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February 27, 2006
First Sunday of Lent - Something For Everybody
Of all the seasons of our Catholic Liturgical calendar, Lent, it seems to me, is the one which has been co-opted (gladly!) by people of all persuasions, religious or otherwise. Perhaps there is something humanly natural about changing our life's course, taking time to figure out where we are, what we are doing and whether it is taking us anywhere. One does not have to be Catholic or even Christian to do that!
I'm not sure how it will be this year in New Orleans on the three days before Ash Wednesday, but in former years the whole city went into Mardi Gras mode, a frenetic celebration of all things crazy. But at the stroke of midnight on Fat Tuesday practically everyone, or at least those who were sufficiently sober, knew that Lent had begun and the baubles, bangles and beads should be stored away for another year. A great quiet now had set in, a time to think seriously about life once again.
For those of us who follow the scriptures for this holy season, you will find three or four themes which guide us through the forty days: The one that stands out so clearly on this First Sunday, the key Sunday, is covenant. To us, in this modern age, it seems like a rather out-of-date word; but it really has an important role to play in Lent. Covenant, in the scriptural sense, simply means "God makes a deal with us" and we are expected to "make a deal with God." God says, "if you keep my law, you will receive a blessing. If you don't, you pay for it." This is one of the most ancient relationships we can find in the scriptures.
So, what could that have to do with Lent? Well, simply this: Lent is a time when we try to rethink the covenant that we made with God at Baptism, to see how this Christian life which started then has been going all these years.
And what are the Lenten activities that can help us think our way through this covenant with God, put us back on track? The big three: Prayer, fasting and alms giving. All the other "penances" we may choose to do in Lent fall under one or the other of these "big three" categories.
Secondly, you will notice in the first lesson from Genesis today that it is all about water, the great flood and the rainbow as the universal sign of God's promise (covenant) that it will not happen again if we keep our part of the "deal."
So, why does that passage about water and the great flood appear at the beginning of Lent? Well, simply because in our Christian tradition the period of Lent is spent in intensive preparation for baptism, baptism for the thousands of catechumens throughout all the churches of Christendom who were waiting for welcome into the Church on the great night of Easter.
What about fasting, and what does that have to do with Lent? Well, obviously, it has nothing to do simply with cutting down on food, for whatever reason. Fasting can have a therapeutic effect on our lives: It clears our thinking (St. Thomas Aquinas taught us that). It clears our thinking because we are invited to ask what is really important in our life: Just feeding ourselves to stay alive or considering food to be the possession of everyone, especially the poor? The food we cut back on in Lent needs to find its way to the tables of those who have little or no food. Otherwise, giving up food in Lent merely becomes an exercise in controlling our waist lines. Not such a great motivation, even though it may make us feel better about ourselves.
Finally, there is one absolutely important ingredient in Lent that most folks might say shouldn't belong there: Joy, celebration! Is that something we gave up at midnight on Fat Tuesday? Well, not the right kind of joy!
There is an interesting line in one of the prefaces to the Eucharistic Prayer for Lent that goes like this: "Each year (Lord) you give us this joyful season when we prepare to celebrate the Paschal mystery (Easter) with mind and heart renewed. You give us a spirit of loving reverence for you, our Father, and a willing service to our neighbor. That's Lent in a nut-shell: We celebrate joyfully during Lent so that we can experience Easter in its fullness. Again, we fast (happily) so that Easter will mean all the more to us.
Lent, then, is all about fasting and feasting, disciplining ourselves so that we can experience life in its fullness.
The question, however, is "fast from what?" Here is a list offered by Father Charles Faso in a recent issue of Preaching magazine:
Fast from suspicion and feast on truth
Fast from complaining and feast on appreciation
Fast from judging others and feast on Christ within others
Fast from idle gossip and feast on purposeful silence.
Fast from anger and feast on forgiveness.
Fast from discouragement and feast on hope
Fast from worry and feast on trusting God
Fast from unrelenting pressures and feast on' unceasing prayer.
Fast from lethargy and feast on enthusiasm.
Fast from emphasizing the differences and feast on the unity of life.
Fast from thoughts of illness and feast on the healing power of God.
I could add a couple more:
Fast from a sour face and feast on smiles.
Fast from growling and feast on laughing
Fast from depression and feast on joy!
Now, that's a pretty full menu for Lent. but it's our covenant with our God who promises in return that Easter will be forever.
The Scriptures: Genesis 9: 8-15 1 Peter 3: 18-22 Mark 1: 12-15
Posted by Julie Galligan at 12:42 PM.
February 21, 2006
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Giving It Up
During the recent catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina, we were all able get a first-hand look on our television sets at the immense destruction in New Orleans and all over the Gulf Coast. One radio commentator on National Public Radio said this: "From the vantage point of your living room you won't believe the extent of the destruction; you simply have to be there to believe it." In other words, the description on radio and television could give you some sense of it, but to understand the human and personal dimension of the devastation, you had to see it first hand, even experience it personally, as many did. In this instance, the old phrase, "up close and personal" really did have some meaning.
This may sound like a stretch, but it occurred to me as 1 was thinking about Lent, which is currently close upon us, that the so-called Generation X (whoever they are) simply have no idea how tough Lent used to be in the "old days." I don't mean to say it was a catastrophe, New Orleans-style, but it was truly hard work and serious business, not only during Lent but throughout the entire year. I'm referring here especially to the pre-Communion fast of 24 hours and the weekly Friday fast and abstinence. You simply had to live during those times, to understand it. If the church were to restore those ancient rules today, I have a hunch that there might be a great stampede out of the Church! Christians simply don't have the spiritual "muscle" they used to have!
Obviously then, most of us today who try to "keep the fast" of one hour before Holy Communion and the Fridays during Lent, think we are doing something "tough", even praiseworthy. For those who are of that assumption, let me say to you "you should have been there in the "old days."
Lest we get the idea that it was all "doom and gloom," however, let me say there were also days of exception to the great fast: Sundays, for instance and certain feast days, like St. Patrick's Day, if you were Irish, or St. Joseph's Day, if you were German. What other denominations did on their feast days, I'm not sure!
But the point is that the Church, even with its heavy duty rules at that time, also knew how to feast and, indeed, urged all Christians to do so. How could you expect a good Irish family not to eat corned beef and cabbage on St. Paddy's Day, or a German family not to have a good meal of Weiner Schnitzel and beer on St. Joe's day? Hey, get serious!
Interestingly, Jesus seemed to know the difference between fasting and feasting. It's all in Mark's gospel for this Sunday. Jesus is in serious conversation with a group of Pharisees who followed John the Baptist's rule and, hence, were "heavy duty" fasters, no exceptions. So, here they are, asking Jesus why he and his followers don't fast like everyone else? Jesus, in turn, gives a very odd reply. He says, I have come to bring good news: Life is like a wedding feast; You don't fast when the bridegroom is still at the party. Later maybe, but not now. There will always be time for fasting after the wedding celebration has come to an end." My interpretation of that passage is that Jesus considered his new message good news, Gospel, and he designated himself as the bridegroom, the bearer of good news. So, while he was still with his followers, he expected them to accept his good news and enjoy the freedom it afforded.
Notice, however, that Jesus does also say that there will be time for fasting; so, obviously, Jesus seems to think it must have some value. What could that be? We have been doing it for a lot of years in the Church, so we ought to be able to defend it as a worthwhile practice. Obviously, I'm not going to suggest it here as a way of bringing our waistlines back into some manageable measurement. There is both a personal and symbolic meaning in this action we call fasting.
First of all, we know that John the Baptist fasted. It was part of his regimen for a penitential way of life. We know too that Jesus fasted, perhaps not as severely as his cousin John, but he did fast. On one occasion when he was about to begin his career as a preacher of good news, he went out into the desert and fasted, not over night, but for 40 days and 40 nights. So, that tells us that fasting must have had something to do with Jesus "clearing his mind", setting his goals for his future life. Not a bad idea.
Theologians have been telling us that for a long time: Fasting for the right reasons can help you "clear your mind", get your values, your human disciplines straight. In other words, if you practice fasting, there will not be such a tendency to get distracted from what you really want to make out of your life. I'm sure most of us would agree that too much of anything, whether it's food or drink or work or recreational activities or whatever, can cloud our perception of what is really important in life. For that reason, I would think that fasting should not be a "seasonal activity", but a daily practice, a life-time on-going exercise.
One other dimension of fasting that we do not think of very often is the communal aspect. I mean that true fasting is not simply a personal, private practice. When we fast, we fast with the entire Church, the whole Christian community throughout the world, even perhaps with those who are not Catholic. In other words, a kind of bonding sets in when we see fasting like this, a true community practice.
And lastly, and very importantly, fasting can be the great teacher. It can teach us, for instance, that we live in a world where some people have lots to eat but many more have little or nothing to eat. I would be the first to admit, of course, that our fasting may not immediately put food on someone else's table (although it could), but rather it should remind us that the world's supply of food is not personally ours, that it needs to be shared. In other words, again, if fasting clears our head, teaches us the lesson that food is precious and sacred, our fasting will already have done it's holy task.
I am mentioning all these obvious reasons for fasting because Christians, like most other people, can often lose sight of the reason, the real reason, why we should be doing any Catholic thing. In this case, I would think that our fasting should remind us that all food, all human things, are gifts from the God who wants to feed the universe not only with food for the stomach but with all human things that make life worth living....for everyone. Perhaps thinking about all that will get us ready for Ash Wednesday and the Forty Days.
The scriptures: Hosea 2: 16b, 17b, 21-22 2 Corinthians 3: lb-6 Mark 2: 18-22
Posted by Julie Galligan at 12:22 PM.
February 13, 2006
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time - With a Little Help
Sometimes, when you read the scriptures, you have to say to yourself, "you know, if some of those events described there happened today, they would be considered either very humorous or, on the other hand, no one would believe it." Let's say, for instance that a priest is sitting in the reconciliation room of his local church "hearing confessions" and suddenly he feels plaster and wood falling down on him from the ceiling above. Looking up, he sees a hole being opened up and the front end of a stretcher being lowered on ropes into the room. I'm sure that priest might think he was either losing his mind or he would lose no time calling the cops. Of course, if the man on the stretcher on his way down from above were to yell out "Hey father, wait a minute, I just want to go to confession!" perhaps the priest might think again, at least after cleaning up the mess on the floor.
The point is, when we read some of the events described in the scriptures, we often miss the humor in them, or we imagine that they could not possibly happen today. They are just too bizarre. People don't do things like that in our time. As a matter of fact, Catholics today are not exactly lining up at the door of the reconciliation room (or above the ceiling) waiting to go to confession anyway! So, things are definitely different today.
Nonetheless, there are some lessons in that rather strange event that is described in Mark's gospel for this Sunday's liturgy. Granted, it probably would not happen quite the same way today, but there are occasions when Christians will go to great lengths to be healed, whether spiritually or physically. If they cannot accomplish it on their own, they will call on the help of friends.
Each time I read that story, I always recall that old 1967 song from the Beatles, "I get by with a little help from my friends." Actually the next line goes "I get a little high with the help of my friends." I leave you to figure that one out on your own!
Whatever the implications of the words, of course, it's true, we do depend on our friends for a little help on many occasions. Think for instance, of the number of people each year who travel to Lourdes for a miraculous cure at the shrine of Our Lady. They probably would not be able to accomplish all that on their own, without the help of friends, even with modern airline travel.
I am reminded too that even in the normal course of daily life, we depend heavily on the help of other people, whether they are our friends or not. Think about an ordinary day when you go about your daily tasks. How many of those would you be able to accomplish without the help of others? The point is, we live in a "web-world", a world where we are all intimately connected to each other, where we depend on one another's gifts, accomplishments and willingness to accomplish what we need to do.
Turning to the realm of the spiritual life too, think about the number of people, professional, or otherwise who help us each day to fulfill our spiritual needs: Husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, priests, sisters, brothers, spiritual directors, counselors, teachers, caretakers, friends, et cetera. The point is, the Christian life, by its very nature is not a private endeavor, but a communal enterprise where we depend deeply on one another's gifts and compassion.
I think this might be particularly true if we have spiritually "fallen by the wayside" occasionally and have no idea of how to rescue ourselves, or do not even know that we need to be rescued until some close friend takes us in tow and points out to us that we might need to think about reconciliation, about "getting our act together." Of course, we might have gotten around to it on our own at some point, but "with a little help from our friends" it comes easier and perhaps swifter as well.
There is another little insight in that strange story that we may sometimes forget to pay attention to: Jesus notices the faith of the man and his friends and then tells him his sins are forgiven; he is invited then to pick up his mat and go home. Everything, physical and spiritual is back in good order. He can pick up his life where he left off before he was ushered down through the ceiling of the "reconciliation room."
But there is another way of looking at the faith of this man: My hunch is that when Jesus noticed his faith, it wasn't the supernatural faith we think of in theology today. What Jesus probably meant by faith was actually persistence, tenacity, "doggedness." These people were not going to give up and go home until they had gotten some response from Jesus. So, what else could Jesus do in such circumstances? With all the efforts they had made, he could hardly turn them down.
That is an interesting incident because on other occasions in the gospels when people asked for healing, Jesus didn't seem particularly interested at first, but when they wouldn't give up, Jesus finally gave in to their faith, their persistence. What I read from that is that the gifts of God don't come easily or simply. We just don't go around asking for sudden miracles every day. Healing costs something and the price is faith or persistence. We just can't take God's grace for granted, it's not free, we have to work for it.
In the final analysis, what I learn from this rather humorous event in Mark is that the God of Jesus is ultimately a compassionate God, a God who can hardly stand to see people suffering. Something has to be done if people work so hard to find a cure for their condition, spiritual or physical. If we don't have the strength to handle it on our own, there are always friends around who will help us. Isn't that what it ultimately means to be Christian? Being Christian is not a matter of God and 1, but rather of God and us, all of us together helping each other when we can. With help like that, I suspect not even God would want to turn us down. Persistence counts in the end.
The scriptures: Isaiah 43: 18-19, 21-22, 24b-25 2 Corinthians 1: 18-22, Mark 2:1-12
Posted by Julie Galligan at 04:23 PM.
February 07, 2006
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time - The Way We Look
It's not something 1 think about a lot and, at my age, I probably don't need to think about it much, but "looking good" or "good looks" seems to be important to many people. Granted, "looks" are only skin deep, as they say, but the way we look seems to concern us. People we have not seen for some while may say to us, "Hey, you haven't changed a bit", or they will say: "You're looking better than ever." I sometimes want to say, "How was I looking before? Not so good?"
I suppose it may also be true to say that we associate our looks with our interior character, with our personality, although I would have to say that that may not be a very accurate predictor of who we really are. Some say that all we know about ourselves is what we see in the mirror! I hope that is not true.
But if you want to get some sense of how important our external facial or bodily features are to us, just check out a fashion magazine or watch the evening television advertisements in the midst of the news. A high percentage of them will be concerned with our body, not all about our face necessarily, but about the total body. All those miracle medical products are about making our body more attractive. Those advertising people know what is important to us and what we will pay dearly for. Whether they will actually change our bodily appearances appreciably or not is a question. One thing for sure, however, we don't want to look "bad" in public; we don't even want to look different or stand out in public as being different. It's important that we "fit in."
Before going any further, let me say that this concern about "public appearances" is not simply a modern concern. The scriptures assigned for this Sunday will tell you that any sort of external human disfigurement was of great concern to people of ancient times as much as it is today.
Because the medical profession was not as advanced in biblical times as it is today, people then were especially concerned about communicable diseases, illnesses that could be passed on. Leprosy, for instance, Hansen's Disease, was a fearsome malady in those times. Those afflicted with it were not allowed to live in close proximity to the rest of the village or community. The law compelled them to shout out "unclean, unclean" if another person even got near to them. I imagine it must have resembled our concern today with AIDS or with Avian Flu or any sort of modern communicable disease. We seem to have a natural need to protect ourselves.
Let me hasten to say, however, that the scriptures for today's liturgy are not simply a commentary on "good or bad looks." The lesson contained therein is all about how we perceive people who are different from us, how we reach out to those, for instance, who are unappealing, who practice a different faith or who simply turn us off. That is a big question because there are lots of folks, and we are among them, who are different. Who are these folks? We know who they are; we meet them all the time. The question is, how do we feel, how do we react, for instance, when a close relative is diagnosed with Alzheimer's? All of a sudden we find ourselves needing to "get used to it." We may need to listen more carefully, be more sensitive. Or again, how do we react to the neighbor or family member who is a "non-stop talker", the kid in the family who is the "odd dresser," or who plays in a hard rock band? Or even closer to home, how do we react to the father or mother who needs help getting to church or to the doctor, the little boy or girl with Downs Syndrome? Unfortunately, persons with any sort of disability or different ness can make us uneasy. We don't want to let it show, but often times it does show, much to our discomfort. We can't imagine ourselves in that position or at least wouldn't like to be in that position. Being different is not comfortable.
So, the question that comes to mind is this: What can we learn from Jesus, the Teacher, Jesus the Healer? First of all, most of us who have read the gospel stories of Jesus many times probably imagine Him to be the so-called "perfect person": Young, athletic, reasonably well dressed, beard trimmed, easily approachable, charismatic, attractive, et cetera. To be honest, however, Jesus was a very normal person in many ways, but he was also "different," deliberately "different." He made many people very uncomfortable with his ways. He followed a way of life that most others couldn't understand. Indeed, on one occasion even his mother and his relatives came after him to bring him home. They thought he'd lost his senses. Even they didn't want the family to be embarrassed in public by his actions. They didn't want to get him killed either, of course. Even the Holy Family had a public image to keep.
All this did not seem to concern Jesus, however. He simply kept on doing what he thought he was called to do; if he appeared different, too bad. "Get used to it," he probably said.
Now, the important question to ask is this, if we are looking for some wisdom from Jesus, it is this: How did Jesus react to people who were different, especially people who were truly considered different, outcasts from society? We need to say up front that folks of this sort did not bother Jesus sensitivities. Indeed, Jesus' way of relating to people who were different bothered a lot of people, especially the religious "elites" who had a problem with public image. The story we have in today's gospel concerns a man who had contracted leprosy; he was an outcast, sitting and begging in his torn clothing, asking whether Jesus could make him clean. Most other religious leaders would have said, "sorry, buddy, I can't risk getting close to you. You're unclean!" But what does Jesus do? The text says that he reached out and touched the man and he was made clean. Jesus obviously didn't worry about public image.
Now, a second question we don't often ask about Jesus in his relationship with people who were different. It's this: How did he feel about it. Well, we have a very interesting line in today's gospel selection which is often overlooked which gives us an insight. It is this: "Jesus was moved with pity." In another place in the gospel it says that he was moved from his depths, from his deepest senses when he saw people who were suffering.
I imagine most of us often think, well, Jesus could do miracles, nothing would bother him, he could take care of things; he didn't concern himself with feelings. But I think this one short line tells us that Jesus was very human and was, indeed, affected by human suffering.
This brings to mind a final question for ourselves: Not, what can I do, (usually we can't do much) but how do I feel? Am I repulsed by those who are different? Am I embarrassed for them, sorry because they make me feel uneasy? Would 1 prefer that they just go away?
Obviously, these are not easy questions to ask or to answer, but we have to ask them, because, if truth be known, we are all a little "different," we all depend on the compassion of others to be able to be accepted in the world which is often cold and cruel.
So, does it make any difference whether we are considered good looking? Probably not. Nobody's perfect, not even Jesus was perfect, but at least he taught us something about living with imperfect people they are all around us. They are us.
The scriptures: Leviticus 13: 1-2, 44-46, I Corinthians 10: 31-11:1, Mark 1:40-45
Posted by Julie Galligan at 11:22 AM.
