Category Archives: Church

You Have Talent. Now What?

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Dear Folks,

This weekend we get the parable of the talents, the second of the three parables about the last judgment in Matthew 25. Compare with Luke 19:11-27).

We notice what is not condemned here. There is no condemnation of those who try and fail. There is no condemnation of those who make mistakes. I once saw posted: “Remember that when God made his plan, he factored in your stupidity.” I find that wonderfully comforting.

It is said there are three surprises in heaven. First is all the people there you didn’t expect to see. Then there is all the people you don’t see that you expected to see. The third is the look on the people’s faces that didn’t expect to see you there. We might find in heaven some people whom you thought was an enemy. Maybe we thought that they were acting selfishly, possibly even evil, but God knew that they were doing the best they knew to do from sincere motives.

How do we work for the kingdom? I have said before we get some idea from Acts of the Apostles, and my reading is that they basically did four things: told the Gospel story, worked together as community, worshipped God and helped people in need. I think doing those four things will use our gifts well, and we all have a role to play.

How well could we tell the Gospel story (or a portion of it) that would make sense to someone who didn’t already believe it? Even if someone were raised Catholic, they might not understand religious language. Sometimes we think we understand but we are just repeating without seeing how it connects to our life. We are simply repeating what is familiar. I had heard the term “swaddling clothes” my whole life, and I never actually considered that I didn’t know what it meant. Only when I went to Bethlehem did I get it explained and understood. How well can we explain the faith without just repeating the terms that we were taught?

When we talk about working together as community, I suggest focus on two things: welcoming and dealing with conflict. How many of the people at the church do you know? If a visitor comes, does someone get to know them? Do we just say hi to the people we know?

How do we deal with conflict? I’ve seen a lot of handling it badly. I’ve repeatedly recommended Ann Garrido’s “Redeeming Conflict.” If we could get better at dealing with conflict it would go a long way toward making us a stronger Church.

We are called to worship God. He doesn’t need our worship, but we need to worship Him. If we focus on Him and not ourselves not our experience or our feelings, if we serve the mystery, that will make a difference.

We can get better at helping people in need. More on that next week.

We can only do this in union with Jesus (John 15:4-5). If you want to accomplish great things, if you think the world needs changing, the first step is to fall more deeply in love with Jesus. He’s right there, where you are. Take some time.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

Christianity: Preparing for a Marathon

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Dear Folks,

This Sunday we hear of bridesmaids with their lamps.

Matthew does something interesting. He bookends Jesus’ public teaching with the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) in the beginning and three parables about the Last Judgment (Matthew 25) at the end. It says that He taught in synagogues before this but doesn’t give us content. Now we get serious.

The Sermon on the Mount gives a summary of how to live as a Christian, more about what we are to become rather that do’s and don’t’s. I have talked before how this is presented as a new Torah, but we would not consider the sermon to be the new Torah, but Jesus Himself is the new Torah. It ends with a story of building a house. Jesus contrasts wise men (phronimos: wise, shrewd, prudent, clever, cunning crafty) and foolish men (moros, from with we get the word “moron”). It is not enough to hear it. We must decide that it is the way to live and seek to live it.

The three parables, which are our Gospel readings for the next three weeks, finishing off the liturgical year, form the end. The first is this Sunday’s Gospel and contrasts wise bridesmaids who bring extra oil for their oil lamps (though now they would bring extra batteries for their smart phones) and foolish ones who do not, and are not prepared for a long wait. It is not enough to begin. We must be prepared to endure.

It is good to look in between for development of those ideas. See when Jesus says that he who holds out to the end will be saved (Matthew 10:22; 24:14). We don’t know if we will die today or live for many years. Jesus calls us to be ready in either case. If we died today, are we ready? What would we wish we had done? If we live for several more years, how will we live? C. S. Lewis, in his book “The Screwtape Letters,” Screwtape (senior devil) says to his nephew Wormwood, “You see, it is so hard for these creatures to persevere (see letter 28).” Being serious about a sprint is one thing. Being serious for a marathon is another. Are we prepared?

One of the things we can think about is what kind of habits are we developing? Whatever we do repeatedly is forming a habit. Emerson said, “Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.” Whetever our age, we are called to have our lamp burning.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

All Saints Day

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Dear Folks,
We celebrate All Saints this Sunday.  If you study the saints, you’ll quickly see that they are a varied lot.  Some are wealthy, some are poor. Some are very well educated, and some couldn’t read. Some have traveled to the far reaches of the known world and some have and some have never gone far from the place they were born. Some sought solitude, and some were always with other people. Some loved God from earliest days, and some were horrible people who repented.

They all loved God very much, and they sought to became what God made them to be.

We all learned about the Ten Commandments when we were kids. If sure if someone asked you, you could recite them without trouble (and you never know when someone will ask) and explain what they meant. But many of us did not learn much about the beatitudes when we were growing up. There are probably far fewer Catholics who can recite and explain the Beatitudes.

We have the Gospel of the Beatitudes from the sermon on the mount. It presents a vision of what we are meant to be. You will notice that it is not about doing tasks, but about the type of person that one is called to become. We can’t get there with our own mighty effort, but we depend completely on God and His grace.

When Jesus says “Blessed are the poor in spirit” he is talking to all of us. However we have worldly stuff, that does not impress God (who made all of it). We come to Him as people with nothing to offer, completely dependent on God’s mercy (See Matthew 8:1-13)

“Blessed are they who mourn.” Only people who care about something will mourn. If we cannot change things, we mourn they are not better (See Matthew 23:37-39).

Blessed are the meek (see Psalm 37). To understand what it is to be meek, we look to Jesus. He would sometimes be at the center of attention and sometimes be silent. This was because He wasn’t about doing His own will, but the will of the Father who sent Him.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness (being in right relationship with God). We cannot hunger and thirst just by wanting to (imagine choosing to hunger and thirst for fruits and vegetables more that chocolate and bacon). It is only in union with Him that we are transformed.

Blessed are the merciful. Any reading of the Gospels emphasizes this.

Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God (see Psalm 24). Let’s be honest. A part of us wants to follow Jesus, and a part of us still wants to sin. Growing in holiness is evangelizing that part of us that still wants to sin, so that we can be purely dedicated to God.

Blessed are the peacemakers. It is not enough not to make trouble. We are called to actively build peace. I think we need both the will and the skill to do it. I recommend the book “Redeeming Conflict” by Ann Garrido.

Blessed are they who persecuted for the sake or righteousness. If we are truly to be faithful, it will sometimes put us in conflict with the world around us. Blessed are we if we keep striving to be faithful, whatever it costs.

This will keep us busy for the rest of our lives.

God calls no one to mediocrity. You (yes, you!) were made for greatness and called to be heroically holy. If God could get anything He wanted from you, how would your life be different?

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

Are We Going to Talk about Love Again?

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Dear Folks,

The central challenge: to love God and our neighbor. One of the easiest things to say. One of the hardest things to do.

Love is to seek the good of the other. This requires first, figuring out what is the good. Second, how to accomplish it.

We cannot benefit God, but we can please Him. We please Him by being in a good relationship with Him and by helping other people.

The good begins with life, even if it is a difficult life. We are called to serve the life and dignity of everyone from conception to natural death. This includes the rich and the poor. This includes those who came here from other countries, including those who came here illegally. The question becomes what this the most loving thing to do with them. We find a lot of attacking what others are doing, but what should we do? It includes criminals, including those on death row. It includes the victims of crimes. It includes struggling families. It includes people all over the world. It includes human trafficking victims. It includes people victimized by the pornography industry.  In includes the pre-born. It includes those which terminal illnesses. It includes those who hurt us. It includes everybody that I didn’t mention.

This does not always mean doing what people want. Sometimes, it means doing the opposite. Sometimes it means speaking a truth that people don’t want to hear. It does not always make us feel good.

There is a lot of disagreement about how to accomplish the good. What we want to avoid is “You don’t believe in doing good the way I believe in doing good, therefore you don’t care about doing good.” I see a long of that around. There are some contradictory narratives about what will accomplish the good, and it is important to get underneath them and get some more agreement on what is going to be helpful. Trading insults is not helpful. Presuming that the conversation has been had and that what we believe is obviously true doesn’t seem to be working either.

Of course, it is no good to be concerned about political issues if we do not treat the people around us well. Once again, this does not always mean doing what people want. Every time we encounter someone, we can look for an opportunity to give some positive energy. Being aware of others and seeing things from their point of view is a skill that we can work on throughout our lives.

We won’t get it completely right in this life. We will make mistakes, and sometimes that will put us on the wrong side of various issues. Sometimes we will try to bring good to a situation and wind up making it worse. I’ve done that countless times. The question is, when God judges us, have we done the very best we can to love our neighbor?

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

Church in Dialog

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Dear Folks,

This Sunday we consider that God is God over all the earth, not just those who believe in Him. We see King Cyrus (no relation to Billy Ray Cyrus) who was king of Persia and allowed the Israelites to go back to their homeland and rebuild Jerusalem, healing their achy-breaky hearts.

The Second Vatican Council produced sixteen documents, the most important of those being the four constitutions. One of them is about the Church in the Modern world (known to its friends as Gaudium et Spes). It talks about the relationship between the Church and the world. It is said that before Vatican II we had more of a fortress mentality, and the less we dealt with it the better. Now there is more of a sense of engaging the world. The challenge is to be faithful to the truth while we do that and not compromise with the world.

In the early Church, Christians were good citizens. They obeyed civil law, unless following the law meant doing something contrary to the faith. Then they would stand fast, even if it was over something as small as putting a pinch of incense on the charcoal and saying “Kaiser Kurios.” They would accept torture and death rather than do that.

Bishop Barron has said that every culture is “evangelically ambiguous,” meaning that there are some values in society that are in keeping with Christian principles, and some values that are contrary to those principles. We are called to affirm what is good and challenge what is wrong. We are called to be leaven in society (Matthew 13:33), to be light to the world and salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13-16).

We are called to participate in our society, using our Chrisitan consciences, but never hitching our star to a particular politician or party. I have been given to understand that a great many Catholics believe in the principles of the world more than the teaching of the Catholic Church. We do not seek a theocrasy, in which the Catholic faith would be mandatory for everyone, and Catholic teaching would be mandatory. As Pope Paul VI said, “We are to propose, not impose.” But we are called to hold fast to the truths of our faith, with sometimes mandates us being active in society. We need to be careful that our ideas are shaped more by our Catholic faith than by the world.

In America that means participating as good citizens and standing up for the sanctity and dignity of life from conception to natural death. It means being concerned for everyone, and right now (I expect always) there is disagreement about how to best do that. That is part of the challenge. Of we bring Christian love to the conversation, and treat everyone with dignity, that will often be as important as the position we take. I must say that my own experience has, much of the time, been unhelpful in developing the skill of having dialog with those with other points of view. I’ve been working on it steadily, however, and I believe I have come a long way.  May we as Church, continue to develop the skill of dialog.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

Failing God

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Dear Folks,

We have another parable about a vineyard (Matthew 21:33-43) in which the tenants were given a lot to work with but didn’t give the owner his share of the grapes. It is good to look at that alongside the first reading (Isaiah 5:1-7) and we see how, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Jesus was clearly talking about the treatment of the prophets of the Old Testament, and also the behavior of the religious leaders at the time.  We can, of course see ourselves in the role of the tenants. 

The other text we want to look at is John 15:1-6, the part of the farewell discourse in which Jesus says that he is the vine, and we are the branches. We work by our own power, we will always fail, if not immediately, eventually. We need to emphasize this. 

Some say that Christianity is basically a call to be a good person. These people have been badly catechized.  Some say it centers around feeling close to God. I’ve heard stories of people being told in the 1970’s, “You don’t have to go to church. If you feel closer to God out in the woods, that’s where you should go.” Sadly, many Catholics have been badly catechized, so we have a lot of work to do. I’m told the notion that Christianity is basically a matter of morality started with Immanuel Kant. The notion that it centers around feeling close to God probably started in the 1960’s. 

Christianity is about a relationship with God. God wants intimacy with us and seeks to give Himself to us, and teaches us how to love Him and our neighbor. Sadly, our sins drive close ourselves to Him. Ever since the fruit incident in Genesis chapter 3, have been failing. The Scriptures (including our readings for this Sunday) show how badly God’s people have failed Him. I know I have failed many times, sometimes from my lack of skill; sometimes by my sinfulness. Because God gives us responsibility, a believe that each sin makes the world less than what God wanted. We cannot change the past (which I find really annoying, but clearly God doesn’t want me to spend all my time rewriting what has happened. That means I focus on the decisions now for the best possible future. That means how we can love God, and how we can love our neighbor. 

What we learn is that we can only bear good fruit if we are united to Him. If you want to help build a better world, the first step is to fall more deeply in love with Jesus. 

Blessing,

Fr. Jim

Continuing Discussion of the Liturgy of the Hours

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Dear Folks,

I have talked about the Liturgy of the Hours. The new edition will come out in January of next year. 

There are five “hours.”  There is morning prayer, daytime prayer, evening prayer, office of readings, and night prayer. They don’t take an hour to do, but are called hours because they are geared toward certain times of day. There is morning prayer (lauds), mid-day prayer (terce, sext, or none, depending on whether you pray it mid-morning, mid-day, mid-afternoon), evening prayer (vespers), night prayer (compline), and the office of readings (whatever time works best). 

Before Vatican II, the breviary would get through all the Psalms every week. It was pretty much exclusively the work of priests and religious. The Second Vatican council called for it to be more widely available and to make it less burdensome. It was revised to do almost all the Psalms in four weeks (Psalms 58, 83, and 109 have been completely omitted, as well as several verses that were seen as doing more harm than good, like Psalm 137:7-9). There was a call then and by popes since that it be prayed more by lay people. 

Because this is liturgy, not a devotion, it is a way in which we are united all around the world and speaking with the voice of Christ giving worship to the Father. The liturgical year has a certain rhythm, with various seasons and feasts. Every Friday should have a little bit of Good Friday, and every Sunday should have a little bit of Easter Sunday. The Liturgy of the Hours puts us more in contact with that rhythm and helps each day have more of that rhythm throughout the day. 

There was a mini-series that came out in 2015 called A.D. (a remake of an earlier version). In episode 5 there is an example of Roman cruelty in the temple courtyard. Peter was there and spontaneously started reciting Psalm 69. Caiaphas was there and joined him.  I’m pretty sure they weren’t friends, but they could recite the Psalm together. I don’t know if that actually happened (probably not), but it could have. Imagine people from all over the diocese being able to do that.

The book that is used is called the Breviary, and the Liturgy of the Hours is also called the Divine Office. The full breviary has four volumes, but there is a one volume that gives less to the office of readings, and a Shorter Christian Prayer that is basically morning and evening prayer and night prayer.  The are also internet options. I have used iBreviary and some use divineoffice.org. This uses your phone, tablet or computer and it works but is not ideal. There is something powerful in having a sacred book set aside for a holy purpose. This is why the Missal in used as a book, but we are called not to use a tablet.

This is a way that Catholics can get together and pray as Catholics without a priest present. It is one way we can be a stronger Church with fewer priests. It is a part of opening the treasury of Catholic prayer more widely for more people. 

More Later.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

Not Fair II

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Dear Folks,

Continuing on the theme of God seeming unfair.

The Gospel reading for this Sunday, Matthew 21:28-32 talks about two brothers.

The essence of the Gospel is the gift of self. The Lord gave Himself out of love, not withholding the last drop of his blood. It is by the power of this gift that we are called and enabled to receive His gift and give ourselves in return.

There is danger that we will refuse to give ourselves as gift, or the more insidious danger is that we give a false gift of self. Jesus is warning the chief priests and elders of the people that their false gift was not going to get them into participation with the Kingdom of God. They wanted the perks of the job: the glory, the privilege, the income, but their hearts were not with God.

God gave us sexuality as a vehicle to give ourselves in a very special way. To use our sexuality in a lesser way than God intends is a false gift of self. Things like pornography are seeking the thrill without any gift of self at all, the opposite of what God calls us to be.

Have we ever had someone who calls themselves our friend but its always about them?

If we go to church and are more focused on how it makes us feel rather than how we are giving ourselves in worship, are we not offering a false gift? Or are we focused on God, on serving him, and on repenting of our sins? Do we have faith to reject sinful behavior?

Do we have the faith to tell Jesus to take our lives and do what He wants with them? In my experience, if we give our lives to Him, He will take it.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

It’s Just Not Fair

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Dear Folks,

When we are kids, one of the first principles we learn is to play fair. Everyone gets a turn. Everyone gets the same number of cookies. When we hear this Gospel reading (Matthew 20:1-16a, the workers in the vineyard) the first reaction I had was this isn’t fair.  

So, what’s the deal? We get told that “life isn’t fair.” I, of course had trouble with this for a long time because when people said it, it usually meant that I was going to get the dirty end of the stick. 

However, when we get a larger perspective, we learn ways it is good that life isn’t fair. Different people are given different challenges and different gifts. This enables people to bring different strengths to the table. 

Returning to our Gospel reading, consider: If you are hiring people to do a job, and there is a large pool to choose from, who would you pick? I expect the ones who get hired look the strongest and most capable of working. Imagine you were one of the candidates, and you didn’t get hired yesterday. That might mean that you didn’t eat yesterday. What if you didn’t get hired for several day? You might not look very capable and wouldn’t be the first hired. You stay around the marketplace hoping to get hired to do something so maybe you could get something to eat. Perhaps the owner of the vineyard wanted to give these people a chance. We may feel a bit hurt when someone is getting an extra chance and we are not, but there are larger issues. I’ve known families where one of the children has a long-term disease and so gets more attention. The other children, even if they understand, still feel it.

Some had said that this verse refers to people going to the last judgement and everyone who is saved gets the same reward whether they have done a lot or a little. There are a couple of problems with this interpretation. First, it would be the only text I know of in scripture that teaches us how to cope with going to heaven. Second, Jesus makes reference some greater and some lesser in the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 5:19, 11:11). 

This story could certainly be understood as referring to the Gentiles becoming Christian, and their Jewish colleagues that, having followed the Torah for generations, they should get some special consideration in the Church compared to those who, for generations, practiced some pagan religion (which would often sound like more fun). If we hear the stories of some who had a time of seeking their own desires before becoming Christian (St. Augustine comes to mind) they often wish they had come to the faith sooner because that is better than what they had before. We have no cause to envy them.

God is at work. He wants everyone to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4) and will lead us through paths we might not understand at the time, but all will be made clear in the end. In the meantime, we keep going.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

Sharing the Faith

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Dear Folks,

The first point from our Sunday readings is to let go of success when it comes to persuading others (See Ezekiel 33:7-9). We are responsible for telling the truth. We are not responsible for others’ reaction. When I started college, I was determined to convert my agnostic roommate. Long story short, I did a terrible job. I could write a book, “101 Things Never, Ever to do While Evangelizing” and I did every one. The first one is I needed to convert him.   Sharing the truth is not about our needs. That said, we don’t get to be lazy about how we do it and how we learn to do it. I needed to learn a lot more about Christianity. I needed to learn a lot about how to dialog with people who thought differently from how I thought (I later learned that includes everyone: sooner or later I will disagree with you about something).  I had a lot to learn about how to manage my emotions.  God tells Ezekiel he is supposed to preach, and the people would respond how they chose.  We can just work on getting better ourselves.  I would suggest that one of the reasons that we are not doing better than we are is so many Catholics do not know how to share the faith, and one of the reasons good things are happening is we are getting some better apologists, including on social media (although good old-fashioned books still have a place). In twelve years of religious ed growing up they never taught us to share the faith with others. In eight years in the seminary they never taught us how to share the faith with those who don’t already have it (don’t get me wrong: I learned a lot of useful things in the seminary, just not that). This is one of the reasons I’m such a fanatic about being a lifelong learner about the faith. 

The Gospel (Matthew 18:15-20) talks about conflict in the Church. If the Church could deal with conflict better, it would save us a vast pile of time and energy that we could us practicing the faith.  If the Church could deal with conflict better that would be a powerful witness that Jesus is at work in our midst. Jesus doesn’t spend a lot of time with practicalities on how to be church, so this must be especially important. 

I have repeatedly recommended Ann Garrido’s book “Redeeming Conflict.” That gives us some basic tools.  However, we have all picked up bad habits in life, and it will take time and lots of effort (Is there any aspect of Christianity that does not require effort?). 

Imagine if everywhere Catholics go it becomes more peaceful, and people have more fruitful and more civil conversation.  It starts with each of us.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim