Author: kredig

Homily – 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

/ kredig

Dear Friends,

I am sending the homily out early as we will not be meeting this Sunday due to a fire in our liturgical space. Stay tuned to updates as we work toward finding a new space. I have also included the readings, and some prayers along with the homily for your use. Do send us your prayerful support as we move forward to “new” things…With gratitude, Pastor Kathy

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Readings:

  • Genesis 2: 18-25
  • Hebrews 2; 9-12
  • Mark 10: 2-16

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Homily—27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

October 6, 2024

   My friends, this Sunday is traditionally remembered in our Church as Respect Life Sunday.  This particular remembrance brings to mind for most Catholics, “life in the womb,” because our Church hierarchy have made it so.  And absolutely, we should respect life at its very beginnings—absolutely!  But as always, I would call us, as our brother Jesus did, to look more deeply, and more fully. 

   On this last Friday, people in our Catholic church, and in many other denominations—remembered Francis of Assisi, who lived more than 800 years ago in Italy, and of whose life, it could be truly said, was one of respecting, “all of life”—birth to death, in humans, animals, plant life, and really, all of creation—sun, moon, stars and more. 

   Francis, and the first woman to follow him, Clare, spent their relatively short lives showing their followers during their actual, physical days and years, and beyond—to our present time, how to truly respect all that our loving God created, ourselves included—to the betterment of all.  This is a universal idea, and that is why Francis is someone who appeals to all people, Christian or not, and often shows itself in world-wide, “Blessing of the Animals” day. 

   In the past, at All Are One Catholic church, we have lifted up the names of our beloved pets and thanked God for the joy they bring into our lives.  In that regard, I lift up our family’s beloved “doggy” pets : Mack, Charlie and Teddy, and I invite you to think of yours too, dogs, cats, birds, turtles, fish and so on. 

   Looking to our Scripture readings for this 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we find much that shows us how to truly “respect life.”  Beginning with the 1st reading from Genesis, we hear about the importance of “relationships” in our human journey—the writer says,

“It is not good for the ‘earth creature,’ (true meaning of a-dam) to be alone.”  Further the writer states, “that is why people leave their parents and become bonded to one another and the two become one flesh.” 

   You most likely noticed the inclusive wording of this text done so beautifully in the Priests for Equality updating of our holy Scriptures.  For the first time in our long Christian history, through their work, our LGBTQ+ sisters and brothers can find a place for their lives and commitments, and be named in this reading!

   In the 2nd reading from the letter to the Hebrews, the writer lifts up the great gift of our loving God in sending our brother Jesus, to “show us the way”—[God made him] “little less than the angels,” and further says, “Jesus is not ashamed to call us sisters and brothers” –in other words, we might say, “God wants good for us, and not bad!” 

   Our final reading today from the gospel of Mark shows very well I believe, how Jesus always takes us from observation of “static law” to “life-giving love.”  The powers-that-be for Jesus are always trying to “trip him up,” and in this reading, it is about the laws that Moses set up concerning “divorce,” that he put in place simply because the people demanded “black and white” rules to follow. 

   Jesus in this case, answers their disingenuous inquiry because he wants to lift up the “unevenness” of these divorce laws.  In this particular reading, we don’t get the words that Jesus spoke in other places, i.e., the “woman caught in adultery,” but we know from his response in this concrete example how he felt about the rules in place that always were more beneficial to men, than to women—“let he that is without sin, cast the first stone.” It is about respecting all of life.   Jesus in Mark’s reading today is not addressing divorce to lift up “laws,” but to lift up “love,” and on Respect Life Sunday, how appropriate!  

   It is interesting that in this gospel reading that starts with a relational topic, “divorce” which is “unfair” to women, as men are basically, “given power over them, with no say,” that it would end with a statement from Jesus, “to welcome little children, and become like them” –the other group, like women, who have no power in Jesus’ society.  We can only imagine the “disbelief”  within the community to hear Jesus say, “unless you become like little children,” you can’t be part of the greater life that I have come to offer. It is about respecting all life.

   And what characteristics of children might Jesus be pointing to that would be advantageous for us adults?  Certainly, we would think of “purity of heart—a truthfulness of feeling and expression, and a sense of wonder of all that is about us in our world.  Recall the times in your lives when you have thought, “ out of the mouths of babes!” 

   So my friends, all this brings us to the present that is now looking at us all as “refugees” as the secretary at Lutheran Campus Center said to me this week.  With the recent fire in our liturgy space, we are being called, once again, to look at “new things,” as we have been doing in other ways for the past 16 years of our existence.  We have been “something new” in the backyard of diocesan bishops who refuse to see us as “valid expressions” of Jesus’ continued life in our world.  So, we are acquainted with this journey, and now pray for all involved in this moment and time of change, to be able to walk through it with faith and hope, and of course, LOVE! Amen? Amen!  

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Entrance Antiphon

O God, you have given everything its place in the world, and no one can make it otherwise. For all is your creation, the heavens and the earth and the stars:  all is your family, O God.

Let Us Pray—Opening Prayer

Good and gracious God, Creator of the world to come, your goodness is beyond what our spirit can touch, and your strength is more than our minds can bear. Lead us to seek beyond our reach and give us the courage to stand before your truth.  We ask all of this of you, of Jesus and of Spirit Sophia—one God who lives and loves us forever and ever, Amen.

Prayers of the Faithful

Response: “Loving God, hear our prayer.”

  1. Help us O God, to strive to be grateful people to you who has loved us beyond all imagining, we pray—Response: “Loving God, hear our prayer.”
  • For each of us here, give us the strength to be people of justice, mercy, and compassionate love for your world, we pray—Response: “Loving God, hear our prayer.”
  • For all who are suffering here today or in our wider community, especially all involved at LCC, in body, mind or spirit and additionally for those who are living with cancer, and other life-threatening illness, we pray—Response: “Loving God, hear our prayer.”
  • For our world and its people, that peace would reign in our hearts and that we would do all in our power to bring peace to our world, especially assist our country to find the solutions to gun violence, we pray—Response: “Loving God, hear our prayer.”
  • May the wisdom and grace of the Spirit overshadow all potential candidates seeking national and state and local offices, to be those people who will truly work to care for the least among us and strive to bring peace to our world, we pray—

      Response: “Loving God, hear our prayer.”

  • For our community, All Are One, continue to send your Spirit upon us to enable us to be an inclusive community, open and welcoming to all, and help us to find a new home to celebrate, we pray—Response: “Loving God, hear our prayer.”
  • For all in our midst who suffer from mental illness, that each would find understanding and compassion in their lives, we pray—Response: “Loving God, hear our prayer.”
  • Loving Jesus, be with all families who have lost loved ones this week, from all causes, —give them your peace, that they may find their way through their grief, we pray— Response: “Loving God, hear our prayer.”

Let Us Pray

          Dear God of us all…you know what we need before we ask…give us what we most need today.  Help us to keep our eyes on you that we wouldn’t get lost in the material things of this world, but ever strive to make our world a more just place in which to live for all creatures.  Give us the wisdom to find true solutions to peace and harmony in our world for everyone. We ask this of you who are our God and who lives and loves us forever and ever. AMEN

Bulletin – 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

/ kredig
  • NO MASS THIS SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2024 due to the fire at the LCC early Tuesday morning. Winona area parishioners –see earlier email addressing this issue. I will be putting out the readings here and have a homily for you later in the week for your prayer and reflection. Our board had planned on having our 3rd quarter meeting after Mass this week, and that too will be postponed for now. We will be looking for an alternate space to conduct our Masses for the interim until we can hopefully return to our regular space.
  • Please never hesitate to call, 507-429-3616, or email, aaorcc2008@gmail.com if I can help you in any way.

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Dear Friends,

This week, in our Church, we remember “Respect Life Sunday” and let us remember that this truly means more than “life in the womb.” We can’t be together this weekend – but please ponder this idea–that we must respect life in all of its differing forms, as did our brother, Jesus!

Peace and love, Pastor Kathy

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Readings:

  • Genesis 2: 18-25
  • Hebrews 2: 9-12
  • Mark 10: 2-16

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Homily – 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

/ kredig

   My friends, three years ago, I shared a quote from Miriam Williams in an article for the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) where she stated some fine wisdom to address our Scripture readings today: In a piece entitled, A Strong Faith Can Handle the Test of Startling Questions, she is responding primarily to religious evangelicals and other conservatives who want to have their faith all laid out for them—do this, do that and you’re saved! Williams writes that [she] “believes a strong faith can handle the test of ‘tough meat’ when it comes in the form of startling questions” (my apologies to my vegetarian friends).

   She continued: “What if God sees nothing wrong with women delivering the Gospel?  What if homosexuality isn’t a sin? What if the Bible is literary, but not literal?”  She goes on, “I chew, I listen for God in the bites.  I digest.  I am energized and satisfied, even as I wonder how much longer so many people will feel full on theology that starves them.” 

   My friends, I feel that Williams’ words here are a perfect answer to today’s readings; so let’s look at them more closely.  In the first reading from Numbers, Josuah complains to Moses that two of their group, Eldad and Medad, not present when God’s Spirit came upon them, are now “prophesying” too.  Jesus encounters the same sentiment in today’s gospel from Mark in the words of apostle John who seems to be speaking for the rest of the apostles that people not of their group are speaking in Jesus’ name.

   Jesus here, as Moses before him, has to teach his followers the “deeper’ truth in each situation.  Moses prophetically says, “If only all of God’s people were prophets!” Jesus, in his own, but different words, affirms his Old Testament brother’s sentiment, and says more, “Anyone not against us, is with us” [!] 

   What both Moses and Jesus seem to be saying and doing in these two encounters, is trying to move the people of old, and we in the present, are included in this as well, to see beyond our human tendency to look one dimensionally, getting stuck in “surface ideas,” instead of “going deeper,” and rather than being “possessive” of God’s message, “letting” the message “go where it will,” doing good. 

   And my friends, isn’t that really what our Christian life is all about? To welcome strangers, regardless of their religious/spiritual leanings, to our table of love—here? To welcome the Spirit-led ideas of all, to “chew on” them, as Miriam Williams has said, and perhaps come to a new understanding?  That is why I always invite your comments to my homilies, because I truly believe that God’s Spirit speaks to us all as we listen to the Word. 

   James, in today’s 2nd reading is, in like manner, encouraging the hearers of his words to go deeper, looking at a specific area of their lives—the material riches that they have accumulated.  He seems to be saying, the “riches” in themselves, are not wrong, but what you do with them,” is.  There should always be the sense, especially when we have more than we need, to be aware of others who have less, or perhaps very little of the world’s goods, and then, be willing to share. 

   James really minces no words in saying that if the gifts we have, don’t compel us to  share with those who have not, then we have missed Jesus’ message, and should perhaps rethink our lives. 

   So my friends, I would like now to go back to that overriding idea of the three readings today—that of being a prophet.  I think we Christians, raised in the Catholic church before the Second Vatican Council have learned well the idea that we “should know our place” and I believe women, traditionally have come to this idea even more so than men, and that is due to “patriarchy” in the Church, as well as in society, with the ”glass ceiling” that we women always come up against. 

   So, the idea of any of us women, or men, being a “prophet” in our own time, might seem, a bit, “out there!”  But a close read of today’s Scriptures would seem to say, “not so.”  Moses is clearly “longing” in the first reading that, “all of God’s people [would be] prophets!” 

   Perhaps a definition of “prophet” would be in order here.  The 1st definition of “prophet” in most sources is—“one who foretells the future.”  The 2nd meaning given is of someone speaking about, “changing the lives of the people” that the prophet is speaking to, and this was said to be, “a more central part of their mission.”  The 2nd reading today from James is a prime example of this. 

   My friends, I believe that when any of us speaks what, in our hearts, we seem to be given to say, even if we are ridiculed for it, we are speaking as a prophet.  Again, that is why I always invite your thoughts following the readings and my homilies. 

   Jesus calms his apostles in today’s gospel who are worried about “those not of their group speaking and acting in Jesus’ name.” He basically tells them that any “action for good” done in my name can never be wrong.  It would seem that we should always be ready to be a prophet.  Each of you, choosing to be part of All Are One Catholic parish, led by a woman priest, which is not accepted by the powers-that-be within our Church, is acting as a prophet, and especially so, when you speak to others about your involvement here. 

   The Church that most of us grew up loving, to some extent, has in its hierarchy chosen to squash the actions of would-be prophets by instilling the “fear of god” into them, when what they are saying goes against the hierarchy’s need to be in control of the message.  I will always remember Bishop Harrington of the Winona diocese, writing to me after my diaconal ordination, and before my priestly ordination, asking me “to recant” my actions, because “I would be confusing the people.”  For me, it was a decision of saying “no” to him, or to God, and I couldn’t say “no” to God. 

   Thus, my friends, I think each of us must always be ready to be a prophet, because we never know when God’s call is going to come! And being a prophet is not, as in today’s gospel, about following a protocol, or “the crowd,” but about, “speaking the Word” –we are all called to that!

   On a personal note, I grew up a faithful and faith-filled Catholic, and as I said earlier, “before Vatican Council II, we all pretty much deferred to “Father” as if to God, so that when I became more sure that I was being called to priestly ordination, in order to be a pastor, and the hierarchy said “no” to me, I was at a bit of a loss, until one day, a Southern Baptist minister who was also my (CPE) Clinical Pastoral Education instructor said to me, that I didn’t need anyone’s permission to do what God was asking—calling me to do.

   Thus my friends, let us pray for each other to have the strength to respond to God’s grace, speaking what God indeed gives to each of us to speak, and to do!  Amen? Amen!

Bulletin – 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

/ kredig
  • Mass on Sunday, September 29, 2024, at 10 A.M. –bring a friend!
  • Please never hesitate to call, 507-429-3616, or email, aaorcc2008@gmail.com if I can help you in any way.

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Dear Friends,

The Scriptures this week call us, in no uncertain terms to be prophets, in the footsteps of our brother, Jesus, the Christ! No exceptions, no excuses!

Come; ponder this with us this Sunday!

Peace and love, Pastor Kathy

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Readings:

  • Numbers 11: 25-29
  • James 5: 1-6
  • Mark 9: 38-43, 45, 47-48

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Homily – 25th Weekend in Ordinary Time

/ kredig

   My friends, the gospel from Mark today contains a line that I feel says very well what our “walk with Jesus” is, or should be all about—“whomever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me.”  In this same gospel reading we are told that the apostles are arguing among themselves about which of them was most important, or more simply put, who was “first” among them. 

   Earlier, Jesus had been attempting to teach the greater group of disciples the truth about his mission on earth—that he would be handed over to the powers-that-be, would suffer death, but then, would rise from the dead! Understandably, they didn’t comprehend what Jesus was saying, as this was something they had never heard of before, and even if they had, their idea about the “messiah” was not of one who would be conquered, but of one who would conquer their enemies. Therefore, they dismissed the true meaning of Jesus’ message, and instead, as we like to say at our house, when not understanding a greater truth, “got lost in the weeds” over an issue completely foreign to Jesus, namely who was best, most important—first!

   In my mind, Jesus had to have been a very patient man, in his humanity, as he strove to get these beloved twelve on the same page with him.  He sits them down, and patiently tells them again, “To be first, you must be last—you must be of service to all.”  And if that wasn’t enough of a lesson, Jesus fine-tunes it by saying, [In fact,] “you must be like a child” –that is, “child-like,” not “childish.”  

   To this final statement, we must remember that in Jesus’ time, children had no power, no status, and their voices along with those of women, were considered of little importance.  We can only imagine what an eye-opener these words were to Jesus’ rag-tag group of followers discussing who was “first” among them.   

   This always reminds me of theologian, Sister Elizabeth Johnson, who throughout her wonderful career of Scripture study and exegesis, always uplifting Jesus’ inclusiveness of women, as well as men, when asked if she thought it would have been better for women had Jesus been incarnated into humanity as a woman, she clearly answered, “No, Jesus had to come as a man to show men the way, because women already knew how to serve.”

   James underscores Jesus’ message of his followers not jockeying for positions of power when he speaks very clearly in today’s 2nd reading about “jealousy and ambition” and that where these traits are, “disharmony and wickedness” follow.  James names the alternate trait that we should strive for as “wisdom.”  He goes on to say that this “wisdom” comes from above, and that it works for peace and that this “peace” will show itself in [actions] full of compassion which lead to [goodness] and ultimately, to “holiness.”

   And finally, James lifts up for us the importance of “prayer,” but not just any kind of prayer.  His ultimate, and most effective prayer is all about “humility” not about “indulging our own [good].

   As you all know, I visit many people in assisted living and nursing homes, as well as in private homes, and I must say that many demonstrate beautifully this quality of humility—while not wanting to suffer pain, nor an inability to move about as desired, a lack of proper vision, and any number of other impediments, I can honestly say, I hear little, or no complaints for the most part, but more so a sense of, “Well, it could be worse.”   And to me, this speaks well to the notion of the “wisdom from on high” that leads to “holiness” that James uplifted for us today. 

   This past week, I heard parts of a review of a book entitled, Road to Wisdom, by Francis Collins, wherein he named four attributes that he feels speak to wisdom: truth, science, faith and trust.  These attributes I would instead name as “virtues” and they came out of his younger life, lived as he stated, as “an atheist,” working in the field of science.  At a certain point in his search for truth through science, he came to see that indeed science couldn’t answer, nor fully explain all his questions, and at that point, came to “faith,” accepting Christianity as a way of life.  His faith led him to “trust” that “all the answers were about something bigger than what humans could come up with.”  And my guess is that “service” grew out of his study of our brother Jesus, 

   And that leads us back to our reflection of today’s readings:  Psalm 54, used today states simply, “God is the one who sustains my life”—which seems to speak of “faith and trust” uplifted by the above author.  The Wisdom selection serving as today’s 1st reading speaks of “truth-telling” and that this “service” protects us before our loving God, the other two virtues that the author speaks of, or points us to, on the “road to wisdom.”

   As with each Saturday/Sunday that we gather here, I always attempt to connect the readings to our present day—as that is where the most impact can happen.  Therefore, I will name here several news items that came to me this week:

  • Two political campaigns—one for the most part, speaking to “service and compassion towards others”—another about “self-importance” and being first along with lies uplifted as truth. 
  • Several Middle-Eastern nations aggressively seeking peace through war with no apparent end in sight
  • Immigrant peoples in our country having to face again and again, the sins of racism, lack of truth-telling, and the inability to see the good these differing peoples bring to our country as opposed to their so-called, lack of character.  And the real crazy-making realization being that all these sinful actions speak more about those “talking” than they do about those “talked about” and denigrated.

   So, what to do?  Our Scriptures today speak well to the answers we should be pursuing:  Be last, not first—serve, instead of expecting service, be compassionate and understanding, treating others as we would want to be treated, welcoming others, instead of turning them away, remembering humility—becoming more child-like in our prayer, and realizing that we are parts-of-a-whole, not the first, or even the best part, and above all—expecting the best from ourselves, and others—being gentle with others and ourselves when that doesn’t happen, but starting again when we don’t make the mark. Amen? Amen!