Oh my, what I must have missed.....

A sunset I encountered on a bike ride just recently. 

A reflection on the daily readings for Friday, June 17, 2016.

2 Kings 11:1-4, 9-18, 20
Psalm 132
Gospel of Matthew 6:19-23

The other day in a Facebook post I wrote about how much better life was now that I actually get out of the house and do things.  What many people don't know is that I used to be a hardcore gamer.   Not just the kind of who played a lot, but the kind who was consumed with the game.  I played a game called Everquest.  It wasn't the only Massive Multiplayer Online game that I played, but it was the one I played the most.  For 15 years I played this game, from the opening day in 1999 until 2015ish.  That's right, I was playing it still just a year ago.  I wasn't nearly as hardcore as I was in the early 2000's though.

I used to only think about that game.  When I was at work I was thinking of what I would be doing when I got home.  I had to be off at a certain time because I couldn't miss a 'raid.'  For a while I was one of the core players in a guild and showed up every day to make sure that things were happening.  I even got to the point where my raid attendance (that is my log in time since we went on a raid every night) was in the high 90%s.  That means that I was on 9 out of 10 days for 4-5 hours, sometimes up to 8.  I once told the person I was living with that I didn't care if the utilities were cut off, I had to have the newest expansion now!  I spent every penny I could on a computer to make sure I could play it.  I didn't think of much else, especially relationships.   It ruined them in fact.  I watched as people got divorces, broke up, new relationships were formed, and even met my future wife there.  I had to learn the hard way that I would only find peace when I took things in moderation, when I put Jesus first.  I didn't have to give up gaming, but it had to be in it's proper place. Otherwise I'd have missed that sunset up there, and many more.

It reminds me of the reading from 2nd Kings, when Athaliah found out that her son had died.  She then proceeded with a plan to kill out the rest of the royal family so that she would be in charge.   The kingdom, it's power, wealth, glory... had consumed her.   It was all she could think of.  Even to the point of killing her own grand children.  Through the providence of God though, her sister saved one of the children and took him to the temple.  Out of love she took him to where he would be safe.  That's an important lesson spiritually there isn't it?  Love means leading someone to God.  In the end, Joash, the young man who was saved, was crowned king.  Athaliah ended up dead for her treachery and evil heart.

Jesus reminds us of that kind of love in the Gospel.  He teaches us that wherever our heart is, that's where our treasure is.  On the one hand we can be like Athaliah, seeking one of those four spheres of influence: pleasure, wealth, honor, or power.  She wanted it so badly that she was willing to kill for it.   Her sister showed us the other side, love.  Sacrificing anything and even at the risk of her own life, she fought for the young man and took him where he would be safe, in the hands of God.  Anytime we put anything before God, anytime we seek power, honor, wealth, or pleasure, before seeking love;  that's when we sin.  St. Paul reminds us that the wages of sin is death.  Athaliah saw that in a very real, and powerful way.  Joash on the hand gained all four by first being taught to seek God.

We are members of a royal kingdom, brothers and sisters of the Incarnate God.  In Him we have received life.  Through our Baptism we have received the Holy Spirit to guide us and protect us.  We seek Him in our hearts, in our living Tabernacle, and also in the Tabernacle of the Church, the Eucharist.  It is in Him we find life.  Satan is our Atahaliah.  He seeks to destroy us, to bring us to sin.  When we sin seriously we destroy our relationship, just as I destroyed one many years ago over a game.  If I had been seeking God?  Who knows what might have happened.  I am still a far happier man today, but I have learned that I have to be hidden in the temple with Him to remain safe.  That doesn't mean I never leave the Church building, but it means that I take Him with me and He keeps me with Him wherever I go.

Jesus talks of the blind, those who can't see.   How that if life cannot enter the body, then darkness is there.  I also say that if one keeps their eyes and hearts fixated on something that is dark, something that leads them from God.. then their eyes will scale over with Sin, just like St. Paul and Hosea.   It is Jesus who is our light, our cure.  He is coming to us each day in the Sacraments, in the poor, in the outcast.   He wants to fill us with the light of love, to enshroud us in the armor of God, that we too might be kept safe from the evil that seeks to end our spiritual life.  That means we too need to seek Him, and to bring others with us to find Him... and just as Mary and Joseph many years ago, we will find Him in His Father's House... the Holy Catholic Church.   Are you looking for Him? Last week I prayed a serious prayer in Adoration.. I asked Jesus to take my heart with Him into the tabernacle.  To keep me always by His side, forever, and ever.  May he answer that prayer for each and every one of you, as well.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

10 minutes.

A Reflection on the Readings for the

Feast of the Holy Family

12/27/2015

The other day I went to the school to pick up my daughter.  I stood outside waiting for her for a while.  Parent after parent left with their kids.  The parking lot was now empty.  I began to walk towards the door.  The teacher opened the door and peered out as if she didn't trust me.  I'm 6'5", 300 lbs, and keep my head shaved.  I am sure that's not the average person.  I informed her my daughter had not come out to the car like she was supposed to.  She let me in and they began to call around the school.  She wasn't there.   Must be on the bus they informed me. 

I left hurried.  Have you ever felt that panic begin to creep at the edge of your perception, like some long lost evil trying to barge it's way into your field of vision?   Yeah, there he was.  I tamped him down.  She's on the bus.   I knew it.   Why?  I don't know.  She wasn't supposed to be.  So I raced as fast as traffic would let me to the bus stop.  I called my wife. I told her what was going on.  She panicked.    She began to demand answers over the phone, answers I could not give.   I will call you back after I find out something.   So there I sat.  And sat.   And sat.   And sat.

The bus was very late.  Someone had fallen and gotten hurt, the son of a friend of ours.  An ambulance had come.  I heard it in the distance.  That didn't help.  10 minutes passed.  Finally the bus came down the street.  It still had to make it's rounds through the other sub division before coming back to us to drop off the kids.  I guess it being late does not change the route any, or even get the driver to explain to the parents why they are late.  So she ran to the car and got in like nothing had happened. She began asking where the baby was.  The baby only stays with us on Wednesdays.   She rides the bus on Wednesday.  That explains everything.

That didn't dismiss the feelings right?  The panic.  The fear.  The what ifs.  The first thing I did when she got in the car of course was demand to know why she rode the bus.   I think one of our first reactions to panic is anger, once we know they are safe.  It's hard to deal with.  Maybe half an hour had passed total.  10 of it waiting in a car unable to do anything.  It's almost like grief isn't it?  Like you've lost someone?    Once before years ago she had gone under a display in Kohl's and we couldn't find her.  It doesn't get easier.  It gets harder.  Both times it was like losing her for ever.  Tears wanted to break in.  All of the emotions of grief.  Denial.  Anger.   Yes, just like losing someone forever.

Imagine Mary and Joseph... they were three entire days without Jesus.  Some theologians think that this was to prepare her for the tomb at Easter.   Three days she sought him, three days she could not find him.  Travelling backwards along their route looking for family and friends.  "Have you seen him?"  "Do you know where he is?"  Demanding answers that none of them could give.  They didn't have a phone to call back later to explain.  It simply meant continuing to look.  Not giving up.  Not letting fear and panic set in and take over.  The relief they must have felt finding him in the temple, yet the same kind of angry reaction: “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”  "Moira why were you on the bus?  You know I was supposed to pick you up! Your mother and I were worried sick!" 

Mo's answer was much like Jesus answer, "I thought it was Wednesday, you should have known I was on the bus."  "Why were you looking for me?  You should have known where I was."   It's incredulous to them that we would worry, that we wouldn't know exactly where they were supposed to be.   Jesus was the Son of God, but it did not occur to them immediately that he would be at the temple.  Like Mary though, we have to take these things into our hearts.  What can we learn from this? 

Mary was prepared by the different events in her life for things to come.  Three days without Jesus as a child.   Three days without Jesus at his death.   The first time she went running, panicked, in fear, retracing her steps trying to find him.   Notice at his death she waited behind.  She didn't need to go find him.. though he had died... she knew exactly where he would be.  She didn't lose him.  She still had him in her heart.  Some say he even visited her first before the rest of the Apostles.  Maybe.  Either way.. she had faith.  She knew she would find him again.. in his Father's house.

Sometimes the events in our lives make us scared.  They panic us.  They make us lose sight of Jesus.  We see someone pass away and we wonder why.   We see someone in pain, and we ask why good people suffer.   Some cross comes into our own world.. and we have no idea why we were chosen to carry it.   He never moves away from us.. it's always us that move away from him.   Like Mary, we must learn where Jesus is... that he is always there.  He is in our family.  He is in our friends.  He is in our church.  Most importantly, he is in the Eucharist... turn to him.. find him in his father's house... anytime you lose him, he is sacramentally present and desires your return.   Let him speak directly to your heart as he says to each of us: "Why were you looking for me?  You should have known where I was."
  
His servant and yours,
Brian

How Poor a Manger am I?

Based on the readings for December 18th, Advent 2016

We have lost a sense in modern society of how important betrothal is.  In today's society we think of engagement as simply testing the waters.   What we call engagement in modern terms is what people a couple decades ago would have called courting/dating.  It's not uncommon to hear that so and so is engaged one week, and well it didn't work out the next.   It's almost as if for us engagement is just a promise of exclusivity on the way to marriage.  That's not what being betrothed to someone in Jesus time meant.  When you were betrothed, you were already married in essence.   It wasn't a test period.  It was just a period leading to the time when you would move in together.

For Mary to show up pregnant, well that was the same as committing adultery.  Notice Joseph is thinking of divorcing her!  Scripture indeed records him as being in his right to do so.  "Joseph being a righteous man, but not willing to expose her to shame, was going to divorce her quietly."  Righteous yet kind.  It was his right indeed to divorce her.  Here they are not living together yet, and she shows up pregnant.   How his heart must have heart.  It's a betrayal. Oh how it hurts to have someone you love go behind your back and betray you in this way.  How hard must her story have been for him to hear?  Oh, I haven't been with a man.. this angel appeared to me and said I'd have the child of God... What would you do in his shoes?

Then he had a dream from God.  An angel told him that it was all true, and it says when he awoke, he did as the angel had instructed and took 'his wife' into his home.   How hard that must have been?  God speaks to us all the time.   He has given us the Church.  The Church then gave us the scriptures.  He speaks to us through our priests and deacons in their homilies.   Through music.  Through others.  How much do we listen to him?  How easy it would have been for Joseph to justify himself in not believing it. We do it all the time don't we?   He could easily dismiss it as a dream.  But he's a righteous man, a kind man.  I imagine he wanted to believe it.  He didn't want Mary to be shamed, and possibly killed.   That's love isn't it?  To put your doubt behind you and trust.  

It's also one of the hardest things to do.  To forgive for one.   I am sure on some level he had to forgive Mary, thinking she had betrayed him.  That would be a hurtle of it's own... but another is to seek forgiveness.  Once he realized she was telling the truth.. once he realized that she had not betrayed him... Oh it is not her he needs to forgive, but her forgiveness he needs to seek.   Oh to get our own ego out of the way and say, I was wrong... I treated you wrong.. I am sorry... forgive me.   Why should we?  That's an easy question to ask.   I am still mad we might proclaim.  I still am not sure.. I still have doubts. 

Emmanuel.   God is with us.  The Prophet Jeremiah said the name would be LORD our Justice.  Our goal in life, the one that we reaffirm in Advent, the one that should stick out in our mind as we go through the octave of Christmas is this:  To become more like God every day, every second, every breath.  God is justice.  We too, must become like Him.  We must work for justice.  In our relationships.  In our societies.  In our families.  In every aspect of life.  Justice means to give someone what rightfully belongs to them.  When you say something untrue, when you hurt them by believing a falsehood, you are stealing their dignity.  They are made in the image of God.  God is truth.  When you tell a lie you cloud that image.   You try to cover it with something else, something not true.  Justice requires you to restore it.   Requires you to give them back what is rightly theirs... what is true.. what is kind and good. 

Are there any people in your life right now you owe an apology?  Is there someone in your past that you did wrong to?  Is there someone out there that you should have helped or should be helping and did not/aren't?  God is our spouse, we are the Church.  For just a moment think about that great mystery.   Is there anything keeping you from taking your spouse into your home?  Is there anything keeping you from letting God fully into your heart?  Maybe some teaching that someone misrepresented.   Some issue that you just don't quite want to believe, or haven't quite come to terms with.  Maybe some hurt in your past that you haven't gotten over... now is the time... to learn the truth.. and then, like the righteous and kind Saint Joseph... to take your spouse into your home.  Let God into your heart.  Come home. 

In a world where all the doors are closing.  Where hearts are so filled with so many distractions.  Where football, hockey, food, drink, parties, drugs, sex, and so many, many more are taking the place of God inside... realize that the Holy Family is moving from door to door looking for a place for Jesus to be born.  Are you preparing a manger for him?  Oh how meager a manger it would be indeed where he to choose to be born here, in this sinful heart of mine.  That's the grace of God though.. no matter how sinful we are, no matter how poor and meek a manger we might be.. He is looking to be born into you.  He is looking for an open door.  Is your door open?  Are you ready to receive Him?  It's time for us to work on our manger.. get it ready for the Lord.

His servant and yours,
Brian