New Postings -- April 7 2014

The book is coming along!
The plan is for an introduction and six chapters: each chapter will describe a significant moment in my career as a homilist, and contain homilies which illustrate that point. Not all of them are my best; I hope the reader will be able to spot some defects and judge them on their merits.
I have posted the first chapter (in two parts, because of its length)
I have posted several sample homilies. The most recent ones are for weddings and funerals.  They are listed as "pages"  on this website.
Comments welcomed!

Chapter one = continued

So before I finished  high school, I learned by constant practice the elements of constructing a speech.  It sounds so elementary – the speech has a beginning, middle, and end –  and, most important of all, it has only one topic sentence.  Exactly the same rules apply as to writing an essay in English class.  (By now I can already hear the murmurs from readers:  Why didn’t MY pastor learn that?)

The introduction both gains the attention of the hearers, and announces the topic. The middle part broadens the topic, using standard techniques – examples, comparison and contrast, putting it in a context, etc. And the conclusion re-focuses the theme, leaving the hearers with one clear, easy to remember point. Simple, simple, simple – “tell them what you’re going to say, say it, then remind them what you said, and sit down.” It amazes me how so many preachers ignore that. While it sounds simple in theory to “stick to the topic,” it actually takes great discipline and practice.

oCath of sienar

intoro-  distracting;  jokes

omystery – long – is it good?

when  I was sitting down;   NO  when YOU were coming to church == examples

HOMILY

The role of repetition is a key one – how and when to repeat a point. Rarely do people pay attention to something until they have heard it repeated two or three times. Advertisers are totally aware of this. So it is important to CLEARLY state the theme AT LEAST three times. Don’t make the people work more than necessary! But timing is everything.  The most memorable parts of a sermon are the beginning and the end – that is why it is so important to clearly state the theme at the beginning and the end.

ojohn 6 – did I do it?

EXAMPLE??

“Begin at the beginning; go on  to the end, then stop”

I'm on my way

Hello !

I have now posted the draft copy of the outline for the book I am writing:  "The Bodacious Word."  You are invited to read it and to offer whatever reactions you have, either as comments on the web site itself or as e mails to me.  I would prefer any specific comments be put on the site itself, so that others can see and it becomes more interactive.

I have not yet found a way to let you know when  new posting is made, but I will soon find out.

As I understand this web site, there are three types of entries that can be made:  blog posts made by me, comments made by any of you, and  "pages" which are a separate category.  I will post parts of the book on the "Pages" section. At this point, I don't even know how you can comment on the pages themselves. This is a learning process !!

God willing, I might find another type of blog that will make further editing and comments easier and more helpful,  but I am just plunging ahead at this moment.
Thanks so much.
Love,
Tim

I'm back !

My new book is coming along!
When I decided that I actually would jump in and get a book published, I decided that the quickest way to do it was to EDIT a book that I have ALREADY written! For the last four years I have been writing out my homilies, and so I have over a hundred that are usable.
The challenge for me was to make it interesting, and personal.
So I decided to weave two themes together:
One, an autobiography of my life as a homilist, showing how significant moments in my life have affected my style of preaching;
Second, to illustrate for the reader the process by which a homily is written and developed.
In this way, I found a target audience for the book: people at the beginning of a ministry of preaching, in whatever form, and people who are interested in the quality (or lack of same) in Catholic and other churches.
Stay tuned!

Happy New Year!

Yes, we survived the end of the Mayan calendar. Our civil calendar  year 2013 has caught up with the  Catholic Church's new year which began with Advent.  Our Orthodox brethren wait for January 14 to celebrate by the old Julian calendar.  Now, we wait for the Lunar New Year in February 10, which begins the Year of the Snake.
But we missed the Muslim year 1434 which began already on November 15, Ras as-Sanah, not to be confused with  Jewish New Year 5773, Rosh Hashana, which began on September 16.
If this sounds like trivia to you, consider that in different parts of Jerusalem they have to be aware of five of these calendars (plus the fact that some use Daylight Saving time, and others do not!)

But enough trivia. Happy New Year to all.
I started this blog last year as an experiment. A couple months ago I got stuck, and as happens with procrastination, the longer I delayed the harder it got to return. Soooo....
My single New Year's resolution is to restart this blog.
I have a clearer focus this time: one, I will share my weekly homilies, which is a feature many people liked. Two, I will share poems on an occasional basis, as the spirit moves. Third, I will share my reflections on a topic which has always occupied my interest, but now more so than ever: the relationship between religion and science. I think of this as an ongoing class, and hopefully a discussion.

So stay tuned.

.

Epiphany 2013

Homily

for Epiphany  January  2013

Where is God? In heaven? In your heart? Here in church? Everywhere?

(Note: I really DO ask the question, and ask people in church to answer it !! )

This is a very important question, which most people ask many times during their life. We truly believe that God became human, we celebrate it at Christmas, we profess it at Mass every week, yet we often struggle to recognize God present in our everyday lives.

Today, in Epiphany, this second great feast of the Christmas season, the Church gives us a guide to help us answer this question.

We are coming to the end of the Christmas season, and what a season it is!

Even people who don't go to church, who don't believe in God, get into the Christmas spirit for a few weeks, smiling at strangers, showing charity toward the poor and needy, being generous and kind. Christmas truly celebrates the birth of a child in our world, and most of us are carried along by that joy and happiness.

The feast of Christmas shows God's presence in our world in a very clear and striking way. It reminds us that sharing, that giving and receiving love, is indeed the most powerful force in our world.

But, as adults, we know that Christmas cannot go on forever. So for that reason the church gives us other feasts to help us understand better the mystery of God become human.

Even though we celebrate the birth of a child, we know that the child's life began much earlier. When?

People answer, Conception, the Annunciation)

Correct, the Church gives us the feast of the Annunciation to remind us that this great mystery began long before Christmas. Mary received the Word of God in her womb and the Great Mystery took place. And then what happened??  NOTHING.  Nothing special. What did Mary do the next day? She got up, cleaned the house, fixed a meal, washed dishes -- did the chores. Her daily routine. Nothing special.

Oh, yes, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Was that special? Did Mary sit on a throne and wait for Elizabeth to wait on her and sing her praises? No. She did housework.

For every joyful, festive Christmas day there were nine months of waiting. Working. Routine. Morning sickness. Pain. Fatigue. And not only that -- Mary also suffered in unusual ways. She was an unwed mother, a shame and embarrassment to everyone. She was not to give birth at home, surrounded by family, but alone, in a stable. Yes, she certainly suffered.

Think of it -- for every Christmas day there are nine months of hard preparation. God gives us this example so that we can understand the routine and painful times of life. When this happens in our own lives, we can feel not only the pain and suffering, the routine and the loneliness, but we can also feel the Word of God growing inside us, as the Word grew within Mary. If we feel only the suffering, we are lost; but if we feel God's Word growing and developing inside us,we will be ready when the wonderful moment of birth and new life arrives.

So what about today's feast? What do we celebrate today? What are these Magi doing? Why did they leave their homes? What were they following?  A star?  Yes.

But think about it. Who else saw that star?  Everyone. It was not a secret. Anyone could have followed that star. But only a few did. And they persevered, and arrived, and presented their gifts.

So this feast gives us a third way of appreciating God's appearing in the world as human -- the Incarnation. God appears not only in secret and in ordinary ways, as with Mary. God appears not only as a sudden burst of light and joy, as in Bethlehem. God also draws us from afar, like the Magi, following a star. Each one of us has a star. Each one of us has that pearl of great price, that treasure more valuable than anything else on earth. If we follow, if we are faithful, we will find God, not in a palace, but in a stable. And we will offer, freely, the gifts we have to give.

Notice that the Magi had problems. They needed help. They got lost. The heavenly star was not enough; they asked for directions. They trusted evil people like Herod. But through their faithfulness and purity of heart, they found God made human.

These three feasts -- the Annunciation,  Christmas, and Epiphany -- show us three different ways in which we experience the miracle of the Incarnation. May God's Holy Spirit guide us as we recognize and accept God's love entering our hearts.

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.

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

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?

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.

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