My friends, the gospel from Matthew that I just proclaimed gives us much comfort in our lives as we try to be our brother, Jesus’ followers.  “Come to me, all you who labor and find life hard—I will refresh you.  Take the burden of following me, being true to the way of life I have given you, upon your shoulders, learn from me, my gentleness, my humility—for that is how it must be done—not through war, but peace as proclaimed by the prophet Zechariah today, speaking of the Messiah to come.

This reminds me of the play we saw this week, An Iliad, at the Great River Shakespeare Festival, (GRSF), not a Shakespearian play, but a take-off on Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad.  For those who see it, you will be confronted with humankind’s propensity to make war and not peace.  You cannot watch this one-person delivery and not realize that the strong tendency to react violently to what life sometimes brings, is within each of us.  We are capable of great good, but also, great evil.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans continues—we are to live in the Spirit, not the flesh.  It would seem from that; we need to recall that we are “spiritual beings here, having a human experience,” as someone once said—not the other way around. We aren’t here, in our humanity to become more spiritual—we are of God already, attempting through our humanity to be true ultimately to God’s Spirit within us. That kind of shoots the whole theology of redemption doesn’t it?!  And in all of this, Jesus will give us rest, comfort, we are told, just as he sought the same in his own humanity.

I have been working my way through a small volume, Simply Bonaventure, by Franciscan sister, Ilia Delio, in preparation for the 800 year celebratory remembrance of St. Bonaventure next week with the Sisters and Cojourners of the Rochester Franciscans. The celebration is aptly named, “Bonaventure Fest.”

Bonaventure, a scholar and teacher, but a true Franciscan in every way, spent much of his religious life as an academic, trying to understand the Trinity—that grouping of three distinct persons that we know in Christianity, as One God.

Simply put, for our understanding, the Trinity, which is all about love because that is what God is all about, has to be configured as three distinct persons in One God, so that God can be God, Bonaventure says. The love of God is so great that in order to be expressed, there must be the Son who is the gift of God’s original love—Bonaventure names this gift, “The Word.”  The Word (Jesus), spoken in the world causes the spreading of love and the creation of so much more love, as we, his followers, share it, and this is the Spirit of the original love.

Bonaventure says if God, the [Creator] and Jesus, the Son were all there was to God, the love would be just between them, but having the love move into all that is created—a love so great so as to create another person, makes God complete.  Did I say this was simple? But, really it is:

God is love—so great as to create the Son and the love between the two so much greater so as to create a third, the Spirit.

This is quite a different image of God from what many of us grew up with—a God who was ready to pounce if we did anything wrong.

We often watch reruns of the old MASH series on TV because the lessons taught seem as fitting and new today as they were during the Korean Conflict, which for all intents and purposes was really a war.  For all the times that we have tuned in to this series, you would think we had seen them all. So, we were surprised recently to see one that we realized we had never seen before!

The nugget that we walked away with was this: Father Mulcahey, the priest and spiritual representative in the series was looking for some reassurance that he was doing a good job and was upstaged by a patient coming through who learned that he had leukemia.   In the 1950’s, leukemia was basically a death sentence as research was just in the beginning stages at this point. With Father Mulcahey’s spiritual support and care, the patient was able to move past his own personal concern and reach out to give comfort to one of his buddies who had been wounded too. He opted to stay behind for a few days to be there for someone else in need rather than being sent to a hospital in Seoul for immediate care of his own illness.

Fr. Mulcahey was so spiritually and emotionally moved by this complete selflessness on the part of this young man that he shared his shame over his own personal selfishness for acclaim in front of the whole camp by proclaiming that, “God didn’t send us to earth to be patted on the back for the good we have done, but that God could live through us!”  That doesn’t sound like a God who is watching for our every misstep.  It turned out that his superior, Cardinal Reardon was making a pastoral visit to the MASH unit at this time and Fr. Mulcahey was trying to put his best foot forward.  Turned out that he did!

So when we look at our world, in all of creation, from the highest or most advanced, humankind, to the lowliest insects; we have to marvel that God in all goodness wanted all of this for us to enjoy and with that, to care for all of it—our earth.  With Jesus’ Spirit our response must be to love and to share the love.  Making war, as was laid out in An Iliad, is always to have failed to be all that we can be.

Yet, we are given a free will to choose good or evil and granted, the choice isn’t always clear, but the choice is always ours to make.  Apparently, it would seem, war and violence are always the easier choices as is depicted so poignantly in the play, An Iliad as the actor named perhaps 100, more or less wars throughout history from B.C.E. times to the present and in all of these times, we as humans failed to do the really hard work of being people of peace, instead of war.  Now you might be thinking that in some wars, that was the only answer—someone needed to be stopped and in that, it was justified.  That may be so, but then, we don’t know because we didn’t choose the diplomatic, peaceful route.

I don’t know if because as I grow older and time for me seems shorter, I become “pressed” within my spirit, believing that war has never been the answer and I then ask how many wars it will take before we all, collectively realize that we can’t be people of love, spiritual people, sent here to allow God to live through us and then sanction war, killing, wasting the precious lives of our youth and finish not any closer to the illusive dream of peace that we all seek.

Spring and summertime bring celebrations wherein we remember the women and men who have died, protecting those same freedoms.  Why do we never have celebrations for those who lived protecting our freedoms? There are groups in our country who get together on weekends to re-enact past wars and battles. What is all the passion for war and death about? Would those wanting to re-enact these battles do so if they actually had lived through the horrors of battle?

The production at the GRSF displays so clearly the horrors of war, what men, mostly, are driven to, protecting home, family and possessions. It begs a different response.

So, my friends, that brings us back to where we started—the comfort that Jesus will bring us when we choose to follow him, making the hard choices—choosing life, not death.  Jesus speaks to his disciples, to us, in many ways about looking for the fruits of our actions to know if we are choosing wisely.  To choose war and violence over negotiation and other peaceful means to settle differences on the world stage have their consequences.

Beyond physical injuries that soldiers return home with, some so severe as to entirely change their lives, if indeed they didn’t lose their life in the battle, comes the mental agony of what the war caused them to do, for which they have to live with for the rest of their lives. For those who can’t, ending their suffering through suicide has been a way out for far too many.

Yet, “Come to me all who labor and find life hard and I will refresh you—take my burden upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble—you will find rest for your souls, for my burden is easy and light.”   Amen? Amen!

 

My friends, this Sunday’s readings give a wonderful treatise on the great love of God for us.  Scripture scholar, Diane Bergant says, in no uncertain terms that, “The only way Elisha could have made the promise to the Shunemite woman, “This time next year, you will be holding a child in your arms,” and have it fulfilled, is through the power of God.

She says, we can liken this gift to the same offered to Abraham and Sarah—Isaac would be a gift to the nation and from him, along with all the women involved, a great family would result.  But this son offered as gift to the Shunemite woman was merely a gift for her, for her kindness to the prophet, Elisha.

Psalm 89 speaks of the “lovingkindness” (one word—hesed, in Greek) and faithfulness of our God.  The entire psalm uplifts God’s love which lasts forever and God’s faithfulness that is praised through the ages, because of the covenant God made with the People of God.  In other words, God will always-be-with-us!

And what are we to do in response to this great love? Paul tells us in his letter today to the Romans.  We are to set aside our old ways of living and take on a new life of holiness.

Paul speaks of what happens to us in our baptisms—Bergant continues and I paraphrase—we are plunged into the real chaos of death to ourselves through baptism and are raised to new life in Jesus—new life, living as he did.  Paul continues, she says, and again, I paraphrase, the chaos that physical death can be because it changes the one who goes through it, is what Jesus encountered when he lived, died and ultimately rose from the dead—an encounter we will all experience, one day!

In anticipation for this new way of being; we are to prepare our spiritual and physical selves through becoming all that we are called to be in this life, just as Jesus did, and the gospel reading from Matthew today, tells us how.

The words of this gospel can be a hard reading if we read it only in a literal way.  Does Jesus really mean that we are to put family aside—think of their needs only second?  Yes and no!  He is not asking us to turn our backs on our families when they are in need. What he is saying is that tending to our families cannot keep us from living moral lives—doing the right thing—doing what Jesus would do.

An example or two will make this clearer.  If we are asked to keep a secret within our family under the guise of protecting the family unit when the secret is covering up abuse, the challenge from Jesus would be to do the right thing.    In the past, much abuse, sexual and physical was kept quiet because people were taught that the institution, Church, State or Family was of most importance.

The Netflix documentary, The Keepers, tells its viewers the story of Catholic nun, Sister Cathy Cesnik, a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame who was cruelly murdered in 1969 because she was going to go public with the truth of sexual abuse of female students at Keogh High School in Baltimore over several years, primarily by one priest, with the collusion of Church and State. More than her murder, the story of the cover-up of her murder looms before us as followers of Jesus.  Now, you might be thinking, why did we never hear of this? Why indeed?!

This is an incidence of protecting the “family of the hierarchical church” over the “little ones” that we as baptized followers of Jesus are called to watch out for and Jesus would say that this is wrong.

Martin Luther King, Jr. while in prison for civil disobedience in the 1960’s wrote of this overriding principle:

“In a real sense all life is inter-related…All [people] are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.  I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.  This is the inter-related structure of reality.”

Our baptisms in Jesus, the Christ and our calls to be his followers challenge us to spiritually die to our own desires, wishes, preconceptions of what and how life will be.  A letter to the June 30^th edition of the National Catholic Reporter is indicative of this—in part, it reads:

“I was one who was indifferent toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons until my grandchild came out as gender neutral at about age 16 or 17.  Then I remembered how this child struggled since early childhood with personal identity and continues to struggle today at age 20. Now my indifference has turned to awareness and deep concern for my grandchild, whom I will always love and hold dear to me.  This awareness and deep concern now extends to all of the LGBT family.  My grandchild’s struggle has changed me by opening my eyes to be more understanding and accepting of others.”

For those who get the Winona Daily News, this past week carried the 60 year love story of two people, Jim and Peggy Meyer, known to many in our community.  In 2009, Jim came out publically to family and friends as a transgender person and assumed her new identity as Jaimie Ann Meyer, a reality that she has been living with and coming to terms with for most of her life. One can only imagine the pain of not knowing who you really are for so many years, living within a culture of Church and State that, in many places still chooses to see reality for others in a very small, narrow vein.  And yet, we are confronted in today’s Scriptures that speak to us of a God of lovingkindness who is faithful forever.  God created all the differences for us to delight in, not to set some up as the norm and condemn the rest.

We can only imagine what Peggy Meyer has gone through coming to terms with Jaimie Ann’s coming out.  We are told that, “they are finding their way together.”  I cannot read this story without thinking of the total giving, dying—really, to oneself that has gone on in the past for Jaimie Ann and in the present, now for Peggy.  I salute them both as women of strength.

So, Ordinary Time—not for sissies—if we are true to Jesus’ message; it calls us to expand our hearts and minds and souls—to truly see our brother Jesus in all the wildly different manifestations that are presented to us each day in lives that are fully engaged! Amen? Amen!

 

My friends, it would be hard to miss the notion this week in our Scriptures that, “Our God is for us!”  Beginning with Jeremiah, it is clear that the life of a prophet is not an easy undertaking, especially if one is going to respond to the invitation with any amount of zeal.  It is not a job one seeks out, but one that a person is asked to do by our loving God. Once asked, and if the prophet accepts; they will always have God at their back as is evidenced by Jeremiah’s words, “Our God is with me like a mighty champion.”

In the pain of the call, Jeremiah implores God for justice, and rightly so.  The injustice that life sometimes gives to those who try to live and act justly toward all or to  those who suffer because others fail to be open to their needs; the psalmist tells us—God will always hear their cries—the cry of the poor, and in turn implore one of us to help!

The gospel for today’s liturgy is part of a longer teaching that Jesus gave his apostles before sending them out in twos to teach and to give back that which they, he said, “had been freely given.”  I think the overriding idea that we, as followers of our brother Jesus want to hold onto, in conjunction with carrying on his work in the world, of being “bread”—his body, as we discussed last week, is that we would not fear.  Jesus tells us, [do not fear anything!]  Again, we get the message that our God has our backs—ultimately!

The nugget that I would take from Paul’s letter selection for today to the Romans is that, [grace abounds for all.]   I think in the past; we have spent too much time on the first part of this reading—the idea “that sin entered the world” and in the old translations, who it was who was responsible for bringing it in [women]!  We got stuck there and never moved on to the best part, that God’s grace “abounds for all of us” and that no matter what jams we get into being “bread for the world,” our Abba God’s grace–the very life of God, for that is what “grace” is, will be with us!

It’s good to remember that the notion of being imperfect or “sinful” is part of what makes us human and according to Paul, our imperfections only became “sins” when formal laws were created! Being imperfect is part of the definition of what it is to be human—we live, we try to love, we get sick, we make mistakes and we die—it’s all part of the human package. Certainly, we can choose to rise above our imperfections becoming our best selves, both for our good and the good of others and it would seem this would be our God’s wish for us to become ever more, as we were created–the image of God.

I take time to spell this out because usual exegesis doesn’t always let us know that our God loves us in our imperfections, our failings and our sorrows—caused sometimes by ourselves, sometimes by others.  Our good God doesn’t call us to beat our breasts, proclaiming that, as a friend once said, “We are scum; we are truly scum,” but that more so; we are made in God’s image and that we need to more often proclaim this piece and keep striving after that goodness.  This is what God loves, that we keep trying!

So, what has my week brought that speaks to all of this?  I was with my friend Alice for much of the past week catching up on each other’s lives, resting, enjoying some good food—that we didn’t have to prepare, some antiquing—delighting in what each of us found that would enhance our respective homes, and sharing some programming, that both challenged and delighted us.

As I reflect back on these days with a good friend—a soul mate, really; I realize that I witnessed the face of God in the beauty that my friend has created in her flower gardens, in the fun we had, staying in our “jammies” till noon, sipping coffee, laughing about old times, looking forward to all that comes next!

In all of this, from doing some joint exegesis and planning for today’s liturgy and homily which we both needed to prepare, to sharing the work of an artist one evening at the local museum in West Bend, WI where Alice lives and the artist originated too, aspects of our good God were present to me—beauty, goodness, compassion .

The artist, whose interest lies in historical period dress and adornment, spoke to us of a Wisconsin family from the late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries whose later generations shared the complete saved wardrobe of their great grandmother with him for historical purposes.  Many of the dresses needed to be restructured and/or repaired to vintage condition, as time had its toll on them,  which he did, and his ability to do so, coupled with his work uncovering the story of this family through saved letters, cards and newspaper clippings was most fascinating to me. It turned out that this family lived in Marshfield, Wisconsin where my grandmother on my Dad’s side, lived. One got a sense of how important, “family” was to this historical group of people. I have often wished that my Dad’s family had saved more historical pieces like this.  The study of history has always been important to me because it tells us so much about, who we were, and how we have progressed or not into the future.

My time with my friend also brought us to discussions of our present times, of all the needs of the People of God in our nation and world—in our Church.  We tried not to dwell on this “unfinished” business too much, perhaps remembering Jesus’ words, “The poor will always be with you,” taking the much needed rest we both required.

In our work, all of us, in the ways we live our calls to be prophets, priests, followers of Jesus, the Christ, for the good of all; we must take times away to fill our own cups, so as to be ever more consistently, our best selves—bread—Jesus’ body, in our world.

And if we remember his words, “Don’t be afraid,” and have faith that indeed our God has our backs, that will be all that we need to do great things in our world! Amen? Amen!

Happy Fathers’ Day to everyone reading this who has fathered physically, or in other ways the children of this world–thanks for all you do! We need you to keep doing it! (:

My friends, the feast of Corpus Christi can be a day that either leaves us “settled” in religious reverie or “unsettled” as we consider its true meaning, which is really all about taking it to the next level.  Let me explain.

Corpus Christi, Latin for “Body of Christ” has been, in the past, all about worshipping the body and blood of the human Jesus as we receive him in communion.  I think for too long, many in the Catholic church have been satisfied to simply “worship” this mystery and leave it at that, when really this feast calls us to so much more.

As we know, Jesus was always shaking things up, stretching his followers to be more, see more, understand more, see their lives as “gift” given to share, to make life better for all. Let’s look at what exegetes have to say.

Diane Bergant, scripture scholar, states that “blood symbolized life itself”—that the significance of the cup of wine is not in its material substance, but in its incorporation of the partakers in the blood of Christ—in other words, the sharing of it with the community is where the true goodness/the benefit lies. So, if the feast of Corpus Christi leaves us “settled” in simply, worshipping the body and blood, then perhaps we have missed the point of this feast.  Jesus never asked us to worship him in the elements of bread and wine, but to care for his body in the world.

Exegetes continue, breaking bread with someone was looked at in the time of Jesus as a sign of forming community with them.  Jesus raised that to a new level in saying that sharing Eucharistic bread forms us into the body of Christ.

In other words, when we eat regular food, we incorporate that food into our very selves.  The opposite is true with the Eucharist, Bergant says.  When we partake of Eucharistic bread; we are transformed into Eucharistic bread, meaning—we become Jesus’ body for the world.  This is important, let me repeat that!  So, you see, this is indeed another level—receiving communion is not just between us and God, but us—God (think Jesus) and our world. Receiving communion is a community action for the larger community.

In the Gospel from John, Bergant tells us that “flesh and blood,” on a literal level, was a common way of characterizing a human being—when applied to Jesus, speaking of Jesus’ flesh and blood is our proclamation of faith in the incarnation—the fact that Jesus became one of us to have a human experience, thus telling us how much we are loved by our God—that God in Jesus would go to that extent to make sure that we creatures know how important we are to the Creator.  Jesus became one of us, flesh and blood through his entire life; not just when he gave us communion, but when we make conscious efforts to live as Jesus did for our world!

I think it would be good for us to try and put ourselves at Jesus’ last supper with his family and friends and really attempt to tap into all that was going on for him, in his humanity, all that was before him in his journey to be Christ.  Most of us can only really get our heads around the human component—Jesus’ earthly family, his friends, his disciples.  What was he truly thinking, feeling when he said, “Whenever you share this meal, the simple elements of bread and wine, think of me!”  Remember, if you can, that when you take these elements, simple gifts from the earth; they are in effect my life-blood—my body, all that I have taught you, all that I have given you, by way of example, by way of my life among you.  When you take all of this in and let it change your life, you do become my body—given to you that you then can continue my work in the world.

And friends, this is why Jesus could truly say, “You will do greater things than I!”  He truly believed and trusted that his family and friends, his followers would continue his work in the world.

That’s where all of us come in.  We can’t let what we do here at Mass end here—this is only the beginning.  The only real purpose for the Eucharist, in the end, is that it be a launching pad for all that comes next.  We are strengthened here by the love that the Eucharist signifies to go forth into our daily lives and make a difference.

This past weekend, as you know, Robert and I travelled to Cape Girardeau, Missouri for a family wedding. Our nephew, Matthew, my brother’s son married Amy.  It was a wonderful family event, filled with joy for the new couple, wishes of love and all good for them, times to share what is going on in the individual lives of extended family members and promises to continue the love and communication, the life and fun that we all experienced at this event.

Just as Jesus, our brother, knew such events in his earthly life among us; he brought his very best to his last supper with all those he most cared about.  On some level, that is what I felt our family brought to this event last weekend.  For all that hasn’t gone right in my family of origin—on this weekend; we were willing to set that aside and be family in all the ways that we could. To me this is what Eucharist is all about!

When we do this my friends, within our families, within our city, on a national level to make our country better for all, on a global level for our world, we are truly Jesus’ body and blood in the world—and it all begins here each time we celebrate the Mass. Let it be so! Amen? Amen!

 

Dear Friends, 

Pastor Dick Dahl has given us another wonderful homily this past weekend in my absence–enjoy! -Pastor Kathy

Today we come together to worship, but not to worship a deity on a mountain top or above the clouds, not a deity separated from us in another realm of existence, but rather the all encompassing and sustaining Mystery, beyond our wildest dreams and yet at the same time intimately within and around us, the Mystery of the Holy Trinity manifested in all of creation.

The reality of this belief is not immediately apparent. It appears as nonsense to some. But, as Gary Zukav writes in his book which is an overview of the new physics, “Nonsense is nonsense only when we have not yet found the point of view from which it makes sense.”

In my last homily here I noted Barbara Fiand’s words that we often say we are created in God’s image, but we usually create God in our image. We don’t usually go to the extremes that the Greeks and Romans of classical times did. They imaginatively peopled their concept of heaven with gods who depicted their own rivalries and conflicts. Nevertheless, we have often described God in human terms. And how could we not? How else can we relate to a Mystery that encompasses and sustains all that is, except through words and concepts that describe what we experience. But, as the semanticist, Alfred Korzybski put it, “The map is not the territory.” Or, as the physicist Fritjof Capra has written, “Because our representation of reality is so much easier to grasp than reality itself, we tend to confuse the two and to take our concepts and symbols for reality.”

As Christians, we believe that this Mystery has come to our aid–by somehow becoming one with us, by taking on human existence in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. In this human form the all enveloping Mystery made itself known. Jesus then chose the human image of a parent when he told his followers to call the Mystery “Father” or even “Daddy” (Abba) as he himself did. As a result, I think we have less difficulty relating to God as a Parent or God as  Son, than we do as Spirit, even Holy Spirit. At least we stopped using the word “ghost.”

Why do we worship the Divine Mystery as Trinity? Jesus never used the word. Nor do we find it in the Scriptures. But it comes naturally from Jesus’ words. At the last supper with his friends, he told them, “I came from the Father and have come into the world.” He prayed, “Father, all I have is yours and all you have is mine.” He describes a dynamic relationship he has with his Father–and also with each and everyone of us.

But Jesus also said that he and the Father would come to us as Holy Spirit. Symbols are used to help us grasp this aspect of the Mystery—a strong wind, tongues of fire, a white dove, or the one Jesus used, the Paraclete, the Helper. Symbols help us, but they can also trap us into absurdities.

The Mystery in which we exist and which we worship is not three gods or “two men and a bird,” as one person put it, but a dynamic outpouring of Living Love, an intimate and dynamic relationship of Love. Fr. Richard Rohr points out that relationship is the deepest characteristic of God. In relationship we enter Mystery. Now “love” is something we can relate to, as is “relationship,” even though each is also a projection of human experience.

Ironically, the scientific discoveries during the past century reveal that nothing in the quantum world exists in isolation but also only in relationship. And instead of a static, mechanistic world, quantum physics reveals an unbelievably dynamic universe. If we believe that the Mystery we worship as God is the source of all creation, then it’s makes sense that creation reflects its Creator—that it should mirror on-going, creative Relationship.

Francis of Assisi called the world “our cloister.” Francis saw nature as the mirror of God. Father Rohr, himself a Franciscan, writes that this mirroring flows naturally back and forth from the natural world to the soul. He writes, “One has to sit for a while, observe it, love it without trying to rearrange it by thinking you can fully understand it.” He goes on, “This combination of observation along with love—without resistance, judgment, analysis or labeling—is the best description of contemplation I can give.”

We live each day caught up in the Mysterious Relationship we call Trinity. The Holy Spirit enables us to find the manifestation of God in nature, in our neighbor, in the Eucharist. Barbara Fiand observes, “One feels at ease in moments of presence, enveloped by the good.”  She adds, “The life of Jesus was the ‘presencing’ of God. Our lives are called to be that as well.”

I want to conclude with the following thoughts from Father Rohr:

The followers of Francis of Assisi believe thatJesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity. It didn’t need changing. God has inherently loved what God created from the moment God created. No, Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God. This sets everything on an utterly positive foundation. Rather than being an ogre, God is Love. Rather than being sinners in the hands of an angry God, we are inherently and forever loved by God, no matter what we do or don’t do. God does not love us because we are good; God loves us because God is good. We can be good because we draw upon such an Infinite Source.

Modern science is helping us recognize that the physical universe is fundamentally different than it appears. Reality defies what common sense seems to tell us. In a similar way the Mystery of the Holy Trinity seems to defy common sense, yet the Holy Spirit reveals it to us as real.

Only loving relationships transform lives. God acts in us, ever flows through us, energizes us, and can never be separated from us. Francis of Assisi understood the entire circle of life has a Great Lover at the center of it all, the Triune Mystery that we worship today.