoozing!”

Like a spreading “virus,” helped along by modern social media, the sins of big cities have now infected small rural communities like these! Blaming others is tempting, but the real solution lies with us stepping up to the plate to reclaim our religious traditions before it is too late! In the end, the crisis facing us is not about saving our “parishes,” as much as it is about saving our “faith.” If our faith dies, we won’t need these parishes!

Present statistics tell us that only 33% of all Catholics attend church once a week or almost every week compared to Protestants at 44%. Those statistics report a decline among all religious groups in general in the US, but Catholics show one of the larger drops in attendance, just in the last 20 years from 45% twenty years ago to 33% today. Church attendance will likely continue to decline in the future, along with the growing decline of available priests.

The statistics are depressing and we are indeed on a downhill slide, but I don’t believe our situation is “hopeless” and obviously neither does Pope Francis! He has declared 2025 as a “Jubilee Year of Hope,” calling the church to action and challenging it to seize this opportunity for renewal, not just in Rome, but in local congregations like these.

Personally, I believe the words of Henry Ford who once said, “There are two kinds of people: those who think they can, and those who think they can’t! And they are both right!”  

I believe that, not because I am naïve, but because of my personal experience. When I was called to be pastor of our cathedral in Louisville, I was told by the former pastor, “Don’t get your hopes up! Nothing can be done downtown!” The cathedral had been in decline since it’s “golden age” of 1870-1910. When I arrived there in 1983, I knew my biggest task was to change parishioner’s minds about what was possible for their own future. I began asking them in multiple ways and at multiple times, “Who said we only get one “golden age?” I am here to lead you into a “new golden age!”  In the following 14 years, we rebuilt our historic ministries, added some new ones, renovated all our buildings and grew from 110 parishioners to 2100 parishioners. I did not do it by myself. It happened because they believed they could! My role was to get them to believe that it was possible!  

My friends, proclaiming a situation “hopeless,” and believing that those depressing “statistics” determine our futures, is very useful. Once we do that, we don’t have to do anything! We can just sit back then and wait for it to happen! I firmly believe that some of what we did at the cathedral, can be done in other places because our “enemy” is not “out there,” it’s “in here!” (Point to your head, your heart and your arms – making the sign of the cross.) It’s in our heads, hearts and arms! It’s about what we “believe,” what we “love” and what we are willing to “do!”

I, for one, will not give into hopelessness! I will fight for our futures as long as I am alive and I will keep doing all I can do to prove it! I thank all of you who have stepped up and have worked so hard to keep these two parishes going! I ask everyone of you to join them and do something! If you can’t help, at least encourage and thank those who do! As our second reading today pus it, “If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all parts share its joy”