July 22nd, 2007
Martha must have been one of those wonderful hosts who can cope with unexpected guests and whip up a delicious meal by using up a lot of leftovers. Just put more water in the soup. Martha was a doer, she was a practical woman. She must have found it hard living with her sister Mary who was more of a thinker, a ponderer. Mary was also quite bold. According to the culture of the times – a culture still very strong in the Middle East – Mary was out of place, mixing the sexes was taboo. Those others, all men, who were listening to Jesus must have been uncomfortable with Mary intruding into their little group and acting as if she belonged. They would have agreed with Martha’s complaint, get Mary into the kitchen where she belonged.
Jesus appreciated Martha’s hard work, she was a fuss pot, worried about many things. He also appreciated Mary’s need to listen to His message, to hear the word of God. Strengthened by that word Mary would be about the tasks of her own life including preparing a meal.
Most of us live busy lives. I see men and women walking down the street carrying their laptops, bringing work home, the day never seems to end. To keep your head above water you have to be busy about many things. Working over time is par for the course. If you won’t do it they will find someone else who will. There is so little time to stop and think, so little time to ponder about life, about the health of our relationships, about the health of our relationship with God.
The Benedictines are the oldest order in the church, founded by St. Benedict in the 5th century. He wrote a simple rule and their mission statement is – to work and to pray. We will come to holiness, to a full, healthy and holy life through work and prayer.
The crazy pace of life today certainly calls for work but if we are to live balanced lives we have to stop and smell the roses – stop and enjoy the people with whom we live, stop and appreciate friends, stop and take in the beauty of nature.
This is all common sense, we know its true but we keep putting off taking the time to be in a quiet place and space. We keep putting off making a time to be still – to pray.
A number of years ago I was interviewing a young boy for his first communion. I told him, ‘when Jesus comes to us in communion He comes as food and as friend.’ What do you do when a friend comes to visit? We chat, he answered. Well when Jesus comes to visit what will you do.” We’ll chat, he answered, What will you chat about? He thought for a bit and then said, ” Well first of all I’ll tell him how I’m doing.” OK, then what? ‘Well then I’ll ask Him how He’s doing.” Perfect prayer. The conversation of friends.
We are all too busy. I think we all have within us a Mary who keeps trying to calm down our busy, busy Martha, a Mary who keeps trying to get us to sit at the Lord’s feet and listen. As we continue to celebrate this Mass and with the words of the gospel that recognizes work and listening, we can pray for ourselves and for each other that we get our act together and find the time and make the time to chat with the One who wants to know how we’re doing.
| Posted in Homily |
July 15th, 2007
Today’s parable speaks for itself. Its message is simple – ‘go and do likewise.’ Live the law of love. See in every person we meet, family, friend, or stranger – a brother or a sister. We are called to cross the road, to be with those who are in need, whatever their need may be. We are called to make the effort to put aside our own needs, our own busyness, our own preoccupations, and make ourselves available to a person in need, again, be that person family, friend or stranger.
I read this little reflection on today’s gospel: “Jesus is the compassionate stranger to our fallen, robbed-of-innocence humanity. Jesus comes to our side of the rode and takes us into the inn of His embrace after tending to our wounds through the Sacraments. Oil and wine are the healing bandages of His touch. Healed by His touch we are sent back on our own journeys, we are to ‘go and do likewise.’
That seems to sum it all up. But it’s not easy. There can be so much within us, mind sets, prejudices that keep us from crossing the road to be there for a man, woman or child in need. We can be so judgmental when we see a panhandler begging at a traffic stop, ‘what’s wrong with that kid, why doesn’t find a job?’ We can be turned off, disgusted when we see a person sleeping on a downtown street. We can automatically judge such persons as lazy, freeloaders, unwilling to work. We have no idea of the demons that may torment their broken lives. We tire of all those people with their hand out begging, shaming us into dropping a loonie or toonie into their unwashed hands. When’s it going to stop? It will never stop. Christ’s parable will always be here to challenge us to put aside our needs, go out of our way, and meet the needs of a brother or sister, be they family, friend or stranger.
Most of us have no idea what it’s like trying to survive on welfare – we forget what these good people had to cope with when their welfare payments were cut by up to 25% a few years back – and little has been done to make up for that loss. We have no idea of how humiliating it is for a father or a mother to stand in line at a food bank so they can feed their children. Has the term, ‘the working poor’ had any impact on our consciousness of the life situation of so many people in this city?
As a parish family we do our best to ‘cross over’ to those in need. We have a hard working and generous St. Vincent de Paul Society supported by all of you who remember the poor as you leave the church, we have good people providing casseroles for the Good Shepherd Centre every month, we have people who bring food every Sunday to support a food bank, and you are always generous in supporting the appeals that come our way so often. So many of you do ‘cross the road’ to be there for people in need. Please never give up on your good deeds of kindness.
As we continue to celebrate this Mass we can pray for ourselves and for each other that if and when we see someone in need we will have the generosity to cross the road and be there for them – that we be blessed with the goodness of heart to ‘go and do likewise’ and be there for others as Christ has been there for us.
July 8th, 2007
Do you remember the phrase, ‘carrying a lot of baggage’? It usually refers to someone who is burdened by a lot of negative, painful memories that he/she drags through life. It could be memories of alcoholic or abusive parents, the feeling of never having been appreciated, and memories of being bullied or belittled at school, memories of betrayed trust or friendship. Whatever these memories, the person carrying them just can’t seem to drop them by the wayside and get on with living. For it’s easier said than done.
In today’s gospel Jesus sends out his 72 disciples – a reminder of the 72 helpers Moses had during the Exodus. They are to carry the message of God’s peace, love and forgiveness for all people. The gifts given them to heal and liberate would show the presence, power and care of God for all those with whom they came in contact. Jesus lets them know there is so much work to do, the harvest is so great, the labourers so few.
As Jesus sends them on their way He tells them to be baggage free – no purse, no bag, no sandals, don’t clutter up your lives, in fact don’t even stop to talk with anyone – keep moving, you’ve got work to do.
You’ve probably heard the saying, ‘don’t keep the faith, spread the faith.’ We can add to this, don’t keep the faith, live the faith and by so doing you will spread the faith.’ Jesus tells us that our light – the way we live our Christian faith – must shine before others so that they may see our good works and give glory to God.
Everyone of us is meant to share our Christian faith by the way we live our lives – we are meant to be distinctive, we are meant to live and value things like integrity, honesty, respect for people of different races, cultures, faiths. We are meant to care about social justice, we are meant to care about homeless men, women and children, and we are meant to see an end to good people surviving on food banks. These are what we call ‘gospel values’, they spring from the life and teachings of Jesus and the prophets before Him.
Every day of the week Jesus sends each one of us out to be a witness of God’s love and care for all people and we do this in the ordinary living of our ordinary lives.
We do this best if we are baggage free, like the 72 are baggage free. Free of the baggage of bigotry and prejudice, that keeps us from acknowledging the good to be found in all faiths. We best do this when we are free of the baggage of intolerance that keeps us locked up in our own certainties failing to respecting the rights of people to hold other points of view and see our certainties differently.
We do this best if we are free of the conviction that we have a corner on the teachings of the church on controversial issues and refrain from judging good people we call ‘pick and choose’ Catholics. We do this best if we are free of a need to spread certain private devotions and practices instead of focusing on the importance of the Eucharist and the Sacraments. We do this best if in all our dealings with people we meet in the course of a day we do our best to live Christ’s great commandment, ‘love one another as I have loved you’.
As we continue this Mass we can pray for ourselves and for one another that we will begin each day conscious of the fact that Christ is sending us out to friend and stranger to bear witness to the truth that God so loved the world He sent His Son to the world and the Son so loved us, He gave His life for us. May each of us be gifted to live this Mass outside these walls in the lives we live, the work we do, the prayers we pray and the service we give.
July 1st, 2007
The scriptures today are about urgency. Luke tells us that the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up and He sets His face to go to Jerusalem. Jesus knew what was ahead of Him. He knew He had to confront the infidelity and hypocrisy of the religious leaders. He knew He had to speak the truth of God and that this would cost Him. Nothing would divert Him from His task. In Luke’s gospel when Jesus talks about His inevitable confrontation with the authorities and how He would be betrayed into the hands of sinners and would die, Peter couldn’t imagine such a thing happening and he says to Jesus, “this must never happen to you”. Peter would do anything to avoid this clash between Jesus and the authorities. But Jesus tells Peter, “Get behind me Satan because the way you think is man’s way, not God’s way.” No, Jesus was committed to following His vocation to preach the good news of God’s love and truth no matter what the cost. All this is summed up in the simple phrase, “He set his face to go to Jerusalem.”
A number of years ago someone gave me a circle made of felt and in the centre of the circle were the letters twit – ‘twit’. The article is called ‘a round twit.’ How often have we heard ourselves saying, ‘when I have the time I’ll get around to it,’ or ‘one of these days I’ll get around to it.’ Right now I’m too busy, I’ve got other things to do.
Elijah calls Elisha to the urgent task of prophecy but Elisha was in that ‘around to it’ mentality. He had others things to do, he was busy. In time he would get around to the task.
It’s the same with the people in the gospel. They were interested in following Jesus but there were other matters to be attended to – their message was, ‘ listen, I’m really interested in following you, learning from you but I’ve got other things going on right now. I’ll get around to it one of these days.’
Years ago the Ontario government promoted a winter works program and its motto was, ‘why wait for spring, do it now.’ There is a wisdom in ‘doing it now’ because it is all we’ve got. How many people do we know who have said, ‘when I retire I’m going to do this or that? When I retire I’ll have the time to get around to doing all the things I’ve wanted to do, but I was too busy. And how often has it ever worked out? Why wait for retirement, do it now.
We are so like Elisha and the people in the gospel. We are so often, ‘a round to it’ people. One of these days I’ll get back to church, one of these days I’ll try to spend some time in quiet and prayer, one of these days I’ll take my faith seriously. One of these days, but right now I’m too busy.
A friend of mine was telling me about a friend of hers who was dying of cancer. I guess she’d been a very busy, active person, raising a family, being the chauffer driving children to hockey, soccer, and ballet lessons, whatever. And as she lay dying she said to her friend, “I always thought that at some time in my life I would have the time, the leisure to take my spiritual life seriously. I’d get around to it.”
Remember Harry Chapan’s song “The Cat’s in the Cradle”? It could be the theme song for ‘around to it’ people – I’m busy to spend time with you now, but one of these day… and of course in the song what goes around comes around: the father not having time for his young son and the grown son being too busy with his life to have time for his aging father, the refrain of the song is ‘but we’ll get together soon son, we’ll get together soon.”
Remember the saying, ‘carpe diem’, seize the day? Today is all we have. Yesterday is gone, who knows if there will be a tomorrow?
Today’s scripture could really make us face our ‘around to it’ attitude toward life, toward our faith, toward our relationships. Today’s scripture show us the insufficiency of our ‘one of these days’ attitudes. Why wait for spring? Why wait til someone dies before we realize and tell them how important they were to us? Why wait for a stroke of a heart attack before we appreciate our good health? Why wait for a family tragedy or serious illness before we think about God, about prayer? Why wait to tell someone we are sorry for what we said or did, why wait to tell someone we forgive them for the hurt they caused us? Why wait?
As we continue to celebrate this Mass, we can pray for ourselves and for each other that we face the ‘around to it’ situations in our lives, as regards God, our family, our friends. May we be blessed with the grace to do what must be done, to say what should be said, to heal what can be healed – now, this day?
June 24th, 2007
Today has been called “little Christmas’ as opposed to ‘big Christmas on December 25th. In about the 4th century the church decided to celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th, right after the winter solstice – the shortest day of the year. The Romans had celebrated the feast of the unconquerable sun to celebrate the fact that after the shortest day of the year the days began to get longer. The church decided to baptize this pagan feast to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the unconquerable Son of God.
To counter balance this decision they made June 24th the celebration of the feast of the birth of John the Baptist.
On one occasion as Jesus began His own public ministry John the Baptist, who didn’t want to be mistaken for the Messiah said of Jesus, “He must increase, I must decrease,” in other words my task of preparing the people for Jesus is over, I have to get out of His way. On this past Thursday we celebrate the summer solstice the longest day of the year. I hate to say this but from now on the days will be getting shorter. The church decided to celebrate the birth of John the Baptist on this day in recognition of John’s own conviction – He must increase, I must decrease. Their two birthdays are linked around the winter and summer solstices.
Maybe we can apply John’s words to ourselves. “He must increase, I must decrease.” Anything in my life that is not of Christ – that does not image Christ – that does not proclaim Christ – must decrease – so that Christ’s life in me may increase – so that I may image the love, the mercy, the healing of Christ to others. I love quoting those power words of Paul, a man determined to put on Christ when Paul says of himself, “I live now not I but Christ lives in me and the life I live, I live trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave His life for me. Paul spent his life putting on Christ, trying to be as Christ like a person as he could be, he would say, ‘for me to live is Christ.’ It wasn’t easy. For all his efforts Paul still admitted, “The good that I would that I do not and the evil I would not do that I do, who will deliver me? His answer was ‘the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ It is by God’s grace, God help and gift we can succeed in decreasing so that Christ may increase in our lives, that Christ may be manifested in our relationships with other people that we can be Christ-like in the way we treat and respect and support others, friends or strangers.
Whenever we pray the Our Father we say, ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.’ Thy kingdom come to that part of me which is yet to be redeemed, that part of me that holds me back from putting on the mind and heart of Christ.
On the feast of this great and humble man, John the Baptist, we can pray for ourselves and for each other for the grace, the gift to decrease, put aside our egos, set aside our un-Christ ways of thinking and love – and let Christ increase, in a way, let Christ take us over, so that the Father may see and love in us what He sees and loves in Jesus – God’s unconquerable Son.
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