Friday, October 19, 2012
Morning on Lake Michigan
Poem sunrise
Below the brightening sky lies
that blue-gray layer
hugging the horizon,
the undercurrent of the world,
seeming to block out all hope
of sunrise.
Suddenly it comes--
that sliver of the Sun God
peeking red over the horizon,
surveying its realm,
assuring
once more for the trillionth time
that all will be well.
Red, orange, yellow, white it climbs
up the ladder of clouds.
Day has begun.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
A different blog site
Dear Friends:
Rather than give you my own writing this week, I'd like to introduce you to another blog which I find fascinating. It's called vox nova, and it is a Catholic blog dedicated to respectful and thoughtful discussion of current issues. Amazingly, it draws from both "liberal" and "conservative" readers, who as far as humanly possible, treat each other with respect.
You can find it by googling "vox nova", but I suggest you paste this URL into your browser so you go directly to an article (and responses) I found fascinating.
http://vox-nova.com/2012/05/10/why-i-am-annoyed-with-both-president-obama-and-cardinal-dolan-on-the-same-day-on-the-same-issue/
And remember, when you read my own blog, www.thebodaciousword.blogspot.com , PLEASE say something !!!
Tim
Monday, September 3, 2012
Labor Day homily
In the summer of 2008, I was transferred to our four-parish cluster in Northern Mississippi. By late October, I felt it was my responsibility to inform our parishioners about their Catholic tradition in light of the upcoming presidential election. As part of my homily, I read the seven points from the US Bishops' document "Faithful Citizenship": life and dignity of the human person, call to family, community, and participation, rights and responsibilities, option for the poor and vulnerable, dignity of work and rights of workers, solidarity, respect for God's creation.
After the Mass, one man came up to me and angrily stated: "I never thought I would hear the Democratic party platform read from the pulpit!" Others complained to the pastor, who in turn advised me that the homily was not the place for such announcements.
As I prepared my homily for Labor Day this year, I picked up a copy of my favorite encyclical of Pope John Paul's: "Laborem Exercens" (On Human Work) and wistfully thought that if I were to return to that same congregation and begin reading from the beloved Pope's teaching, I would get the same reaction. It's too easy for us to pick and choose among church teachings.
Yet the Church is truly catholic -- vast and varied. This struck me as I selected readings for the Labor Day mass. The Lectionary offers two options for each reading, and they could not be more different.
The first reading offers two versions of the creation story from Genesis. One gives mankind "dominion" over creation. The command is to "fill the earth and subdue it." The other simply states that man(kind) was placed in the garden "to cultivate and care for it." Wow! What different attitudes toward creation!
The choices for the second reading suggest that Paul did not theologize much about work. He saw it as a simple necessity of life: "one unwilling to work, should not eat." Obviously a statement with social implications.
In the Gospel readings, we see the greatest contrast of all. In the first, Jesus tells his followers to trust in God's providence, and "do not worry about tomorrow." In the second option, we have the parable of the talents, where the third servant, who had done nothing wrong except bury his talent, had his talent taken away, and was thrown outside "where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth." This is a parable even Ayn Rand could approve of.
With such a disparity of teachings in scripture, it is necessary for the Church to amplify and clarify what the tradition is communicating to us, and since 1891, there has been a regular stream of encyclicals and other statements to do just this. It is also true that "the social justice teaching of the Church is its best-kept secret." One of the difficulties is that this area does not lend itself to black-and-white absolute statements. Even at the beginning of his pontificate, while the Soviet Union was still alive and well, Pope John Paul saw the need of a path distinct from communism and capitalism, since both of them were materialistic in nature. Middle paths do not generate the same moral fervor as extreme ones, so the Church's stand on economic issues has always received a tepid response.
My enthusiasm for "Laborem Exercens" comes from the Pope's insistence on the spiritual value of human work. In my own words, this makes mankind a "sacrament" to creation, to continue to transform it and help bring it to perfection. He consistently returns to this theme, to avoid the temptation to look at work, and the economy in general, as materialistic realities, governed by mechanical laws.
John Paul puts great emphasis on the respect for the human person. He claims that every worker is a free subject, an agent, not a passive object. With this in mind, he can confidently state that work which does not involve the creativity and free will of the worker cannot be considered worthy of human beings. He goes on to endorse labor unions and associations, and also worker participation in the management of enterprises. He makes the bald statement that "labor has priority over capital." I would be interested in knowing what percentage of Catholics would endorse that view.
In the larger economic sense, he reminds us that in the Catholic tradition, the right to property is not absolute -- it is conditioned by the need to promote the common good. This statement alone would get the Pope tossed out of a lot of churches. Several years later, the US bishops would state that "the economy exists for people, not people for the economy." Such shocking statements can come and go without making much of an impact on society. Moral indignation over economic injustices has ebbed since the 1980's. Will it return?
After the Mass, one man came up to me and angrily stated: "I never thought I would hear the Democratic party platform read from the pulpit!" Others complained to the pastor, who in turn advised me that the homily was not the place for such announcements.
As I prepared my homily for Labor Day this year, I picked up a copy of my favorite encyclical of Pope John Paul's: "Laborem Exercens" (On Human Work) and wistfully thought that if I were to return to that same congregation and begin reading from the beloved Pope's teaching, I would get the same reaction. It's too easy for us to pick and choose among church teachings.
Yet the Church is truly catholic -- vast and varied. This struck me as I selected readings for the Labor Day mass. The Lectionary offers two options for each reading, and they could not be more different.
The first reading offers two versions of the creation story from Genesis. One gives mankind "dominion" over creation. The command is to "fill the earth and subdue it." The other simply states that man(kind) was placed in the garden "to cultivate and care for it." Wow! What different attitudes toward creation!
The choices for the second reading suggest that Paul did not theologize much about work. He saw it as a simple necessity of life: "one unwilling to work, should not eat." Obviously a statement with social implications.
In the Gospel readings, we see the greatest contrast of all. In the first, Jesus tells his followers to trust in God's providence, and "do not worry about tomorrow." In the second option, we have the parable of the talents, where the third servant, who had done nothing wrong except bury his talent, had his talent taken away, and was thrown outside "where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth." This is a parable even Ayn Rand could approve of.
With such a disparity of teachings in scripture, it is necessary for the Church to amplify and clarify what the tradition is communicating to us, and since 1891, there has been a regular stream of encyclicals and other statements to do just this. It is also true that "the social justice teaching of the Church is its best-kept secret." One of the difficulties is that this area does not lend itself to black-and-white absolute statements. Even at the beginning of his pontificate, while the Soviet Union was still alive and well, Pope John Paul saw the need of a path distinct from communism and capitalism, since both of them were materialistic in nature. Middle paths do not generate the same moral fervor as extreme ones, so the Church's stand on economic issues has always received a tepid response.
My enthusiasm for "Laborem Exercens" comes from the Pope's insistence on the spiritual value of human work. In my own words, this makes mankind a "sacrament" to creation, to continue to transform it and help bring it to perfection. He consistently returns to this theme, to avoid the temptation to look at work, and the economy in general, as materialistic realities, governed by mechanical laws.
John Paul puts great emphasis on the respect for the human person. He claims that every worker is a free subject, an agent, not a passive object. With this in mind, he can confidently state that work which does not involve the creativity and free will of the worker cannot be considered worthy of human beings. He goes on to endorse labor unions and associations, and also worker participation in the management of enterprises. He makes the bald statement that "labor has priority over capital." I would be interested in knowing what percentage of Catholics would endorse that view.
In the larger economic sense, he reminds us that in the Catholic tradition, the right to property is not absolute -- it is conditioned by the need to promote the common good. This statement alone would get the Pope tossed out of a lot of churches. Several years later, the US bishops would state that "the economy exists for people, not people for the economy." Such shocking statements can come and go without making much of an impact on society. Moral indignation over economic injustices has ebbed since the 1980's. Will it return?
Friday, August 31, 2012
Hello! I decided to begin this blog both as a motivation for me to keep writing, and also as a way to share my writing with others. As for WHAT I would write about, I left that up to whatever inspiration I received.
I didn't anticipate that the next thing I would write would be a homily. I offered to celebrate a Sunday mass while I was visiting Our Lady of Guadalupe in Houston, and this homily is the result.
When I looked at the readings for this Sunday, I was struck by the infamous second reading where Paul, among other things, tells wives to be submissive to their husbands. This passage is so offensive to some people that the bishops gave us the option of skipping over it completely. I don't choose to do that. We have been given the scriptures, and we need to accept them and be confronted by them as they are. By that I do not mean only literally, but in the fullness of their meaning.
I developed this homily for a very specific congregation, most of whom are very traditional and do not question the literal meaning of the text. In a ten minute homily, it was not possible or advisable to do so. But it brought up a lot of questions for me, which I will have to respond to at another time. So here it is.
Please -- respond to the blog! I've been told that is the main reason to have one -- to have interaction with people. It's going to be fun.
Homily for Sunday 26 August
1st reading: Joshua: whom will you follow?
2d reading - Paul: be submissiveto one another
Gospel - John: will you also leave?
The readings challenge us with the two great commandments: love God and love neighbor. I would like to expand on the first commandment: there are actually three stages to it: to seek God, to encounter God, and to love God above all things.
The desire to know God is already planted in our hearts; every human being has the thirst to experience something beyond the material reality of our lives. We all seek "happiness," we all need to feel our lives have some meaning. Some people never seem to find it; they remain unsatisfied their whole lives. Most of the time this involves substituting other things, whether material satisfaction or possessions or security, or some ideal or cause, for an encounter with God.
However, many people do encounter God in their lives. Since this is a personal encounter with the living God, there are as many different types of encounter as there are persons.
One of the main purposes of the Church is to offer people opportunities to encounter God.
Most of us are here today because we have encountered God, who gives meaning to our lives. We have reached the second stage of the journey. So most of us can identify with the people in today's Gospel.
The disciples of Jesus, as well as the crowd of 5,000, had experienced Jesus' divine power in the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. They had met God, and for many of them it was a life-changing experience. Now, for them as well as for us, Jesus places a challenge: to move beyond the brief encounter to the third step, which is to love God above all things: to believe, and act, in a new way.
As we see in the Gospel, not all did. As powerful as the encounter with God was, it cannot bring about by itself the third step: to make the changes in one's life which are necessary to put God in first place. How many people do we know who are stuck at this point? They have had a real encounter with God, perhaps many encounters; perhaps this encounter has been strengthened and nourished for many years. After all, this is the second purpose of the church: not only to introduce people to God, but to nourish and strengthen that relationship.
But no one else can make that decision to love God above all things but me. This was the challenge Jesus places before the crowds in today's Gospel: do you believe that my flesh is real food for you to eat? This was a horrifying thought for his hearers; in fact, it continues to turn off people in our day. So most of them turned away. And Jesus asks the Twelve: will you also go away? Peter answers for us all: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life."
For us, gathered here today in church, believing in Jesus' words "my flesh is real food" seems to be a simple thing. We are here because we believe and follow Jesus. The tradition of the church has paved the path for us. We are no longer shocked and scandalized by his words. We were (most of us) brought to church as children by our families and, even if we have fallen away at times, we are still on the path. We come to communion because we believe we truly are receiving the Body of Christ. We are nourishing the encounter with God.
But we still must answer the question: why did Jesus come to us as food? What is it about eating that both helps us and challenges us to know and love God? After all, Jesus could have told us to remember him by coming forward and touching the cross, or could have simply left us with a scripture or a prayer. Why did he come as food?
(Meditate for a moment)
Because food goes inside. Food changes us. The calories in food become part of us. Materially speaking, we are what we eat. Every cell in our bodies is made up of food we have eaten. On the other hand, everything unnecessary or even harmful must be disposed of, or it will make us sick.
So if we truly believe that we are receiving Jesus' body as food, then we must accept that he will become part of us, and change us.
So there are three reasons to be scandalized by Jesus' words: first, to believe that his body is real food, that the bread and wine become his body and blood for our nourishment; second, to believe that this divine food will make a real change in me -- that I will become Christ for others; and third, to believe that Christ is also in my neighbor. To love God above all things means that we believe all three of these, and put them into practice. So the love of God is fulfilled in love of my neighbor.
So, to believe in and live by the words of Jesus means that we must take this spiritual nourishment with us throughout the week, and be ready in whatever moment to put it into practice, by loving God and my neighbor. And how do we do that? St. Paul in the second reading gives us an example.
Paul challenges us a lot more strongly and specifically to love, not only a God who is invisible, but our neighbor, who are very visible. He says very clearly that by loving each other, we not only living our own private lives, we are participating in the great mystery of God's redemption. He uses one particular example, the love of husband and wife, to help us understand and experience the love of Christ for the church.
Paul speaks of the relationship between husband and wife. In biblical times, these roles were very different and unequal. Today, in many parts of the world, these roles are still different and unequal. In other parts of the world, especially in our own society, these roles are changing. But Paul insists that difference between the sexes does not change the basic message. His command is to "be subordinate to each other." It is a mutual love, a mutual self-giving, which is as much of a challenge today as it was in Paul's day.
Paul also gives particular advice to husbands and wives, based on the culture of his day. We have to be careful about taking this too literally-- in other places, Paul told widows not to remarry, and discouraged marriage in general. He told slaves to obey their masters. His advice to people, based on the culture of the time, always invited them to rise above the material, cultural norms of society and see their lives in the light of God's saving plan for us.
Paul was not interested in reforming the material culture of his day, because he believed, as most of the apostles did, that this world would soon be coming to an end. His value to us is his gift for seeing the spiritual reality unfolding in the midst of our material world. He could see, in the love of husband and wife (which he, of course, never experienced) the reality of Jesus' love for the Church. In a larger sense, this gives a deeper spiritual meaning to the connection between the two great commandments; that when we truly love our neighbor as ourselves, we are also loving God.
1st reading: Joshua: whom will you follow?
2d reading - Paul: be submissiveto one another
Gospel - John: will you also leave?
The readings challenge us with the two great commandments: love God and love neighbor. I would like to expand on the first commandment: there are actually three stages to it: to seek God, to encounter God, and to love God above all things.
The desire to know God is already planted in our hearts; every human being has the thirst to experience something beyond the material reality of our lives. We all seek "happiness," we all need to feel our lives have some meaning. Some people never seem to find it; they remain unsatisfied their whole lives. Most of the time this involves substituting other things, whether material satisfaction or possessions or security, or some ideal or cause, for an encounter with God.
However, many people do encounter God in their lives. Since this is a personal encounter with the living God, there are as many different types of encounter as there are persons.
One of the main purposes of the Church is to offer people opportunities to encounter God.
Most of us are here today because we have encountered God, who gives meaning to our lives. We have reached the second stage of the journey. So most of us can identify with the people in today's Gospel.
The disciples of Jesus, as well as the crowd of 5,000, had experienced Jesus' divine power in the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. They had met God, and for many of them it was a life-changing experience. Now, for them as well as for us, Jesus places a challenge: to move beyond the brief encounter to the third step, which is to love God above all things: to believe, and act, in a new way.
As we see in the Gospel, not all did. As powerful as the encounter with God was, it cannot bring about by itself the third step: to make the changes in one's life which are necessary to put God in first place. How many people do we know who are stuck at this point? They have had a real encounter with God, perhaps many encounters; perhaps this encounter has been strengthened and nourished for many years. After all, this is the second purpose of the church: not only to introduce people to God, but to nourish and strengthen that relationship.
But no one else can make that decision to love God above all things but me. This was the challenge Jesus places before the crowds in today's Gospel: do you believe that my flesh is real food for you to eat? This was a horrifying thought for his hearers; in fact, it continues to turn off people in our day. So most of them turned away. And Jesus asks the Twelve: will you also go away? Peter answers for us all: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life."
For us, gathered here today in church, believing in Jesus' words "my flesh is real food" seems to be a simple thing. We are here because we believe and follow Jesus. The tradition of the church has paved the path for us. We are no longer shocked and scandalized by his words. We were (most of us) brought to church as children by our families and, even if we have fallen away at times, we are still on the path. We come to communion because we believe we truly are receiving the Body of Christ. We are nourishing the encounter with God.
But we still must answer the question: why did Jesus come to us as food? What is it about eating that both helps us and challenges us to know and love God? After all, Jesus could have told us to remember him by coming forward and touching the cross, or could have simply left us with a scripture or a prayer. Why did he come as food?
(Meditate for a moment)
Because food goes inside. Food changes us. The calories in food become part of us. Materially speaking, we are what we eat. Every cell in our bodies is made up of food we have eaten. On the other hand, everything unnecessary or even harmful must be disposed of, or it will make us sick.
So if we truly believe that we are receiving Jesus' body as food, then we must accept that he will become part of us, and change us.
So there are three reasons to be scandalized by Jesus' words: first, to believe that his body is real food, that the bread and wine become his body and blood for our nourishment; second, to believe that this divine food will make a real change in me -- that I will become Christ for others; and third, to believe that Christ is also in my neighbor. To love God above all things means that we believe all three of these, and put them into practice. So the love of God is fulfilled in love of my neighbor.
So, to believe in and live by the words of Jesus means that we must take this spiritual nourishment with us throughout the week, and be ready in whatever moment to put it into practice, by loving God and my neighbor. And how do we do that? St. Paul in the second reading gives us an example.
Paul challenges us a lot more strongly and specifically to love, not only a God who is invisible, but our neighbor, who are very visible. He says very clearly that by loving each other, we not only living our own private lives, we are participating in the great mystery of God's redemption. He uses one particular example, the love of husband and wife, to help us understand and experience the love of Christ for the church.
Paul speaks of the relationship between husband and wife. In biblical times, these roles were very different and unequal. Today, in many parts of the world, these roles are still different and unequal. In other parts of the world, especially in our own society, these roles are changing. But Paul insists that difference between the sexes does not change the basic message. His command is to "be subordinate to each other." It is a mutual love, a mutual self-giving, which is as much of a challenge today as it was in Paul's day.
Paul also gives particular advice to husbands and wives, based on the culture of his day. We have to be careful about taking this too literally-- in other places, Paul told widows not to remarry, and discouraged marriage in general. He told slaves to obey their masters. His advice to people, based on the culture of the time, always invited them to rise above the material, cultural norms of society and see their lives in the light of God's saving plan for us.
Paul was not interested in reforming the material culture of his day, because he believed, as most of the apostles did, that this world would soon be coming to an end. His value to us is his gift for seeing the spiritual reality unfolding in the midst of our material world. He could see, in the love of husband and wife (which he, of course, never experienced) the reality of Jesus' love for the Church. In a larger sense, this gives a deeper spiritual meaning to the connection between the two great commandments; that when we truly love our neighbor as ourselves, we are also loving God.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Beginning a new year
Welcome!
Or, as they say in Brasil, ben-vindo! Most of you know that I spent the last two months of my sabbatical visiting Brasil. Besides experiencing a different culture, I enjoyed the hospitality of my Sacred Heart brothers and shared in their unique religious traditions and the creative ministry they do.
Now, I return to Chicago, to join the formation team at our house there, accompanying the young men who wish to join our religious community.
I'd like to share with you my thoughts and feelings (and, hopefully, a few poems) during this new adventure. Join me!
Tim
Or, as they say in Brasil, ben-vindo! Most of you know that I spent the last two months of my sabbatical visiting Brasil. Besides experiencing a different culture, I enjoyed the hospitality of my Sacred Heart brothers and shared in their unique religious traditions and the creative ministry they do.
Now, I return to Chicago, to join the formation team at our house there, accompanying the young men who wish to join our religious community.
I'd like to share with you my thoughts and feelings (and, hopefully, a few poems) during this new adventure. Join me!
Tim
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