As I said in this week’s bulletin; this is the last Sunday in Ordinary Time for a while as move into the holy season of Lent with Ash Wednesday this week.  The ashes are a sign of our vulnerability in this life and point the way to a new and different life one day with God. I say, “a new and different life” because our God is with us, every day, closer to us than we are to ourselves, it has been said; but this will be different! In fact, we are told that we can’t even imagine what God has prepared for us! We will talk of this more as we move into Lent, but for now, let’s look at the messages of this week.

Our day in and day out life with our God as followers of our brother, Jesus, can be said quite well, I think in Paul’s challenge to the Corinthians today: [Be] “fully engaged in the work of Jesus.”

We might ask then—just what does this “work” entail? As you know; I am fond of saying, “It’s all about love!”  In any situation; we must apply the law of love, especially when we aren’t sure of the way to go in a particular situation that we are confronted with.  If we can answer that, love is being served, that we are doing the most loving thing in what we are choosing to do, that the needs of others and not just those of myself will be addressed, then we can be quite sure that we are more “fully engaged in the work of Jesus” as Paul says.

And more specifically, Sirach zeroes in on our actions saying that, “It is in conversation, in a person’s words that we will know their worth.”  It is another way of saying, “You will know the truth—the good of something, “by the fruits.”

Sirach’s words are fulfilled in Jesus’ words today from Luke, “All people speak from their heart’s abundance—a good tree does not produce decayed fruit any more than a decayed tree produces good fruit.”

As I listened to all the rhetoric coming out of Washington this week about “truth-telling” or lack of it; I thought that these words from our prophets serve us well today.  Whether a person is believable or not seems to stem from the impression they have made on us—through their words, but more importantly, through their actions!

Diane Bergant, scripture scholar speaks to this issue in her commentary on today’s readings.  As we all know, and she makes the point of saying; one only has one chance to make a good first impression.  The trouble with this, she continues, is that our culture often holds up less than good criteria for what makes a “good, or acceptable” person—many times the criteria have to do with external things; the clothes we wear, the shape of our bodies and so on.  And how unfortunate if we never go any deeper than that!

It is only in living—through our life experiences, and with others, she suggests, that we come to see what is most important about those we meet in our lives—what they are made of–on the inside.  This is called, “wisdom”—something we hopefully come to in our lifetimes.

When we are driven by the externals alone, she goes on, the genuine person loses out.  Part of our hopelessness, it seems to me, in viewing the combined stories of Church and State, at present, is the lack of genuineness, of truth,  of those willing to speak truth to power, boldly and with conviction, demonstrating what are the tenets of faith and integrity upon which many of these so-called leaders in both places, stand.

I was encouraged this past week in reading a National Catholic Reporter article on the newer bishops in this country, those in the age range of 50-59, and in particular, four that were named in the piece.  I want to tell you a bit about them as I feel the hope for our Church lays in their hands, their actions and others like them.

These men all attended Pope Francis’ meeting in Rome this past week on the crisis of clergy sexual abuse and as the article stated; they left energized and anxious to get to work!  These men, Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City, MO, Steven Biegler of Cheyanne, WY, John Stowe of Lexington, KY and William Wack of the Pensacola/Tallahassee diocese in Florida all share the idea that “transparency and accountability” are the ways to go forward as opposed to the older idea that all troubles should be handled internally which we all know, clearly hasn’t worked.

The four men that I have named here believe that these ideas of “transparency and accountability” will be “key” at June’s National Bishops’ Meeting.  As Bishop Wack from Florida stated, [he] “sees himself and other younger ones as part of the solution” to this crisis within our Church.  I would lift up these men for our prayers in applying the “law to love” to this crisis.

The thought that these men are on the right track has been confirmed by the national/international organization, SNAP (Survivors’ Network for those Abused by Priests) when they praised the work of Shawn McKnight and Steven Biegler.

We can be encouraged by the words of Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, KY who has stated, “This is virtually been a part of my journey since entering the seminary 33 years ago.  I’ve been meeting with victims, he says, since my first year of priesthood.” It would seem that now is the best chance of something meaningful being done to address these grievous crimes!

Another item out of the news this past week has been the on-going story of the religious women in India who have spoken their truth to power with regard to a former superior of theirs that they are supporting who was allegedly raped by her bishop.  To date these women have received ridicule from other nuns, endured pressure from congregational leadership and apathy from Rome.

These tactics to silence truth-tellers are old and well-practiced within our Church and unfortunately, have been tolerated by the “faithful” because of clericalism, the institution that “lives” on the notion that the clergy are superior to the laity and with regard to women and children, allowing sexism and sexual abuse of both to flourish for far too long because they have considered these vulnerable ones less good than themselves.

Clericalism, sexism and the sexual abuse of children must, simply must, be on the agenda of the next bishops’ meeting because far too many hurt and disappointed Catholics have already ceased to care what they do.

According to Sirach, Bergant reminds us, the true test of the “pot” is seen in the firing.  In other words, none of this will be easy—change is always hard and especially for those who have been entrenched so long on a certain path.

But again, as Paul reminds us today; we must be “fully engaged in the work of Jesus.” If that had been the case, the sexual abuse of children could never have gone on this long, coupled with the cover-up of these heinous crimes. And it isn’t enough for us to lay blame, but we must all be part of the solution by demanding of the bishops, at least within this country, that they become part of the solution instead of, part of the problem. We need to write our bishop, John Quinn, each one of us and encourage him to join with Bishops Shawn, Steven, John and William to be forthright, strong and filled with love as they together try to dismantle the sin of clericalism that has allowed so much harm for so long.

Jesus had no time for hypocrites, a word that in the Greek, Bergant reminds us, means play-acting or pre-tense. It was Jesus who stressed that we should never correct others before we have corrected ourselves—the story of the speck in their eyes versus the plank in our own. Self-righteousness clouds our view of our own faults.

So, my friends, let us pray for strength, for all, to be steadfast in the belief that our God loves us all and we do this best by keeping our eyes on Jesus.  Amen? Amen!

In the over 10 years that I have been preparing homilies for our community here at All Are One, it seems from my notes that I have never done one for this Sunday and next in the C cycle of which we are now in!  That happened I am guessing because of how the Church Year is laid out, basically, when Easter comes in the calendar.  You will note that Easter is about as late as it can be, falling on April 21^st this year.

So, I looked for some exegesis on the readings for today from Diane Bergant.  She says that the story of David sparing Saul’s life is, “a striking example of respect and forgiveness, ‘of doing unto others what we would want them to do unto us,’” as our brother Jesus teaches in today’s gospel from Luke.

Jesus’ examples of “turning the other cheek,” giving and giving, not only the top garment, but our inner garment too to those who would ask, spells out quite well the extent to which we must share with others.

For those who would read this gospel literally, which we should never do; a disclaimer.  Should we in our relationships ever allow ourselves to be abused with regard to living in harmony with others? The answer is most assuredly, “No!”

I think that Jesus always made the point of carrying the example to the extreme because he knew of our human tendency to give less than we are capable of giving.  The idea, I believe, in praying over Jesus’ message is to look for a balance in our lives that cares for ourselves with enough left to do our share in raising others to a level of dignity that each person deserves.

I personally find sometimes in working with others who have fallen on hard times, like some that I encounter at the Winona Warming Center—having less than the basics to live a dignified life; that some of these individuals present character traits that are less than good. Sometimes when “life happens” as we say, to people; they acquire habits of rudeness toward others, lack of concern, a kind of, dog-eat-dog mentality born perhaps out of the pain they themselves have suffered in life.

Now while I can understand this kind of behavior, due to how someone might have to live; I know too that to condone people acting in this way doesn’t allow them to rise to be their best—what God calls each of us to, in our humanity.  Sometimes tough love is required in a world that must serve the needs of all.

Jesus calls us to this task when he says that we shouldn’t accept the abuse—that we should do or say something that lets an abusive person know that we don’t approve of their less-than-good actions toward us or others—we are always challenged to somehow overcome evil with good. As Christians we are then further instructed to forgive, while not accepting the bad behavior and certainly never to retaliate.

Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians today, reminds us that we must not only model ourselves on the first human—Adam, but on the second human—Jesus.  In other words; we must be both human and spirit; and blending the two; we can come more and more to image our brother, Jesus, the Christ.

Diane Bergant writes more on this golden rule of, “doing unto others as we would have them do unto us” by saying that sometimes our culture encourages us toward an opposing rule, that of, “doing unto others before they do unto us.”  We all instinctively know within our spirits that we must never respond to our world in this way, while we struggle with our humanity to act in just this way.

I know within myself that I have responded in less than good ways when others have been unjust or unkind to me, but in a more passive way—not necessarily noticeable to others, but noticeable to me.

To be slighted by another, shown an unkindness or a lack of concern; I might make the decision to show a lack of concern for them—nothing overt; but unkind and unChrist-like, just the same.

And the piece for us to be aware of is that the actions of unkindness and retaliation ultimately hurt us more than they do the target of our less-than-good actions.  They rob us of our peace and joy.

With regard to how we respond to our world and the people we encounter and associate with, as baptized followers of Jesus; we are always called to take the high road, never acting out of the human tendency “to do first” before it is “done to us,” but most assuredly, to do unto others as we would expect and want them to do unto us.  Anything less is simply, not Christian.

And as I stated earlier, this means keeping ourselves as part of the equation—it is never good or right to allow ourselves to be abused with the notion that this example of “turning the other cheek” is what Jesus wants us to do.  Balance, always balance, respects the fact that our God loves me as well as all others.  An alternative way to speak about the golden rule is to say, “Love your enemies, and, love yourself.”  It’s a package!

In conclusion; we must focus on probably the hardest part, forgiving those who have hurt us.  Jesus, our brother, showed us the way from the cross, Bergant reminds us—“Forgive them Abba, for they don’t know what they are doing.”

In reflection upon this final piece of Christ-likeness, it seems to me that if I can get my head and heart around the fact that someone “doesn’t know what they are doing,” for whatever reason, then I don’t have to give their action as much weight. Better, I think, to move on, responding as a Christian, as a true believer would and should.  After all, as Bergant concludes her remarks, “Violence and hatred will be eradicated from this world only if we refuse to perpetuate it.”

According to a Pew Research Report in 2010; there are 2.19 billion Christians around the world.  Imagine; if you can, what this world would be like if we all really lived and treated the earth and its people as Jesus did!  That would seem to be our challenge for this week, and each week—Amen? Amen!