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October 27, 2007
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Praying With the Proper Attitude
I imagine most of us who are Christian and who have heard the gospels proclaimed Sunday after Sunday must be convinced that we pretty well know what those stories Jesus tells are all about. Usually the message seems fairly clear. But when you take a little time to examine them more closely, you suddenly find out that there is something going on in those stories that you did not realize at first hearing. Even more alarming, you also realize that those stories are not about individuals who lived 3000 years ago; they are about yourself. In other words, it's like your "friend" who tells you a joke but at the end of the joke, you suddenly realize you are actually the butt of the joke! That's no fun. But that's the point in Jesus' stories: They are all about what life is like in this world and what people are like.
A second point that you will find in Jesus' stories is that he was a very acute observer of human nature and he was not afraid to describe it graphically.
So, here we go with a story in today's gospel about two types of people: People who are firmly convinced of their righteousness, their piety and people who make no assumption about that but simply assume that they are not perfect and admit it.
The question, therefore, is how should one recognize and distinguish between people who are religiously arrogant and people who are religiously humble? Here is how Jesus did it. He simply said, "Hey, just watch how people pray, that will tell you a lot." The problem, of course, is that most people don't pray out loud, so you will never really know!
So, that brings up the question not of how other people pray, but how we pray, you and I? The way we pray should tell us something about our self-perception, at least if we are willing to listen to ourselves.
Now, I am going to take the risk of asking you, after having listened to the familiar story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, which one of those two characters' prayer resembles your own?
First of all, my hunch is that that the ordinary Christian rarely identifies himself with the Pharisee. The very title of that person turns us off immediately. None of us ever want to be labeled a Pharisee although they were not truly bad people, just a little "full of themselves."?
Of course, on the other hand, not many of us would be willing to admit publicly that we may have some of the same problems as the tax collector. I don't know many people who go around on the street confessing their failures. But at least in this case the tax collector was willing to admit that he may have failed a few times. Don't we all?
So, the point in all this is to say that if we are willing to pay attention to the way we pray, we can get a pretty clear picture of ourselves. Prayer is always a barometer of life!
It is interesting, therefore, to notice that when Jesus wanted to talk about human nature, good or bad, he simply said, "prayer will tell you a lot. Prayer will tell you honestly how you think of yourself in the face of God." It's when we are at prayer that we should be at our most honest place! So, aside from character appraisal, let us say something about prayer.
If there is anything that sincere Christians do a lot , it is praying and they do it in many different ways: The monk or nun in the monastery simply sits and thinks; they call it contemplation. No words necessary, just concentration on God. The rest of us need a crutch: A book, the rosary, whatever; but we do feel we need to do something, anything to catch God's attention! Watch, for instance, what happens a Mass on Sunday: Some people are saying the rosary, others are singing and participating in the liturgy, some even may be half asleep. But you will not see two people praying in the same way. There will be as many styles of prayer as there are people present.
So, I guess we need to say that if prayer is anything, it is always personal and it's nobody else's business how we talk to our God. We are ultimately responsible for ourselves.
But if we pay attention to that story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, it tells us at least one thing: We all pray out of our deepest sense of ourselves, arrogant or humble, proud or broken, full of ourselves or brutally honest with our ourselves.
When one thinks about prayer, therefore, it may seem at first that it is simply about addressing God, and in a sense it is that. But it is also about ourselves, admitting who we are and speaking out of our full, honest, human nature. Sometimes, that may be embarrassing to us, but at least it tells us something. God already knows the rest. That's the reason why the tax collector got praise from Jesus: At least he was honest.
So, who am I to tell you what prayer is or how to pray? I have enough problems of my own. All I can. do is to quote a Carmelite, contemplative nun. One day a British news reporter came to her convent and asked her what she did all day when she prayed, what kind of words she actually used. She simply replied: "Well sir, it's pretty simple, actually: I sit and look at God and God looks at me." It almost sounds too simple, doesn't it? I tried it once and fell asleep. Maybe that was God's answer to my prayer. "Hey, just go to sleep."
The scriptures: Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18, 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18, Luke 18: 9-14
Posted by Julie Galligan at 10:48 AM.
October 20, 2007
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Praying Without Asking
Before I barge on into this homily today, let me say, first of all, that there are not many times when I feel totally inadequate to the task of preaching, but today happens to be one of those Sundays because we are dealing with a very mysterious human action, prayer. The reason I am at a loss for words (surprise) is because prayer is one of those human activities that is so personal, so sacred, so unexplainable that no one person can tell another person what it is or how to do it. To do so would be the height of arrogance.
At the same time, I must say that I have done lot of praying in my time and there was also a time when I thought praying was a pretty simple matter. "Pray and you'll get whatever you ask for." my mother used to say. Now, as an adult, I have come to believe that this might have been the wrong way to begin. But my mother meant well, and that
was ok! Actually, Jesus said the same thing, so perhaps she may have been on the right path.
So, without telling you how to pray, let me just share with you what prayer has come to mean for me in the adult years of my life and also to pose several questions that have occurred to me over the years.
The central theme in the two scripture readings we just heard is a simple one: Pray without ceasing. Just keep praying and something will happen; believe and God will do what God does.
Let us assume first, therefore, that humans have been praying for millennia, at least that is the evidence we have from sacred and secular literature. The question is why? Why do we pray? My sense is that we instinctively know who we are and we know we are not God. Therefore, if we pray, it must be to someone other than ourselves. My point is that we have an intuition that our life is not our own, that we are somehow dependent upon a creator, one who sustains our life. When we pray, therefore, we pray out of our humanness, our knowledge that our lives are in the hands of someone else.
Secondly, I believe that we pray because by nature we are geared toward the transcendent, toward the sacred. Again, we know we are not God and so we naturally want to speak to the One who is "over all, in all, beyond all."
The next question: How should we pray? Obviously, there is no standard model simply because God is always personal to us. No one person (least of all myself) can tell another how to do it. But if I were to tell you how, I would suggest that words may work ok, but, better than that, just thinking about God is sufficient. It's called contemplation.
Here is what the great St. Theresa once said when someone asked her how she prayed. "I think about God," she said, "and God thinks about me." So, prayer does not need to be about lot of activity. Just being quiet, being in God's presence is sufficient.
Another question that arises about prayer is this: What should we pray for? I imagine most of us have prayed in order to receive many things in our lives, including good health and being spared from death. Most of us also know that many of the things we believe are necessary, we discover later are not really so necessary. Moreover we often pray that God will "bail us out" of situations we should be able to handle by ourselves.
By the way, there is actually a good model for praying right in the Lord's Prayer. Notice, it starts with an address, an admission of God's greatness: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name." Only after that does Jesus say that is ok to ask for something, whether it is daily bread or the forgiveness of sins, or whatever. It's all a matter of common spiritual courtesy. You don't just walk into someone's house, for instance, and start by asking for something. Well, it's the same way with God. The least we can do is to show respect if we are going to make a request.
There is an interesting anecdote in our first scripture reading about persistence, about praying without giving up. It's about a minor tribal battle that is going on between the Israelites and a small desert clan of people known as the Amalectites; Amaleck was the local leader. The military effort, however, is not going well for the Israelites. So, Moses is lifting up his hands, praying that his troops will prevail. But after a while he begins to tire and can no longer hold up his hands, and suddenly the battle begins to go to pieces. So, two of Moses military commanders offer to hold up his hands so that he can continue praying so the army will be successful. Wouldn't you know it, of course, Moses prayed they were successful. But the Iast line of the reading, as you will have noticed, turns decidedly bloody. It simply says that the Israelites "mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword." The moral of the story seems to be that prayer can do strange things; it even helps people to kill each other! Obviously, that is not what prayer is about, but the Israelites believed that prayer would move God to help them kill their enemies! Not very convincing theology.!
That brings up the question: How do we pray in time of war? Do we pray that our troops will wipe out "enemy" troops? Do we pray that when enemies have been killed peace will finally reign? That is a question we can ask at this very moment in our American history while our country is at war in Iraq. If war is about killing, which side do we pray for? My sense is that we should pray for neither side. We should. just pray that both sides will come to their senses and stop fighting and killing each other entirely
The gospel story about the woman who kept pestering the judge until he listened to her case is another example of persistence in prayer. But that again brings up the question: When we pray are we praying to a God who has stopped listening or who is simply not interested in our petty issues? Perhaps it would be better to let God be God and believe that God cares about us whether or not we receive what we ask for. Ultimately, prayer could be best described simply as an act of faith.
Last of all, let me say that there probably are millions of people in the world today who have never prayed, do not believe in prayer, who do not know how to pray, have given up on prayer because of various human frustrations. Perhaps all that I have said here, therefore, is not for them. Perhaps I have simply been "preaching to the choir."
All I can say to that is to offer the example of what happened on September 11, 2001 when terrorists killed 3000 Americans. News broadcasters were proclaiming that people around the world, whether religiously inclined or not, were praying for the deceased and their families. It may well have been true, who knows? But it tells me one thing: When tragedy strikes, people demonstrate compassion for one another; they have the sense that we are all bonded to one another. We instinctively believe that to be human is to be holy and that God has created us all alike. If that is what moved people to compassion on that terrible day, then I say it was prayer, even though nary a word was spoken. See, prayer can do great things.
The scriptures: Exodus 17: 8-13, 2 Timothy 3: 14 & 4:2, Luke 18: 1-8
Posted by Julie Galligan at 03:33 PM.
October 13, 2007
28th Sunday in Ordinary Time - That Perfect Body
I imagine it is not surprising to any of us, whether young or old, to realize that we are concerned about how we look, especially in public. I know we do not talk much about this, but I suspect that we all assiduously check the mirror in the morning to see if anything have changed from the day before: Any new wrinkles or pimples? If we do spot something we probably say: "Well, I guess I'm getting old or older." Not a pleasant thought at 6:00 a.m.
All humor aside, we are concerned about this human person, this personality that identifies us. Although an old axiom claims that beauty is only skin deep, beauty or comeliness is important to us nonetheless, as the cosmetic industry knows so well. They make big bucks selling lotions, potions, creams, jellies and salves...anything that they claim and we hope will save our countenance from public scrutiny. As much as our bodily features are not the most important part of our human nature, we are still concerned about what people think of us. Public image is everything or almost everything in today's world.
Another important fact of life is our concern that we must "fit in," that there is a place for us in this crazy world. I think, for instance, of the efforts that the medical profession makes to help autistic people fit into the normal pattern of life that others take for granted. I know a young woman, for instance, who bags groceries at Safeway. She always smiles at me and says, "Have nice day." I know that she is having a "nice day" bagging groceries because she has a sense that she too fits into the "labor force" at Safeway. So, she has the good fortune to be able to walk to work each day and know that she counts.
With all that, we have two stories in our scriptures for this Twenty Eighth Sunday in the Church year and they are all about fitting in. Odd as it may sound, people in the Old Testament times were as concerned about fitting in as we are today. The first reading from the Book of Kings tells the story of Naaman, an officer in the Aramaean army. He was a good tactical military planner but he was also afflicted with leprosy; not a good thing for a military leader.
The Aramaeans and the Israelites were often at war with each other, but one day a young servant girl went to Naaman and said: "You know, there is a prophet, Elisha, a miracle-worker down in Israel who might be able to cure you." Naaman probably said to himself: "Hey, listen, I don't like those folks much, but if this guy can cure me, what's the loss." So, he goes to visit Elisha and the prophet says: "Go down and wash in the Jordan River seven times and you'll be cured." Again Naaman probably said to himself, "Hey, listen, we've got cleaner water up North where I live, what am I doing down here bathing in this scummy river? Nonetheless, he bathed seven times and, lo and behold, his skin turned as white and soft as a child's.
The moral of the story: Often healing comes from people whom we would never suspect. In this case, an Israelite prophet cures a foreign military person. Whatever it takes!
The gospel story of the 10 lepers is much the same. They come to Jesus because the normal resources at the Temple had done nothing to help them. Jesus says: You are cured; now go to the priests at the temple and let them know that a prophet has been at work in the land. Again, a story of a cure not from the "normal" sources as you might expect but from a wandering prophet!
The question in all this, of course, is to ask where, truly, does healing of any sort come from? We in the Western tradition have always imagined that healing comes from a divine source outside of ourselves. The Eastern tradition, however, insists that healing or any sacred experience comes from within you.
Obviously, miracles don't happen every day. Cures don't happen to everyone either. It's all a great mystery why some are cured and some are not.
The important point, however, is that we need to learn that God's ways are often mysterious. Even more importantly, we need to learn how to live with our human frailties, physical, mental or emotional. I'm sure, for instance, that the young woman I spoke of earlier goes happily to and from work each day because she has learned to live with this mental/ physical condition and be happy nonetheless.
A lesson for us all: It is important to thank God for the person we are just as we are. Hey, nobody is perfect, right? All that may not be good news if you work for the cosmetic industry but, of course, as I always say, life is messy.
The scriptures: 2 Kings 5: 1 4-17, 2 Timothy 2: 8-13, Luke 17: 11-19
Posted by Julie Galligan at 11:48 AM.
October 06, 2007
27th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Moving Trees Around
I happened to be thumbing through the Yellow Pages of our local phone book some weeks ago, looking for something and it occurred to me that of all the listings, other than doctors and lawyers, the longest and most diverse list was restaurants. Every language and ethnic group in the world seems to have its own unique eatery in the city of Anchorage. I am not a particularly gourmet diner, so many of those fancy places might not appeal to me, although I do tend toward Mexican food when I'm ready for something different from what I eat at home.
The thought that came to my mind, however, was that the owners of all those restaurants doubtless came from a foreign country at some time in their early history. Not only that, but they probably came here with lots of faith but with very little money in their pockets. They had heard that America was the "land of opportunity," and so they were determined to work hard and have their part of it.
As I think of it, all those little communities of religious priests, brothers and sisters who came to America from Europe also had the same great faith and vision of success like the restaurant owners when they first started their religious houses in this country.
Let me give you an example of the sort of faith that is closer to my experience: The founder of the religious community to which I belong, The Congregation of Holy Cross, Basil Anthony Mary Moreau, will be beatified (declared blessed) this coming September. He was a man of immense faith: His desire was to found a religious community modeled on the family. So, in the town of LeMans, France in the middle 1800's he began a foundation of priests, brothers and sisters, who would dedicate themselves to the education of the young and to foreign missions. Not only that, when this community began to grow, he sent some of those priests, brothers and sisters to America and to East Bengal.
Perhaps that does no sound like much of an endeavor, but I doubt whether any of us would have the faith and the vision to pull off something similar.
Today there are religious priests, brothers and sisters of Holy Cross in France, North and South America, Canada, Bangladesh, Africa, and it took just one man to put that great vision in motion. I would think twice, maybe a dozen times, before engaging in a venture of that magnitude. I wouldn't have the faith in my own human abilities to carry it through.
We have an example in our gospel for this Sunday of some folks who were followers of Jesus and who also decided that they might like to do some of the great things their leader, Jesus, did. So, they boldly said: "Lord, increase our faith." They might have added: "We've got some, but it's obviously not enough to do the things that you do.
Jesus gives this crazy reply, at least it sounds crazy to most of us. "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to a Sycamore tree, `Be uprooted and transplanted into the sea,' and it would obey you." Now that's what we call hubris, hyperbole, embellishment, excessive pride that leads to a downfall. But in a metaphorical way Jesus is simply saying: "You've already got some faith, you don't need any more. Just go ahead and do what you want to do in life. It will be successful
It occurs to me that many of the great achievers in this world started out with little support from anyone, but they had this incentive that they could do great things if they wanted to and many of them did.
Perhaps we could say the same thing regarding our spiritual life. If you are like me, you have probably said to yourself many times, "What's the matter with me? How come I'm not able to have the courage to get my life together, I never seem able to accomplish anything?" If you were to think a bit about that in a quiet moment, perhaps Jesus' words might come to mind: "Don't be so hard on yourself' he might say. "You're better than you think you are. With faith in yourself, you can do anything on which you set your heart.. Well, maybe not to move Sycamore trees around, but lots of other good things. It's all about faith, faith in God and faith in yourself.
Scripture Readings: Habakkuk 1: 2-3; 2, 2-4, 2 Timothy 1: 6-8, 13-14, Luke 17: 5-10
Posted by Julie Galligan at 03:08 PM.
