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May 26, 2007

Pentecost Sunday - "Here Comes Everybody"

It has often occurred to me as I gaze out upon a Sunday assembly gathered for worship that they are surely an interesting variety of folks: Old and young, kids in arms, teenagers. But even more interesting is the variety of nationalities and languages gathered out there. We Catholics at Mass are truly a human kaleidoscope.

I am sure that if our grandparents or great grandparents were to wander into a typical Catholic Church in this year 2007, they would be more than astonished. They might even wonder what country they were in.

The reason for that is because in their own times the Catholic congregations that they were part of were fairly homogeneous, mostly Anglo-European people. Not only that, but if they were of German descent, they probably attended "the German church." If Irish, "the Irish church," if Polish, "the Polish church", et cetera. But there was one common physical trait common to all of them: They were all white for the most part! If there were any black folks among them, most likely they would be sitting by themselves in the back or in the choir loft, unfortunately.

Now, as I say, if those grandparents were to come into a large, metropolitan church in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles or, indeed any moderately large city today, they would see people from Mexico, from Central America, from Polynesia, from Africa and many other parts of the world. They might be inclined to ask, "Hey, where did all these folks come from. We didn't know there were so many Catholics in other places around the world."

Well, astonishing, as that grand variety of folks may seem, it is simply a natural phenomenon of culture and history. There have been movements of people throughout history, due mainly to the fact that they came searching for food and freedom. And, of course, they brought their religion, their faith, and, indeed, their priests with them. Their religious heritage was important to them.

For a time, of course, all these ethnic and religious groups "kept to themselves." It was simply a matter of maintaining their identity. So, they went to their own churches. In large cities there might have been as many as four churches on four corners of a city block. So, naturally, they were able to pray in their own language, follow their own devotions and customs or simply find a certain comfort in identifying with their own "kind."

Now, of course, that era of protectionism is past and folks today simply gather in the nearest church geographically close to them, but they also bring with them their customs of the past. So, we may have as many as a half dozen different "ethnic" liturgies in a particular church on an average Sunday.

So, at the end of this great cycle, we find the old traditional white European enclave being absorbed into a variety of other colors, cultures and ethnicities.

Is this good or bad? It can't be bad, for sure, when people of the same faith gather to share not only whatever is sacred to them but also the symbols and customs that carry that faith into the community. For all who are open to this variety, they must come away the richer for it.

I am saying all this because it is a modern day picture of what happened on that day we Catholics call Pentecost when the wind and the fire of the Holy Spirit came down upon the apostles and people began hearing them speak in their own languages.

Jerusalem, as we know, has forever been a cross-cultural city. People from all over the Middle East have gathered there, whether for trade, for recreation or the expression of their religious faith. So, in the reading you just heard, there were people gathered in Jerusalem, from fourteen different countries and ethnic backgrounds. I'm sure that would be a challenge for any liturgist in our day! How do you get all these folks together doing the same thing?

Looking at all this background, it appears to me that the Spirit of God has been gathering people of different languages, backgrounds, ethnicities and religions since the beginning of human time (whenever that was!)

The point is, that when people want to pray together, there is no human difference that can keep them apart. They will ordinarily rise above it.

It must be said, however, that it is not always a simple matter. In our own day, for instance, there are differences that are quasi-political that keep poking up their heads: Christians and Catholics in our time are taking up sides called Liberal or Conservative, Progressive and Traditional, Catholic or Evangelical.

A well-known Catholic writer, Father Ronald Rolheiser recently wrote an article in U.S. Catholic magazine entitled: "Knock it Off!" Basically, he was saying that it is time for Catholics to stop hammering each other and to start learning more about each other.

Again, it's Pentecost time, the time when we should be able to accept our differences of opinion without getting mad at each other, calling each other heretics.

The long and short of all this is to say that there is a unity and a beauty in diversity. The universe itself is the best example of it. God, obviously, had good sense when he created such a variety of differences. What a dull uninteresting world and a dull human community it would be if we all thought the same, lived the same, spoke the same, looked the same, felt the same.

As a matter of fact, we should simply be doing what we were created to do: Live with variety and enjoy it. I can just hear God's Spirit saying: "Hey, folks, if that's a problem, too bad. That's the way I did it. Get used to it!

The Scriptures: Acts 2: 1-11, 1 Corinthians 12: 3-7, 12-13, John 20: 19-23

Posted by Julie Galligan at 06:28 AM.

May 12, 2007

6th Sunday of Easter - What's Wrong With Us?

I have long been convinced that there is something basically wrong with us! Now, I don't mean you folks individually sitting out there in the pews or even with myself as an individual. I'm sure you are all good and well-meaning folks. You don't ordinarily get up in the morning deciding that you are going to get into a fight with the first person you meet!

But, seriously, when you reflect deeply on it, when you think about the history of the whole human race, you will have to admit that there is a very basic flaw or disease that afflicts us. The basic flaw, to my mind, is the fact that we can't get along with each other. We have been at war with each other since we have had evidence of the first human beings that have existed on this planet.

Look at our own biblical history: The first story after the creation of the earth is the story of Adam and Eve who get into an argument over who's to blame for eating of the fruit of the tree of wisdom. Their first two sons get into an argument about whose product of the land is more pleasing to God, grain or sheep. Cain doesn't get God's blessing, so he kills Abel...all over a blessing from God!

So, my friends this scenario of violence has been going on since the beginning. I hate to say it, but we seem to be a violent people: It starts in the playground of the grade school and proceeds to the highest levels of government and society throughout the world.

I'm sure, if I asked you, you could provide for me examples immediately from your neighborhood, the morning paper or from Good Morning America. Much news is news because someone is in conflict with someone else. Someone assaults someone else and usually goes to jail.

I hate to bring all this to you on such a lovely spring day, but it is true, one of the most common traits of our humanity is the fact that we are in constant disagreement with one another. We do battle with each other.
Now, believe me, I do not have an answer to this dilemma, except to say that human beings, all of us, have the tendency to protect our person, our identity, our reputation, our name and our goods against all comers. There must be a certain pride in us that makes us so defensive and belligerent.

Why, for instance, are we fighting two wars at this moment? Why are there so many uprisings and wars among African people, Hispanic people and Anglo people? Doesn't it ever occur to people of any race that life could be so much more peaceful and productive if we just were able to get along with one another? Think of all the thousands of wars that have been fought over the planet we live in and the millions of innocent people slaughtered in the process.

It would seem to me then that any intelligent person would have to admit that we humans were obviously created to live on this planet and to enjoy its fruits in peace, but this has hardly been the case.

Now, I am not about to claim that I have an answer to world conflict. Smarter people than I have struggled with this and failed. But, inasmuch as I am a Christian and a Catholic, one would think that I should at least have some insights about the relations of Christian and Christian, Catholic and Catholic.

All I can tell you, however, is that I have read the scriptures and I have found there abundant reason to believe that at least Christians should have good reason to be able live with one another peaceably.

Alas, this has not been the case. From it's earliest days the followers of Jesus have argued and struggled with each other. Peter and Paul had their differences. The Eastern Byzantine Church and the Roman Church have been at odds for centuries. Today, if we choose to read any Catholic newspaper, we will find abundant evidence of Christians at "war" with one another.

And, my friends, all that despite what Jesus has to say to us in the gospel for this Sixth Sunday in Easter Season: Here are his words: "peace is my farewell to you, my peace is my gift to you; I do not give it to you as the world gives peace."

There it is, my friends, some of Jesus last words to his disciples and to the Church: "Peace is my gift to you."
Now, of course, Jesus also left us other gifts: The Eucharist, the gift of forgiveness et cetera. But peace is the only gift he explicitly said he was leaving us.

Now, the problem is this: Peace or any other gift is still a gift. It can't change the way we live or the way we communicate with one another. In other words, Jesus' gift of peace is a model for the way we can and how we should get along with each other. Jesus' gift can't make us be peaceful. Peace is our responsibility.

Perhaps one of our problems is that we always think that if there is a problem in the Church, the solution for it should come from the highest level, the Vatican or the local Pastoral Center. The fact is, however, neither of these have the power or the influence to make us be peaceful. Peace can only happen when folks at the middle and lower levels of the Church decide that it can be done. Indeed, peace can happen only if individuals like you or I decide that we will put our personal difference aside and talk to each other. Then perhaps Jesus' example of peace making will make its way up the ecclesiastical ladder where people in high places can learn from us.

The final point I would like to make, however, is this: It doesn't seem to me that there are very many issues in this world, especially in the Catholic Church, that are so important that we need to be at war over them. In fact, there is a good possibility that we can come to some understanding if we have the good sense to sit respectfully with each other and just listen. I'm sure that if Jesus thought peace making was meant to be more difficult than this, he would surely have told us how to do it. In the meantime, the ball is in our court.

The scriptures: Acts 15: 1-2. 22-29, Revelation 21: 10-14. 22-23, John 14: 23-29

Posted by Julie Galligan at 10:15 AM.

May 05, 2007

5th Sunday of Easter - Being Passionate

I imagine most of us still have memories of that film by Mel Gibson that appeared a few years ago entitled The Passion of the Christ. Oddly enough, what people seem to remember most clearly about that film is the crucifixion scene, particularly the beating of Jesus that seemed to go on for an intolerable amount of time. I think what Mel Gibson was trying to tell us in that film is that Christ's passion is all about getting beaten up and hung up on a cross.

It's true, of course, Christ did suffer by being physically beaten up and crucified, but is that all that the Passion of Christ was about, I don't mean the film, but rather Christ's personal passion, his human feelings about life and death, about love and suffering and justice and all the rest?

For me, the question really is this: What was Christ passionate about? What were his deepest feelings about the meaning of life in all its dimensions?

I just wanted to bring up the issue of passion because by implication it comes up in the gospels of the post Easter Sundays in the word love. I am assuming that love is about passion, something what we feel deeply about.

It occurs to me to say that as Christians we don't often think much about Jesus' human characteristics. In the gospels his divine nature often overshadows the human nature.

But I think we can also learn something from the gospels about how Jesus personally thought and felt about life. He must have been lonely occasionally. Perhaps that is why his friends Martha, Mary and Lazarus were important to him. Perhaps that is why he took a break from preaching occasionally and had dinner at their home.

We know also that he must have been frightened occasionally, particularly when the people of a certain village kicked him out of town and threatened to throw him over a cliff. He was surely scared too during the night before he died in the Garden of Gethsemane , so scared that he perspired profusely.

I often wonder too how Jesus felt when his mother and the family came out to where he was preaching and wanted to bring him home. They thought he had lost his mind and would be hurt by violent people.

We also know that Jesus had some strong feelings about how the temple that he loved was being used for buying and selling. We know that at least on one occasion he lost his temper and literally beat up the buyers and sellers with a knotted rope. That doesn't sound like milquetoast Jesus we sometimes imagine him to be.

Today's gospel has Jesus using the word love several times. He tells the disciples that the mark of their relationship will be how they love one another. This, of course, could mean affection or simply "getting along" with each other. But my sense rather is that it means support: "Back each other up," might be a good way to put it. "I have not abandoned you through all this; now don't abandon each other either."

Does this sort of passion ever happen in real life? I think I have seen it in elderly couples that "stick together" in their old age, especially when one or the other has the signs of memory loss. I think we see it in a mother and father who care for an autistic child, knowing that the child will never by like other normal children. I think we see it in a dedicated teacher who spends time after school with a "slow learner." I think we see it in a husband and wife who stick together when one or the other loses a job.

I think all those have to do with passion, not the passion we sometimes associate with sex, but rather with dedication or commitment. Some would call it love.

There is also another kind of passion we hear about among those who are dedicated to issues of justice or peace. I think, for instance, of the thousands, young and old, who gather at the gates of the Army base at Fort Benning, Georgia each April where for many years the School of the Americas trained Army officers from Central America who in turn went back to their countries and committed all sorts of atrocities among their own people. Some of these demonstrators are in their 70's and 80's, women and men, priests and sisters, ministers, lay folks, some of whom have gone to jail several times. That is what we mean by passion, being willing to suffer for a cause that one feels is important.

So, in the end we are always left with the question, what are we passionate about? Do we have any causes we are dedicated to? What would we be willing to go to jail for or even be willing to be embarrassed over in public? My hunch is that most of us don't have many issues over which we can get excited or even angry like Jesus did in the temple that fateful day. I don't mean that we need to go out and do things that get us thrown in jail, but perhaps we do need to think occasionally about what in life really matters, what we would stand up for against all odds. Indeed, it might be a compliment if someone said to us one day: "Hey, you're really passionate about that, aren't you?

The scriptures: Acts 14: 21-27, Revelation 21: 1-5, John 13: 31-33, 34-35

Posted by Julie Galligan at 08:43 AM.