Sunday Readings

Move On

There are times when I get to see where people have gone. At a wedding, I meet again those who were here. At the Festival, I can see how they are doing. On Christmas, I welcome them back. After 10 years, I am starting to see St. Augustine’s as a kind of airport. People come here, hang out a while, and they go on to somewhere else. Sure, there is a large group who are contented to stay put and live here. But no one can deny there is a percentage that seems to be just passing through.

In a mobile society like ours, we have to expect this. Given the cost of living around here, it is nearly impossible to not think, at some point of moving or children settling elsewhere. Sure, it would be nice if the generations could live together and find the common center of a faith life here. But what if we associated our faith with this unrealistic lack of mobility? What if, for the sake of ease, our faith got stuck in one place?

Trust me, it can happen. Some one learns the 10 Commandments and needs nothing more. We ‘get’ our Confirmation and we’re set for life. We get a warm religious feeling on a retreat and never pray again. Sounds silly? Sadly it is not. Faith can be caught in the past and never grow. And I’m not talking about the ‘data’ of faith. I am not talking about the things we can test on a religion exam.

Our friend Bartimaeus in the Gospel today is sitting on the sidewalk, going nowhere. Jesus is comes by, heals him and says he can now go on his way. Bartimaeus makes Jesus’ way his own and follows. In other words, Bartimaeus moves from one state to another. He begins sitting motionless and ends up on the move away from where he was. And we all know that the tricky part of life is when we move from one state to another. It’s not the fall that hurts; it’s when you hit the ground that there’s a problem. The exiles traveling back to Israel from Babylon knew the same thing as their lives were uprooted for something better.

Maybe that’s why so many do not move. Maybe it’s easier to have a ‘simple faith’ that doesn’t change too often. Why challenge anything more than what we needed at some other point in life? Things are fine they way they are.

But they are not, are they? When looking up and looking beyond are too much, we loose perspective and stop seeing. Our vision of how life can be seems dull with the tedium of the same view. If the ‘same old-same old’ is the only thing, it will always be the same. The last thing we want is anything to come and upset us. We don’t want any intervention – divine or human – that says it’s time to get up and move on.

But this is precisely what God does. His grace gets in the way of our doing nothing and changes the direction of things. The good and bad of life are explosive forces that change the trajectory of the way we live. A faith that once told us that God will bless us with good things now tells us to embrace the Cross as we are surrounded by sickness. A religion that told us to behave now tells us to break the laws of ‘good manners’ and correct a friend. A God who is just suddenly urges us to do good to a nasty neighbor we would rather ignore.

Sure we can ask God for timely blessings and show Him a little gratitude here and there. We can even appreciate the miracle of healing in the Sacrament of Confession and the astounding comfort of grace in difficulty. We are pretty good with Bartimaeus getting his gift of sight from Jesus. But what about afterwards? What about the rest of the story and the later parts of the journey? That is an awesome thing because it is filled with so many unknowns.

The challenges of faith are many and the unmapped corridors of grace can be dim. Are we afraid of going deeper? We are and that is okay. No one wants to live in the unfamiliar. We can travel here and there, but like to come home. No, we can deal with the moment of amazing grace. It’s a life of faith we find scary.

Like Bartimaeus, our faith needs a defiant moment to break free. It needs that gift of leaving the sedate and stilted to grow into something more. It cries out for a light to show its divine potential where to go. We can be so used to our faith in one stage that we convince ourselves that it Is complete. But in our private and most honest moments, we hear that blindness calling out. We can try to quiet it, to distract it but can’t for long. Jesus hears that prayer even if we don’t think it is one. He says to us:

Do you know what this faith I have given you can be? Do you know how deeply you want what you can’t ask for? I know you don’t want to be disturbed because you have grown comfortable being the way you are. But I don’t want you locked away in your darkness. I want you to move and grow. Growth hindered is life lost. I came that you may have abundant life. I give you grace that you might be found. I heal you heart so your soul may find light. On Good Friday, I said to Adam and Eve, “rise, let us leave this place.” I let the light of my glory shine in the darkest place imaginable so you could imagine what I see for you. This is my healing, this is the light I came to bring to the world for I am the light of the world.

You see, Bartimaeus called out to Jesus but it was Jesus who was reaching out to him. He ask for healing but Jesus gave him the light. We can whisper a prayer to be more faithful, more spiritual but Jesus is speaking loudly His call to a life of holiness. The same comfort of mercy we ask is push to greater faith. The old familiarity of an ancient religion becomes a sharp incentive to go into a new direction.

Don’t take the Gospel for granted. Don’t reduce it to habit or the merely necessary. And don’t lament the passing of the old or fear the coming of the new. We deny the faith when we confine it to the fond and familiar. It is so much more. And this is not for others or the ‘holy roller’ types. It is the light in the darkness of all our lives.

And all of us - tired, bored or weak in that darkness – cry out to the Son of David to have mercy on us. And with the grace of that mercy He tells us: Fear not. I am here. My light has dawned.

Sunday Readings

Poor Service

If you go into a bookstore, there is a large section called “Self Help.” It is loaded with books on how to make your life better and more efficient. Some are very good, others recycle what has been said before. But every one of them is trying to find the right system and the best program. And the foundation of it all is a complete avoidance of any suffering or any inconvenience. Who wouldn’t want that? Imagine a world where we imagine pain away? Take this root and the herb and life will be great! Complete a checklist and you’ll live without a care in the world.

Religion has its own take on this. Say a certain prayer every day and you will get what you want. Ask this saint to pray for you and the sickness will go away. And like the self-help books, no one seems to get it right. New methods and new theories give rise to new devotions and trends.

Such is the state of things. Our weaknesses testify to our human condition while our quest for personal perfection admits of a high standard. It is a good thing but the response is not what we were looking for.

Through his suffering, my servant shall justify many. Yes, that is the reading from Holy Week. But why suffering? Why didn’t the Savior find another way?

Like the reason for the self-help books, nothing touches our humanity more than suffering. It is as real as it gets and no one is exempt. We go so far as to rate a person’s character based on their reaction to the needs of others. For instance, in our world today, the worst thing you can say about some one is that ‘they don’t care.’ Regardless of what they do, we seem to concentrate on their display of compassion. In the political world, it is standard. From the viewpoint of faith, it is essential. Our response to pain is a prime indicator of how much we resemble our God. And this is not a bad thing. Our God decided to reach us on the one level that matters to us most. It was through suffering that the grace of God crashed in through the paper walls of our virtues.

So when the two brothers jockeyed for the top spots, it was clear that a clarification was in order. With the indignant others, Jesus has to have a sit-down with the boys.

It shall not be that way with you. What I am asking of you, what I call you to do, can only be done through difficulty. You will follow My words as well as My actions. People may reject My teaching but cannot ignore My example. In their most painful need, they will see Me having those same needs if they see that in you. You want to be on My right and on My left? Fine. Look for the spots on either side of My cross. Those are the places available. If you’re looking for thrones, you picked the wrong Messiah.

Should we, today, get excited about a faith in a God who served us through His sufferings? Some do not. Some want a ‘happy Pappy who art in heaven.’ Let’s think positively and focus on the glory. Let’s have that ‘joy-joy down in our hearts’ so the bad things will go away.

But they don’t, do they? Bills, sickness, traffic jams, and the myriad silliness of life don’t disappear. Humanity reacts only to reality even if we try to pretend otherwise. We can only accept a God who knows this. We will not suffer the foolishness of another Gospel for long. The human situation knows all-too well the cross and doesn’t believe its own desire to see things without it. Those who lead do so rightly from this; anything else is just pointless ambition and the illusion of control. Service offered to each other is based on our weakness more than our strength. Our kindness is the result of knowing our need of it rather than our virtuous charity. Our communion is a joyful recounting of our mistakes and not celebrating our triumphs.

If Jesus has established a new order in a new creation, this is a new thing. The new Jerusalem is built solidly on the weakness of the flesh. The masters of this shining salvation are running around serving the recipients of grace. There can be no ‘lording it over others’ now since the others are our overlords.

So we can ask who it is that we serve? Who are those who have the claim to our kindness? It’s easy enough to say that the entire world is due our charity, but let’s keep it reasonable. It is your spouse, your family, your classmates, your friends, your enemies, your coworkers. These are you masters. From what you have endured, you have the authority to serve. The needs of others that touch your life are the clearest expression of the will of God. This is the ‘cup’ God offers us because He drank of it in the Garden of Gethsemane. And because He did, so can we.

If you are weak enough, if you are so flawed and wounded and hurt, you are welcomed to this noble fellowship of the Servants of God. The Suffering Servant who redeemed the world will look at you and see something quite familiar. And that resemblance will be your glory.

Sunday Readings

If Not God

Back in the Seminary, I would print our class schedule with a quote from the Responsorial Psalm today: Teach us to number our days aright, \ that we may gain wisdom of heart. I was so pious back then! Still, it was a good thought. With all the required and optional things of any person’s life, wisdom is really needed to get through the day. We call this ‘setting our priorities’ and ‘getting our priorities straight.’ And if religion is about anything, it is about this.

After hearing the Gospel today, perhaps we can come away with the notion that God is good and money is bad. And maybe we can see that our priorities are not in line with that. We may see God as good but we still love a little cash. We can come to the conclusion that we are like that rich man, we go away sad because there is no hope for us. ‘The Gospel of the Lord.’ It’s an easy track to follow and many have. There is a strange socialism that says to us that salvation is only for those who redistribute their wealth. If you have one more cookie than the next guy, you can forget about heaven. And to help you reach those celestial heights, we’ll get a few new tax laws, and maybe a tank or two, to help you along. We’ve all heard that type of thing before and it is never correct.

Yes, today is about priorities, not values – whatever they are. Values, as far as I can tell, are ideals we really treasure but are far enough away so they can do us no damage. We hold to them as politics and assert them as objective truths. Priorities are different. They require the one thing that human beings do best. They require the use of our will. We decide them. No one can impose a priority on us. If we do not choose, they do not exist. When we choose something we like, we call it a preference. When we choose something we do not like, we call it an obligation. But setting our priorities is a choice we make and no one can make it for us.

The rich man in the Gospel is one of the good guys. He has followed the rules as best he could. He’s worked hard and I am sure he had a good family. Jesus saw his desire for something more and loved him for it. He saw that his priorities were fine but challenged them to be greater. Jesus saw that his system of living was a belief that if you do right, work hard, and get the best you can, life will be good. Jesus has something a little different in mind. This man’s priorities did not allow for the fullness of grace. They were an obstacle to the working of God. And how hard it is for anyone to come closer to God when anything or anyone is in the way. That day, he went away sad because he didn’t see this opportunity. Jesus looked at him with love but still he went away sad.

Do we condemn him? Do we belittle the Apostles for doubting God’s providence? We can’t. We walk away from God disappointed. We question if we will be rewarded for what we do good. And still, Jesus looks at us with love. This glance of mercy is a call to wisdom. It inspires us to choose not because of force or fear, but love. It moves us to set a greater priority because of the One who is Himself the greatest priority. The challenge of today’s message is clear. Is God our priority?

We’ve heard this before; You shall have no other gods but me. Love the Lord your God with all your heart. Like the characters of the Gospel, we can respond that we have or at least are trying. Bound to fail and prone to glory, we’re here. And God is pleased. God is honored and looks at us with love. He says to each of us:

Yes, I know you and I see how you try. You respond to Me and I delight in your efforts. You give up, as best you can, the bad and offer some of your best for the good of others. Sure, I forgive you and understand your resistance to sacrifice. But there is always one thing more. There is always something else that clogs things up. Most of the time, you already know what that is. Sometimes life is not always clear. But I trust you as you try to trust in Me. You need wisdom – and even a bit of courage – to choose aright. I am here to offer it and I do so freely. Just ask.

Imagine if that rich man had heard that. Maybe he could have stood before Jesus and said that he now could see his possessions possessed his heart and in giving them away, he got back far more. Maybe he did that later, but not today. A poorer person can be in the same place. Maybe they cling to their jealousy or resentment. For others, it may be the desire for power or influence. Maybe it’s respect or appreciation they treasure. Wisdom gives a simple rule of life: If it’s not God, it’s not God. We can enjoy and celebrate anything so long as we do not worship it. We can be angry and sad so long as it do not permit us to be hopeless. The first priority is God or not. The lesser priorities are seen only in light of this first one.

So you decide. Ask for the wisdom to see and know the differences in your life. Poverty and wealth, peace and war are not ends in themselves but the means of living out what God has called you to be. Look to the love of God in the middle of everything and choose that above all. Value the things and people in life that bring you closer to that mercy. Shun whatever keeps you from it. We’re all learners here. No one has a perfect system of living that insures the eternal benefit of heaven. Well, no one but the One who promises it. Keep God at the center and the rest shall be in place.

And as we do, and as we try, we should never walk away sad. God doesn’t.

Sunday Readings
How to Have a Perfect Marriage

Oh goody! The readings today are about that perennial source of controversy: divorce and marriage. Let me begin by confessing that when I started looking at these readings, I was conflicted. Is this the time for a presentation of the Church’s teaching on marriage? Should this be a sermon on ‘better communication’ skills? Or maybe I should go to the Second Reading and talk about suffering.

But then the news exploded. Government officials began to resemble guests on Jerry Springer. Hollywood stars bashfully confessing love for the parents of their children as they shock the world by deciding to get married. And then, the awful tragedy in Lancaster County occupied national attention.

What’s wrong here? Why can’t people be faithful, noble and decent? How difficult can this be?

A victimizer becomes the victim. The celebrity holds the ideal of marriage higher than their own ability to realize it. And words of forgiveness are spoken by people who refuse to make a spectacle of themselves on the evening news. Like the Pharisees of the Gospel, we are looking to judge and order the world. We gather our excuses and our exceptions. And where does that leave us?

The question today is not the dignity, rights and rules of marriage. The question is one of vision.

We loose it too quickly. We call it an ‘ideal’ or a ‘goal’ as if we are racing for a diploma or a prize. That is a fool’s quest. Jesus gives a vision when we have lost it. The Pharisees were looking for a little wiggle-room. Jesus tells them to go back to the start: From the beginning of creation. He is putting things in a very different light. He is not considering what we do as much as telling us who we are.

And when we hear of these ideals, the religious teaching, we start to get that starry-eyed and vacant look as we glaze over. Perhaps that is also how we got to this point.

Yes, there seems to be self-referential issue here. How can some one who has not been married talk about matrimonial bliss? As some one very wise once said, “Marriage ain’t easy.” And they spoke the truth. Dealing so closely with one person for so long is a daunting prospect. Every attempt the Church makes in the modern world to promote it and prepare for it is lampooned and denigrated. Couples are disturbed by one or two sessions of pre-Cana but seem to not show the same annoyance with multiple band rehearsals. Try to talk about the meaning of married spirituality and the conversation devolves into a choice of ‘meaningful music’ for the ceremony. Forgive me for sounding cynical, but something is wrong with this. The ‘Big Day’ too often has little to do with the ‘Big Picture.’

But for many, that picture begins to take shape. In this very human endeavor, people who commit to this reality discover what they have become. They see this union is something more than an agreement or arrangement. They struggle and stumble and, with grace, they are seeing what Jesus was talking about.

And, yes, some do not. Some marriages do not work out. For all the reasons of human weakness that have been part of our make-up since the Garden of Eden, some unions break apart. People are hurt and wounded in the process. The whole reason for the Annulment is meant to see those things which would later be the cause of it ending. Allowance for human weakness is the very thing Christ made when all the Pharisees were looking for was an easy out. And the teaching of Jesus was to place that understanding only in terms of what God has hoped for humanity. Nothing less would do.

This is one reality we can’t spin. Should any of us hold something less we would do ourselves no favor. We have to start with God’s vision, not our dreams. We know how prone we are to sin and also admit a call to glory. It remains a matter of vision.

And that is, perhaps, the reason some people have a problem with Lancaster County. In the middle of such horror, words of mercy were spoken. These folks are operating on a very different level. We modern types can accuse them of a deluded repression of rage. The press treats them as ‘freaks’ because they are not screaming for vengeance on the evening news. Like the ideal of marriage, forgiveness seems quaint. But this too is matter of vision and it is not always ours. Foley is already being excused because of clerical abuse. Celebrities are now the standard-bearers of family values. And forgiveness works only in a world without cel-phones.

For lack of vision, the people will perish. Jesus Christ is the vision of faith, not the referee. There is no score or time-outs. This is not a game. And still, we are part of this. We are the ones who struggle to live the vision God has revealed. No, we are far from perfect and that is why God allows mistakes even if we don’t. But these foibles are never a reason to degrade the vision. The primary mistake of any human effort is to crop God out the picture. We began doing this in Eden and seem to keep making the same mistake. And yet God does not give up the vision or give up on us. Our faith knows that. Do we?

So when we consider the teachings of the Gospel and when we ask how we live up to them, can we begin by first saying that we can’t? Can we allow in us what God permits for His children? If we can, if we can be truly humble, we can be enlightened. If we remove the goal of perfection, we can live with our hearts set on the vision of God. We cannot isolate marriage or forgiveness or anything else from it. That vision is too big to permit exclusion.

And those who welcome their tainted and imperfect grace, discover something all our desire for liberty is seeking. We know the welcome of the God who welcomes us. Like the children of the Gospel today, the vision of God attracts us to come closer to what we know is the better and the good. Our guilt, anger and even our experience may try to prevent us from coming closer to our God. It’s so understandable. But grace breaks through the mess we have made and says, “No. Do not be hindered. That desire to be closer, that halting effort at living the Gospel, is more than enough for it is that, above all, that is the start of the Kingdom of God.”

Sunday Readings

I Can Only Imagine

Human beings have always asked one, fundamental question: How does something work? We ask why the sky is blue, why the snow is white and why do the innocent seem to suffer. We ask how God permits things to happen and wonder why others do not. And this is a good thing. We are supposed to wonder and question because if we don’t, we cease to live.

At Confirmation, the Bishop says a prayer over the candidates asking God to give them the gift of “awe and wonder in [the Divine] presence.” And it really is a gift. We all know that beauty can shock us and the answer to a problem can impact us. But this ‘wonder and awe’ is something different.

We can imagine a world free of war. We can hope for a cure to any and all illness. But can we see how God works in the lives of every person in our life? Can we be stilled with reverence at how the Spirit of the Living God moves in our hearts?

Today’s readings speak of a sovereign God. It shows that God does His ‘thing’ as He chooses. Those Israelites who missed the ceremony and that preacher using the Holy Name of Jesus – they were the instruments God chose even if others did not. Sure, we have a message today that God can use anything and any one to work out His purposes. We are all potential apostles even if we don’t see it. But what about us, what about God working in us as well as through us?

That wonder and awe is something modern religion is seriously missing. Faith becomes yet another cause or movement to transform the political and social landscape. We want and we present a faith in the beliefs we share and the values that form us. Faith is changed into a mechanism of order that makes life more livable. Some even go so far as to form their governments on such a belief system. And while we can believe that faith has the power to bring our lives into conformity with God, we so easily fall into the trap of bringing God into conformity with us.

The question of the readings today is a simple one: do we limit what God can do? Do we build a theology that says God must do this or that and in a certain place and time?

Yes, as human beings, God has decided to make an appointment with people need one. The moments of life, the opportunities of Grace, are there. Birth and Baptism, coming-of-age and Confirmation, crime and Confession – all of these are specific and they are wonderful. But faith is more than an occasion and holiness is more than a calendar. When the Divine is invoked only when we’re ‘hatched, matched and dispatched,’ it is nothing more to us than another tool or accessory. And try as we might, I think we can all admit that God just refuses to stay put. He has the nerve to do His will far outside those appointments we offer Him.

And what a wonder when He does! What a marvel to see the hand of God moving through the mess and the mire. Least expected and less appreciated, God is often there in power. In the middle of sin, scandal and weakness, God is there. Far outside the pale, in places and with people not called ‘holy’, God is there. In the surprise of our own lives, when we said to Him that we need no more, He is there. Never condoning wrong, always encouraging better, His divinity sounds through the unmappable foundations of our souls.

This God, whose Spirit rested upon the many as well as the few, has never stopped shining out from the tabernacles of His grace. The very Name of God, often uttered in bored indifference, still works miracles. These are not stories from of old or distant lands. They are the testaments that echo in us. They are the stories of our life. When religion is free of them, no one is free. If it is only a matter of doing good and especially avoiding evil, it is lifeless. No one is spurred to glory by being told they can have no fun. And true faith doesn’t just point out the hand of God working in others; it calls and equips us to see that very thing in us.

And what a wonder it is! You and I have been given the gift to see this. We examine ourseves and ask if we have this vision. Do we see the correction, enouagmnet and guildence of God in the places and things not normally considerd? Are we awe-stuck by beauty and simplicity in the average and even boring? Can we rejoice in the gift of life as we live knowing that God is there?

So many, including ourselves, have treated religion as a given. Catholicism is reduced to its rules and customs to the point of irrelevance. We tolerate it on a daily basis as we see gory movies of excorisms or the delightful entertainments of a singer hanging on a cross with her crown of thorns. This is a false faith of shock and special effects. This has nothing to do with mystery and even less to do with God. And no one should waste their time with something like that.

Here in a church, on this day, we are going to receive the very life of the God who gives us life. That same God who moved with such power through the desert of Sinai and by riverbanks of the Jordan is here. Through the wilderness of our day, on the riverbanks of the Hudson, God is here. Yes, in this Mass and in this place but never limited to such a small location. Our prayer is that we see this. Our prayer for each other and ourselves is that this limitless God who acts within each of us, will be our vision and our reason.

May the God whose Spirit fills the earth with the power of the Holy Name of Jesus, give us eyes to wonder at the glory shining in our hearts and reward us the simple magnificence of His very self.

If the splendor of heaven is given in the offer of a cool drink of water, we can only imagine what lies in store and within.

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