May 10, 2008

Pentecost - Remembering the Way it Was

Occasionally I will be driving to or from work on a weekday and I will notice a new building or a business going up. I know what will soon follow: Big signs announcing “Opening Day.” Following that there will be advertisements in the local newspaper or on television offering special deals. There may also be brightly clad individuals waving signs at the door or on the street corner. It’s all about letting us know that this is an important day for these people, for this company. They are not ashamed to let the whole world know about it.

I’m sure that a lot of planning went into this project of theirs, lots of money and effort as well. One thing for sure: They want us all to know how they feel about their new venture. There will probably never be another day like this in their history.

People find it important to celebrate special occasions: Birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, new jobs, first-time accomplishments, et cetera. For the most part, the persons celebrating want the whole world to know about it too, even though much of the world could probably care less. For these people it’s all-important. First time events have special meaning.

I have a hunch that this may have been the case with a group of folks who had just recently followed the leadership of a man named Jesus of Nazareth who, much to their distress, had only recently been killed by the Roman authorities.

So, here they are then, gathered in fear behind locked doors because they were only a small minority in he midst of a powerful empire. I can imagine them all sitting there, scared out of their wits, wondering what was going to happen next.

Well, you know the story: We’re all familiar with it. There was a strong and forceful wind whipping through the house. All of them gathered there felt the warmth of fire settling over them. But what happened next was even more important. They probably said: “Hey, something important is happening here; we have to talk about this to whomever will listen.

And that is exactly what they did: They couldn’t keep their mouths shut. They just had to tell people that this Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah was still with them and that his grand project he called God’s Good News was now meant to be preached throughout the world (or a least what there was of it in those days.)

So, what’s this all about? Well, any of us with a sense of history knows: It is the story of the beginning of the Church of Jesus Christ. Obviously, there was no record of it in Roman newspapers, no one standing on the street corner waving banners or signs.

So, how did the folks who experienced all this describe it? They remembered two signs, two phenomena: There was wind and fire. There is meaning and symbolism in those two events and it has all to do with spreading, scattering, dispersion, diffusion.

We all know the power of tornadoes or hurricanes. We know what happens when fire gets out of control: Whole city blocks are often destroyed. Forest fires wipe out thousands of acres of prime timber.

But in this instance wind did not destroy, fire did not destroy. Wind and fire were symbols of the power of Jesus’ Good News being spread throughout the land to bring something completely new into existence.

And all this happened, of course, not through the power of wind and fire alone, but through the courage and giftedness of some very ordinary people who just could not hold themselves back. They had to speak out.

So, what should we make out of all this? Here is my sense of it: Throughout the entire history of our church, from Pentecost to this Sunday in the year 2008, the power of Jesus Good News has been spread abroad in a very simple and ordinary way: By word of mouth! Given today’s means of communication, word of mouth does not seem very efficient, does it? But think of this: There is no mode of communication more powerful or more effective than the word that is shared between two people, two friends, nothing more powerful than the faith we share with each other. That’s the way it has been done since the first Pentecost, amazing, as it may seem.

What I think this also mean is that Pentecost is never over: We can’t simply fall back on the efforts of those few early Christians. Nor can we fall back on the words of the pope alone or the local bishop alone, we can’t fall back on the efforts of the preacher here today. All that will not get the Good News of the Church of Jesus Christ very far. Every one of us counts, every conversation we have with our brothers and sisters about what our faith means to us; all that is important for the spreading of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

So, what all this comes down to is this: There’s no stopping the effects of the wind, there’s no stopping the effects of the fire that comes from the faith we all profess as Christians. Above all, don’t be afraid to speak up. The future of your Church depends on you.

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

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 04:11 PM.

May 03, 2008

7th Sunday Ascension - Going it Alone

I would never have called my father a liberal, at least in the context we use that term today. He was always a careful and conservative man. He managed to get his family through the great depression of the Thirties which means, of course, that he managed his money carefully.

I can remember receiving only two “major” gifts from my father as I was growing up: He bought me a wristwatch for my high school graduation. On the train station when I was headed off for basic training in the U.S. Army, he shook my hand and I found there a fifty-dollar bill! Now, mind you, fifty dollars was no small change in those days, but I remember him saying: “Here’s a little something just in case you need it.” Then he gave me a hug, something he rarely did. He was conservative, of course!

Nonetheless, I learned something from my father on that day at the railroad station: He was ultimately a softhearted, sentimental person. He also knew that this was the last time I would be part of the family. It turned out to be true. I never returned home again for any long period of time.

So, as I recall it, this was an important moment for my father. Difficult as it was for him, he managed to say goodbye, even with a few tears in his eyes.

This recollection reminds me of the line from one of Shakespeare’s plays (I think it was Romeo and Juliet) “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

Well, I don’t know how sweet parting is, but I think all of us would agree that parting is something we do not eagerly look forward to.

The problem is that at this point in our life many things will change, nothing will ever be quite the same again. We will be on our own, for good or ill. Perhaps we could honestly say that at a parting we are all a little scared, especially if this is the first time we have left our family. What if we flunk out of college? What if our first job turns out to be more than we can handle? Could we ever go home again without embarrassment?

By the way, that phrase came from the title of a book by Thomas Wolfe: You Can’t Go Home Again.
It seems to be true: Once you leave the familiar confines of the place where you grew up, you will find that it is never the same even if you decide to go back. What is fundamentally different, of course, is you. You have changed in the meantime. So, if we do go home again, it will not be the same person who goes there.

I wanted to talk a little about leave-taking because that is what we are asked to think about today on the feast of the Ascension of the Lord.

Perhaps the word we use to identify this day is in some sense deceptive because implies a “going up,” Jesus’ going up to heaven, back to His Father. I have no doubt that at some point after Jesus’ resurrection He did indeed leave his friends. Whether Jesus “went up” is a question. But for the early disciples, “up” meant the place where God was. This was their sense of cosmology, their sense of the world. If Jesus went anywhere, it had to be up.

But we can set cosmology aside and simply ask about the implications of Jesus’ leaving. What is really clear is that Jesus, in the last few years of his ministry, developed a very close relationship with some very ordinary people, men and women, mostly working class folks. What is also clear is that he depended on them to help him fulfill his ministry. They were to be his trusted confidants. They traveled with Him; they preached as best they could, they took the responsibility of sharing bread with people. In simplest words, they were a “band of brothers.”

I can’t help but think, therefore, that after Jesus’ death and resurrection he must have come to the point where he needed to say goodbye to this band of brothers and sisters and that this must have given him a sense of sadness. After all, they had all gone through a lot together, some good times and some bad times.

So, it is interesting to notice that on the day he “headed for home,” Jesus wanted to make sure that his disciples would not be in complete despair over his going. He says to them: “Behold I am with you always, even until the end of the age.”

He did not say here how he was to be with them, but, for sure, this was not to be the end of the great adventure: Jesus gives his friends a task to continue working on: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The logical question to ask, therefore, is this: What did Jesus expect would happen at “the end of the age,” at a point when the last disciple had passed on? Was this to be the end of the great adventure of preaching the kingdom of God?

Well, I have to believe that Jesus was smart enough to know that at some point his disciples would not be able to carry on his work. So, the only conclusion I can come to is that Jesus meant for his work to be carried on to the end of every age, throughout all of history. That has to be the only sensible way to understand Jesus’ work, namely that it now belongs to us, to his Church, with the help of the Spirit to carry it forward.

Of course, this work is more than about baptizing. It’s about all the ministries that we have learned to take upon ourselves as Catholic Christians: Lectors, Eucharistic ministers, catechists, visitors to the sick, comforters of the dying, et cetera. In short, there are pastoral leaders of all sorts available, depending on our unique gifts.

So, in the end we must say that we do not know whether Jesus was sad that he had to “go home.” Given what we do now know from history, we would have to say that He doesn’t need to worry. We’re trying our best to “keep things together.” Sure, we’ve made some mistakes, but, after all, we’re human, the Church is human, but we can still depend on Jesus to keep his word. “I will be with you until the end of the age.”

The scriptures: Acts 1: 12-14; 1 Pt 4:13-16; John 17:1-11a

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 04:22 PM.

April 26, 2008

6th Sunday of Easter - The Long Loneliness

Although I never personally met her, one of my all-time favorite people was Dorothy Day. She died in 1980 and during her lifetime she had several careers: A journalist, a Socialist, publisher of a monthly “penny paper” called the Catholic Worker. (It still only costs a penny.)

She was also a convert to the Catholic Church. She loved this adopted church so much that she had no fear even taking on the Cardinal Archbishop of New York on issues of war and peace.

Most especially though she was known for founding the Houses of Hospitality that welcomed any and all from the streets of large cities. She personally took on the responsibility of making the daily potato soup and bread, making up the beds, sitting and talking to people as long as they needed someone to talk to.

Dorothy Day wrote a book, an autobiography late in her life entitled The Long Loneliness. It was sort of a sad book because Dorothy had experienced a hard life: First married, then divorced, then living alone.

But we learn from her autobiography that she found her greatest joy in being with others, with people of all classes of society. That was probably the reason why she founded The Catholic Worker and the Houses of Hospitality: She loved people and needed people to fill up her life because she was basically a lonely person.

It has occurred to me many times that perhaps most of us are basically lonely people. We come into this world all alone and we leave this world alone. But in the intervening years we long for and search for companionship: We marry, we join social groups or religious communities, and we make friends, often for life. All this tells me that we cannot bear to be alone.

Whoever was the author of the Book of Genesis he surely had a deep understanding of human nature. He is convinced that God created woman because it was not good for the man to be alone; so he created a helpmate. Then he adds this: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to his wife and they become one body.” One translation uses the word “cling”, the man “clings” to his wife because she is all he has. Without her he will be lonely for all of his life.

I have always thought of those lines as containing a deep insight into our deepest longings. Is it any wonder then that we spend so much of our life searching for that one person who will fulfill our deepest desires?

I often tell young people at their wedding that from this day forward they are meant to “cling to one another.” It is what will give meaning to their lives.

Despite this normal human longing, however, we are still destined to spend much of our life alone. Two examples: Occasionally I will walk back into church after Mass on a Sunday and look around. Not a soul is left in the pews. I say to myself: “An hour ago this place was packed with worshipers. They depended on me to celebrate the Eucharist; they waited for a word of encouragement in the homily. But now they have all gone their way and I am here alone (with Jesus!)”

Some years ago when I taught at a university, I would often join the drama students, taking a minor role in some play. Sometimes when the production was over, I would walk back out on the stage and look around. Not a soul in the bleachers; everyone had gone home and here I stood alone on the stage.

All this tells me that at many times in our lives we need to admit that we do stand alone. How must it be then for those who are sent to solitary confinement in prison? I would find that unbearable.

As I read the gospels, the story of Jesus’ life, I have the sense that he too must often have been lonely. True enough, he would choose to be off by himself in the desert or the mountains. But we also know that he longed for the companionship of his friends Lazarus, Martha and Mary. He “hung around” with the Twelve Apostles, with the Seventy Two, with many disciples. He was truly at home with the crowds. We also know, of course, that on the last night of his life he depended on his friends to support him: “Could you not watch one hour with me,” he cried out?

Perhaps it is not so unlikely, therefore, that he decided to establish a community of friends that would eventually become what we know as Church today. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to call together his friends and tell them that he would not leave them orphans. Even though he must eventually leave them and go his way, he would send them an Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who would continue to be with them forever.

That is the way I have always thought of Church, as a gathering of friends at worship. True enough, Mass often seems like a formality that we take part in all alone but it does not have to be that way. There ought to be a sense of companionship in the pews and in the relationship of the presider and the folks.

If there is ever a situation where ideally Christians, Catholics, should not need not feel alone it would surely need to be in Church. That is one place where we definitely are one big family.

So, all these thoughts came to me as I looked through the liturgical calendar and noted that next Sunday we celebrate the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, Jesus’ leave-taking. And following that we celebrate the feast of Pentecost, the day of the Lord’s return in the Holy Spirit. All that tells me that we should never consider ourselves orphans. Jesus has never truly left us.

Perhaps Dorothy Day had it right: The best way to escape life’s Long Loneliness is to find a community and to cling to it. When you think about that, it’s probably the only option we have and not a bad one at that. The scriptures: Acts 8: 5-8, 14-17; 1 Peter 3: 15-18, John 14: 15-21

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 01:40 PM.

April 19, 2008

5th Sunday of Easter - Who’s Church?

It has always interested me to notice, at least among Christians, how important a role their church plays in their daily lives. Whether folks attend Mass regularly or not, they will ordinarily defend themselves as Catholics who belong to this or that church.

If you ask folks, particularly on the East Coast, or, say, in Louisiana, where they live, they will tell you: “I live in St. Monica’s Parish or “I live in St. Genieve’s.” Perhaps they will tell you that this is their church because it is the place where they feel ethnically and spiritually comfortable, welcomed, at home. Of course, they will also support and defend that church because it’s theirs. At least that is their conviction.

For as long as the Catholic Church has been in existence, it has identified itself with the culture of the times in which it exists. We speak, therefore, of the “Early Church, Jewish and Christian. We hear a lot about the deep faith of the Church of the Middle Ages, or the more rich and flamboyant Church of the Renaissance, or, today, the Church of the Second Vatican Council. In every case the Church is identified with people, with their culture, their language, their habits and customs. One might need to say that the only Church that truly exists is the one that we know here and now, at this moment, in this place on this planet.

Another interesting element about Church is the question: “whose Church is it?” That may sound like a silly question because the Church doesn’t belong to anyone (not even the pope.) If the Church belongs to anyone, it belongs to Jesus Christ, the Founder!

But we have a lot of rather sorry history surrounding this very question: Who’s Church is it? Who controls it, whose is in charge?

I can still remember as a kid the disputes that went on in our Church of St. Henry over who was in charge: The church trustees or the pastor. In one instance, the trustees were so powerful that they actually persuaded the bishop to have the pastor deposed, sent packing!

Just recently we have a story in the Catholic news of the situation of a Polish church in St. Louis. There has been a battle going on for several years between the parishioners and Archbishop Raymond Burke over who owns the church’s financial assets, the parishioners or the bishop? The folks say, “The church is ours, we built it with our money.” The bishop says, “Sorry, I’m the boss, I call the shots.” In fact, it came to the point where the bishop closed the church altogether and excommunicated some of the parish leaders. The parishioners, for their part, went out and got their own pastor, a Polish priest from another parish! The battle continues. Pretty scandalous situation. But it tells you that people love their church and not even an archbishop is going to take it away from them. Of course, if someone tells you that it’s not about the money, it’s about the money! Jesus must be weeping.

In the Boston Archdiocese a similar situation is happening. The Archbishop closed a number of churches. In the case of the Church of St. Joan of Arc, the parishioners have occupied the church night and day for several months and refuse to leave.

Well, all of this tells you, of course, that over the centuries that the Church has been in existence, it has not existed in a vacuum. It always seems to take on the patterns of secular life, and that is not always a good model.

A good question to ask, of course, is this: What was it like in the beginning? What was in the mind of Jesus and the early Christians when Christianity took root? Obviously, Jesus himself did not set up any organization.

Within a few years, of course, those early disciples began to organize themselves into bodies called churches. Most of them were smaller than our normal parish today. Hence, the atmosphere was more intimate, close-knit.

Well, let me say that there is an answer to that question, Who’s Church Is It? You heard the answer a few moments ago when we listened to the second reading from the Letter of Peter

Let me warn you ahead of time that this is not the sort of language we use today. Nonetheless, it will tell you a lot about how those early Christians, our brothers and sisters, thought about themselves. Here is how the author of that letter to the Christians referred to them: Let me paraphrase it: “My brothers and sisters, remember, Jesus Christ is our living cornerstone, precious in the sight of God. And you too are living stones. Therefore, you must build yourselves up on the cornerstone that is Christ. After all, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation a people set apart to praise the God who has called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

My friends, to my mind that is one of the clearest descriptions of Church that I have ever heard. It tells us who we are, how we are related to Christ and what our task in the world is all about.

How different that is from the way we often think of Church today with all our organization, all our laws, all the competition that goes on over who makes decisions, who has the power, et cetera.

It occurs to me to say, therefore, that it wouldn’t be a bad idea if every parish, every Christian community were to gather once each year, aside from Mass, and discuss questions like this: What does this Christian community think about itself? What responsibility do we take for our Church? How do we think about our leaders, the bishop and the local pastor? Do we collaborate for the good of our parish or do we struggle for power? The answers to those questions might give the parish a clear idea of how it thinks of itself.

The point is, my friends, we just can’t take our church, our Christian community, for granted. We are all living stones, as the letter of Peter described. We are built on the cornerstone that is Christ.

Whether all this will change bishops’decisions to close churches, I don’t know. Whether it will help Christians understand their role as members of a parish, I have no idea. But one thing for sure, if we could only decide to use the model of those early Christians we just heard about, we’d all be a happier Church and the question Who’s Church Is It? Would never even raise its ugly head?

The scriptures: Acts 6 1-7; 1 Peter 2: 4-9; John 14: 1-12

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 03:58 PM.

April 13, 2008

4th Sunday of Easter - The Politics of Shepherding

I imagine by this time of the year most of us are pretty weary of the politics of electing a president and at this point we are not even in the final stages of the presidential campaign.

Politics has always interested me, not in the sense that I want to be any elected official but rather because the motivations of those who run for office seem so mysterious. Why anyone would want to run for the office of president of the United States, for instance, puzzles me. Either the candidate must have a large ego, loves being a power broker or he is simply a masochist, and doesn’t mind for the next four or eight years being lampooned with cartoons in national magazines. Let’s face it: Politics is messy business: Large bodies of people are basically ungovernable, uncontrollable. Who would want to spend a large part of his or her life fighting political battles?

Realistically, of course, somebody has to do it, for whatever motivation. I would like to think that at least some politicians have a high motivation for running for office, despite it’s burdens. There must be some politicians out there who sincerely believe that they can make the world a better place and are willing to take the flack that goes with the office. Some (many I hope) are sincerely concerned for the welfare of their brothers and sisters of their constituency. I hope this does not prove to be a naïve hope. If it is, then our world is in deeper trouble than I think it is already.

Despite the bad reputation that the world of politics often has, the individuals who use their office for their own ends, there is still something gratifying about being able to say that we have done something to make the world a better place, that we have brought order out of chaos, that the poor and the underprivileged have been served. Leadership, if it is chosen for a high motive, is a noble goal.

Given the complexity of human communities, of course, leadership is an absolute necessity. Fortunately, there always seems to be some individual or individuals who rise to the top and pledge to do their best for the commonweal. Nonetheless, high motivation would seem to be required; otherwise chaos and harm will ensue.

Perhaps not many politicians think about their motivation, but if they were to do so, I would suggest that they think about being shepherds. I know that is not a very acceptable term today because most folks in the community do not like to think of themselves as aimless sheep; people who need someone else to run their lives for them.

Nonetheless, shepherding is an ancient and honorable profession. Although in our time that occupation is limited to a few individuals, the shepherd’s task has a wider implication as a metaphor for anything that involves caring for someone or for many.

Whether we reflect on it or not, there are many natural shepherds among us: Parents, teachers, social workers, political leaders, spiritual directors, bishops and pastors…popes even! Each one needs to be concerned regarding a different flock. But, ultimately their task to make sure that good order prevails and that people are served in whatever manner is important to them. In short, shepherding is an intimate part of life in the world. Without someone at the helm, life becomes unlivable.

It is not unlikely then that Jesus should have chosen shepherd as a model for the vocation he felt attracted him.

When you re-read the gospel we just proclaimed, for instance, you get the sense that Jesus did not have much patience with the spiritual leadership of his time. Spiritually, those whose task it was to do this very thing were not caring for people. Indeed, he uses some pretty tough language for those entrusted with temple or synagogue leadership: He calls them “thieves and robbers.” I’m sure that is a reference to the temple taxes that the poor had to pay for simple sacrifices. He also calls them “strangers” because no one in the flock is listening to them.

So, what then is Jesus’ model for leadership? What is a model that will fit our times, whether spiritual or secular?

The metaphor Jesus uses best is this: “The shepherd walks ahead of the sheep; they hear his voice and follow him.” “Walking ahead,” obviously refers to good leadership. People, who look for leadership, look ahead not behind. Natural leaders are consistently “out front” of the flock, always thinking ahead, always looking for ways to make sure everyone is on the same page. Anyone who wants to be a leader needs to take charge and not wait for someone else to take responsibility. Responsibility goes with the job.

Another implication in Jesus’ reference to being a leader is trust: Unless the people you lead have implicit trust in you and your leadership, you will never be successful.

And a third implication in Jesus model of shepherd is respect. If you have no respect for those who look to you for leadership, if you are using people for your own ends, you will eventually fail. People will see through that very quickly.

And finally what seems implied in Jesus’ model is dedication: If you don’t want to work hard, if you don’t want to spend long hours figuring out what your people need most, you will not be fulfilling your task and responsibility.

In the end, of course, we would need to say that being a shepherd, a leader has many gratifying moments: If only one person on a given day feels that his or her life has been made better because of your efforts, then you should feel good about that. Your shepherding has been a model of God’s grace.

Hey, maybe that would be a good motive to run for office in the next election. Think of the good you could do.

The scriptures: Acts 2: 14a, 36-41; 1 Peter 2 20b-25; John 10: 1-10

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 03:52 PM.

April 06, 2008

3rd Sunday of Easter - Recognition

One of the comforting things about being a presider at Mass is that you have a sense that you are in charge! I don’t mean for that to sound disrespectful, but when you are standing before, say, couple hundred people who have come to church to experience God or the sacred, you know that you have a serious responsibility on your hands. People expect you to know what you are doing and to help them celebrate the liturgy in a reasonably sacred manner. That’s your job!

Let me point out, however, that, as in other activities in life, they do no always run smoothly, even those we consider sacred.

Let me tell you, for instance, where things can get really messy at Mass, where you sometimes can lose control: It’s mainly at the time of the distribution of Holy Communion! Don’t misunderstand me: Folks are ordinarily quite orderly at communion time. However, it’s the moms and dads who are “dragging” their little kids along…that’s where I sometimes lose control. Kids are really funny (they don’t know it, of course.) But often when they come before me, they will say: “Hey, are you really God?” Or, “Are you Jesus?” More often though they will extend their stubby little hand or grab hold of the ciborium with the sacred hosts and say: “I want some of that too.” At that point the mother or father will say: “You don’t get any yet, come on, let’s go” and they get dragged off. Then the crying begins, of course, and I know well that at this point I have truly lost all control of the situation.

But, of course, who can blame the kids? Everybody else is “getting Jesus” except these little guys and girls. I’d be mad too if I didn’t “get something” at communion time. Who can blame them?

In some mysterious way, I’m sure most Catholics, when they come to church, are asking exactly for what the little kids are asking for. If they could explain it, they would want to say “I had an experience of God today.

How that happens, of course, is a great mystery. Each person experiences God in a unique manner. Fundamentally, however, whether we happen to be at Mass or not, we instinctively want to be in touch with the sacred.

That is exactly the situation we find in the gospel for this Sunday, the beautiful story of the two followers of Jesus who had a sacred experience of meeting Jesus Christ and didn’t even know who it was. You just heard the story: Purely by accident, they meet him on their way home to Emmaus soon after the terrible days of the crucifixion. They have no idea who this stranger is but they strike up a conversation with him about all that has happened in Jerusalem those past few days. It was sad news for them, obviously, but they had to say it.

At last the stranger says: “Here, let me explain what all this means. Have you never read the scriptures? All that just happened was predicted by the prophets.” The disciples, of course, still have no idea who they are talking to, no idea that this man is talking about himself.

Finally, they reach a motel; the day is late, so they invite the stranger to have supper with them. He doesn’t seem all that interested but finally says, “Ok.” In the middle of the supper he takes a piece of bread, breaks it and hands it to them. They probably had a cup of wine too, although it’s not mentioned.

All of a sudden they say: “Hey, wait a minute, we’ve seen all this before. Remember the Last Supper?” At that point they know for sure they are talking with Jesus. It’s the Last Supper all over again.

The question is how did they know it was still the same Jesus? Jesus did not introduce himself. Two things are clear from the past: First, Jesus explained the scriptures and then he broke bread with them. It is probably safe to say that this was one of the first times, after the Last Supper, that Mass was celebrated.

Now, why are we hearing all this? We are hearing all this in the scriptures because the early Christians, our brothers and sisters, wanted everyone to know that you could recognize Jesus if you came together as a community, read and shared the scriptures and then broke bread together. In simplest form, that is what we do each Sunday.

So now let’s go back to the Holy Communion stories I told earlier. If you ask practically any Catholic to name what is most important to them while celebrating Mass together, they will say “when we receive Holy Communion; that is where we meet Jesus Christ.”

The problem with that answer, of course, is that we are missing part of the picture. Jesus actually became recognizable to those early Christians in several ways: First, by gathering the folks. Secondly, by explaining the scriptures. Thirdly, by breaking bread, sharing it and by blessing the cup of wine and sharing it and finally by sending them out to share the good news. That’s about as full, complete and clear a picture of the Mass as you are ever going to get.

So, once again, my friends, here we are, gathered on the Lord’s Day not simply, as we say, to go to Mass. We gather on the Lord’s Day to meet Jesus again. The only difference between ourselves and those two disciples of Jesus at Emmaus is that Jesus should be no stranger to us. We’ve had two thousand and more years to get acquainted with Jesus. The point to remember is that we need to put our mind to all this when we gather on the Lord’s Day.

It would be nice, wouldn’t it, if we could say to one another as we were driving home after Mass: “Were not our hearts burning within us when He explained the scriptures and broke bread with us?” Well, perhaps we are not at that point of “burning hearts” yet, but it’s something to be hoped for, isn’t it? It’s all about recognizing Jesus.

The scriptures: Acts 2: 14, 22-23; 1 Peter 1: 17-21; Luke 24, 13-35

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 01:01 AM.

March 29, 2008

2nd Sunday of Easter - If Jesus Came Back: How Would We Know

On occasion as I begin Mass on a typical Sunday, I ask myself, “Is this the way Jesus would do what I’m doing?” If Jesus decided to come back to any typical Catholic parish on a given Sunday morning, would he, or his early disciples still recognize what we are doing to be what Jesus did at the Last Supper or what those early Christians did in their little communities described in the Acts of the Apostles? Probably not, at least in some of the details that we follow today.

But does it make any difference? History, as we know, moves on. Everything changes over periods of time, even something as sacred and transcendent as the Mass.

Nonetheless, it is interesting to imagine what Jesus, from his place in God’s kingdom, must think about what has transpired in the Church over two thousand years. We Christians surely hope that we have not taken too many liberties with those words Jesus used and the basic actions Jesus performed at the Last Supper.

The better question to ask, of course, is not what would Jesus think if he were to walk into our worship space some Sunday morning, but rather, can we typical Sunday morning Catholics, recognize Jesus in our churches as the early Christians recognized him after the resurrection?

I think there are two ways to answer that question and the answers are in the scriptures for this Second Sunday in Easter season.

The first answer comes from the Acts of the Apostles the book that describes what those early Christian communities looked like. The first thing you will notice is that they were not Mega Churches where three or four thousand folks gathered. They were simply small gatherings of perhaps a couple dozen families, from the same neighborhood where everyone knew each other and surely felt committed to each other: Poor and rich, famous and not so famous, even of different nationalities.

How does that compare to the church, the Christian community, we are part of? Can I find Jesus present in that person sitting next to me even though I may not know his or her name or even recognize his different nationality? After all, we both go by the name Christian, do we not? That should be enough to bond us into the community of Jesus.

Secondly, that reading from Acts says that the early Christians celebrated Eucharist in a very simple way: They devoted themselves to the breaking of the bread and to prayers. They also shared what common goods they had. So, the question: Despite how different our Church looks today, despite all the elements that have been added to our liturgy over the years, can we still recognize Jesus in this community? Can we find him again in the simple act of the breaking of bread and prayers?

The third element mentioned in that reading is that those early Christians were a happy lot. They “ate their meals with exultation!” The question is: How happy do we seem to be on a typical Sunday? Do these Christians gathering for the ten o’clock Mass look like they believe in the resurrection? Could a stranger recognize them as joyful people if he or she happened to drift in on a Sunday morning?

I realize to, of course, that a lot of history has happened in our Church over the years, but my point is that it would be a nice idea for all of us to compare ourselves to those early Christians, perhaps even to simplify our worship so that Jesus would continue to become evident to us when we gather.

Now we turn to that nice little story of Thomas, “the doubter,” who had such a hard time being convinced that it was still the same Jesus he met on that day after Jesus’ death and resurrection.

I have always had a certain compassion for Thomas: He refused to take things for granted. He knew that Jesus had been killed and now he is told that Jesus is still living! It might take a lot to convince any of us that a friend of ours, whom we knew had died, has suddenly reappeared alive. “Give me proof,” we’d say, just as Thomas said: “Let me touch, please.”

It’s so easy, of course, two thousand years after the event to say: “What’s the matter with this guy?” What should it take to convince him? Remember, however, we have two thousand years of reflection on all this, lots of theology. It’s so easy for us to simply say: “Hey, just believe; it’s ok.”

The more important question to ask, however, is not the one about Thomas, but rather to ask: Is our faith in the risen Jesus strong enough to find Him not in the flesh or the wounds as Thomas was asked to do. Rather the question to ask is this: Can we still find Jesus in the symbols that the early Church has left us, those signs that say, Jesus is present, but not necessarily in the flesh, in a human way?

How much of an effort do we make, for instance, to pay careful attention to the gospel, the words of Jesus, as they are proclaimed on a Sunday? Has the Mass, the Eucharist gotten a little “threadbare” for us over the years, a little “same-same” after having celebrated it Sunday after Sunday? Like those early Christians, can we still get excited about coming together on Sunday? Are we still convinced that it is worth the effort to throw our whole being into this one wonderful hour of prayer? Can we allow these sacred moments simply to become the “same-old-same –old” week after week?

Finally, like Thomas, the apostle, perhaps we should insist that all we are really hoping for during that hour on Sunday is to be back in touch with Jesus. It worked pretty well for Thomas. With a little effort, it should work for us too.

The scriptures: Acts 2: 42-47; 1 Peter 1: 3-9; John 20: 19-31

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 02:25 PM.

March 22, 2008

Easter Sunday - Searching For Jesus in the World

Although I seldom publicly announce this, I have always considered myself something of a secularist, a worldly person. To some folks that may sound like a scandalous thing for a priest to say. Others might say, “Well, that’s pretty obvious.” Nonetheless, secular and sacred have always been considered opposites, contradictory positions. People say that priests should be “other worldly.”

Nonetheless, the fact that I am a priest, a baptized Christian and that all of you here this morning are baptized Christians does not mean that you have deserted life in the real world, the only world we know. We all still go about our daily tasks, show our responsibility to the community, to our neighbors.

The reason why I can safely say that a Christian can also be a secularist is because I believe that there is something sacred about the world, all the experiences that we have here. It’s God’s gift to us and it’s our responsibility to make something good out of something that is already good and holy. I think most folks, whether they are Christian/Catholic or not believe that. Let me offer you some examples of why I believe that.

Did you ever notice how people in the secular world often are attracted to some of our Christian feasts or celebrations? Take the feast of the Nativity of the Lord, for instance. Most secular folks know it as Christmas, but notice what they do during that season? They celebrate in all sorts of secular ways: Gift giving, card sending, visiting friends, et cetera. Whether they believe in the birth of the Savior is hard to say, but they know there is something sacred about this day, so they celebrate it.

Or take the feast of Saint Valentine which folks in the secular world call Valentine’s Day. We usually think of Valentine’s Day to be associated with red roses, candy heart-shaped boxes, winged cherubs flying about shooting starry-eyed loves with arrows.

But Valentine’s Day is first of all the feast of a Christian Martyr, a young Roman citizen who lived in the Third Century A, D. during the reign of the Emperor Claudius. He healed the daughter of the jailor of the prison where he was confined. The jailor and his whole family were converted to Christianity. It was Valentine’s gift to the jailor and his family. So, that is where the secular world gets the idea of gift giving on Valentine’s Day. Lovers give gifts to one another. Can’t get any more Christian than that.

Finally, we come to Easter, the glorious day we celebrate today. It is also a big day in the secular world, of course, even though most folks do not know it by it’s true title: The Resurrection of the Lord. But that does not stop secular people from celebrating it even in strange ways: Easter egg hunts on the Whitehouse lawn, purchasing rabbits or baby chicks for whatever reason. Perhaps they will eat lamb at Easter dinner.

But, intuitively I think people also know there is something sacred about this day, whether they happen to attend church or not. Therefore, they follow secular customs. If it were not already a holy day, they might not do all these things. For all those reasons, therefore, I am a secularist, a man of the world.

So, is there any theological insight we can draw from this feast which is both sacred and, for many people, also secular? What have we believed about Christ’s resurrection since the earliest times of Christianity? We have believed that a good Jewish man, Jesus of Nazareth went about preaching the good news of God’s kingdom. People who heard his words often felt that God had spoken and given them new life.

Not only that, Jesus, that good man, went out of his way on several occasion to feed people. People went home feeling that their life had been restored, that God had fed them.

On the night before he died he celebrated a meal, the Paschal meal, with his friends and he told them that whenever they would do what he had just done, they should remember him.

Finally, people killed that good man, Jesus, but three days later Jesus’ followers had this strange feeling and conviction that he had risen from the dead and was still with them. In fact, he even appeared to them on several occasion and ate with them.

Notice, none of them tried to explain how Jesus was raised from the dead, but they knew instinctively that the same person was still with them and that gave them life and hope.

So, whether or not the secular world understands all this about Jesus’ resurrection, it is still all about a celebration of the life of Christ that goes on forever. It’s not about the resuscitation of a dead body.

The question then is this: How should we celebrate the resurrection today? For some, coloring Easter eggs will do, buying little chicks as well perhaps. But for those of us who believe that Jesus’ resurrection is an article of faith and that it has been passed down to us for over two thousand years we would expect do something more: We will listen again to the resurrection stories. We will celebrate the Eucharist again and again as he asked us to do.

But there are also some so-called secular experiences that happen in our world every day that could remind us that Christ is risen.

Here is my sense of it: Whenever there is a sign of new life, Jesus Christ is risen. (No proof needed) When, for instance husbands and wives make up after a quarrel, Christ is risen. Whenever families put their differences aside and live together in peace, Christ is risen. When Pope Benedict leads the world in efforts to find peace, Christ is risen. When people in government try to mend fences and live peacefully, Christ is risen. Whenever a teenager is made to feel that he or she is worthwhile, Christ is risen. Whenever a person with AIDS is cured, Christ is risen. When battered women and children are helped to find new life, Christ is risen. In short, whenever any of us do any of these things, Christ is risen.

So, where do all those things happen? They happen out there in our secular world where we live and work every day.

Perhaps being a secular person, therefore, isn’t such a bad option after all. We’re all in some sense secularists. It’s in the world where spend most of our time. By the way, that’s also where Jesus spent most of his time too, out on the road, in the world. That’s always good to know, isn’t it? The world isn’t such a bad place after all.

The scriptures: Acts 10: 34a, 37-43, Colossians 3: 1-4, John 20: 1-9

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 09:33 AM.

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 Cindy Lentine 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 Cindy Lentine 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 Cindy Lentine at 08:43 AM.

April 28, 2007

4th Sunday of Easter - Words Have Meaning

I would be the first to tell you that technology scares me to death! A few weeks ago I went out and bought a DVD player (1 don't even know what DVD means). Anyway, the man at the store said that setting it up would be a piece of cake! I spent the better part of the next evening trying to hook it up to my television and finally called the telephone company guy and he came out and took care of it in 10 minutes. I imagine he went away thinking: "this guy is really weird! Any kid can set up a DVD player." 1 think it's my age, but I'm just overwhelmed when it's a matter of connecting wires and sockets and all that stuff.

I'm finding out that we live in a technological age and new discoveries in technology move faster than the speed of light. I can hardly keep up with ordinary things that practically everyone takes for granted, especially young people. I seem to need to learn a whole new vocabulary every week. Examples: Unless you know the meaning of these letters and symbols you may not be able to communicate with anybody: web cams, DSL, Podcast, E mail, E Bay, text messaging, modems, I Pods, Google, Yahoo, You Tube, et cetera. By next week there will be half a dozen more that I have never heard of. It's a scary world out there unless you are "tech-nerd." By the way, there is even a company today that hires technology people to come to your home to set up your television, your computer, your DVD or whatever else. Technology is out of control, at least for the ordinary citizen like myself.

Nonetheless, all this is very important. Throughout history humankind has always found that they needed to communicate, but today communication is more important than ever. We live and depend on WWW, the World Wide Web. If you want to check on your credit card balance, you may be speaking to a young tech person in India or Sri Lanka.

Seriously though, communicating with each other is a sign of our humanity, our wisdom even if it takes a computer or a cell phone to do it. If we don't keep up, we're lost.
Some years ago when Ronald Reagan was president of the United States, he was known as "The Great Communicator." He had risen up through the ranks as a radio announcer, so he knew something about how people hear things and what they will respond to.

A greater communicator than Ronald Reagan, to my mind, was Jesus of Nazareth. He obviously did not have the modern means of communication that we do today. Nonetheless, he knew how to use words that the ordinary person would understand. You remember the story of

how he held 5000 people spellbound for an entire day and well into the evening. Obviously, to do that, you have to have something to say, something that will capture interest.

Now, I don't know whether Jesus was a great orator like Demonstenes the famous Greek orator or the orators of the golden age of Greek culture, but one thing for sure, Jesus was skilled at using metaphors, mainly because he was always dealing with people who had little or no education. His audiences were not people who dealt in ideas; they dealt with images, material things that were part of their ordinary day.

But the important thing to remember in Jesus' use of metaphors is not the thing in itself, but what it meant. Metaphors never stand alone; they always have meaning, they point to something else. So, for instance, when Jesus wanted to speak about the simple life, he would talk about the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. When he wanted to talk about the "signs of the times," he would call peoples' attention to storm clouds on the horizon or of a red sunset. People knew instinctively what he was talking about. No explanations were necessary.

A metaphor Jesus used in several instances, as you well know, is that of sheep and shepherds. You could hardly miss them in those days; they were all over the hills and valleys, sometimes hard to keep in check.

So, why would Jesus use that example? Well, simply because sheep were animals that needed constant care, the care of shepherds. You don't just let sheep run around by themselves. Now, I'm sure Jesus was not all that interested in sheepherding as such. But when he drew out that example, people knew immediately that he was talking about them, the ordinary folks who lived in those surrounding villages, people who were literally pretty much on their own. The local leaders cared little about them, unless they did not pay their taxes.

So, when Jesus speaks about shepherds, he is referring to himself, about how he thinks of his relationship to his neighbors, the people who look up to him. All that was very clear to the folks who sat and listened to him. He was simply and clearly a person who could be trusted. They had no one else.

So, that brings us to say that metaphors are useless to us unless they are transferable, unless they extend across the years and the centuries. The question then is who are the shepherds of our age?

Your first answer, if you are a Catholic,will be to say "the bishops and pastors of churches." True enough. This has been the model of leadership in our church for centuries. But the problem with that model is that the "flock", a word I don't much like, will take for granted that that the bishops and pastors are, in fact, responsible for the life of the average Catholic.

But one thing we learned from the Second Vatican Council deliberations is that "Church is everybody." If it were not for the "flock", the bishops and pastors would have no reason for doing what they do.

So, what that means is that all of us are shepherds for each other; we are literally responsible for each other's salvation, for our Christian life. Being Christian is not a private endeavor. From the very beginning Jesus called groups together: Some in those groups were designated as leaders, but everyone was expected to make sure the whole flock was cared for. We are literally expected to lean on one another for the good of the whole. So, communication makes the Church a healthy Church, a community of believers.

What makes communication hard? What makes it difficult is when we get into our little corners with our pet positions and refuse to talk to each other. That's where charity breaks down and that's where the Church ceases to be the community of Jesus' followers.

On the other hand, communication is an exciting thing because it opens up the possibility for new and creative ideas, the chance for everyone to share something new for the good of the whole.

Despite all the new discoveries and technologies in modem communication, the most effective way to build community is still simply the human voice, the opportunity to talk to one another, respectfully with an open ear and an open mind. It worked pretty well for Jesus although I have a hunch that if the World Wide Web had been around in his time, he would probably have been spending some time on that too. After all, he was "the great Communicator."

The scriptures: Acts 13: 14, 43-52 Revelation 7: 9, 14-17 John 10: 27-30

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 12:37 PM.

April 21, 2007

3rd Sunday of Easter - Meal Time

I read an interesting book a while back that had an equally interesting title. It was called: Excavating Jesus! Now, don't be thrown off by that. The body of Jesus has not been excavated. If that were the case, we might have some explaining to do about the resurrection.

Actually, the book takes a look at the excavations that have been done in recent years in the towns and villages that Jesus frequented during his lifetime: Nazareth, Caesarea, Capernaum and Jerusalem. As you could guess they have found many sites and artifacts that are alluded to in the gospels. The scientists think, for instance, they have found portions of the synagogue in Nazareth. They have also unearthed typical Jewish homes along with cups, jugs, kettles, plates and other things. All that tells you that the folks in those days lived ordinary lives as we do. They had tables and beds, household articles for cooking and eating.

The archaeologists also found other things of greater historical interest: The family tomb and burial casket (ossuary) of the high priest Caiaphas. Also a slab of rock with the name of Pontius Pilate inscribed on it in his honor (It's nice to know that the man who had so much to do with Jesus' life actually lived.)

What I found particularly interesting was a picture of a dilapidated 8x26 foot boat that two men unearthed some years ago from the mud near the shore of the Sea of Galilee.

We don't know very much about the work that ordinary folks did in those times, but for sure we know that some people were fishermen, at least those who lived on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

You also know the number of times boats and fishing and sudden storms are mentioned in the gospels. So, boats and fishing were pretty common in those times.

My point in all this is to say that I feel my faith strengthened when I read about how archaeology confirms many incidents that are described in the gospels.

So, I can just imagine how that incident in today's gospel about the number of fish caught and the breakfast on the shore of the lake happened. It just sounds very real to me. There was a charcoal fire with bread and fish being broiled on it. Jesus is the breakfast cook! He is a preacher and a worker of miracles but also a barbecue chef! It could all have happened as described.

But the question still arises: Why did the early Church and the gospel writer decide to put those ordinary events in the gospels?

Remember, first of all, the gospels were finally put to writing some 50 to 75 years after Jesus death. They come from the preaching that was done in one or another of those early Churches in Antioch or Damascus or other places. So, what we are reading by that time is some theology, some interpretation of the events of Jesus life.

In this case then you have a story that teaches something about the Eucharist. It's a kind of repetition of what Jesus did at the Last Supper. He took bread and gave thanks for it, and passed it around to the disciples to eat.

What that early preacher probably said to his flock, therefore, was something like this: "You folks remember the story of Jesus and the huge catch of fish and how Jesus fed his friends? Well, my friends, that is what Jesus is for us still today: He feeds us with word and bread and cup. Jesus is the bread of life." That's probably what one of those early sermons sounded like. Meals and eating played an important part in Jesus life. Jesus sat down to eat with anyone, friend or foe.

But sitting at table and eating for Jesus was not simply an opportunity to satisfy his hunger. For Jesus, meals were always a sign of something to come, namely the banquet in the kingdom of heaven.

That is the way I would also like to think of the meal we take together each Lord's Day. Like the disciples of Jesus that morning, we also come here hungry, hungry for a word of wisdom and for the refreshment of the Eucharist.

There is really no stronger symbol of our Catholic faith than when we come here together and gather around the table as a family of faith to eat and drink. But what we do here each Sunday is also a sign of something to come, the banquet in the kingdom of heaven.

All that might be worth thinking and talking about when you return home today and have your family meal. It's not just something to satisfy your hunger. Every meal is a sign of God's banquet in God's kingdom whether it's halibut or salmon or even burgers and fries. Eating is always a sign of something beyond the meal; it's a sign of the banquet that will last eternally.

The scriptures: Acts 5: 21-32. 40-41, Revelation 5: 11-14, John 21: 1-14

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 06:09 PM.

April 14, 2007

2nd Sunday of Easter - Faith and Flesh

As a priest I think a lot about Jesus; I hope that doesn't sound odd! I guess we all think a lot about Jesus. It's a normal thing for Christians and Catholics to do. After all, our entire Catholic life of faith is wrapped up in the one we call Son of God, the Lord, the Messiah.

Of course, there is also a lot we don't know about Jesus. The gospel writers never meant to write a full biography of Jesus' life; they are sketchy at best. Moreover, they come to us through the courtesy of those little Christian communities we call the early church, the ones mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles and the reading from the Book of Revelation which we just heard a moment ago. Each of them had a slightly different memory of Jesus that they wanted to pass on to us to keep our faith alive even in this the Twenty First Century.

The point is that our Christian faith depends in great part on what we have heard and learned from others. The church of history passes on its faith from one generation to the next.

Another question that often comes to my mind, especially on a Sunday morning when we are all gathered together like this is whether our church, this one here, resembles what Jesus had in mind when he said "On this rock I will build my church?" The church that quickly grew up after Jesus' resurrection was basically Middle Eastern, Jewish and gentile, the cultures and religions of that time. Today, there may be a dozen or more different nationalities and languages gathered for Mass on a typical Sunday morning. Look around! Did Jesus think about that, did the early apostles think that the Church would eventually look like it does today? It may not seem like an important question because we assume that the Church, like other organizations, grows with history.

The point I am trying to come to is that our Christian faith depends heavily on many human factors. We learn that, first of all, from the story of Thomas the apostle in today's gospel. Some over the centuries have called him a doubter, but my sense is that

Thomas was truly a man of faith. He obviously had spent some time with Jesus of Nazareth. He had known him personally, physically. He also knew that Jesus died in the flesh (as Paul says) so, how when Thomas' friends tell him that they have seen Jesus, he wants proof and the only proof he had, as he thought, would be to actually touch the physical body of Jesus. That would be proof enough. I'm sure any of us, given the same situation, would have said the same thing: Give me proof!

The fact is, of course, that we depend on material things all the time for proof of what we are searching for. We want to know, for instance, to whom we are talking to on the phone; we want to know whether the photo we are looking at represents the person whose name appears on the bottom. If a friend of a blind person says, "This is a flower," the blind person may say, "let me touch it," or "let me smell it." In other words, we humans are so much dependent upon our senses that we just have to put our trust in them. We have no other option. Usually, they do not deceive us.

So, my point here is that, as Catholics, as worshipers in Church each Sunday, we are much in the same position as Thomas was. We want to know about Jesus. That's why we are here. But, to be in touch with Jesus we depend on some very human factors: Our sense of sight, of hearing, of touch, even of smell. We taste bread and wine and we believe it to be the body and blood of Christ; we make an act of faith. We smell the rich odor of incense and believe that our prayers also rise up to God's sight. We hear lovely organ music, or a choir and our faith is given meaning by it. We look around and see each other sitting here and we say, "look, that person believes in Jesus like I do. That's a great source of faith for me. We all believe together."

Finally, we are all faced with a great mystery when we talk about faith. We say, "I believe" and we hope we are doing the right thing because we depend so much on simple human factors. In the end, our goal is not absolute surety; like Thomas, it’s about trust, trust that God will not deceive us.

St. Anselm of Canterbury, the great theologian of the Middle Age once made this comment about theology, that is, the search for God. "Theology," he said, is faith seeking understanding." I think that is the reason why we are here today, believers all, seeking understanding. Remember too what St. Paul once said to his parishioners: "We see now as though through a glass, darkly, but then (some day) face to face." Perhaps that's about all we can ask for now, just to see God even darkly with the promise that some day it will be clearly, face to face.

The scriptures: Acts 5: 12-16, Revelation 1. 9-11a, 12-13, 17-19, John 20: 19-31

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 04:33 PM.

April 07, 2007

Easter Sunday - All Things Tend to Rise

Some while back a friend of mine asked me a question about Easter. I thought it was going to be something really deep and theological, something I would need to look up in my library. Instead he just said: "Hey, when did Easter actually start?" I imagine he thought I was simply going to say: "Well, on a Sunday a long time ago." Actually, I didn't say that. Without trying to be smart, I simply said: "It started on a Thursday, the Thursday of the Lord's Supper." He said, "Why's that?" And I said: "Well, because all life hangs together, one thing leads to another. Nothing in life is ever completely independent and separate, by itself. I'm not sure he was satisfied with that answer, but he didn't ask any other questions.

Actually, truth be known, Easter began some weeks even before Holy Thursday: Historically, it began on the day Jesus confronted the buyers and sellers and threw them out of the temple. That's when the series of events that led to Easter began. That's when his eventual death began to loom on the horizon.

So, with all that, let me say that we have been celebrating Easter since last Thursday when we celebrated the Lord's Supper here in this Church. We call all this the Paschal Mystery, the great mystery of Jesus' suffering, death and resurrection all tied in together. The great culmination of all of these, of course, comes on the morning of the Resurrection.

Well, whether most Catholics know that Easter began on Thursday or not is immaterial. Christians, whether or not they know anything about the theology of the Resurrection, do know that there is something about Jesus resurrection that draws them back to church year after year.

I think there is a deep sense and intuition in peoples' souls that makes them believe that life is never ended, that death is never the last word in life. Why is it, for instance, that we keep getting up every morning whether we like it or not, whether we are ill or not, whether the day promises to be good or not? I think we get up because we have a deep sense that this day will be important, that we are called to do something good, something creative today, that the world expects something unique from us today.

Why is, for instance, it that doctors strive almost beyond their strength to save peoples' lives? I think it is not just some professional desire to prove that they can do something scientific. I think it is because they truly believe that life is precious and that it deserves to be saved if at all possible.

I could go even further and ask why spring happens every year. (odd question!). Geologically, I think it happens because death and life are built into the universe itself. Everything in this universe in which we live is subject to life and death. There is a certain dying and rising going on all the time. But the point is that death does not have the last word. Something new always seems to rise out of the ashes of the past.

So, how does Easter fit into all this? I think it fits in two ways. First of all, the resurrection did happen; Jesus did rise from the dead, or, as Scripture has it: "God raised Jesus from the dead." That is basically what we celebrate on the Sunday we call Easter. We believe that Jesus died and rose for us, for all humankind.

But, secondly, I believe that Jesus' resurrection can also be understood as a metaphor, a living symbol that God means for all life to die and rise. That does, indeed, happen, and I believe that we may use Jesus resurrection as a confirmation of it. If Jesus died and rose, we can all expect some day to die, but also to rise again.

I will go even further and say that Jesus' resurrection is the reason why Catholics continue to come back to church Sunday after Sunday, Lord's Day after Lord's Day, to celebrate their conviction that life is always meant to continue and Jesus' resurrection is the proof for it. This one human event in our world's history is so important that we can hardly expect to simply celebrate it as a once-only historical event. Easter is what theologians call the "Uhr Sakrament ", a transcendent or transcendental experience. It crosses all boundaries and all meaning "If Jesus lives, I will live, I will live eternally."

Thirdly, I think the reason why we continue to come here each Sunday, each Lord's day is because we believe that Jesus' resurrection is not simply a special privilege afforded to him. His privilege is the one that is afforded to each of us.

Finally, I think the resurrection of Jesus is so deeply engrained in us that we can't help but celebrate it in so many human ways: We dress "like spring," we eat and drink in a special way together as families, we greet one another with the words "He is risen." And the response is: "Yes, he is, indeed, risen."

And finally, I believe there is even something in nature itself that leads us to celebrate this day. Historically, Jesus' death and resurrection happened in the spring of the year. Spring is the time of year when we naturally think about new life because it is happening, bursting out all around us. We could hardly expect to celebrate Easter in the middle of winter, at least not in the Northern Hemisphere.

So, my friends, that is the reason why I think we are here this morning. Something deep inside us drew us here because life is all we have, life is all we have to look forward to and we need to celebrate it.

So, let us say again that Easter began on Thursday, but let us also be convinced that it continues on beyond Sunday after Sunday until one day until we will celebrate it together with the One whom we call The First-Born from the dead, Jesus Christ, Son of God.

The scriptures: Acts 10: 34, 37-43, Colossians 3: 1-4, John 20: 1-9

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 04:30 PM.

June 04, 2006

Pentecost - Something Blowing in the Wind

A while back, shortly before Holy Week, I noticed some figures in a Catholic magazine predicting the number of people who were preparing to come into the Church at Easter: The article predicted that we could expect something like one hundred fifty thousand people to be baptized or to become full members of the Church. One thousand and thirty three in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. alone. Think of that! That's a pretty astonishing number. Practically every church, small and large,in the U.S., in the world will be welcoming at least several new members into its ranks.

I imagine most of us who have been Catholic since the day our own baptism might say, "well, that's not so astonishing; the Catholic Church has always been attractive to a certain small number of non Catholics. People keep 'dribbling in' from year to year, as they say."

But let me tell you that this is truly astonishing when you compare it to the so-called "old days" when one or two individuals each year might come to the local pastor and ask for "lessons."

One of the great accomplishments of the Second Vatican Council was to restore the "Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), a year-long process whereby non Christians or baptized non Catholics would choose to sit in the presence of other Christians for a period of a year or more and explore the gospels, listen to the stories and tell their own story, their journey of faith. So, this wasn't just a matter of someone sitting in the pastor's study, taking "lessons in being Catholic." It was a family experience, Christian congregations sharing their faith with other searchers and learners.

But you might say, what's so important about that? Well, first of all look at the numbers. The numbers of people coming into the Church since the beginnings of the RCIA have just exploded. Something really monumental is going on in the Church.

I would like to say, therefore, that I think all this has something to do with what we are celebrating today, the Feast of Pentecost, The coming of the Holy Spirit. You may say, "What? Today? Is the Holy Spirit still moving in our midst today? Well, we often imagine that the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was a once-for-all "event," something that happened to the twelve apostles and has since been forgotten or at least has not had any visible impact on the life of the Church today.

However, the reason I say that the "wind" of the Holy Spirit is still blowing among us today is because that is exactly what Christ promised. He said: "Iwill be with you all days, even until the end of the world." In John's gospel Jesus also tells his disciples: "I shall ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth...The Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name will teach you everything."

That leads me to say, therefore, that God's Holy Spirit must still be active in the world today. Jesus promised not to leave us orphans (those were his exact words.) The question, however, is this: How do we know? How do we know that the "wind of the Holy Spirit" is still blowing today? Well, we simply need to look around for evidence.

First of all, some not so good pieces of evidence. Despite all our bungling throughout Christian history, we still manage to stay alive. Think how Christians have treated Jews over the years. Think about the Catholic Inquisition, the torture, the jailing and killing of "heretics." Think about the threat to the freedom of conscience. Think of the way the Church has treated creative thinkers, philosophers and scientists like Galileo and others. Think about the abuses that led to the Protestant Reformation, the selling of indulgences, the wars between Christian nations. Think even in our own time about what we have come to call the "Sexual Abuse Crisis," priests sexually abusing youngsters, bishops covering it up. The Church obviously has not had such a great record of living by the words of Jesus. I could go on and on about this.

And yet, the Church, still manages to stay alive. How so? I think it is by the guidance and the protection of the Holy Spirit. "I will not leave you orphans," Jesus promised.

But are there any good things in the history of our Church that we could point to and say: "This is pretty astonishing! It could only be the work of the Holy Spirit."

I would, first of all, point to good Pope John XXIII who called the Second Vatican Council which literally changed the face of the Catholic Church as we know it today. Just think how the liturgy has changed peoples lives, the language of the liturgy in our own tongue so that we could understand respond! All this has literally changed our Christian lives for the better. I think that is partially the reason why so many people are attracted to the Church today.

Or think about the many trips around the world that Pope John Paul took, the millions of people who celebrated Mass with him in open fields. I think that's pretty amazing.

But some will say, "Look how the number of vocations to the priesthood and religious life has been falling. Thousands of churches, large and small throughout the world have no priest to celebrate Eucharist with them. What about that?" I say, "perhaps that is also a sign that the Holy Spirit is moving among us, prodding the Church to think about new ways to look at priesthood and pastoral life. Today many Catholics say, "be bold, think outside the box," Perhaps that is what the Holy Spirit is asking us to do, "think outside the box for a change, think creatively, take a chance. indeed, perhaps the Holy Spirit is asking the Church to do something totally new with regard to ordination of priests!

So, what else is happening in the Church that we could lay at the "feet" of the Holy Spirit? Think about the numbers of lay people who are taking responsibility for the life of the Church today. Before the Second Vatican Council this was unheard of. Priests and bishops did everything. Today you will find both men and women in some of the highest levels of Church governance and in all kinds of pastoral positions. Could it be the Holy Spirit calling the laity to take on their baptismal responsibility?

Finally, I think about the role that the Church has taken in matters of justice and peace today, care for the poor and the oppressed. Think, for instance, what Catholic Charities USA is doing around the world today to assist in tragedies like Hurricane Katrina and other disasters.

Well, for me, all this adds up to the clear evidence that the Holy Spirit is indeed "blowing" in the Church and in the world today. There is no way we could have done all this alone.

In the end the question we need to ask is always the personal one: Is there anything spiritually exciting or new happening in your life these days? If there is, you can bet it's probably God's Spirit "blowing in the wind."

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

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 02:20 PM.

May 28, 2006

Ascension of the Lord - Who's In Charge?

I suspect that one of the most difficult things most of us have to do sometime during out life is to leave home. That may sound odd because many young people can't wait to get out of the house and be on their own. The reality, of course, is that many young people, young adults, never leave home, or at least they keep coming back home, whether temporarily or for longer periods of time. It's all about economics, of course: It's cheaper to live at home than to rent an apartment or a condo. So, at least in some cases, parents need to say, "you're old enough to cook for yourself. Get our there, get a job, show some responsibility for yourself." That gets embarrassing for you, of course, when you are at age 35, for instance.

Emotionally, however, most of us do go through a period of separation, a moment when we have to admit that we can probably handle life on our own, but there is always a sense of anxiety, a moment when we have to look back and say: "That's the end of that part of my life." That's not an easy thing to say even though we may have had no difficulty making decisions about life all the way from our high school days.

The point is, changes in life are never easy, particularly if we do not yet have a clear sense of what is ahead for us or if we do not know if we have the skills and insights to carry on by ourselves.
It occurs to me to say that people in the military have a slightly easier time of it. When you enlist in the Army, Navy or Air Force, you know automatically that your fife will be outlined for you: Your training, your schedule, your living arrangements, your advancement in grade, et cetera. That's a better feeling, of course, than simply striking out on your own, wondering if you can handle life by yourself.

I can remember leaving home for good back in 1945, only weeks after having graduated from high school. Like other young men my age, I couldn't wait to get out of the house, but when the time came for my father to take me to the train station and to be off for basic training in far off Texas, I shed a few tears. Fortunately, if the Army had not made the decision for me when and where to appear for training, I might have thought twice about it. Leaving home for good is a decision that goes to the heart. We may appear brave on the surface, but down deep we have our apprehensions because we are not simply leaving a place, a house, a neighborhood, friends at home, but we are making a life decision that we can never turn around. The past will be past and that's it. A whole new way of life lies ahead of us and we need to embrace it whether we feel ready for it or not.
In my own case, I don't even remember praying for courage. The most difficult thing was to know that I was separating from my family and that our family would never be the same again.

All that I have been describing, of course, happens every day in someone's life and most people get through it just fine. But that doesn't mean that it was not a difficult emotional experience.
It often occurs to me to ask how Jesus must have felt when he decided to leave home and strike out on his own for the first time. (This excludes the time he decided to stay at the temple when his parents left Jerusalem without him.) After all, there is quite a difference between sawing boards and deciding to go out preaching the Kingdom of God. I often also wonder how Joseph and Mary felt when Jesus said one day: "Folks, I'm off to preach the Kingdom of God." They probably said, "what does that mean? You're going to do what? Come on, go out and get a real job!"

All humor aside, that is a good question because Jesus did, in fact, need to leave home at some point even though the gospels say nothing about it.

We do, however, have a little more historical evidence of Jesus' final leave-taking, not from home but from the little community that he had assembled over the past 2 or 3 years. The gospels tell us that Jesus spent 40 days with that community after his resurrection. Then the text says he was lifted up and disappeared from their sight. But just before disappearing he said something to them that tells us about his feelings at this point: He says: "Go out to teach and baptize and remember I will be with you all days until the end of the world. Now, we know for a fact that Jesus did finally leave this earth but you also get the sense that he wanted to stay, because his work was not finished. So, he tells his friends, the apostles, that they would need to finish it up and that he would still be there in spirit to support and strengthen them.

What that tells me is that Jesus did, in fact, not totally leave home, leave this earth, because the work wasn't over; it was simply put into different hands.

I think what we can gather from all this is that Jesus is still with his church whenever preaching and baptizing are done in this world. There are a lot of other things that are also done in our contemporary church, but all of them somehow are linked to preaching and baptizing, that is, to evangelization, spreading the good news of Jesus.

The important thing to remember about evangelization is that it is not merely a clerical task of bishops, priests and religious. All of us, clergy and laity, are empowered to spread Christ's word in the world. As a matter of fact, lay people are often better equipped to communicate Christ to other lay people than bishops and priests are.
It kind of surprises a person that Jesus should have left the work of his church to all of us, but he must have said: "Well,[ can't hang around here on earth forever, and I can't let this great work of God's kingdom just fall apart. So, I'm going to hand it on to others with the promise that I will still be around to support them."
I have a hunch that is the reason why the Church is still around after all these years. It means that we Christians have taken our job of evangelization seriously So, Jesus did not need to worry about leaving his home here on earth. He made sure that he had the "bases covered" before he left. All of us, of course, must some day part this earth and return to the Father, but if we have done our part to carry on the work of Jesus, our little task, then we can be sure that there will always be a church, even to the ends of the earth, as Jesus promised.

The Scriptures: Acts of the Apostles 1: 1-11, Ephesians 1: 17-23, Mark 16: 15-20

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 12:22 PM.

May 21, 2006

Sixth Sunday of Easter - Not To Choose Is To Choose

There are probably few things in our life that are more important to us than choosing and being chosen. Let's take the passive part of that assumption first: Being chosen. As youngsters in grade school or high school being chosen means everything. We imagine that our entire character, our individuality depends on it. To be passed over is no small matter Even as little kids it's important that we not get left out: In pick up ball games the worst embarrassment is to be left on the sidelines or to be the last and the least chosen to play a part in the game. That tells us something about the way we think about ourselves, it also says something about how we think people think of us. It is never a good thing. In high school, of course, there is always a lot of competition: Being chosen for the varsity team, being chosen as homecoming king or queen, being chosen to attend the best university in the country. That always makes us and our parents feel good.

Even in our adult years it is important that we be recognized for our work, our dedication. We like to "move up the ladder" and know that our efforts are appreciated

As people retire after many years of work it is good for them to know that they have meant something to the company they have worked for, that they receive the gold watch or whatever in recognition.

In short, throughout our life, we live on our identity, we guard and build our character. We want to be somebody and do something worthwhile. The worst thing that can happen to us is to have lived and never to have been known for anything worthwhile, never to have been chosen or recognized.

On the other hand, of course, there is the other side of the coin, the choices we make in life. We have all heard the phrase: "Not to choose is to choose." If we make no choices in life, choices will be made for us and that's not good.

Most of us make choices every day, of course, and probably do not even realize that we are doing it. But every choice we do make somehow affects the whole fabric of our life. In some cases a choice we have made or which has been made for us earlier in life sets us on a track that lasts a lifetime.

I think of my own life, for instance: When I was ready to attend high school, my mother decided that I should attend a local Catholic school rather than the public school which was closer by. I was devastated by that decision because I wanted to attend the school my classmates were planning to attend.

Looking back on that decision of my mother, however, I would have to say that it was probably the most wise decision she ever made (she probably did not realize it a the time, of course) In the process of attending a Catholic school I met priests and sisters, I became involved in doing "Catholic things," and somehow just absorbing Catholic culture. As 1 look back on all that today, I am sure l would not have thought of a vocation to the priesthood had I attended the local public school. It would not have entered my mind. It was just being in Catholic milieu that made all the difference. So, in this instance someone, my mother, made the choice for me, but it was the right one and one that has brought me to the place where I am still today.

Lay men and women also make choices every day in their lives. Perhaps the most important one is the choice to marry this particular person for life. Sometimes choices for marriage seem almost arbitrary, accidental: The right person just seems to be there at the right time. But perhaps that is all about grace.

Of course, we also have to admit that sometimes the choices we make are not in our best interests. Life is messy! But, again, not to choose is to choose. We have to trust our intuition even though it sometimes seems risky.

This leads us to a couple lines in the gospel for this Sixth Sunday in Easter season. Jesus makes the famous statement to several of his friends: "You have not chosen me, I have chosen you to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will last." It seems evident that Jesus did deliberately make some choices about the people he wanted to have join him on the great adventure of preaching the Kingdom of God. Whether they actually knew what they were getting into is another question, but we know that some did follow Jesus: Peter, Andrew, James, John and others. Had they decided that their secular careers were too important to them, that fishing was their first love, one wonders what would have happened? Would Jesus have chosen some other people? Would we have the church today that we do have if things had gone differently, if Jesus had chosen different people? It kind of scares you even to think about that. Nonetheless, Christian history was set in motion when some ordinary individuals decided that they would trust their instincts and follow Jesus. Of course, it could have been entirely different too. It just seems as though when choices are made life begins moving in a particular direction and we will never know how it could have been if other choices had been made. All of which brings us to ask the question about Jesus' choices: He did make them, of course. We know, for instance, that when he began thinking about his future career after his baptism by John in the Jordan river, he went out into the desert to think things over. He spent 40 days and 40 nights reflecting on the famous call that he heard when John baptized him, when he heard that strange voice out of the heavens saying: "You are my Son, the Beloved. My favor rests on you." Jesus must surely have interpreted that as a call to do something special because we know that he did eventually follow that call, that choice and began preaching God's kingdom.

It may sound like a strange assumption, but it is interesting to wonder what would have happened if Jesus had not chosen to do what he did, if he had decided to follow the career of his father, a carpenter. We know, for instance, that his family, his mother, thought he was crazy to take the chances he did with his preaching and disturb the peace of the state and the temple. But he went ahead, as we know, and his choice ultimately led him to the hill called Calvary where he was crucified. Sometimes choices take us into strange and dangerous places, but what other choice do we have. Not to choose is to choose.

So, what is the lesson in all this? Simply to realize that we too are called to make choices not just once in life, but day after day. Some of our choices may be enlightened, others may be poor, but we must trust the insights and the gifts that God gives us and do something good in this world. Just drifting and floating is not a good choice. We need to stand for something, like Jesus did. One thing for sure, the world will be the better for it and our hearts will be at rest.

The scriptures: Acts 10: 25-26, 34-35, 44-48 1 John 4: 7-10, John 15:9-17

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 02:27 PM.

May 14, 2006

Fifth Sunday of Easter - Progress Report

I have had a lovely little plant sitting near my living room window for at least the last five years. I don't even know the name of it, but I do know that it grows pretty much without my supervision. Thank God for that! A while back, however, it just seemed to be spreading out all over the place, so I decided to cut it back a little. Wouldn't you know it, within a couple weeks the ends of the branches I cut off began to produce more shoots. No luck! So, I just gave up. I said to myself, "plants seem to do what they are created to do and I'm just getting in the way. So, I'll just let it grow and it will probably do fine without me." And it has.

But people who know anything about plant life and plant growth will tell you that a little tender care will make things grow even better than they do on their own.

Culling or cutting is an ancient art or craft. Farmers have found that they can help the process of making plants grow by cutting them back and in the process they turn out to grow even better on their own. Don't ask me what the chemical process is all about. I'm a small-time farmer at best.

But, as in all practical human endeavors, there is always some meaning in things beyond what we already know from casual observation. So often we will say, "That reminds me of something."

I notice that it turns out so often in the gospel that Jesus was a very astute observer of ordinary things and events around him. He often found meaning in those experiences even though they may not have been very important to others.

Wine-growing and vineyard production has been a main source of work, and pleasure in many parts of the world for centuries. Vineyards are referred to back as far as the Book of Genesis. "Noah, a tiller of the soil, was the first to plant the vine." We also know, of course, that Noah also imbibed a bit too freely of the fruit of the vine and became inebriated. Not the first or the last time for this to happen, of course.

By the time of Jesus, therefore, wine growing and vineyard work was a normal daily routine. In order to make the vines grow and produce good wine, there was the need to cut them back each year. The meaning of this process may have escaped the ordinary citizen, but not Jesus. He saw something in the growing of vines and vineyards that reminded him of his relationship to the little flock that had decided to follow him. Their relationship to him was very important, obviously. He depended on them for support and they on him as well. So, he simply tried to make it clear to them that they were all very much part of him of his great vision and of one another, like vines and branches are part of the vine I'm sure the disciples must have picked up on that immediately, having walked along the lanes where grape vines were growing and seeing farmers out with their cutting tools, culling back the branches.

Now, the point that always arises when we read the gospels is this: That's all very fine, of course, but how does it all fit today? How should we interpret all this in terms of how we understand ourselves as Christians in our age? How does it help us to understand our sense of Church today? Jesus, obviously, was not simply talking to the people of his own day. That would make no sense. So, that puts the question into our own laps. We, as Christians, need to ask, if Christ is the vine and we are the branches, what does that mean? How are we part of Christ? What does it mean to be "attached" to Christ?

The better question is, what does it mean to be part of this church, not simply the Mystical Body of Christ, but this little community I belong to, the only church I really know anything about? I think what it means in part is for to keep asking in every age, how can the church, even the little community we call our parish church, how can that community say that it is joined to Christ? Is it doing the things that Christ did? Does it have the mind of Christ? That, it seems to me, is the best way of evaluating ourselves and asking whether we are an effective Church or not.

If Jesus were to ask our church for a little "progress report", what would we say? Would we be able to say, "We’re still connected." We still are trying to do what we can to do the things you did in our own little ways. We are still trying to pay attention to folks who come to us looking for compassion and understanding, maybe for food and support too. That's what you did, isn't it Jesus? We are also trying to pay special attention to our 'little ones because they were special to you. In short, we are just trying to be your presence in the world because we are the only link between you and the world we live in each day." I think that's what we should be able to say if Jesus is the vine of which we are the branches, that is, if we truly believe that we are members of the Body of Christ.

Another question Jesus might ask us if he were doing a little "Progress Report" on us would be the question, "If you Christians consider yourselves branches of one vine, how are you getting along with each other? Is there unity among yourselves? Are you all supporting each other? I think Jesus could validly ask that sort of question and we might not always have a favorable answer because so often there are differences between us. So often in the past we have gotten into our little private enclaves of liberals and conservatives, liturgists vs. justice advocates and other little private "special interest groups."

My hunch is that Jesus, were he with us today, would be a bit depressed over the ways we so often disagree with each other and, indeed, even find unkind things to say about the positions others take on various issues.

Over all, that does not seem to fit the metaphor of the vine and the branches or Jesus' hope that we should all try to be one. If we are not bearing much fruit, as Jesus seems to suggest we should, then perhaps we need to ask, where's the progress? Is Jesus' great hope for the church in the world coming to anything?

We are also doing many good things, of course, individually and as a Church, but an occasional "evaluation" or "progress report" is always good for us. Jesus had great hope for us and he is obviously still with us. We can't very well get along without the vine, can we? Vine and branches is great metaphor even though we may know nothing about farming or the advantages of cutting branches. We have to learn to think beyond all that and get to the heart of what it means to be Church.

The scriptures: Acts 9: 26-31, 1 John 3: 18-24, John 15: 1-8

Posted by Cindy Lentine at 02:24 PM.