Christ is risen! He is truly risen!   Alleluia!!

Last Easter Sunday, some of my siblings and I celebrated at our mother’s home. She was not feeling at all well, but very much wanted to have the dinner at her house.

When I arrived, she was playing the piano, going through some of her favorite songs, one of which was Easter parade. “In your Easter bonnet…” Some of us sang along as she played.   After dinner, she was obviously very tired. She said she was going to lay down a while and we should just continue talking without her. Later, one of my sisters and I went in to see how she’s doing. She was very, very groggy, and a bit disoriented. She was talking about the Easter parade. So I quietly began to sing it to her. “With all the frills upon it…” I anointed her. Talking later, both my sister and I thought that that would be the moment of her death. In fact, she lived another six days.

I also had the privilege of being with her as she died. I had never had that experience before. Again, I anointed her. Another sister and I each held a hand as she calmly breathed her last. Today we celebrate her 93^rd birthday.  It is finished.

Or is it?  At the time of my mother’s physical death, both my sister and I knew that this vibrantly engaged, loving woman, who was emotionally and supportively present for all of the good and bad times of her eleven children and her husband of sixty-six years could not possibly, with one last gasp, be completely erased from all that is.  Somewhere, somehow, she was raised up to completion.  She will rise again.

As with Mary of Magdala and Peter and the disciple Jesús loved, even in finding the empty tomb, we do not fully understand that Jesús rose from the dead.  We know he is gone, but we cannot believe that he has stopped existing. When we die, do we enter even more deeply into life, a new life?  Our faith is that Jesus is still with us, and in our physical death we remain with Him.  But our knowledge rebels.  How could this be?  We certainly want to live forever, and we hope to in Christ, but our understanding is limited and we rely on scripture and the promises of Jesús:  “I am always with you…” “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

We do know we know we have many little dyings while physically alive—disappointment on one end, death of a loved one on the other, and much in between.  Our faith informs how we respond to those circumstances.  For the Christian, we know that if an ever-loving God is always with us, either God or we are missing something.  Either God has a strange sense of what it means to love, since we can experience evil and hurt, or we cannot see the complete picture.  We are limited by time and space; the God of Jesús is not.  So we believe that there is always a resurrection after any form of death.  There is always meaning and purpose, whether we understand it or not.

We also believe that the resurrection was not a one-time, historical event, which happened 2,000 years ago.  It is not the coming back to life of what was, but coming into new life. It is  new way of seeing and a new way of acting. Bread becomes body; wine becomes blood.  It is an ongoing reality that has been happening again and again, if we believe in Christ. For example, faith in the resurrection moves us beyond love of neighbor to love of enemy. If pursuit of my safety trumps my ability to love whomever God has in my path, fear wins, and I distance myself from God’s heart for the world.

Fear moves us away from people who are different than us and limits us to those who look, think, and act like we do. There is no love outside of acceptance; there is only misunderstanding, demonization, and stereotype. Resurrection continually calls us to move toward “the other.”

I firmly believe that my mother, my father and my two brothers who are no longer with us are, non-the-less, still alive.  I believe in the resurrection and life ever after.  Why?  Because even though I do not fully comprehend it, any other way makes no sense at all.  Christ has risen and so will we!  Alleluia!!

Resurrection

A posted question:".. .what do the rank and file clergy 'think' of Pope Francis? I know there are several layers of organization between you and the leaders. But how do the clergy react to this Pope? I'm sure you have seen how lay people sometimes respond to Pope. Statements like dogs can go to heaven (love it) or you can go into the forest to worship, not only a church." The clergy with whom I primarily have contact are directly involved in pastoral ministry, which means directly involved with the critical spiritual concerns of the people of God. While I can speak only of my own thoughts about Pope Francis, I have found wide agreement among fellow priests in pastoral ministry. I can also understand the fears and concerns of 'careerist' clergy. When Pope Francis left the United States after his visit in September, someone commented that during his six days with us, the entire nation was on retreat! That seems to be the feeling he generates everywhere he goes, not only because of what he says, but because of his obvious love of all people. If only I can show his energy and compassion when I reach his age! I think he has untied the knots that have been so much a part of our religion. The word religion is rooted in the word for binding, but there are at least two ways to do so: a parent or lover binds to another person by holding his or her hand; a pirate would bind someone by tying them to a mast! Basically, it's a mater of whether the emphasis is on rules or on relationships. It has been a while since I and others have experienced a pope for whom relationship takes precedence. His two encyclicals, his speeches and challenges to the world's bishops and political leaders reaffirms this order. He wants shepherds who smell like the sheep! While he hasn't changed ant Church law or doctrine, he has put much of it in a context that both explains it and generates discussion and places emphasis on the primacy of conscience. He not giving blank checks, but he's not bouncing them either! He has declared this year to be the year of mercy. Mercy is the foundation of human life and our relationship with God and each other. So far, I have found preaching and counseling from the perspective of mercy to be exciting and very well received. I have found Pope Francis to be exciting and very well received too! I am very grateful to be living in his time. No matter his successor, what impact he has made on the Church in these past few years can hardly be undone! God's Spirit called him. We are the beneficiaries of his answer to that call.

It has been 2 1/2 years since I have posted an entry on my blog, for reasons I might some day reveal.  Some folks have asked me to start it up again, so here goes!  This entry is a reflection on the lectionary readings of Sunday, February 7, 2015.  I have to write them out anyway to translate them to Spanish, so I'll probably share them in this way from time to time.  I will also pst on face book when I have a new one.  Thanks for your interest!

Unclean, Unworthy and Sinful Lips

Isaiah said: I am a man of unclean lips. He was right.

Paul said: I am the least of the apostles and not worthy to be called an apostle. He was right.

Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.  He was right.

These three men knew who they were, and they thought that because of who they were they were unworthy to be in the presence of God and to do what God had asked of them. But what they learned is that worthiness has nothing to do with gods love. No one is worthy. God loves everyone, Regardless of his or her sin.

We all know that we are sinners. Perhaps like Adam and Eve we want to hide ourselves in shame. But that is not what God wants. God is love, and so God must love. We were created to be one with God, so God will do everything God can do to make us one. It is up to us whether or not to cooperate.

When the angel touched Isaiah’s lips, that did not make Isaiah worthy. When Paul was knocked off of the horse and converted, that did not make Paul worthy. When Peter was told to get up and follow Jesús, that did not mean that Peter had become worthy. Rather, for all three, it meant that they were ready to do what God asked of them. God wants us as we are.

This is the year of mercy. Lent starts this week. Normally in Lent we give something up, like television or dessert or candy. But Pope Francis is asking us this year to not give anything up. Rather he is asking us to grow in being merciful. He is asking us to practice ways to  accept God’s mercy toward us and to learn how to show that mercy to others.

Psychologists say that it takes about six weeks to change a habit or to learn a new one. Lent is six weeks long. So if we are faithful and thorough, by Easter we should know mercy. We should know how to love regardless of circumstances. We should know how to forgive and free ourselves of grudges. We should know that worthiness is not a requirement for love or mercy.

We know that ours is not a world of mercy. Listen to the politicians. Some want to keep out the stranger, some want to kill everybody who might belong to a group that includes people we fear. Some want to show mercy only to the richest of people. Ours is not a world of mercy.

But we don’t have to be formed by that world. We can spend the period of lent learning how to live in the world of mercy and love.  We can practice the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.[1] We pray for and, if we can, visit the sick and imprisoned. We play some role in feeding the hungry. We welcome the stranger.

If we are faithful to this task during lunch, then by Easter we will rise with Christ as people of mercy. We may not receive mercy in return from those to whom we show it, but we will be assured that God’s love and mercy will always be with us.

THERE ARE SEVEN CORPORAL WORKS OF MERCY

1. Feed the hungry
2. Give drink to the thirsty
3. Clothe the naked
4. Shelter the homeless
5. Visit the sick
6. Visit the imprisoned
7. Bury the dead

THERE ARE SEVEN SPIRITUAL WORKS OF MERCY

1. Admonish the sinner
2. Instruct the ignorant
3. Counsel the doubtful
4. Bear wrongs patiently
5. Forgive offenses willingly
6. Comfort the afflicted
7. Pray for the living and the dead

---

Learn,Pain, Suffering,

We  learn forever  Or we can. And whoever learns, suffers.  Because if we learn, we have to change. If we learn we change, if we change we suffer.   It is only through pain and suffering, it seems, that we can understand and get to know God as an incarnate being.  It is by working to avoid pain and suffering that we negate the incarnation’s power in our lives and in our world, and feed evil. At least that’s how I see it. That is not to say that we need to go looking for pain and suffering! Those two elements of human existence make their appearance on their own and without appointment.
If the Word of God did indeed become flesh to dwell among us, then it is in our flesh that God’s presence is found. “Look for God among the living”, the women who arrived first at the tomb on Easter Sunday were told. In other words, don’t look for a Supreme Being outside of the human condition.  The Supreme Being is the human condition, made perfect. So look there.  God is with us.
And what do we see when we look there? Good, and also evil. Good is the result of people living out the Supreme Being within. Evil is not just the denial of Gods presence within us.  It is also the denial that God—Love, the being or force or energy that creates, is begotten and proceeds– is present and alive and involved in every act of creation.
If I ignore the divine presence within anyone, I will disregard, humiliate, look down on, ignore, be unforgiving toward, hold a grudge against them and/or rush to judgment, use, and/or abuse them. In negating the divine presence, I give evil power and dominion. I limit God’s presence and action in the world, because I am not manifesting that presence. Nor am I acknowledging that presence in  others.
So, what to do? Live God, love God– it’s the same thing! That’s what faith is—living the God-life within us, trusting that God is present in all sets of creation’s circumstances. Quite a paradox: we suffer because there is evil; we destroy evil by suffering, even to the point of death, death on a cross We refuse to dehumanize our enemies.
If we repress, avoid, go outside of or around our suffering looking for relief, we fail. If we go through it, we find and participate in God’s own life, which is eternal.
The only way out is through. At least, that’s been my experience.  Yours too?

Church and Authority

  

A bishop and a religious nun were scheduled to have a discussion recently, billed as “Two Catholic views of Gay Marriage.” The bishop began by stating that there is only one Catholic view on gay marriage. Any other position, he said, is dissenting. He blamed the “gay lobby” for putting the Church in a defensive position on this topic, and said that dissenters should become Protestant.

Then he talked about how terrible it was that the murder of his former secretary by a gay man got little coverage in the press, compared to the murder of Matthew Shepard, the gay student murdered by homophobes in 1998. Was he saying that the entire gay population is as responsible for his former secretary’s death as homophobia was for Mr. Shepard’s?

This topic is an important one to both Church and State. It is impressive that it was scheduled. But that is not my topic. My topic is the importance of how people in authority practice that authority.  This bishop lost the audience before he said anything at all relevant to the topic. According to may people present, his approach was legalistic, and not at all pastoral or compassionate. He could have been talking about the importance of caring for the poor, and he still would have lost the audience’s sympathy.

There are numerous Church teachings that are not universally accepted, even by believing, practicing Catholics. Telling such people to go join another religion does not do much in the cause of truth seeking. Honest, open dialogue is the only way to truth. No one is convinced just because someone of rank makes definitive statements in an authoritarian manner. Truth speaks for itself.

This is not to say that there is no room for claiming teaching authority in such discussions. There well may be. But appeals to authority alone never impressed Jesus. He constantly criticized religious authorities for hiding behind their authority and avoiding compassionate interaction. Jesus’ style was to compassionately relate with everyone, even those whose actions He consider to be immoral. There is so much we can learn from Him about the relationship between compassion and authority.

Jesus stopped those who wanted, legally, to stone the woman caught in adultery. He spent time with the woman at the well who had five husbands. He forgave those who crucified him. When any of us exercise authority and responsibility, we need to do so in a manner consistent with who we are and what we believe as the body of Christ.

Scouting

I very much enjoyed my years of involvement with the Boy Scouts of America. Learning leadership, camping, evening meetings on school nights...I have very fond memories of it all.  From the age of 8 through 8th grade graduation, Scouting was a major part of my identity and I did well in it, achieving its highest rank and holding all of the offices open to someone my age.

That is why I have had a passing interest in following the issues of membership eligibility that have been so much in the press of late, culminating with the recent decision that boys who are gay can be members, but adults who are gay cannot serve as adult leaders.

I have no idea who might have been gay in my years with the organization.  In fact, the word had a very different meaning in those days, to the extent that  The Flintstones could sing “And we’ll have a gay old time…” and no one thought anything about it.  Ah, the innocence!

Now America’s largest Protestant denomination is voting this week on whether or not to leave the movement, en masse, because Scouting will no longer ban gay kids. The vote is expected to support the exodus.  As one Baptist leader commented, the belief is that the Bible is quite clear that one chooses to be gay, and choosing  to be gay is a sin.  This is not the Catholic position (nor is it the Bible’s).  For us, being homosexual is neither choice nor sin.  Acting on the orientation is a different matter, perhaps for a later one of my postings.  

In the confusing time of adolescence, when many youths are very unsure of their identity, including their sexual identity, excluding any child from any organization from an organization can only be hurtful.  The organization is hurt by its bigotry and the potential members by their exclusion and rejection.  How can a Church, established to make God’s reign operative on earth for all, exclude anyone?  It baffles me, but such behavior is not limited to Christians.  It is the story that makes up world history.

If the Baptists do not change their minds, wouldn’t it be great is some other church or religious group offered to sponsor rejected troops?  Without qualification?  Prudence is needed regarding adult leaders, but there are mechanisms for that.  

Why does God...

I  read this in an article, and decided to try to articulate a response:

As a person who suffers (and I mean that in a very real and active sense of suffering) from depression, I want to believe what you're saying here with every fiber of my being. But then what? Believing that God "allows" suffering to happen rather than actively causing it may be more theologically accurate, but it does nothing to relieve my actual suffering. None of the ideas you present, while they do appeal to me theologically and intellectually, do anything to actually relieve my or anyone else's actual, lived-in-the-flesh suffering. Somehow, knowing that God is just "present" with me in my suffering, as if God were a sort of mystical Teddy bear, isn't enough. Not after thirty years. - Cynthia

Hi, Cynthia.   Your comment is excellent and essential.  Thank you for it.  I am challenged by your reflection and question, which I read as asking for a bridge between the rational theology and practical application.  Here’s some of my thinking on those lines.  Please know that I, too, know suffering and am speaking of my personal experience and reflection, rather than telling you what yours should be.

The bridge, for me, is the incarnation.  God became human so that humans might become God, as St. Athanasius believed.  Thus, the incarnation is not only about God and God’s love for humanity.  It is not merely God showing love by becoming one with the beloved.  That alone would be nice, and reason to praise God’s humility but not  very meaningful if left there.  There is another, too often neglected side of the equation: humans might become God.  Wow!  Now that’s love.  For God to be so far beyond what we understand to be human and then show love by, not just coming to our level, but to bring us to God’s own level.  When we perceive this, that is when we experience awe, in both amazement and in ear and trembling.

So, what does it mean to become God?  Well, first, like Jesus, we do not deem equality with God something to be grasped at.  Rather, we empty ourselves.  We take the form of one who serves, rather than of one who is served.  For some of us, we think of our pain as either something directly or indirectly caused by God or at least as something God could and therefore, out of love, should take away.

If humans have been given the gift of becoming God, or becoming who God is, then human beings are invited to be God taking away the pain, sin, suffering, etc. of the world.  When I focus on doing that, I find, my suffering stops being the focus or even the identity of who I am.  By being God to another human, especially in their pain and suffering,  and allowing them to be God to me, the two of us become one, just like the Son in the Father and the Father in the Son.  And we become one with both, as well.  Jesus’ prayer, that all be one, is at least partially fulfilled.

In my own pain and suffering I must die to self and rise to be who I am made to be:  the presence and action of God in the world now, and in complete communion with God and all that is forever, in what we call heaven.  I summation, the important question is no longer why, but how.  How do I go beyond my suffering for the sake of others?  And the answer is the question:  by going beyond myself for the sake of others; by being God.

Might your own experience validate this in anyway?

Whose Church is it Anyway?

"I don't believe in those positions that propose supporting a kind of 'corporate' spirit in order to avoid damaging the image of the institution.” This is today‟s quote from Pope Francis, who seems to really get it!‟ He was talking about the abuse scandal when he said it, but I pray it prefigures his approach to 
leadership, and there is every indication it will.

Jesus tells us that we are to “die to self,” and to live for others, especially those on the margins of society. He did not exclude His Church from that in-struction, yet so often Church leadership has seemed more concerned about itself as institution over the needs of people working in communion to live the Good News. Or, as I have often said, the main mission of Church cannot be topreserve and protect itself! That‟s the corporate spirit Francis speaks about.

In a recent opinion piece in the New York Times, Notre Dame professor Gary Gutting reflects on why he stays in the Catholic Church. He has a number of
reasons, including that the church is so much a part of his life that to leave it would be to leave himself, he doesn't want to leave it to the "preserve and protect‟ group and that he wants to show the world that faith and reason are not incompatible. 

It was his article that led me to a Trinitarian understanding of church:  The Church, meaning the institution headquartered in the Vatican, the Church, meaning religion, and the church, meaning the people of God.

Too often, these distinctions are ignored and only one or another becomes the working definition, to the detriment of the other two. The Church makes
proclamations to the Church that are impractical and insensitive to the church. This leaves the people of God in a position to do one of three things: obey,
ignore or leave. The first and third choices are called enabling in the mental health field. The second, while perhaps often the most reasonable alternative, causes division. Is there another? I think there are many.

The long-term goal is dialogue—mutual respect and compassion leading to understanding and insight. If we trust in God‟s Spirit, which we call Holy, we
should not be afraid of dialogue. One cannot have the church without it, yet The Church can be too power-driven and the Church too timid and weak. So we work toward it with honest discussion. I suspect Francis can lead in that direction.