Tear Down the Wall

When I was fresh out of college money was pretty hard to come by.  To try to make ends meet five of us moved into this one trailer and pooled our monies to make things happen.  It was an interesting thing.  On the surface one would have called us a community.   All of us professed to be Christians and attended church a few times a year.  We even talked from time to time about the Bible and listened to religious radio on lunch breaks when we could.  The thing was, we shared a home.. but you wouldn't say we were sharing much else.  One of us even had a shelf that contained their stuff.  I remember once when the brother of one of the guys living there drank something off the 'shelf'.   All of us gasped!  That's the 'shelf'!  You're in trouble!  Sure enough, when that roommate came home the first thing out of their mouth was, "Where is my stuff!"

That's a far cry from the ideal isn't it?  In the first reading for today's daily Mass we can see what the early Christians considered the ideal community.  Everything they had was in common!  They shared it all.  There were no shelves, no 'hey that's my shirt', everyone sold any money they had and the community leaders distributed it evenly so that none were lacking in need.  It's easy for me to look back at that living arrangement and pick it apart and say hey, we didn't meet that ideal at all did we?  Yet, if I'm honest, looking at any household today we can often find similar situations.  Someone upset because someone else wore their shirt.   Someone mad because their phone is dead because someone was playing on it when it was supposed to be charging... someone upset because the last thing of ice cream is gone and they didn't get any.   Pretty standard for any family isn't it?

The interesting thing about this reading from the history of the early church is that it's talking about an example for them to look up to.  Barnabas, the son of encouragement, lived in such a way that they felt we should all learn from him.  He sold what he had and brought it to the Apostles to distribute as they saw a need.  As a man who greatly admires Saint Francis of Assisi this truly touches my heart.  How many of us are willing to do that?  We complain every time we turn on the radio and someone is asking for money.  You can see the eyes roll and hear the sighs at times when a priest gets up during the year for the Diocesan Stewardship Appeal.  "There they are asking for money again."   "Why is it everytime I come to church they want more cash?"  "Don't they have enough?" Or better yet, "Why don't they sell everything in the Vatican and give it away to the poor!"  (Ask me about this last one sometime, my answer may shock you.)

Imagine though, another situation... if every one of us who professed to be Christian... gave like we should?  If we opened up our bank accounts and gave 1%, 2%, 10%... 100%?  What if instead of trying to pretend we own the money we earn.. we rather acknowledge that it was all a gift from God?  Then we put our money, our time, our talent, all of it... where our mouths were.   If every person in our Parish gave 10%?  I imagine we'd never have to ask for money.   Rather, we'd see a need and meet it.   This year we saw a need, $6,700 dollars... and we met it.   It took some time, but through some sacrificial fasting, prayer and almsgiving we are going to be able to build a well.  That's beautiful!  That's marvelous!  That's the way it should be!

Yet, there is something more that must be faced.  Lent is not a time to simply change for a season, and go back to who you were before.. No Lent is a time of metanoia, transformation, changing from bad habits to good... Lent is over, but the giving should just be starting!  That's why we as a Parish are looking at raising even more money, giving throughout the year and not just during the penitential season leading up to Lent.  Maybe we'll build a house?  Feed a village?  We are still discussing this as a pastoral council.

The Gospel reading talks about the wind.   The word there for Spirit and Wind is the same word! The breath.... the wind... the Spirit... the word has the connotation of presence.. of life.   When someone is unconscious you put a mirror under their nose to see if they are breathing.. with breath is life.  That's a powerful thought.  Jesus is there in the tabernacle.. breathing.. waiting for you.  Where he is.. life is.   Where he goes.. life goes... Where he is rejected? Life is rejected.  In the Eucharist is all of the life force in the universe.. the ultimate wind.. the ultimate Spirit... God himself. So you are given that gift.. that life.   You receive into you the breath of God.. something that cannot be contained but is greater than yourself.   Are you going out into the world with it?  Are you breathing life?

Some people have told me that when they enter the Catholic church they feel a presence.. like someone is there.. even when the Sanctuary is empty as far as they know.   That's Him.  That's the breath, the wind.. the Spirit..  That is Christ's presence in the tabernacle.. it is tangible, you know he's there.. I have never experienced that in any other church.  Yes, I've found beautiful prayer spaces.  I've enjoyed uplifting concerts.  I've prayed with men and women of many faiths and denominations.... I've never been in any of those churches empty and felt the presence I feel when being before the Eucharist.  That brings me to one other thought... When people meet you, when they pray with you, when they visit you or you visit them... when you converse, when you share, when you break bread together... do they feel His presence in you?  Are people aware of the breath of Christ, the Holy Spirit, in your life?  When you go from Mass at the end, when you are dismissed by the priest or Deacon.. they say "The Mass is ended, go forth glorifying the Lord with your lives."   That's not a dismissal to go back to your old way of life.. it's a challenge to go forth into the world as a living tabernacle, a temple of God... when people are in your presence they should know He is there too... it should change you... and they should know by your actions, words and deeds that you are a Catholic and a disciple of Christ.

So, the question becomes: "If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

Aliens!?

In tomorrow's first reading there is a challenging statement by the John the Evangelist: If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.   Love is often a challenge isn't it? God has revealed to us in Jesus Christ that it is the very nature of God.  The Catechism of the Catholic church phrases it like this: God's very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.  (CCC 221)  Doesn't it make your heart sing to know that God has trusted you with a secret?  A secret that he expects you to share with others and not keep to yourself? 

That's the funny thing about love.  It's kind of like water that we try to hold on to with just our hand.  Sure we might get a puddle to stay for a while, but eventually it's going to drain out in the cracks.  The thing about this water though is the more of it we give away.. the more of it we find.  It's only when we give it away that it becomes love.  Love is never about self.  It's always about other.  That is the gift of the trinity, the beauty of it... the image of an eternal sharing of love... that was so great and vast that it poured out into the universe to create us.  It still calls to us with every breath saying, "I love you." 

The Word became flesh so to be our model of holiness (CCC 459). Jesus in the Gospel reading begins to read from a scroll a prophet from Isaiah.  In it he declares an outpouring of God's grace and mercy, he declares that the passage has been fulfilled right in front of them.  That God has given us what we need to receive forgiveness, liberty and justice.  All of it, right there in Christ himself.  He is the very model of the Beatitudes himself, and challenges that all of the Law and the Prophets hinges on just one thing: Love one another as I have loved you.  Jesus modelled love.  He loved so strongly, so fully.. that he went to his death for us. Love is not just a word.. it's an action.

That brings us to the question: who is our brother?  Let us take the example of Christ himself and ask, what do we know about who he loved?  "God so loved the world."  Just as in the parable of the Good Samaritan, our brother is not just the one we choose.  Jesus did not go to the cross for just the Catholic or the Jew, he did not go for just the sinner or the saint, he did not go for just the believer or the atheist... he went for all.  He gave himself up for every single person, and that my friends is the challenge.. that is our brother.

The citizen and the immigrant.  The refugee and the comfortable.  The ignorant and the knowledgable.  Yes, our challenge is to love everyone.  Pope Francis released a new video just recently that expresses it better than I ever could.

How about you?  ¡Creo en el amor, tambien!  I believe in love, as well.  Now comes the hard part.  Do you live that love?  John reminds us that For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments.  That means following the rules.  Obeying them.  They are a guard rail.  Not a wall.  You can go outside of them if you want, but that means not only that you are putting yourself in danger.. but that you are saying "I don't love you God."  It means loving that person who really gets on your nerves.   That one who doesn't necessarily loving you back.   It means reaching out to the widow, the orphan, and the alien.  We often forget that one don't we?  The widow and the orphan people are quick to pipe up and help.  We start talking about the Alien, the refugee, the immigrant, the illegal. Oh that changes things doesn't it?   God declared that we should be kind to the alien.  We should be generous to them.  We should take care of them and help them as well.  They deserve dignity and justice just as much as you and I do.

We have work to do.  Every day at Mass we pray, "thy will be done, thy kingdom come."  That doesn't mean that we sit back on our hands and wait.  Love is an action.  It means giving up yourself.  It means sacrificing yourself.  For them.  For the other.  It's not about "doing something for myself because someone has to."  That's ego.  No, it's doing something for the other.. even if they don't appreciate it.  Even if they don't say thanks.  Even if they recognize it or realize you've even done it. 

We are the body of Christ.  This week find something to do for someone else.  Something that they don't know that you even did.  Send a letter.  A gift.  Bring up a trash can.  Shovel some snow.  Not to be noticed.  Feed someone. Make a difference.  Not to be seen.  Just out of pure love. Then we can truly say that our right hand, didn't know what our left was doing. 

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease. "

Where's the bread?

Refugee Holy Familyby Angel Valdez

The readings for today could not be more apropos for so grand a Saint as Saint John Neumann.  To be a Saint means to have embodied what it is to live the Christian life faithfully and in imitation of Christ.  This Saint did so in a powerful way that should inspire each of us to live more fully the calling we have received and taken up in our Baptism.  We are indeed the body of Christ.  We should be reaching out to the poor, the down trodden, the alien, the refugee. Have we forgotten that in our affluent society?  Mayhaps even all of us are taken with a bit of this 'afluenza' that is so conveniently tossed around as a medical condition these days?

In the first reading we see this powerful line: Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.   How poetic and difficult this one line is to hear.  Jesus challenged us to love not just our friends, not just our family, not just those who are good to us.. but even those who are our enemies, those we cannot stand, those who turn our stomach into a wrestling ring for our dinner.  Yet, if we do not know love.. we do not know God. 

Then we see an image of Christ's love in the Gospel, the feeding of five thousand.  Christ asks his disciples to give them food to eat, and they remind of that old Wendy's commercial, "Where's the beef?"  “Are we to buy two hundred days’ wages worth of food and give it to them to eat?”  "Where are we gonna get that kind of bread Master?"  Here they are with God himself and still haven't figured it out.  Jesus, the Word, has already equipped them with everything they need to feed this crowd.   They've seen him cast out demons, heal the sick, bring the dead to life, calm the storms.  He has proven himself the master of all, from the body to nature itself.  Then he says something as simple as 'feed my flock' and they wonder how it can be done.  Jesus of course already knew the answer, and his command over the very laws of nature itself is demonstrated for the glory of God in the multiplication of loaves... taking what would normally only feed a few souls and feeding thousands with more left over than that which he started with.

When Saint John Neumann came to America to be ordained a priest, the church he was assigned over had no steeple or floor.   That did not deter him.  Even though his Parish stretched across an amazing distance, from Western New York to Lake Ontario, he travelled on foot to visit the coal miners, the sick, the immigrant.  When he found that a great deal of his congregation spoke Gaelic, and remember this is a time of severe persecution for the Irish immigrant, he learned the language himself that he might hear their confessions.  He who had been given the Bread of Life, took it directly to the people, celebrating Mass with them even at times on their own kitchen tables.

That's what you and I are called to do, in the means of our own vocations.  You see, love is not love without another.  One can say they love themselves, but that is truly ego.  Love is love when it is given.  That is why we believe God to be a trinity... because God is love.  Yet, even though the Father and the Son loved one another, so much so that it became another person, that love was not held on to for just themselves.   No, it poured out.. it overflowed... it came out into the universe, creating and building... for us.  A love that to this day calls out to us and seeks us, asking us to become one with it.  God sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we might have life through him.  God wants us to be partakers of his divine essence, to live for eternity with Him, to become like Him.   We have received that promise thorugh Baptism, been strengthened through Confirmation, and renew our covenant and relationship with him through the Sacraments.   That's not all though. It doesn't end there.

Jesus said, “Give them some food yourselves.”   He multiplied the bread, but he expected the Disciples to provide it.  He multiplies our love, but he expects us to provide it.   Just like Saint John, we must journey out into the world and start providing the bread.   We must reach out with what we have been given, and share it with those who do not have it.  This is on both a physical and spiritual level.  We not only need to share the Word, reaching out to those who do not know Christ, and inviting them into a relationship with him; but we also have to share those blessings we have been given with the world. 

It's so easy to forget that there are those out there who do not have.  In a time of celebration, in a time that is often excessive and gluttonous, there is often a feeling of comfort and joy; and there should be.  We cannot forget the people who have no such comfort.  Christmas of all times is a reminder of refugees, of people fleeing a repressive regime, of a man and woman with a new born child, who are journeying into a country not their own.  Have we forgotten them?  We must ask ourselves, are we looking for the Holy Family?  Do we continue to seek Christ as he seeks a safe place to live?  Remember, at the end of time we will not be judged on degrees, certificates, or eloquence of speech, for not even Moses had that.  What we will be judged on is: when I was naked, did you cloth me?  When I was hungry did you feed me?  When I was thirsty did you give me drink?  When I was in prison did you visit me?

At the end of Mass we are given a sending, a message from the Church to it's body... It is not a time to go home and go back to a normal worldly life.  It is a calling from Christ to go forth, and glorify God with your life.  It is a calling for you to reach out to the alien, the widow and the orfan.  It is Christ saying, "Give them some food yourselves."   He will take your meager offering and turn it into a feast worthy of a King.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

Misericordia

A friend of mine lost a family member just recently.  Her mother had just passed a way a few weeks ago.  Today I attended the funeral.  It is always interesting to listen to a Mass in another language, to see the differences of culture and temperaments.  There is something somber and grounding about seeing a funeral from that perspective.  I am far from fluent but I catch some words and phrases here and there.  I kept hearing that word today, misericordia, mercy.  Then my heart broke as I watched this man's daughter break down at the casket.   I had no problem understanding her.  She pokes in long, drawn out words... slow enough for my feeble mind to grasp them... I think even if you didn't know any Spanish the torment in her voice would have told you plainly that she was calling out to God and asking why.

I began to cry as I pulled out my rosary and began to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet for a man I had never met.  They probably thought the gringo quite silly in the back, with tears running down his face.  As I began to read the readings for tomorrow's daily Mass, it struck me that this is what it means to be like Jesus. At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.  How lost one must feel to lose a parent.   I have both of mine still so I cannot understand even if I empathize.   A loved one dying is one of the hardest things to bear.

On days like this I think back to my great grandmother Viola's funeral.  I was very young then.  I remember sobbing and being wracked with sadness. I did not know how to process the fact that I could no longer stop by and sit on her porch listening to her stories.   It truly is a moment when you feel lost.  How much more so a parent?  A brother?  A sister?   An article caught my eye this morning about refugees from Syria again.   Christian refugees had just been turned away from California.  These men and women have left everything to try to find safety.. to flee from persecution and death.  Some have even been killed as people have been thrown overboard from boats to drown on the journey, because of one radical ideology or another.  Children have been found dead on the seashore.  Yet, I see people who claim to be children of God declaring that we must send them "back where they came from." 

How are we not moved with pity?  How do our hearts not go out to them?  Did we learn nothing from our past?   We are humanity.  They are part of us.  There are bad people in every nation, every tongue, every skin color.  There are good people in every nation, every tongue, every skin color.  Who are we to claim to be Christian and yet begin to deny love?  Jesus demands of his Apostles today, "Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”  Every single item you own, every dollar in your bank account, every breath you have... was given to you freely.   God has blessed us so abundantly in this country.  Yet, we charge people to share in our blessings.  "You need to be a citizen."  "You need to speak English!"   "You need to drink beer and eat meat!"  How dare we put a quantifier on who we love when God has chosen to love us without prejudice? 

Our goal as Catholics is to allow Christ to transform us through the Sacraments into images of himself.  To restore us to the communion we had with God in the garden of Eden.  That means we are to be more like God and less like the world.  The old testament reading for tomorrow says:

He will be gracious to you when you cry out,
as soon as he hears he will answer you.
The Lord will give you the  bread you need
and the water for which you thirst.

Is that the kind of person you are?  Is that the kind of nation you are helping form?  Every day someone out there cries out to you to be fed.  Whether it be a refugee from another country, a co-worker, or a member of your own family.   Saint Agustine said,  "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."     Are you helping people find rest?  Both in this life and the next?  Are you helping them find shelter from the storms of life, both physical and spiritual?  Are you reaching out to everyone and not just those who are close to home?  Christmas is coming soon.  Christ's Mass.  Without either of those, it's just another party.   As we approach Christ's Mass through Advent ask yourself, are you helping prepare the world for the coming of the Savior?  Or are you only trying to prepare yourself? 

His servant and yours,
Brian

The Least of These

President Obama famously declared in a speech a while back that whatever we are, we are no longer a Christian nation.  I would like to believe that isn't true.  The numbers say that we are mostly Christians in our population. The increase in secular thought, belief, and liberalism would say differently. Even our conservatism is much more liberal than it was in years past. That's not the point I want to talk about.

Included the presidents exact words, so that others

could see exactly what he said in context. 

Lately I've been seeing a lot of posts decrying our government from spending money elsewhere, when it is needed at home. How dare we send relief to some other country when our country has some problems of its own? Why spend money educating children in Africa when we could be increasing our own public schools.  Why subsidize third world countries when we are hurting here and need jobs? These are all powerful questions, questions that can't be answered lightly or in few words.

But there is a key here... if we ARE a Chrisitian nation.. then we truly believe that all people deserve help. "Whatever you do for the least of these you do for me."  If we are a Christian nation then our neighbor is not just the homeless man here, but the homeless man in South Africa as well. If we are a Christian nation, then the child who needs school supplies in  China is just as important as the one who needs school supplies here in our home town. If we are a Christian nation, then every man needs our help.. not one or the other.

Am I saying that we should help those abroad before we help those at home? No. What then am I saying, that we should help those who are here before we help those abroad? No. I am saying IF we are a Christian nation, we should help both!  

If President Obama is right, that we are no longer a Christian nation then none of this matters. We should only be concerned with our own national issues, and not worry about the world.. but if he is wrong... if we are still a Christian nation... then we should be concerned with all of humanity, and yes all of creation as well. We don't have room in a Christian mindset to say I will ignore the plight of someone I cannot see, and only concentrate on those I know personally... we cannot say stop taking care of those in need because we have needs here... instead we must realize that we all have a little to give, and a lot of places to give it.

How important are your things?

We've all heard the "you are on a desert Island and can only take" stories, but I want to really think about that for a few minutes. Let's try a different scenario that is much more likely to happen in our world. But first let's address the real problem, we in our society live with our 'needs' and 'wants' all mixed up. We think we need so much, when they are really wants.. and those things we really need, we often don't even notice. We have homes stuffed with many things. Multiple pairs of this or that, four and five televisions, computers in many of our rooms etc.

How much do those mean to us? Are we really living the gospel? Now there is room in our life for nice things, but at the same time... if we have more than we ever use... then someone out there is going without. What do I mean by that? Well if I have a television sitting in my garage... doing nothing... then someone out there who has no television, can't afford one, and wants one... is doing without one.. or better yet, someone out there who needs food.. is going without the food that they could have had, if I never bought it in the first place, and instead bought food and donated it.

So, what would you save in a fire? If you could only take 4 things out of your house (besides your children and animals), what would they be? Then, while standing outside watching what you own burn to the ground... what would you miss? If you had no insurance at all, what would you mourn having lost in your home?

His servant and yours;
Brian