Oneing

One of my favorite mystics is called Julian of Norwich. We don’t know her real name. She is simply named after the church in Norwich, England—St. Julian’s—where she had her little anchor-hold. One window of her small room looked into the sanctuary for mass and another opened to the street where the people would come by for her counsel and prayer. Julian experienced her “showings,” as she called them, on the night of May 8, 1373. Then she lived in the anchor-hold for twenty years, trying to process and communicate what she had experienced on that one night. Julian wrote about these showings in her book Revelations of Divine Love, the first book published in English by a woman.

Julian experienced and wrote of a compassionate, relational, and joyful God. She writes: “For before he made us, he loved us; and when we were made, we loved him. And this is our substantial goodness, the substantial goodness in us of the Holy Spirit. It is nothing we create; it is our substance. God revealed to me that there may and there will be nothing at all between God and the soul. And in this endless love, the human soul is kept whole as all the matter of creation is kept whole.”

Julian uses the Middle English word “oneing” to describe this whole-making work of God. God is always oneing everything: making twos and threes and fours and divisions and dichotomies and dualisms into one. As she explains, “God wants us to know that this beloved soul that we are is preciously knitted to him in its making by a knot so subtle and so mighty that it is oned with God. In this oneing it is made endlessly holy. Furthermore, he wants us to know that all the souls which are one day to be saved in heaven without end are knit in this same knot and united in this same union, and made holy in this one identical holiness.”

Richard Rohr, OFM Adapted from Intimacy: The Divine Ambush

Bill

A man suffered a serious heart attack and had open heart bypass surgery. He awakened from the surgery to find himself in the care of nuns at a Catholic Hospital .

As he was recovering, a nun asked him questions regarding how he was going to pay for his treatment. She asked, “Do you have health insurance?”

He replied in a raspy voice, “No health insurance.”

The nun asked, “Do you have money in the bank?”

He replied, “No money in the bank.”

The nun asked, “Do you have a relative who could help you?”

He said, “I only have a spinster sister, who is a nun.”

The nun became agitated and announced loudly, “Nuns are not spinsters! Nuns are married to God.”

The patient replied, “Send the bill to my brother-in-law.”

Advent is Near

As I look out the window I see the trees. Their trunks, limbs and branches are bare. They look really beautiful against the clear sky, so different from when they are hidden by all the leaves.

At the end of November, we remember our dead, particularly those who died in the past year. And I think that one day I will appear before the Lord with all my leaves gone, all those things that hide me from myself and from others. Just the bare me. I hope the Lord will see some beauty in me also.

This thought reminds me to repent and prepare for that meeting.

That's one of the things Advent is for. The Holy Season of Advent is very near and Advent ends with our commemoration of the birth of our beloved Savior. That's where my hope is, in his coming. I trust that's where your hope is also.​

It's Not About You

The Purpose Driven Life has sold millions of copies, and transformed millions of people and churches across the world. Instinctively, most people want to know: What is my purpose? How can I be more fulfilled?

What a shock to open this best-selling book and read the first sentence: “It’s not about you!”

And it’s not about you. Though Jesus is intently interested in you, and loves you more than can be described, he is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and is worthy of our worship.

We have been created to worship him, not the other way around.

Pie

A Jesuit and a Franciscan sat down to dinner, and pie was served for dessert. There were two pieces of pie, one cut smaller than the other. The Jesuit reached over and took the larger piece for himself. The Franciscan remonstrated, "St. Francis always taught us to take the smaller piece." So the Jesuit replied, "And so you have it!"

Christ the King Sunday

Today we celebrate The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King. This great feast marks the end of our liturgical year and the completion of our journey with Jesus and His disciples through the Gospel of Matthew. And what a finale St. Matthew gives us! We end with a dramatic story, The Judgment of the Nations (Matthew 25:31-46). Here St. Matthew presents Jesus, sitting on his glorious throne, surrounded by angels with all the nations of the world “assembled before him.” Then, like a shepherd who takes his flock to the market, he separates the sheep from the goats, the righteous from the accursed, those who will enjoy eternal life from those who will suffer eternal punishment.

What is so astounding about this passage is the criteria Jesus uses for his judgment. The nations of the world, and all of us, are not judged by our great accomplishments, our victories, our scientific exploits, our wealth, our diplomas, our popularity or our social status. We are judged by our compassion, our mercy, our love, our humility, the dignity and respect we show others and our hospitality. Once again, Jesus shakes us out of our complacency and reminds us that the standards and values of the Kingdom of Heaven are not the same as those of our world.

There is another lesson here that may be our greatest challenge. Jesus considers anything we do to or for others as being done to him, “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.” One of Mother Theresa’s famous quotations is, "Christ is hidden under the suffering appearance of anyone who is hungry, naked, homeless, or dying." Christ is present in each one of us. He is hidden only if we choose not to see him.

Almighty and merciful God,

you break the power of evil and make all things new

in your Son Jesus Christ, the King of the universe.

May all in heaven and earth

acclaim your glory

and never cease to praise you.

We ask this though our Lord Jesus Christ, your son

Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

God forever and ever.

Amen.

 

We Thank Thee!

For flowers that bloom about our feet,

Father, we thank Thee.

For tender grass so fresh, so sweet,

Father, we thank Thee.

For the song of bird and hum of bee,

For all things fair we hear or see,

Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

For blue of stream and blue of sky,

Father, we thank Thee.

For pleasant shade of branches high,

Father, we thank Thee.

For fragrant air and cooling breeze,

For beauty of the blooming trees,

Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

For this new morning with its light,

Father, we thank Thee.

For rest and shelter of the night,

Father, we thank Thee

For health and food, for love and friends,

For everything Thy goodness sends,

Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God."

(1 Thessalonians 5:18)

May God Bless You on This Thanksgiving Day!

Consider the Fish

When you think you control something, you’re wrong.

It’s amazing how often we think we’re in control of something when really we aren’t.

Control is an illusion, as I’ve said many times before.

We constantly make plans that never actually turn out the way we envisioned. ‘If you want to make God laugh, make a plan,’ an old saying goes….

Consider the fish. A fish swims in a chaotic sea that it cannot possibly control — much as we all do. The fish, unlike us, is under no illusion that it controls the sea, or other fish in the sea. The fish doesn’t even try to control where it ends up — it just swims, either going with the flow or dealing with the flow as it comes. It eats, and hides, and mates, but does not try to control a thing.

We are no better than that fish, yet our thinking creates the need for an illusion.

Let go of that thinking. Learn to be the fish.

- Leo Babauta

Which Road?

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.

"Which road do I take?" she asked.

"Where do you want to go?" was his response.

"I don't know," Alice answered.

"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

Lewis Carroll, From Alice in Wonderland

An old mystic said this about himself: "I was a revolutionary when I was young, and my prayer to God was, 'Lord, give me the strength to change the world.' As I approached middle age and realized that my life was halfway gone without changing a single soul, I changed my prayer to, 'Lord, give me the grace to change all those who come into contact with me, especially my family and friends, and I shall be satisfied.' Now that I am an old man, and my days are numbered, I have begun to see how foolish I have been. Now my one prayer is this, 'Lord, give me the grace to change myself.' If I had prayed that right from the start, I would not have wasted my life."

We can waste years trying to change other people. But we can only really change one person -- ourselves. In the end, that is probably enough.

A nun walks into Mother Superior’s office and plunks down into a chair. She lets out a sigh heavy with frustration.

“What troubles you, Sister?” asks the Mother Superior. “I thought this was the day you spent with your family.”

“It was,” sighed the Sister. “And I went to play golf with my brother. We try to play golf as often as we can. You know I was quite a talented golfer and was a full scholarship student at the university before I dedicated my life to Christ.”

“I seem to recall that,” the Mother Superior agreed. “So I take it your day of recreation was not relaxing?”

“Far from it,” snorted the Sister. “In fact, I even took the Lord’s name in vain today!”

“Goodness, Sister!” gasped the Mother Superior, astonished. “You must tell me all about it!”

“Well, we were on the fifth tee -- and this hole is a monster, Mother -- 540 yard Par 5, with a nasty dogleg left and a hidden green and I hit the drive of my life. I creamed it. The sweetest swing I ever made. And it’s flying straight and true, right along the line I wanted, and it hits a bird in mid-flight not 100 yards off the tee!”

“Oh my!” commiserated the Mother. “How unfortunate! But surely that didn’t make you blaspheme, Sister!”

“No, that wasn’t it,” admitted Sister. “While I was still trying to fathom what had happened, this squirrel runs out of the woods, grabs my ball and runs off down the fairway!”

“Oh, that would have made me blaspheme!” sympathized Mother.

“But I didn’t, Mother Superior!” sobbed the Sister. “And I was so proud of myself! And while I was pondering whether this was a sign from God, this hawk swoops out of the sky and grabs the squirrel and flies off, with my ball still clutched in his paws!”

“So that’s when you cursed,” said the Mother with a knowing smile.

“Nope, that wasn’t it either,” cried the Sister, anguished, “because as the hawk started to fly out of sight, the squirrel started struggling, and the hawk dropped him right there on the green, and the ball popped out of his paws and rolled to about 18 inches from the cup!”

Mother Superior sat back in her chair, folded her arms across her chest, fixed the Sister with a baleful stare and said “You missed the putt, didn’t you?”

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today’s gospel from Matthew 25: 14-30 is about stewardship and accountability. We all are stewards of the gifts God gives us. Like the servants in the parable, we are given talents “each according to [our] ability.” And like the servants in the parable, we are accountable to God for how we use our talents.

In the New Testament a talent was a huge amount of money. One talent was equal to seventy-five pounds of gold. So, if an ounce of gold equals US$1,284.95 today, a talent is worth about US$1, 541,940. Clearly, the master trusted his servants. And two of the servants proved him correct, by providing a significant return on his investment. However, the third servant was a major disappointment. Imagine being entrusted with so much and then burying it in the backyard like a dog’s bone.

This is where the idea of stewardship comes in. Stewardship is “the use of God given resources for the accomplishment of God given goals.” God doesn’t coerce us. God does not look over our shoulders. God gives us talents, and then leaves the talents in our hands, waiting to see if we will be faithful.

God’s goal is for us to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven. We do this by loving God, serving others and by supporting God’s work with the gifts God gives us. St. Peter tells us in 1 Peter 4:10, “as each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.” Then, on the day of judgement, St. Paul tells us in Romans 14:12 that “each of us shall give an account of himself (to God).”

Next week we celebrate The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, the end of our liturgical year. And in our final gospel from St Matthew for three years, Jesus gives us the criteria by which God will judge us on the day of the Last Judgement. In the meantime, today’s second reading from 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6, reminds us that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night.” And, that we need to “stay alert and sober.” We do not know when the Lord is returning, but we had better be ready so we can share our Master’s joy.

Into our hands, O generous God,

you have entrusted many graces and blessings.

Give us the wisdom to multiply your gifts

and make us industrious and vigilant

as we await your Son’s return.

May we rejoice to hear him call us

“good and faithful servants”

as we enter into the joy of your kingdom.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God for ever and ever.  

AMEN.

God's Will

God gives us choices – it's God’s will that we should have free choices. Maybe God doesn’t have the same control issues we do. God’s will for us is to make wise and healthy and loving choices. Abundant Grace accompanies the gift of free will. We call that “the power to carry it out”. God still leaves it up to us to accept the Grace and to accept God’s will. The consequence of not accepting the Grace is known as an "unmanageable life."

Kind Words

 

Miracles

 

Veterans Day

We all owe a lot to all the men and women who are serving and who have served in the Armed Services of our country.

Let us pause and remember their sacrifices – great and small. Let us also remember the families who love and support them.

We thank you for our freedom and our safety and our way of life.

We Honor You and We Thank You!

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

One of the joys of being a priest is the opportunity to officiate at weddings. I enjoy getting to know young couples as they consider their future together. My concern is the spiritual wellbeing of the couple and their readiness to enter into the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. While I cover the spiritual aspects of marriage, the bride, her mother and sometimes the groom also are deeply involved in the logistical aspects of the wedding. Most weddings today are meticulously planned events. Many families hire professional wedding planners to assure the event runs smoothly. Every facet of the day is coordinated with military precision. The amount of planning that can go into a wedding is astounding.

Our gospel for today, Matthew 25:1-13, is The Parable of the Ten Virgins (Bridesmaids) waiting for the arrival of the bridegroom (Christ). This parable is about responsible planning and preparedness. Five of the bridesmaids wisely came prepared with sufficient oil for their lamps to meet the bridegroom and five foolishly came unprepared without extra lamp oil to meet the bridegroom. When the bridegroom arrived (late) the five wise, prepared bridesmaids “went into the wedding feast” (the kingdom of heaven). The five foolish bridesmaids were locked out of the feast.

Just as weddings today require a lot of planning and preparation, our entry into the kingdom of heaven requires planning and preparation as well. We must be prepared to meet Jesus whenever he arrives. If we procrastinate we run the risk of confronting a locked door or being left in the dark. Each of us receives an invitation with an RSVP requesting a timely response. How we respond is up to each one of us.

Lord God, our Father,

you want us to encounter your Son

here on earth as our companion in life. 

 Help us pay attention to the word that warns us

to increase the 'oil for our lamps,'

that they may not flicker and go out

while we await the Bridegroom's return.

May we be always ready to greet Christ when he comes

and enter with him into the wedding feast

for he is our Lord for ever and ever.

AMEN.

Holding

People who live in the forests and mountains of India have an age-old method of catching monkeys. They do not run after the monkeys, and they do not use ropes. Rather they rely on their understanding of a monkey's behavior. They carve pots with necks as long as a monkey's arm and a base large enough for a banana. The monkeys, eager to collect their food, put their arms down the neck of the jar until they have the banana in their tight grasp. Unable to pull it through the narrow neck, they sit holding their treasure, unwilling to release their grip for fear of losing it. Because they cannot give up the banana in their grasp, they remain immobilized, and the villagers simply pick them up.

We are all afraid of letting go of what is in our grasp, that is why we become prey to the domination of others, whether that be advertising, other people's will pressed upon us, or mindlessly following the crowd. We take a leap of faith when we "let go," but in that leap of faith we might find our freedom in a variety of small or big ways. I will release what my mind is clinging to and refusing to let go of.

What I hold onto, holds onto me.

Four Wives

Once upon a time there was a rich King who had four wives. He loved the 4th wife the most and adorned her with rich robes and treated her to the finest of delicacies. He gave her nothing but the best.

He also loved the 3rd wife very much and was always showing her off to neighboring kingdoms. However, he feared that one day she would leave him for another.

He also loved his 2nd wife. She was his confidant and was always kind, considerate, and patient with him. Whenever the King faced a problem, he could confide in her, and she would help him get through the difficult times.

The King's 1st wife was a very loyal partner and had made great contributions in maintaining his wealth and kingdom. However, he did not love the first wife. Although she loved him deeply, he hardly took notice of her!

One day, the King fell ill and he knew his time was short. He thought of his luxurious life and wondered, "I now have four wives with me, but when I die, I'll be all alone."

Thus, he asked the 4th wife, "I have loved you the most, endowed you with the finest clothing and showered great care over you. Now that I'm dying, will you follow me and keep me company?"

"No way!", replied the wife, and she walked away without another word. Her answer cut like a sharp knife right into his heart.

The sad King then asked the 3rd wife, "I have loved you all my life. Now that I'm dying, will you follow me and keep me company?"

"No!", replied the 3rd wife. "Life is too good! When you die, I'm going to remarry!" His heart sank and turned cold.

He then asked the 2nd wife, "I have always turned to you for help and you've always been there for me. When I die, will you follow me and keep me company?"

"I'm sorry, I can't help you out this time!", replied the 2nd wife. "At the very most, I can only send you to your grave." Her answer came like a bolt of lightning, and the King was devastated.

Then a voice called out: "I'll leave with you and follow you no matter where you go."

The King looked up, and there was his first wife. She was so skinny as she suffered from malnutrition and neglect.

Greatly grieved, the King said, "I should have taken much better care of you when I had the chance!"

In truth, we all have 4 wives in our lives:

Our 4th wife is our body. No matter how much time and effort we lavish in making it look good, it will leave us when we die.

Our 3rd wife is our possessions, status and wealth. When we die, it will all go to others.

Our 2nd wife is our family and friends. No matter how much they have been there for us, the furthest they can stay by us is up to the grave.

And our 1st wife is our Soul, often neglected in pursuit of wealth, power, and pleasures of the world. However, our Soul is the only thing that will follow us wherever we go. So cultivate, strengthen and cherish it now, for it is the only part of us who will follow us to the throne of God and continue with us throughout Eternity.

When the world pushes you to your knees...

You're in the perfect position to pray.

Trust Him

Laughter

 

“The most wasted day is that in which we have not laughed.” – Chamfort

When we are adrift and fixated with this world, we take ourselves very seriously and often lose contact with reality. We become lost in fantasy and obsession. Life becomes joyless because we can't see beyond our possessions, and we find no real satisfaction there. We lose touch with the joy and humor of life, and we find that everything around us and inside us is grim and dark.

One of the many positive signs of our return to health and sanity is our recovery of the gift of laughter. Each day as we gain more energy and zest of life, we move in to the world and find many things that are humorous, in ourselves and in other people. We laugh and find we are no longer alone.

Laughter is the mark of a healthy, happy human being. Laughter shows that we are truly a part of the human community. It is a sign that we are alive and on the way to a healthy spiritual life.

Let us be glad when we can laugh and feel in touch with ourselves and others.

Donation

Father O'Malley answers the phone.

"Hello, is this Father O'Malley?" a woman's voice says.
"It is," he replies.

"This is the IRS. Can you help us?"
"I can."

"Do you know Ted Houlihan?"
"I do."

"Is he a member of your congregation?"
"He is."

"Did he donate $10,000 to the church?" 

"He will."

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for this week present us with some very stark contrasts. In today’s gospel, Matthew 23: 1-12, we hear Jesus criticizing the religious leaders of Israel for their pretentious and hypocritical behavior. They “preach but they do not practice.” Their good deeds “are performed to be seen.” They seek places of honor at banquets and in the synagogues. They are corrupt, overbearing, religious bullies. And their example is not to be followed by those of us who seek to live in the kingdom of heaven. St. Paul gives us a very different picture of leadership in 1 Thessalonians 2:7b-9. The leadership Paul, Silvanus and Timothy practiced among the Thessalonians was “gentle,” shared, humble, self-sacrificing and not a burden to anyone. They followed the directive Jesus gave to his disciples and that he gives to us in Mark 9:35, “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”

The practice of servant leadership is something we hear a lot about these days. Back in 1970 Robert K Greenleaf wrote an essay entitled, “The Servant as Leader.” In this essay he wrote, “The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.” It took off from there.

I first heard about Greenleaf’s theories on servant leadership from a friend who was writing her Ph. D. dissertation on the topic. She called me to bounce a few ideas off me as she was writing. I listened carefully and then I laughed. She was excited about this “new” practice of leadership and was shocked when I said the concept of servant leadership was at least two thousand years old. Jesus Christ, I informed her, was the first person to talk about servant leadership and many of the great saints implemented the practice. Greenleaf may have introduced a secular version of servant leadership to the modern world, but it has been around a long time.

For me the greatest example of servant leadership occurs in St John’s Gospel, Chapter 13:1-20, when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. Jesus said to his disciples, “You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

Sovereign God,

we have no father but you,

no teacher but Christ.

Conform our lives to the faith we profess,

preserve us from arrogance and pride,

and teach us the greatness of humility and service.

We make our prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God for ever and ever.

AMEN.

We are Small Enough

William Beebe, the naturalist, used to tell this story about Teddy Roosevelt. At Sagamore Hill, after an evening of talk, the two would go out on the lawn and search the skies for a certain spot of star-like light near the lower left-hand corner of the Great Square of Pegasus. Then Roosevelt would recite: “That is the Spiral Galaxy in Andromeda. It is as large as our Milky Way. It is one of a hundred million galaxies. It consists of one hundred billion suns, each larger than our sun.”

Then Roosevelt would grin and say, "Now I think we are small enough! Let's go to bed.”

All Souls Day

Pope Benedict XVI, wrote: “I would go so far as to say that if there was no purgatory, then we would have to invent it, for who would dare to say of him/herself that he or she was able to stand directly before God”. He goes on to say that purgatory means God can put the pieces back together again that we presumably have broken off by our sins.

This is the feast we celebrate today, a remembrance of friends and loved ones who have passed away. This day follows All Saints Day in order to shift the focus from those in heaven to those in purgatory. This feast reminds us of our obligation to live holy lives; to live the way God has told us to live in the Scriptures.

Let us pause for a time today and remember all of those who in the past have had a significant difference in our lives, who were good people, and ask God to receive them into his Kingdom.

May the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.

All Saints Day

A saint is anyone who tries to live their life according to the way of God. The Church has always honored those who die in the Lord. The history of the Church is filled with stories of these people, some remembered throughout the ages, and some forgotten and never to be remembered again. They may be people we know right now and try to imitate. Some have been canonized or recognized by the Church; others have not been recognized but tried to live as God revealed he would like them to live. We honor them all on this day.

This feast that we call All Saints Day began as a feast of All Martyrs early in the Church’s history – the 4th Century. It came to be observed later on May 13 when Pope Boniface (608-615) rebuilt as a Christian church an ancient Roman Temple called the Pantheon or Temple of All Gods. The Church re-buried many martyrs here and dedicated the Church to the Mother of God and All the Holy Martyrs on May 13, 610.

About a hundred years later, Pope Gregory III converted a new chapel in the Basilica of St. Peter to all Saints (not just martyrs) and set the date of the feast on November 1. The vigil of this important feast, All Saint’s Eve, Hallowee’een, was apparently celebrated as early as the feast itself.​