"YOU JUST CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP! 2025 #8

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 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?

Every time I look at this photo, I am amazed at myself! I am preaching three nights in a row to my relatives, friends and neighbors, both Catholic ad non-Catholic, from all over Meade County where I grew up. I am actually in the Farm Bureau Building on the grounds of the Meade County Fair Grounds preaching a County-Wide Parish Mission for three consecutive nights. The photo above only shows about one-third of the crowd. 

I could never have imagined such an event growing up down there. I was so bashful back then that I could never have imagined myself standing there in front of them like I did those three nights. Second, I could never have imagined such a crowd even wanting to hear me talk for three nights! 

I have always put myself in Jesus' boots in that passage from the gospel of Luke (4:16-17;28-29) where Jesus is practically lynched by his relatives and friends after his first homily in his hometown synagogue. 

He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom

into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed

a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. When the people in the synagogue heard (what he 

said) they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and 

led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl 

him down headlong.

By the time I preached this Parish Mission, I had been working on my bashfulness for over sixty years. By this time, I was more scared of no one showing up than I was of being lynched! 

My path out of bashfulness was long and arduous. In the seminary, I basically dealt with my bashfulness by lying my way out of reading in the chapel. When they were working on the schedule, I was clever enough to convince them that I had been on the list a "short time ago." By the time I got to my theology years, just four years away from ordination, I knew I was running out of time trying to avoid public speaking. I had to do something about it, even if it killed me. 

The year before being ordained a deacon, with its expectation that I would start preaching, I was practically in a panic. Luckily, I came across an advertisement for a United Church of Christ program for seminary students who would be willing to work in the National Parks and offer interdenominational campground services on the weekends. It was called "A Christian Ministry in the National Parks." I signed up as its first Roman Catholic seminary student, went to St. Richard Episcopal Church in Chicago for orientation and was assigned to Crater Lake National Park in Oregon where I preached sermons twice each weekend all summer long.  

When I got back to Saint Meinrad Seminary that fall, I realized that our first preaching class was still one semester away. I went into that class, partially "cured" of my bashfulness, and with more experience than anyone else in the class, except maybe a friend of mine who had also signed up with me and was sent to Yellowstone National Park. 

Because of that experience, I learned one very important lesson about bashfulness: the only way to get over bashfulness is to seek out opportunities and force yourself to get up in front of people to speak! That exactly what I did in the years that followed. I sought out opportunities to do public speaking. By the time I retired, I had given hundreds and hundreds of speeches to thousands of priests, bishops and lay people in at least 10 countries! 

Today, the only crowds that still intimidate me are crowds of "hometown" folks!  

 

SOME UPDATED REFLECTIONS ON REINVENTING MYSELF YET AGAIN

 

I will turn 81 on April 28, 2025. That is a fact that I am trying to embrace with as much "cool" as I can muster, while trying my best to reinvent myself yet again before its all over! Besides reaching my 80s, two significant events have triggered in me the desire to embrace the truth of the Serenity Prayer above: my own health crisis last year and last year's presidential election - both eye-opening and both wearisome. I believe there are still some things I can change, but there are also more things that I simply cannot change. These days, I find myself praying for the wisdom I need to know the difference. With a limited amount of time left, a limited amount of energy and a limited amount of projects I can be involved in, I have decided to use my time, energy and involvement well, simply by focusing on changing myself first and then the world around me. As a favorite old saying goes, "It is easier to put on slippers than it is to carpet the world." (It is easier to change myself than try to change everybody around me.) 

After some serious reflection, I have come up with three changes that I will be trying to embrace going forward. There may be more additional changes needed as time goes by, but these three changes have already been decided on and they are already being implemented. Changing the world, going forward, will no doubt have to be one person at a time, but the basic goal is to bring more serenity into my life. 

1. I HAVE QUIT WATCHING SO MUCH NEWS

A couple of years ago, I could watch news 2-3 hours a day, especially when something "big" was happening somewhere in the world. I could watch multiple news cycles covering the same situation. However, much of the "news" today cannot be trusted. You have to sift through a mountain of exaggerated details to get to a single kernel of truth. It's emphasis on scandal, political machinations and crime is depressing especially when its residue accumulates in one's consciousness. News, once a day to stay informed, is my new "normal."  Rather than being enraged repeatedly about something on the news that I can't do anything about, I would rather do something positive that I can do something about and make more space for silence so I can hear myself think.  As the old proverb says, "Outside noisy, inside empty." 

2. I HAVE QUIT FOCUSING ON STRUCTURAL CHANGES AND PUT IT ON INDIVIDUALS 

In the past, my ministry, or maybe a big part of it, was focused on changing the structures of the church. I do think I had some impact, especially when I was a "continuing education" director for a major seminary, but that direction seemed to work better when I was a young priest. As a "senior priest," and no longer a pastor, I have decided to quit focusing on changing church organizational structures and focus more on delivering quality ministry to individuals. 

How I do it is by writing blog posts that publish my homilies and spiritual reflections, by publishing spiritual reading books, by typing out every homily as printed scripts, by making copies of those homilies for senior citizens, religious and laity, who can't hear or remember all that well. I especially like to give survivors useful, inciteful and encouraging words at the funerals of their loved ones rather than repetitious "stock sermons." I also do a lot of one-on-one meetings, lunches and brunches with people who simply need to talk. 

3. I HAVE QUIT WANTING TO ACCUMULATE MORE AND HAVE EMBRACED WANTING      TO GIVE MORE AWAY

I don't need or want a newer car, a bigger and better house, more travel vacations and more "stuff" of all kinds to take up space and to be cared for!   I have enough saved to take care of myself, if I live simply, and I have learned over time the intrinsic value of living simply. I started planning and saving for retirement fifty years ago - when I turned thirty - so I could land right where I am! 

In retirement, I want to focus on my personal health and to use my resources and talents to help the poor in a wise and care-filled way - without rewarding their bad behavior. Instead of wasting my time and resources on accumulating stuff I don't need or stuff that I already know will not make me happier,  I want to use my time doing ministry, with willing partners, in places around the world where I have made connections. I would rather remodel my old grade school building for newer purposes or help build a church in Kenya than buy a newer car or a bigger condo. Rather than wasting my precious resources on indulging myself, I would rather live simply to be able to give away some surplus and maybe having a little bit left over to leave to the people and charitable institutions who have enriched my life along the way.  

CONCLUSION

In short, I do not want to "drift" into old age with my eyes closed, trying to pretend it isn't happening. I want to (a) "manage" what I can, as long as I can, (b) "accept" what I cannot change and (3) pray for the wisdom to know the difference. 

I do not have children, but I still want to leave a "legacy." I want to leave my "mark." I hope people will remember me as a person who gave his all to the people he served. I hope people will remember the projects I completed to pass on to the next generation. Most of all, I hope to be remembered as a person who had a positive influence on the people who came into contact with him while he was here! 

Looking back, I am amazed and grateful for the experiences I have had that I could never have imagined growing up. Looking forward, I do not want to ruin all of that by trying to repeat it, hang onto it or quit believing that "the best is yet to come!" 

BOOKS! BOOKS! BOOKS! and MORE BOOKS!

 

LOTS OF BOOKS TO CHOOSE FROM 

GO TO

RonKnottBooks.com to order from Amazon Books  

Open the site and click on one of the categories. There are several books in each category. 

BOOKS FOR CLERGY - HOMILIES & SPIRITUALITY - FOR THE RECORD BOOK SERIES 

Two New Books This Year - Take a Look

found in BOOKS FOR PRIESTS category

found in HOMILIES & SPIRITUALITY category

FOR THE RECORD BOOK Series

I wrote my "Encouraging Word" column weekly for fifteen years. All fifteen years of these columns are available one-year-at-a-time in single books or five years-at-a-time in three anthologies. Maybe you have some of the individual books and just want to complete your collection? Maybe you saved a few clippings, but want to buy the three-set anthologies to complete your collection? Maybe you know a "fan" of the column and just want to buy him or her a set of the anthologies as a gift? Maybe you just want a set for yourself? They are still available! 

COMING LATER THIS YEAR 

WATERED LIKE A TREE PLANTED ON A RIVER BANK

 

Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord. He is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: it fears not the heat when it comes; its leaves stay green; in the year of drought it shows no distress but still bears fruit.

Jeremiah 17:5-8

Some of you here today may identify with some of these experiences. Exactly halfway through my seminary training, the Catholic Church went from being calm, serene and predictable to being stormy and chaotic – almost overnight. We changed, not with a whimper, but with a bang. My first year at Saint Meinrad in the Fall of 1964, we wore cassocks to class one semester and then cut-off jeans and shorts the next. One semester, we could be kicked out for drinking beer on campus. A few semesters later, the monastery opened the “Unstable,” a beer and pizza pub that still exists today.  We went from celebrating Mass in Latin with the priest facing the wall to celebrating Mass with the priest facing the people. Churches went from hushed whispers to endless talking. People used to look down on you if you didn’t go to Mass. Now, they look down on you if you do! People used to admire you if you became a priest or nun. Now they think you’re nuts if you do!

Some like to blame Vatican Council II for all this, but to jump to the conclusion that Vatican II caused all this is simplistic and quite naïve. There were monumental cultural shifts going on in those days in our society that would have affected us even if Vatican II had not taken place at all! In fact, Protestant Churches, Jewish communities, families, marriages and universities were all affected by these same cultural shifts in their own unique ways.  

By the time I was ordained in 1970, I knew even then that I was going to serve the Church as a priest in the eye of a storm – in one of those many tumultuous periods in church history that come around every few hundred years. Just as I was about to get on the bus, hundreds of priests and nuns were getting off. I knew even back then that I was going to have to learn to ride the waves and shoot the rapids, without puking my own guts out, if I was going to be able to help others weather the storms of change.  I realized even then that I needed something to hang onto – a rock-solid image or two that would keep me from going under.

The Quaker Song “How Can I Keep from Singing?” was hot back then and seemed at the time to be exactly the image I needed. Andy Gardner of Indianapolis sang it at my First Mass and I have played it every anniversary for the last 54 years. “No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that Rock I’m clinging. Since love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing? Through all the tumult and the strife I hear the music ringing. It sounds and echoes in my soul; how can I keep from singing?”  Many know it as my “theme song” back when I was pastor at the Cathedral.

The second image I chose was the image from the Prophet Jeremiah in our first reading today. That reading is, of course, based on Psalm 1. It speaks of a tree planted along a riverbank, whose roots go deep underground and out into the running water. This tree doesn’t depend on good weather or bad weather because it has an underground water source to sustain it. Its leaves never droop and it always bears fruit – through thick and thin, in good times and in bad.  I have always wanted to be like that tree!

These two images – the solid rock that “no storm can shake” and the “tree growing along a riverbank” - have sustained me during 54 years of change and chaos.  As a priest, I have always tried to “cling to the rock” and to be like that “tree with long roots.” So far, it’s working!

During the sex abuse scandal in the church, I was very concerned about the nearly 200,000 Catholics in our archdiocese, especially those who had given up on the church or who were barely hanging on before that scandal came to light. At first, I thought there was nothing I could do to help them. I was mistaken.    

In 2002, it occurred to me that I could enlarge my pulpit if I had the chance to write a weekly column in The Record dedicated to offering the average Catholic an encouraging word. I was both challenged and humbled to be given that opportunity. I wrote that column every week for fifteen years.  Now I have my own blog where I can post my homilies and other writings for an even broader audience. So far there have been 552,000 (a half million) page views of my Encouraging Word blog.

Then, there were my Parish Missions, a time when extended preaching could be done over three nights or even a few weekends. I have preached close to 75 Parish Missions over the years, in three states. I got more requests than I had time to honor because of the hundred plus national and international priest retreats and convocations that I have led in ten countries. Now that I have moved on from Parish Missions and Priest Convocations, I decided not to throw those presentations in the trashcan but publish them last month in two books so that even more people might find them helpful.   

Considering the low-grade depression that we have seen in our church in recent years, we must look for ways to give people reasons for hope! We need to find ways to prevent this from continuing. Th most effective way to do it is by obviously living the Christian faith. By that, I don’t mean turning into some kind of religious fanatic who “hate” in the name of “love,” fooling no one!  We can do this. We must do this. We do not have room for self-righteous indignation or verbal, printed and visual theatrics.  We are all responsible for turning this around – even if we must do it one-person-at-a-time. We must get back to the business of being the salt of the earth and the light of the world and quit getting distracted by all that is happening around us.    

During all this, I have been impressed by the faith of people in the pews. I try not to be discouraged by those who do not show up, but to be encouraged by those who do show up!  When I was almost drowning in discouragement several years back, their continued faithful presence at Sunday Mass preached an encouraging word back to me.             

I believe that the present purging and cleansing in the church will ultimately be good for the church. The truth will set us free, even if that truth does sting in the meantime.

The words of Jesus to Peter in the gospels, after his Bread of Life teaching, are now being addressed to us, “Will you go away also?” Do not join those who give up! Let us join those who search for even better reasons to stay!