January 05, 2008
Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord - Aha!
Once in a while as I am listening to those smart news anchor people on National Public Radio, I will hear them use a word that I always assumed belonged in the Bible and not out there in the secular world. A few days ago, for instance, one of the announcers said something to this effect: "The discovery of penicillin was truly an `epiphany' moment in the history of medicine."
I said to myself, "hey, wait a moment, Epiphany, doesn't that have something to do with some Eastern kings following a star and coming to visit the child Jesus?" Obviously, yes, but I'm finding out that an "Epiphany Moment" is a modern metaphor to describe a sudden amazing discovery. Another word people often use in place of "Epiphany Moment" is an "Aha Moment." Amazingly there is such a word in the dictionary and it's used when we want to describe the discovery of some amazing fact or triumphant satisfaction and excitement.
Well, I'm not sure those Three Kings or Wise Men, whoever they were, thought of their visit to Jesus as an "Aha Moment", but I suppose that is what it was.
Anyway, it just goes to show you that there are some words in the scriptures that are used by people in the secular world when they are looking for just the right description of something. Indeed, I suppose most of us have used that "Aha" word when we have been looking for an answer to something and suddenly it just comes! We say, "Aha."
I'm sure too that high school math teachers must occasionally see that happening when they are trying to explain a problem in calculus to a "slow" student and all of sudden he or she "get's it"!
In a sense, we are dealing with an "Aha Moment" as we come together today to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord. This is a feast of the Church that contains some history but also a lot of theology and metaphor.
Regarding the history, we don't know a whole lot, except what is contained Matthew's Gospel, the story of three kings, wise men, astrologers who came out of the East (the place of light) to confirm their information about the presence a new-born king.
I will not attempt to explore any more of the history of that event. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of theology and metaphor contained in that lovely story that applies to the life of the Christian.
Here are some critical words or ideas in the story. First, the men (I'm assuming they were men, perhaps accompanied by their wives) are astrologers, that is, they study or follow the stars for an answer to their quest for the location of the newborn King. The important point here is that they are following the light and when they arrive at their destination they discover the One whom we Christians say is the Light of the World. So, again, the "light comes on" when they discover Jesus.
The second and most important theological lesson in the story is this: These three astrologers are not Jews, they are people of another culture, background and language and yet they are coming to Jesus, the Light of the world to learn something new and astonishing about God. The theological lesson here, of course, is that Jesus is the light for all people, Jew and Gentile. So, this is the first evidence we have in the scriptures that the Christian faith is open and available to all people.
The third, and less important lesson in the story is that the astrologers are on a journey. To discover the Light of the World, they travel from a place of darkness, that is a place of ignorance, to a place of light, a place of wisdom. In theological terms, West is considered the place of darkness and the East the place of light, the place where the sun rises.
So, you see, whether the story of the astrologers is true history or not, there are several critical metaphors there that we can apply to the Christian life: Metaphors like light, journey, faith, endurance, discovery, et cetera.
Let us pursue the notion of journey because that is part of the Epiphany story. At the moment I am trying to finish that great novel: Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. It is one of those classic stories that came out of the Dustbowl Thirties when thousands of families were making their way from the dry Midwest to California. Grapes of Wrath is one such story, a tale about the Joad family who have been "run" off their tenant farm in Oklahoma and now they (all twelve of them packed into one old, broken down truck) are on Route 66, heading west. So, the story is all about the journey and all the things that happen on the way: Struggles for food, water, transportation, the realities of love, birth, life and death, war and peace, all happening as they travel. The goal, of course, is California where there will be endless fields of grapes, apples, peaches and the rest. What keeps them going? Their faith, obviously, their belief that they have no other option (other than death) than to get to California...and the grapes!
As I read the book (all 500 pages of it) I thought, this is the human story, the story of the lives of most of us even though we may never be heading off to California.
Like the Joads, we travel life's road from birth to death. What keeps us going are a number of things: Our faith that God is "riding" with us, our faith that this is God's will for us at this moment in our life, our conviction that there is some goal that we will achieve at end of this journey even though it is not clear to us at this moment what it is.
So, all life and the Christian life as well, is one long journey. We don't know exactly how it will end, but like the three astrologers seeking the Light of the World, we never give up the quest because we know that it must be the right one. There seems to be no other.
Perhaps then, like the wise men, we travel our life's road from darkness to light, not always knowing clearly where we are going, but believing, nonetheless, that when we get to where we are going it will be what God has promised us for being faithful. And then, finally, we will say: "Aha."
The scriptures: Isaiah 60: 1-6, Ephesians 3: 2-3a, 5-6, Matthew 2: 1-12
Posted by Cindy Lentine at 09:21 AM.
December 29, 2007
Feast of the Holy Family - All in The Family
For the past several months I have been reading John Steinbeck's classic novel, The Grapes of Wrath. All my life I have wanted to read that work but whenever I decided to start, the length would scare me off. But recently I have simply been picking it up occasionally and reading a chapter or two at a time; that's something I can handle.
The story is about the Joad Family, all twelve of them. They were tenant farmers in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl days of the Thirties. Unfortunately, agriculture failed; their land and homes are taken over by that anonymous creature called "the bank", and, with that, they decide they have no other option than to sell whatever farm and household articles they have left and head out to California where there will be endless opportunities to pick oranges and grapes. Grandpa Joad says: "All I want to do is take me a bunch of grapes and squeeze'em in my face until the juice runs down my chin."
The central theme of the Grapes of Wrath, therefore, is the power of the family. Interestingly, it is Ma Joad who has the strength of character and determination to keep this disparate group from falling apart.
Yet on their journey to California, they experience many losses and additions: When a birth occurs a death follows and when a death occurs a birth follows. It's all about the circle of life, death and resurrection revolving around the family.
I'm finding that 1 am really fascinated by the story because my family also grew up during those difficult years of the dust bowl and the only thing that kept us all together was the determination of our father and mother and our care for each other.
Interestingly, family is something that most of us simply take for granted; it is so much part of our personal histories that we hardly reflect on it. This is the way the human race has developed over thousands of years. There does not seem to be any other option. All of us have come into this world through the creative power of a father and a mother. We have been nourished by our communication with brothers and sisters. In a sense, one could say that we are all "homemade", formed and fashioned by those who gave us birth and those who kept us together.
Here is something interesting regarding family I read a while back: "The family is he place where we discover who we are and what we are capable of becoming. Family is the place.
So, here we are today celebrating the Feast of a unique family we call Holy. I'm not sure whether Joseph, Mary and Jesus would have been comfortable with that title, in their own day. Their neighbors would surely have said: "Hey, they live next door to us, we know them personally, they're no holier than any of the rest of us." It's true, of course. When you read the scriptures regarding Jesus' early life, especially in Luke's gospel, you get the sense that his family faced the same human challenges as any other family. They surely must have had domestic differences occasionally like all of us have had as we were growing up.
My hunch then is that the Church in later centuries decided to honor this family with the title "holy" because Jesus, son of God and Son of Joseph and Mary was born to them in a human fashion like all of us.
I think it could be said, therefore, that the Holy Family is called holy precisely because it experienced all those human qualities that the rest of the human race faces.
There is something holy simply about being human and experiencing life just the way it is, sometimes ok, sometimes broken and messy, sometimes just mysterious and unexplainable.
I'm sure all of you have occasionally had family skirmishes and family reconciliations. It's just the normal thing. Thank God for it. Had we not had a dad and a mom, brothers and sisters around us as we grew up, who knows how we might have turned out? To be human is to be holy. It takes a lifetime for all this to happen, of course. The final product is not yet wrapped up.
The scriptures: Sirach 2: 4-6, 12-14, Colossians 3: 12-21, Matthew 2: 13-15, 19-23
Posted by Cindy Lentine at 04:55 PM.
December 24, 2007
Christmas - Human Beginnings
It sometimes surprises my friends when I tell them that all eight members of our family, including myself, were born at home, that is, in my parents' bedroom. Today that may seem like a rather primitive way to have children, but it was not so unusual in the days I grew up. The presence of midwives at births was pretty common. I can still remember my Aunt Matilda, we called her Aunt Tillie, who was present as a midwife, when my other sisters and brothers were born into the world. Midwifery is still common among the Amish people and among other individual couples too who prefer the natural method of childbirth. It must be considered a safe birth procedure because my family and other families in those days did not consider it a dangerous thing.
Actually, it is only in modern times that people have used the availability of a hospital to bring their children into the world. Of course, hospitals are still considered institutions that treat illness, and lots of folks today do not consider pregnancy and birth an illness!
The birth of a child, of course, is a momentous occasion for all of us, we our parents and ourselves. It is obviously the beginning of life, the beginning of many years (we hope) in this world, and the beginning of many human experiences, which will be repeated by no one else in this world.
I think it would be safe to say also that the circumstances in which we were born plays an important part in the way we live our lives later on.
For instance, if I had been born in New York City or Los Angeles rather than in a humble three-room house in the state of North Dakota, my life might have turned out entirely different, indeed, I might not be giving this homily as I am doing right now. My point is that our birthplace and its surroundings can define our entire lives in many ways.
Think about your own life today and how you got to this very place. Think about all the things that have happened to you over the years. Think about how you became the person that defines your character and person. It's all a great mystery, but it surely has something to do with the circumstances of your birth.
Well, obviously, this is the Feast of the Incarnation, the celebration of the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem in Palestine.
It would be no exaggeration to say that Jesus' birth has changed our world and precisely every one of us in remarkable ways.
The question is, what is remarkable about the circumstances of Jesus birth? Several things: First of all, he was not born in a metropolitan city like Rome or Athens or Alexandria. He was born in a small backwater community where life was simple but stressful. Joseph was a lower middle-class artisan. His family and many others in his time lived from hand to mouth.
They also lived with the constant pressure of Roman domination hovering over them. Peasant people had very little control over their destinies. Taxes were excessive in the extreme. Then there was always the threat of rebellion by small radical groups that would disturb the tranquility of the community. John the Baptist was part of such small threatening group and he lost his head over it.
It is also important to remember that the Holy Family was an immigrant family. They owned very little land or other property. Because of the constant social upheaval in the Middle East, they had to be ready to travel now. Immigration itself, of course, causes human suffering, as we know from circumstances in our own times.
The fact that Jesus was not born into a Roman or Greek family, but into Judaism made an immense difference for all of history. Jesus was born a Jew, lived as a Jew and died as a Jew. The whole history of his people was in his very bones.
The reason I mention all these items is because they affected the way Jesus grew up. Have you noticed when reading the scriptures how often Jesus speaks to the poor and about the poor, how often he speaks about Justice and peace, how often he speaks about a kingdom that is not of this world.
In short, Jesus, because of the circumstances of his birth, was a radical, indeed, a dangerous person, both to the Roman occupiers and also to those Jews who controlled the revenue for the temple. Remember, for instance, the occasion when Jesus whipped the moneychangers out of the temple.
So, how did Jesus get this way? It all has to do with his birth, with the land and with the people who were part of his early life.
The point is that we cannot escape our heritage. People are discovering that more clearly than ever today. We want to know where we came from, who our ancestors were. Notice how many folks go to the Internet today to find information about their background. That tells you something about history, your own history.
So, that brings us to ask the question, what do we actually celebrate at Christmas? It is a birthday, of course, the celebration of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth who was born in Bethlehem. So, like all birthdays, we celebrate them and remember them.
But, of course, birthdays always bring up questions, questions about who we are now and what our life is all about at this moment in history. So, that means that we cannot stop with the question of Jesus' birth, even with the lovely description of it in Luke's Gospel.
If we want to know what the birth of Jesus means to us today, we have to move beyond the crib, beyond the visit to the temple and all those lovely family experiences that are described in the gospels.
The fact that we are even celebrating Jesus' birth 2000 years after it happened is immensely important. We do not do that with the birthdays of very many people in history.
Obviously, the reason why we are celebrating this feast is because our Christian lives are all tied up with Jesus' birth, death and resurrection. The reason why we are Catholic Christians is because someone in our history decided to have us Christened ("Christed"). Hence from that moment forward the birthday of Jesus, his history and our own Christian history and identity have been intimately linked together for all eternity. Now, if that is not worth a celebration, I don't know what is. I'm sure all of us would be a little disappointed if our own birthday came and went and no one paid any attention to it. I'm not sure precisely what Jesus Christ thinks about Christmas, but I'm sure he must be saying, "Well, it's surely nice that somebody remembered me." If we do not remember Jesus' birth, all the other nice things we do at Christmas will not add up to very much. Happy birthday, Jesus! Happy birthday to every baptized Christian in history! This is our special day let's celebrate it.
The scriptures for the Midnight Mass of Christmas: Isaiah 9: 1-6 Titus 2: 11-14 Luke 2:1-14
Posted by Cindy Lentine at 11:30 PM.
January 06, 2007
Epiphany of the Lord - "On the Road Again"
Odd as I may sound, being incapacitated can sometimes be a blessing. I say that because I was somewhat incapacitated last summer recovering from pneumonia. Obviously, I was not doing much vigorous physical exercise, but I managed to dig around in my flower garden every morning and for the rest of the day I would catch up on my reading.
It turned out that I had a book of around 500 pages in my little library that I had never worked up the courage to open and read. So, I thought to myself, this is the time to get into it. I may never have another chance like this! The title of the book is, The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage. The author is Paul Elie. He is senior editor at Farrar, Strauss and Giroux in New York, which tells you right away that he must know something about writing.
At any rate, it turns out that Paul Elie describes the pilgrimage of four American Catholic authors whom I have always liked and have read at one time or another. He introduces them as follows: "Dorothy Day, foundress of the Catholic Worker movement; Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and ceaseless chronicler of the inner life of the contemplative; Walker Percy, novelist, philosopher, and last gentleman of the South; and Flannery O'Connor, the "Christ-haunted" literary prodigy whose work has become the gold standard for Catholic fiction in its time."
As he himself read these authors, Paul Elie found that they each wrote about their personal life's journey, their personal pilgrimage, but the stories also sounded very similar. That already tells you that we all journey together, if not physically, at least in mind and soul.
Now let me interject at this point and say that inasmuch as we are celebrating the feast of the Epiphany today, the story of the three wise men who came out of the East searching for the new-born king, which I interpret as a pilgrimage story, perhaps we could explore a little about pilgrimage, what that means to Catholics and, obviously to all people who are "on the road again," as Willie Nelson once wrote.
I've never found a better definition of the word pilgrimage than the one which Paul Elie himself offers in his book. Here it is: "The pilgrim sets out on a path that others have taken, hoping to witness what others have seen---to see it with his or her own eyes. Pilgrims travel in company, but each must encounter the holy site personally. Finally, the pilgrims, on their return, tell others what they have seen and heard, so that others might be moved to set out on pilgrimage themselves---to go and do likewise.
I think that is a great description of what each of us experiences in our personal lives because from my own perspective, life itself is a pilgrimage, a search for the sacred.
It starts, oddly enough, the moment we travel down our mother's birth canal into the world. We do not know at that time that we are on pilgrimage, but it has to start somewhere and this is about as close to the beginning of things as one can imagine.
So, like the three wise men from the East, we travel the world during the rest of our life, physically or in our imagination hunting for something (for God) that will give meaning to our life. We are like Flannery O'Connor, Christ-haunted, God-haunted because we know there must be something more to life than merely making a living and we don't know quite what it is; so we go out in search of it.
Unfortunately, we also sometimes make wrong turns or find ourselves in dead-ends, but that is all part of the journey. If all of life were clear to us from the outset, we wouldn't be on a pilgrimage.
Once again, when you read the story of the three wise men, they did not know exactly where they were going. They even needed to stop along the way and ask directions from King Herod who wasn't exactly someone they could trust.
In our life journey too we often need to stop occasionally and ask for the spiritual wisdom of those we can trust because, left to our own devices, it is not always so clear to us that we know where we are going.
Perhaps the most important similarity between our life journey and the pilgrimage of the three wise men is that all our travels throughout our life are somehow holy journeys, at least if our goal is somehow to find God, not necessarily at the end of our life or after death, but in the meantime, all through life. After all, Jesus himself reminded us that the kingdom is already among us.
And finally, there is an interesting line at the end of the wise men story. It tells us that, once they had seen this new King and paid their homage to him they returned home by a completely different route. In other words, they themselves had changed somehow; they would never be the same again because they had experienced God.
I would like to think that all of us have "God-experiences" many times during our lifetime and each time that happens we are a little different, somehow filled with God. If that is the case, therefore, we can be sure that the journey home to God. will be a happy one.
The scriptures: Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6, Matthew 2:1-12
Posted by Cindy Lentine at 04:17 PM.
December 30, 2006
Feast of the Holy Family - Holy and Human
It's an odd thing about our hard-nosed American society: In this modern age of communication we hang on to every word of world news. Seemingly, we can't get enough of what's happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Washington, Moscow, Beijing, London. Practically every public news-person has a "take" on current conditions in the world: Bloggers are multiplying exponentially every week. I'm waiting for the Pope to open his own web-log. Of course, he already speaks from his balcony every Sunday at noon. He doesn't need a web-log.
What seems so common about world news, unfortunately, is that much of it concerns competition, recrimination, war and violence: The daily "body-count" in Iraq, American soldiers and Iraqi civilians, the nuclear build up in Iran and North Korea. It seems as though we are almost obsessed with wiping one another off the map.
Then occasionally, but only occasionally, something happens that is spectacularly different, so different that the news commentators, the bloggers and others cannot stop talking about it because it just seems so out of character with the American psyche.
You know it well: It happened last autumn in the Amish country of Pennsylvania. A deranged man, a member of the local community (not Amish) approached the local grade school and killed five young girls.
That act in itself was enough to astonish even the most hardened news-seekers. But what happened next was even more astonishing. The entire Amish community immediately forgave the man, prayed for him and for is family. It was an act which most Americans, in their wildest dreams, could not even imagine happening. It's not like us to forgive murderers of children. But that is, indeed, what the Amish families did and they did it because this is an integral part of their religious conviction and practice as a family, a community.
The public commentary on the Amish forgiveness immediately spread throughout the country. Indeed, the Amish people suddenly became beacons of conscience for all Americans. "See, we're not all so callous," one journalist wrote. "We can learn something from people who espouse peace and forgiveness as a way of life."
I have thought a lot about the Amish response to violence and I thought to myself, this forgiveness is something that comes from their common and deep sense of family. They believe in all this together as one. It's part of their very way of living together as family. It's what bonds them together.
Obviously, all Americans have something to learn from people who, for a change, are "different" and make no excuse for it.
Most of us would probably agree that family life in America has fallen on hard times. (It didn't seem so when I was growing up.) The attractions and distractions of secular society are not always conducive for families to learn how to live with one another helpfully and peacefully. It's tough being family today.
Nonetheless, it seems to me that the fact that all of us have come to be in this world through the creativity of a father and mother and that we were nourished throughout our young life in communion with brothers and sisters, all that tells me that we are, as it were, "home made," created and brought up by those who cared about us enough to make sure we would eventually go out into the world proud of our heritage, thankful not simply for those genes passed on to us, but everything human, including our religious faith, all that makes us to be this unique individual.
In other words, we are who we are through God's creative power, but we are also this person who goes by this name because of much care, nurturing, example, even disciplining. In other words, growing up takes a long time and demands a lot of care and feeding before we become the person God had in mind from all eternity.
A recent author I read put it this way: "The family is the place where we discover who we are and what we are capable of becoming. Family is the place where nature and nurture come together, the place where the members bestow on one another the lasting gifts that will be carried with us throughout our life."
On this feast of the Holy Family, therefore, I often wonder what it was like for Jesus to grow up in a family? There is a line in the gospel that gives us a clue: "Jesus, for his part, progressed steadily in wisdom and age and grace before God and men."
Being Son of God and son of Mary, Jesus grew up as we all do and probably had all the positive and negative experiences every young adult individual has.
We also get some insight about Jesus' early life by noticing what he said and did as an adult. He was, for instance, a fierce defender of the poor and the oppressed because he and his family had grown up poor and oppressed. The fact that Jesus had such a deep concern for justice and peace tells us what he learned at home: He didn't simply pick up those ideas on his own. He learned them from someone and they stuck with him throughout his entire life.
In some sense then, all of us who are born into this world need some "finishing", some "polishing," some tender care in order to become what our heart and God's heart beckons us to become.
Finally, I have often wondered what Jesus looked like. Undoubtedly, he must have resembled Joseph and Mary, not just physically, but he must also have carried with him into adulthood all their human and emotional qualities. In other words, his family made him the one who he ultimately came to be.
Perhaps it can also be said of us: We resemble our family; they have literally shaped and formed us the way we are. Who knows how we would have "turned out" without them?
The scriptures: Sirach 3:2-6 12-14, Colossians 3:12-21, Luke 2:41-52
Posted by Cindy Lentine at 09:48 AM.
December 25, 2006
Christmas 2006 - Something For Everybody
It occurred to me one day a while back as the feast of Christmas was coming nearer, that for the 49th time in my life as a priest I would need to think about what I would say about this wonderful, ancient feast which is so dear to so many.
Then I suddenly thought to myself, "this feast isn't all ours, ours meaning Christians or Catholics. It's been taken over by practically everybody...almost, and that's ok. Not only that, Christmas has so many different meanings and so many different implications, so many applications that it has become a sort of universal celebration, mixing the secular and the sacred, and that's ok too."
So, on my yellow legal pad I started jotting down some scattered thoughts, a sort of mixed up list of things that seem to have some relation to the feast of the Incarnation.
First of all, whether the general public, Christian or non-Christian, realize it or not (and I think most folks, at least Christians, do realize it), this feast of Christians celebrates the most earth-shaking, spectacular, almost unbelievable event that has ever and will ever occur on this earth of ours. What we believe is that the God of the universe, the God in whom we believe has made known to us that His Son, a Man-Child would come into this human world of ours and would change life as we know it forever.
And thus it happened: A child was born to Joseph and Mary, peasant folk who lived in Israelite Galilee. He grew in grace and nature to become known as the Messiah, the Anointed One, Son of God. He went around preaching good news, healing and raising, comforting and scolding, but in the end promising eternal salvation to all who were of good will, all who would strive to accomplish justice and peace, loving-kindness and compassion.
But for all the good that this man, the Son of God, did during his life, however, he was maliciously misunderstood, punished and ultimately put to death. End of story ...?.almost.
The point of all this, of course, is that Jesus' history, like all our histories began at a moment in time, at a moment we call birth, coming into the world, breathing earth's air,drinking its water, eating its food, dealing with its joys and its sadnesses:, its saintliness and its sinfulness. As St. Paul would later say: "He came among us in human flesh to take upon himself all that is human."
This then is the theology of this feast: Jesus, the Divine Son of God, Son of Mary came among us in human form in order to teach everyone, Christian and non Christian, how to realize the full extent of their created dignity, the love that their God has for them, the ultimate forgiveness and salvation that is in store for those of honest intent and good will. All that is what we Christians believe and hold fast to. It is our only hope and it all happened in the life of one man, Jesus, at a moment in time we call birth, birthing, being born into the world.
But astonishing as it may seem, the theology of the Incarnation we have just described has had different meanings for different individuals, peoples and cultures, all because there is something supernaturally deep and significant in Jesus' birth.
Some examples: For little kids, this day is a promise of gifts and surprises (perhaps some disappointments too). "Jesus," they will tell us, "was a gift to Joseph and Mary and to the whole world. Therefore we should remember it by giving gifts to one another." Whether little kids actually realize the meaning of all this, I have no idea, but it's still true. It's the ultimate reason why we give gifts.
The scripture scholar who spends his days exploring the hidden meanings of the words may ask, "Did this birth happen in Bethlehem, or is Bethlehem a reference to a fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy?"
The biblical archaeologist will dig in the earth to discover what Bethlehem and Nazareth looked like in the days when Jesus was born. "Was he born in a stable or a hillside cave? What year was He actually born?"
The man or woman in the business community will ask: "What effect will this day have on the gross national product, or this year's economic expectations?"
The demographer will comment on the fact that, the birth of Jesus added one more person to the human race which only recently (October 17, 2006 at 7:43 a.m. eastern standard time) reached 300,000,000.
For the art-lover, Christmas will recall paintings, idealistic representations of Jesus birth by the great Italian artists such as by Giotto, Raphael, Michaelangelo and others. You can see it all on Christmas cards.
And for the rest of us, ordinary folk, Christmas represents a whole host of conflicting experiences: We await the son or daughter home from college. The son or daughter also who refuses to come home. We worry about the relative or friend for whom Christmas is not joy but depression, the one who speaks about suicide. We think about the "hype" that has been going on since early November and now it's all over in one day. The credit card is "max'd out.
But it's not all depressing, this wonderful day: It is something we can easily understand because it's all about family, about kids, about earthly things, about human nature in its most basic form. It's about sharing and giving and eating food and drinking wine; it's about laughing and crying for joy and making sure no one is forgotten.
And, odd as all this may seem, the earthiness of it, it all began with the birth of one Child who sums up in Himself everything that is good and human and honest and true.
No matter, therefore, what may happen to us in this world, all our struggles between nation and nation, all our fears and anxieties, we will return each year to celebrate this day because we know that we have no other choice. It reminds us that at one moment in history something good happened, a child was born and his birth changed all of history forever. Is it any wonder then that we greet one another on this day with the words "Merry Christmas?"
The scriptures for Mass at Midnight: Isaiah 9:1-6, Titus 2: 1-14, Luke 2:1-14
Posted by Cindy Lentine at 09:56 AM.
January 03, 2006
Feast Of The Epiphany of the Lord - The Sacred Art Of Walking
I'm coming to believe that walking is a lost art, l mean walking with a purpose. When you think about it, we just have it too easy today to get around. I know you will tell me that you wouldn't want to walk or even take the bus unless it were absolutely necessary. Transportation is exceedingly available today, and, of course, we are always in a hurry, so why should we walk if we can ride whatever mode of wheeled transportation we prefer.
Nonetheless, walking is one of the most ancient and dependable modes of transportation that has ever existed. Why should we have we been created with legs and feet unless for getting around? For centuries, of course, there was no other way of getting from here to there unless you were wealthy enough to have a horse or a camel. In many Third World Countries even today people think nothing of walking 10 or more miles to go to the community market or to attend church. It's a normal thing and nobody complains.
But aside from the fact that people in some countries need to walk in order to live, there are other reasons why one might want to walk somewhere: Many people today think of walking as an aesthetic activity. It is restful; it distracts one from the pressures of daily life. It gets you in touch with nature, with beauty, with quiet, even with the music of the birds overhead. In other words, walking can put you in a whole different category of living. Some will tell you that walking can even be a spiritual experience if you want to make it so. The surroundings are such that you can pray or simply be can be in touch with God. You can just let the earth speak to you of the sacred.
Going back many centuries in history, of course, we have records of people who have walked to holy places. It is called pilgrimaging, going on pilgrimage. The earliest record we have in the scriptures is the journey of Abraham who left the land of Ur in northern Iraq and made his way to the land God promised him, the land of Israel today. People of other religions also make holy journeys: Moslems, for instance, journey to Mecca at least once in their life. Jesus, as we also know, walked to Jerusalem many times during his life because Jerusalem was the holy place, the place where he could meet his God in the temple.
In the Medieval ages many Christians would journey together to the tombs of the saints: Geoffrey Chaucer, for instance, the English author, relates for us the conversations the Christians had as they walked together from London to Canterbury to visit the tomb of the great English bishop and martyr Thomas. If you have ever read them, you will know that some of the tales were not all that edifying.
For centuries too, Christians in Spain and from around the Christian world have been going on pilgrimage to the town of Compostella to visit the Church of St. James where they pray for special favors. The cathedral of our Lady at Chartres in France is also a popular pilgrimage spot. In France thousands of young people each summer walk to the famous ecumenical prayer center at Taize, the place where Brother Roger Schutz was killed just this past year. In our day, of course, many people in the United States go on pilgrimage to Rome or the Holy Land or to the shrine of our Lady of Lourdes. Many also travel to the shrine of our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Now what is all this traveling about? It could partly be vacationing, but if it is a pilgrimage, it is something else. A pilgrimage is a journey people undertake for a sacred purpose, to some place they know is holy. They go as seekers, not as tourists. A pilgrimage is an act of worship. The most famous pilgrimage for Christians, of course, is the journey of the three wise men who came out of the East to pay homage to the new born king and offer their gifts. So, pilgrimages, whether they are made to some local shrine or some other distant one are done as an act of faith. Catholics believe that God can be discovered in earthly things and places. Christians believe that God can be found everywhere, but there are certain places which just have a holy history, a place where holy things have occurred. So, people go there in order to encounter that holy experience. No doubt, it will be different for each person who goes there.
But there is also another kind of pilgrimage that goes on from time to time in our own country, in which people don't so much go to a holy place as to experience something holy as they go. For instance, when people marched on the way to Selma, Alabama to sing and pray for civil rights and freedom for all, they were on a pilgrimage. In a sense, like the three wise men they followed a star, the star of justice and tolerance.
So, the reason people go on pilgrimage is because they believe, as the wise men did, that they are called to do that, and that the journey itself really matters. It isn't just the getting there that counts, it's the traveling or what happens to a person while traveling, whether alone or together, that counts.
So, a pilgrimage is a kind of retreat, but in this case we don't go backwards, but forwards, forward in order to come in touch with whatever we think of as sacred.
I should also say that pilgrimages are hard work, but like anything difficult, it takes you out of the ordinary lackadaisical world of every day life and puts you into something completely new, something awesome and breathtaking, something holy. In some sense, when we go on pilgrimage, we live our whole life story as we go along.
Finally, the exciting thing about going on pilgrimage is that we never know what we will find when we get there. In fact, that is not even important. What's important is what happens to you along the way. When you get to the place you are going, like the three wise men, you offer your gifts and then you return home---by another way---because something will have changed within you and the every day world will suddenly look completely different.
Now, that is something to think about the next time you take a walk in the woods or even down town to the local supermarket for groceries. Remember, it's what happens to you along the way that ultimately counts. I hope it's something nice.
The scriptures Isaiah 60: 1-6, Ephesians 3: 2-3a, 5-6, Matthew 2: 1-12
Posted by Cindy Lentine at 09:30 AM.
December 26, 2005
Feast of Mary the Mother of God - Naming the Future
Having never been married, I am basically uneducated in the responsibilities of early child care. I'm not complaining about that, of course, just making an observation. It has often occurred to me, however, that there must be a number of tasks that young married couples must attend to at the time of the birth of their first child: Learning about infant diets, sleep habits, what the sound of crying might mean, et cetera. After the first child, of course, all this becomes second nature.
The one responsibility every set of parents needs to think about, even before the birth of their child, is the name: How shall this child be named? I imagine there might occasionally be some controversy over that choice. It is no small matter, of course, because this name will stay with the child all the way into adulthood and beyond. So, it should be a thoughtful process.
The anomaly in all this is that the child him/herself has no part, no say, in this important lifetime selection. Indeed, the individual might well be disappointed and wished that he or she could have had their say, because they are the ones who have to "live with it."
I have often thought it might be best to give a child some sort of generic name at birth and then wait until the age of reason for a life-time name to be chosen. By that time, obviously, the generic name will have been entrenched in everyone's mind and changing it might cause some long-term problems. I'm happy that I have never had to deal with this dilemma, if it is such.
I have never read any extensive commentaries by eminent scripture scholars on the gospel of Luke concerning the naming of Jesus. The text simply says "he was named Jesus." There is not much more one can say about that. But the name Jesus or Yeshua was a rather common name in those days. There was nothing particularly unique about it. It was as common as John is today.
However, if you read that text a bit more carefully, you will notice that Joseph and Mary actually had nothing at all to do with the choice of the name. The angel Gabriel had already given him that name even before "he was conceived in the womb." We must assume, therefore, that there must have been something prophetic about that choice. Indeed, the name Yeshua (Joshua) is simply translated as "Yahweh is salvation." Indeed, today we often hear the phrase "Jesus saves," and Catholics believe that Jesus does save. Jesus is the source of our salvation. So, hindsight, the name was well chosen whether Mary and Joseph had any hand in its choice or not.
So, after that little diversion, let us now make the point that this feast today is not simply about naming Jesus. This is the feast of Mary the Mother of God. It is the oldest Marian feast in the Western Church. It was chosen as an article of faith at the Council of Ephesus in the year 431 and placed into the Roman liturgical calendar for January 1 sometime in the middle of the sixth century.
You might well ask then, why on January 1? Well, not simply because this is the first day of the new year but rather because we are in the Nativity cycle of the Roman calendar, the Christmas and Epiphany cycle. Hence, this feast fills out some of the history and implication of Jesus' birth. So, of all the Marian feasts, this is the oldest and the most meaningful for Christians. We honor Mary because she is the Mother of God, period.
Now, we must insist also that the naming ceremony is an important sub-plot on this feast of Mary. I'm sure you noticed in that beautiful selection from the Book of Numbers, the famous blessing that we use so often today: "The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! the Lord look kindly upon you and give you peace." l have given that blessing hundreds of times in my ministry as a priest. Let me insist, however, that it is not my blessing, or any priest's blessing. The blessing comes from the invocation of the name "Lord" or Yahweh. In other words, God or the name of God bestows the blessing. The priest just happens to be the instrument who calls down the blessing.
I would like to say then that there is something significant and important in this whole matter of bestowing God's blessing on one another. We all have that right the right and power by our baptism to bestow blessings: Husbands and wives can bless one another. Parents should surely bless their children as they retire at night. Parents should bless their children when they make their way to school in the morning or when they go on a trip. In other words, all God's good gifts come to us through human hands, whether through the priest or, more often, through our bestowal on one another.
Lastly, think about this: God does not so much give blessings. God is a blessing for us. God's very existence, God's name blesses us. Jesus too is God's blessing on us, Jesus our salvation. And finally think of this: As Christians, we ought to think of
ourselves as God's blessing on one another, not so much by saying some words, but rather by the very way we live, the example we give of a good Christian life. That in itself cannot help but be a blessing.
So, back to the question of naming our children. My personal feeling is that all of us should have a saint's name, someone who has a history of holiness and good deeds, someone whose history we could look up and try to imitate. In that case, a name would surely serve as a blessing for us for the rest of our lives.
The scriptures: Numbers 6:22-27, Galatians 4:4-7, Luke 2: 16-21
Posted by Cindy Lentine at 03:12 PM.
December 20, 2005
Feast of the Nativity of the Lord - The Beginning of Something Big
I'm sure there is no doubt in anyone's mind that we would all like to be remembered for something during our life. How sad it would be if we were to come into this world and pass from it and no one were ever to take notice. Granted, few of us will be known and remembered for doing spectacular things. Nonetheless, the fact that we were here on this earth, the fact that we will leave some mark upon the human condition in the world should be noteworthy, at least to someone.
I have always thought that our birthdays, the birthday of any human person, is probably the most important date in our lives. Obviously, there are other moments in our life that are equally important as well, but all these have to start somewhere, at some point in time. The day of our birth is obviously that moment.
Do you suppose that is why people generally celebrate birthdays with such joy and good humor? This was the beginning of something big, great plans, great hopes, even some disappointments, but it all started somewhere, at the point when we first appeared on the planet; that's the moment the human clock started ticking. So, one would think that this moment should be remembered and celebrated year after year until the moment we once again pass from this earth to the Father.
It has often occurred to me to wonder what Joseph and Mary must have been thinking about when Jesus was born. If he was, indeed, their first-born son as the gospels insist, it must have been a rather momentous occasion in their lives. I'm sure they probably asked themselves on a number of occasions, "what do you suppose this Son of our's will turn out to be? Will he ever be remembered for anything significant? Can we look at him and say, "we're proud of this Son of our's, he's destined for great things."
It turns out, of course, that in the lives of each of us, we may have disappointed our parents: After all, we can't all be doctors, dentists, lawyers or politicians. Nonetheless, we ail have found a place in life which probably satisfied us and we need not look back in disappointment.
My hunch is that Jesus' mother and father probably had some second thoughts about the direction which his life took. The gospels actually tell us that at least his
mother could not understand why he wanted to go out on his own to preach God's messianic kingdom. They thought he had lost his mind and wanted to take him home so he wouldn't be attacked by the "crazies" out there in the world. Nonetheless, Jesus kept to his vision, the call of his Father, until it took him to the hill called Calvary where it all ended too early and too sadly.
But it all did begin at some point, at the moment of his birth, even though neither he nor his parents had any idea of where this life's vision would end.
Of all the feasts of Christianity, Christmas surely seems to be the one that is most universally celebrated, even by folks who probably have little idea of why they are celebrating this day. I'm sure that the folks at all the Christmas "office parties" are thinking about other things when they break out the bottles and pass around the fancy hors d'oeuvres.
Nonetheless, whether people in the world at large have any idea of the theological significance of this great feast or not, they know instinctively, I think, that this feast has some connection with Jesus' birth. Otherwise, why all the Christmas cards, the decoration of trees, the buying and sharing of gifts and all the rest. I'm sure most people are not concerned about the gross national product at Christmas. There is a sacred meaning in it for most people whether they have ever read the Nativity story in Luke's gospel or not.
This may sound somewhat flippant to say on Christmas, but in the Christian liturgical calendar the Nativity is not the most important feast of the year. That honor goes to the Solemnity of Easter and also to Pentecost, the birthday of the church. But from the earliest days of our Church, the Nativity has held a place of honor. even though we do not know the actual date. For the early Church of Rome, it was simply a date picked to conflict with the secular Roman feast of the unconquered sun, the equinox. In other words, for the Christians, the birth of Jesus, the birth of the Son of God, light of the world, replaced the secular celebration of the sun.
And so it has been ever since: We remember Jesus birth, not simply as the birth of a human person, but the birth of the one who became known by all as the Light of the World.
So, even though Easter and Pentecost are important feasts for our Church, the only reason we can celebrate these great days is because, as the Hebrew scriptures in the book of the prophet Isaiah proclaim, "A child is born to us, a son is given to us. they name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Prince of Peace. Had it not been for Jesus birth in the flesh, there would be no reason to celebrate any of the other feasts in our Catholic calendar.
It would seem to me then that all of us here on this night (day) are here because in some mysterious way we know that something sacred happened in our world on the day that child we name Jesus came to birth. So we celebrate it in all sorts of ways, some secular, some sacred: We write greeting cards, decorate trees with lights, visit friends, celebrate good meals, give gifts to one another. And we come here to celebrate the Eucharist together and to remember why all this is important to us.
What we are doing here at this very moment invites us to turn our minds back to the day when it all started, when a young mother gave birth to a Son, whom the Church later called Son of God, Image of the Eternal Father
So, whatever you may do on this night and this day, however you choose to celebrate this feast according to your habits and culture, it is a good and worthy thing you do. If it is important to each of us to be remembered for something on our birthday, so all the more, it is worth celebrating the birthday of Jesus. That day was the beginning of something big, something the world is still celebrating to this very day because it is such a great mystery. I'm sure Joseph and Mary, from their place in heaven, are happy too that we still remember their Son's birth each year. At Christmas each of us can become little children again, each of us can give gifts because Jesus Christ is the greatest gift our world has ever received.
Posted by Cindy Lentine at 12:27 PM.
January 09, 2005
Baptism of the Lord: Where It All Starts and Ends
If I had to do it over again, I think I might have asked my parents to delay my baptism until my 18th birthday (or somewhere around the age when adulthood blossoms). Obviously, I had no say in that. My parents, like most parents, lost no time (two days after my birth, as a matter of record) in having me baptized because they wanted to have the assurance that if my fragile little life were suddenly to end as quickly as it had begun, at least they and I would know that heaven awaited me. “No limbo for this kid,” they probably said to themselves. I can’t say that I blame them. What parent would want to consign their loving child to the murky confines of that theological construction called limbo when they could as easily be comforted in the thought that baptism would carry me straight to God’s kingdom? So, it was done without delay and without my consultation! Just as well.
Nonetheless, I cannot imagine a compassionate and loving God who would not shed a tear over the death of the least of his creatures, consigning this little human child to an unknown future simply because his parents were not able to get to the church in sufficient time for his baptism. Can God’s love possibly be constrained by the accidents of human life or the lack of parental foresight? It would not seem so to me! No doubt, baptism into Christ is tremendously important for every human person, but not as a means of forestalling the implications of a sudden, unsuspected death and an unpredictable eternity.
The gospel for this feast of Jesus’ baptism relates a privileged event in his life, one over which most of us have no control. Jesus chose to be baptized as a mature, fully-grown adult. He had already been circumcised as a child, of course, but that was a ceremony with a different meaning and purpose entirely.
The baptism of Jesus is a rather odd event, when one thinks about it. In simplest terms, the gospels tell us that one day Jesus, almost purely by accident, happened to be in the neighborhood where John was baptizing in the Jordan River. Not knowing, perhaps, what was involved, but not wanting to be left out of this public penitential ritual either, he presented himself to John for the great washing which seemingly went off without incident. However, as the gospel of Matthew points out, when Jesus came up out of the water, he had this astonishing experience of the Spirit coming down upon him and hearing a voice tell him: “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” In short, this penitential washing ceremony presented itself as the opportunity for Jesus to begin his public, adult life. Until that moment, Jesus was a respectable, unexceptional and unnoticed woodworker in a backwater village called Nazareth. Apparently, there was nothing in his previous life that prepared him for this decision to go on a mission that had no sanction from the temple officials. It was purely his own decision to start a way of life, a career that, in many ways shocked and offended his mother and his neighbors. From the moment he came up out of the water, he was a man-possessed, possessed by the Spirit to go into the world and change it forever, which, in fact, he did. Family life, the carpentry trade, the quiet life in Nazareth was obviously not for him. His vision was broader and deeper than that.
My hunch is that Jesus probably began to think about his future long before the meeting with John at the Jordan, but that day presented him with the opportunity to publicly make a break that he was waiting for, and to set out on his grand venture. This was to be the watershed day in his life, the moment from which he could not turn back. In short, it was not so much what the baptism ceremony did for Jesus, but rather what he did as a result of taking part in it. In other words, vocations have to start somewhere and this is where Jesus’ started.
All this still leaves us with the question, however: What does, or what should our baptism mean in the context of our own life and future. Obviously, most of us were baptized as infants. When does our vocation begin? I would have to say that the spark, the Spirit, the call is instilled in us by God at our baptism, but it quietly hovers or smolders there until we can begin to see or understand what direction our life should be taking. Of course, that may change or develop many times during our life, each decision building on the former one. Most of life’s decisions do not happen once for all. The opportunities occur again and again. They depend upon age, maturity, opportunities which we notice along the way, options which we take advantage of. In other words, vocation is an on-going experience continuing to happen during our entire life.
So I have a hunch that even Jesus began to think about his vocation long before he was baptized. He probably saw all sorts of things happening in the world of his time that he wanted to so something about. The baptism day was simply the moment when he publicly decided to “go for it.”
So, does it ultimately matter whether we are baptized as infants or as adults? I would say that if we understand baptism as God’s on-going call to us, it makes no difference at all. What is of more importance, however, is that we use this opportunity here and now, this once for all event that is offered to us, at whatever age, and do exactly what Jesus did, accept the call, the challenge to go about our work in the world as though this were the most important thing that ever happened to us.
Do you suppose that Jesus began to think about his future when he was a teenager in the woodshop, sanding down doors and window frames? I’d be willing to bet that he did some dreaming, that he probably said to himself: “Some day I’m going to take the opportunity to leave this town and this place and do great things.” Little did he know that the day he accidentally wandered down to the Jordan River and joined that crowd would be the very chance he was looking for. We know what happened after that, of course. The rest of his short life was set in stone.
Now, the question is: How many opportunities have passed us by to do great things for God and the world? Hard to say, of course, but if baptism gets us ready for the rest of our life, chances are there will be lots more. It’s just a matter of recognizing the right time and the right place, like Jesus did. Of course, like Jesus, we have to accept the fact that there is no turning back. Vocations, at whatever point they happen in our lives, are for ever.
The Scriptures:
Isaiah 42: 1-4, 6-7; Acts 10: 34-38;Matthew 1: 13-17
Posted by Deacon Eric Stoltz at 02:13 PM.
