November 19, 2006

The Thirty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Not Over Until It's Over

I am often a bit amused at the number of books and articles that continue to be written about the imminent coming of the end of the world. Each time some geographical catastrophe occurs, someone, usually preachers who read the Apocalypse of John literally, will tell you that the end of the world is near. Of course, when the deadline has passed and the end has not yet appeared, one must wonder what happened? Is God late in coming or was the author simply wrong again for the umpteenth time? Interestingly, one never hears anything further from such preachers or writers once the crisis has passed.

In all fairness to such predictors of dire things, however, we must say that lots of people, perhaps even we ourselves, are concerned about human catastrophes and what they mean. Do they really forecast the end of all things and the coming of Jesus at the end of the age, or is it simply a matter of reading mistaken ideas to natural events?

People normally seem to ask questions about the end of the world because the world and, indeed, even the universe itself seems to be such a tenuous, mysterious and unpredictable creation. Something always seems to be going wrong, or at least contrary to our best human interests: Earthquakes, floods, storms, fires, hurricanes, all sorts of things over which we seemingly have little control. All this in addition to the chaos that scientists claim happened in outer space at the time of the Big Bang.

Is the world, the universe, really such a chaotic creation? Did God create it like that deliberately? Is it something God "sends" or even over which God seems to have no control? These are questions most reflective people have asked over the centuries. At any rate, we continue to ask the questions and wonder about it all.

Biblical authors have also been doing that for many centuries. In our first reading for this Thirty Third Sunday in the Church year, for instance, we are presented with two apocalyptic writers, Daniel, who we are told, wrote around the 2" Century (BCE) and, secondly, the author of the Gospel of Mark which was the first of the four gospel written world, after which the Son of Man (the Christ) will return once more, presumably to bring order out of chaos and hope to the world.

Many scripture scholars are of the opinion that neither of these pieces of writing are "predictions." The authors are writing about present circumstances in their communities. In Daniel's age, for instance, the Jews were struggling to retain their faith in the midst of a spread of Greek culture and customs. Their Jewish world was becoming increasingly more dangerous and chaotic; they were literally dying for their faith, either intellectually or even physically. Hence, Daniel tells is fellow citizens to "hang on": "many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth," he says, "will awake; some will live forever. So, the gist of that reading is that there will be hope after the holocaust.

It is the conviction of scripture scholars that the community for which Mark wrote was also experiencing chaos and attack. They were suffering harsh repression under the Roman emperor Nero. But, as with Daniel, Mark is not being predictive. He is not concerned about spectacular events that may happen in the future. Rather, he wishes to stir up a moral or ethical response in his hearers for the present. He is more concerned about down to earth matters. Rather than scan the horizon for heavenly signs, he asks his people to look over the earthly scene and find ways to make their world a place of peace and good order.

In short, apocalyptic literature is not about the future. It may sound like that but in reality it is about the way things are here and now and what we should be doing about it here and now. After all, it is always easier to deal with the present that we know than with the future that we do not know!

Oddly enough, it would seem that by reading apocalyptic literature there is little we can do about the future. Everything that happens in the course of world events seems to already be preordained.

The fact is, however, many of the catastrophes that consistently occur in our world are man-made. We bring much of the world's chaos upon ourselves: Think about the thousands of people, American and Iraqi who have been killed in this present war, the war in Afghanistan as well. Think about the situation in the Darfur region of Africa where thousands are dying of hunger and thirst. Think about the AIDS epidemic that is the scourge of countries around the world. Think about the violence and killing that has occurred recently in our schools in the United States. Think about the marginal standard of living in many Third Word countries because First World countries cannot decide upon a policy for a just balance of trade. In our own country as well: Think about the millions of people who are without health insurance; drug and alcoholic rehab centers close because of a lack of funding; military budgets eat up money that could be used for the building of schools or low-cost housing.

These are issues that we all could address and do something about. In other words, there is always hope if we look for the signs of the times and are willing to stop the spread of the chaos we ourselves are responsible for.

So, my sense is that we could be spending our time more usefully improving present conditions rather than worrying about future events that have not yet happened. I leave the mystery of the future to God. There is more than enough to do here on earth at the moment and, as far as we know, there is still enough time to get it done.

The scriptures: Daniel 12: 1-3, Hebrews 10: 11-14, 18 Mark 13: 24-32

Posted by Julie Galligan at 10:19 AM.

November 11, 2006

The Thirty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time - In Praise of Widows

It has often occurred to me as I look back on my life in pastoral work that there have been a small but significant number of people who have left an indelible image on my consciousness, many whose names I have forgotten, but whose faith still astonishes and, indeed, shames me.

I remember, for instance, the man who came to church with his wife and two sons and who appeared to have just come from the car repair shop. I never saw him dressed in any other way than in his greasy coveralls and hard-toed work shoes. I only discovered later that he and his family did live on a rather modest budget, but that they also worked at least one day each week at the local soup kitchen. I have since discovered that he and his wife are both now living in Central America and have dedicated their lives to the economic development of the people of that country.

I remember too the single lady, mother of three youngsters who was living on a limited income while putting her kids through school. Despite the economic conditions of her family, she insisted on contributing a tenth of her income to the parish as her stewardship. She confided in me at one point that this was her way of showing her faith that God would take care of them, and, indeed God did. For a number of years now, she has held a responsible and well-paying job and her kids have all graduated from college.

And finally, I recall the many occasions (the First Fridays) when I would visit the home bound parishioners of our parish with Holy Communion. Although they lived on fixed incomes and had little more than their Social Security to keep them going from month to month, they always insisted on giving me five dollars in an envelope as I left. "It's for God and the church," they would say. I'm sure that they could ill-afford it, but it was a clear demonstration of their faith.

It sometimes shames me to think that I have never been in a situation in my entire life where I needed to live with such limited resources. Living in a religious community, even with the vow of poverty, does not compare with the life of the folks I just mentioned.
I cite the example of those three people because they demonstrate to me so clearly that there are Christian people in the world whose faith in God and their love for their church far exceeds any fear they may have about being able to satisfy their worldly needs for food, clothing and shelter, et cetera.

These, then, are examples of people whom the scriptures for this Sunday's liturgy describe as "the widows of the world."
The first reading from the Book of Kings describes the situation of a widowed mother and her son who lived in the little village of Zarephath during one of the frequent periods of drought in the Middle East. One day the famous prophet Elijah comes wandering in looking for shelter and a bite of food. "Sony, sir," she says, "we're down to the last bit of flour and oil and we're keeping that so we don't starve." So, Elijah replies: "Hey, don't worry, things will get better with next rain, make me a pancake at least. God will take care of us." The text doesn't tell us whether things got better or not, but she decided to use the last of the flour and oil to make a pancake for the prophet.

Of course, you heard the outcome. The widow was able to live for a year on the remaining oil and flour.

Whether the event actually happened exactly as it is described we don't know, but the lesson is clear: The poor who live on the edge of daily existence are often an example to others who seldom need to worry about where the next meal is coming from.

The gospel story about the widow who put her last few shekels into the temple treasury always makes me a little nervous about the way church officials (I have been one of them) distribute and use of the church's funds. You noticed, I'm sure, Jesus' comment about temple officials who parade around in ostentatious robes, all the while devouring the earnings of the most vulnerable, that is, the widows of the community.

In comparison, of course, the widow is presented as the winner: She is praised for being willing to put her "last two cents" in the collection box.

Both those two examples bring up two interesting questions: The first, who are our widows in the world today? And, second, could our churches be asking some questions about their priorities in the ways they spend the congregation's funds? Actually, both questions are about Christian justice.

Who then are the widows in our midst, the ones who disturb the social peace of civil society and the Church'? In Israelite culture the word for widows was Almanah, the silent, the forgotten or the powerless ones. Who are they in our age? Surely, single mothers trying to hold down two jobs to support her kids without the support of the husband who is now long gone. It could also be the battered wives and girl friends. It could also be seniors and minorities in general who fall through the cracks of the social security system. It could even be young runaways who are trying to make it on the streets.

The point the two scriptures bring up is not the question, what is the Red Cross, Catholic Social Services, the Salvation Army or even UNESCO doing about this, but what are the churches thinking and doing about it? Remember, both stories are about faith in God. So, this is not simply a civil or social question, but a religious question. It's a question about how we Christians, we "church-going" people take care of the widows of our world.

If the answer is, "well, it's too big a problem for me to handle," then there is still the question, how does the situation of the "forgotten ones" of the world make me feel? If we have to say, "Well, a little uneasy, a little embarrassed," then perhaps the widow who lived in Zarephath and the widow in the temple digging into her purse for her last two cents have had the last word. The silent ones of the world always seem to have a way of embarrassing us that way.

The scriptures: 1 Kings 17: 10-16, Hebrews 9: 24-28, Mark 12: 38-44

Posted by Julie Galligan at 11:18 AM.

November 05, 2006

Thirty First Sunday in Ordinary Time - By Heart

It occurred to me the other day that I don't think very much about the Ten Commandments any more. I hope that does not mean that I'm any more the sinner for all that, but for some reason the Commandments have not played as much a part in my adult life as, say, when I was a youngster in religion "class."

I must confess that as a youngster I was not very adept at memorizing anything. Even in college when I needed to memorize some lines from Shakespeare's sonnets, I had a problem

But knowing the Ten Commandments by heart was serious business in those days. I suspect that the "good" sisters felt that if we memorized them we would automatically keep them. How I wish that had been true.

At the same time, I think that there was a certain amount of fear involved, the fear that if I did not have them memorized by the end of the catechism period, I would "flunk" religion. Now, I mean, who wants to flunk God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost and all the rest. That would be almost like "going to hell."

But in these days of my adult life, I don't think much about those Commandments that Moses was given on Mt. Sinai so many centuries ago. It is interesting, by the way, that holy laws are always given on high places, places closer to God!

But in these more recent times in my life I still don't think much about them any more.

But that does not mean, I hope, that I, like most people, do not keep them any the less because we have "graduated" out of religion class.

Here is what I think happens as we grow into adulthood: I think we simply ask ourselves at the end of a typical day, or at various times, whether there is anything that disturbs the peace of our conscience. Occasionally that may coincide with some commandment, but more often, I think, it's just a matter of our intuition, the consciousness that we have indeed done something contrary to our best instincts and, hence, we make our peace with our God. Part of the reason why I say that is because I cannot remember the last time anyone in confession ran down the list of the Commandments when they listed their sins. That does not mean they were being insincere in celebrating the sacrament. It just means that they knew by human nature what bothered them and whatever it was, it probably compared to one or other of the commandments.

The reason I am saying this is because the Commandments are all part of what we call the natural law, the law of human nature. There is a certain human power in all of us to know the difference between right and wrong. Indeed, the Israelites took many of their laws, the Commandments, from the famous Code of Hammurabi, ruler of Babylon,
centuries before Moses' time.

Now, given all this, you probably noticed in the first and third readings in today's liturgy a stress on "keeping" the commandments. The Jewish people were very strict about this: Indeed, the rabbis would wear little boxes containing the sacred words around their forehead or on their wrists as reminders so they would not forget to keep them. Whether that helped them actually "keep" the law is another matter.

I think there is actually one part of the Great Commandment that we need not memorize because it is so absolutely clear and that's the part about "loving your neighbor as yourself." When you think about it, every Commandment has something to do with neighbor, with "the other." Commandments are not simply abstract ideas; they are all flesh and blood statements. That's why Jesus could be so insistent on "loving neighbor." I doubt whether any of us ever decide to sin against God, but we surely do some sinning against our neighbor, whether that person is wife or husband, co-worker, our children, the neighbor next door or the person whose name we do not even know. Remember that famous conversation Jesus had with the scribe who asked him who the neighbor was? Jesus told him he story of the Good Samaritan, the man Jews over the years had learned to despise.

Well, what all this comes down to, I think, is this: If the "good" sisters back in religion class had pressured me a little to think about who my neighbor was rather than insisting on memorizing words like covet and adultery and such things which I did not even understand, I think I might not have been so afraid of "flunking religion."

Ultimately what I think we are all invited to do in our daily life is to put flesh and blood on abstract words. There is no way we can escape from our neighbor. They are always next door to us, reminding us of what is right and what is wrong.

The scriptures: Deuteronomy 6:2-6, Hebrews 7: 23-28, Mark 12: 28b-34

Posted by Julie Galligan at 01:16 PM.

October 29, 2006

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Walking in the Other Person's Shoes

I think most of us have heard the well-known quote which I think comes from Black Elk, the Native American Indian philosopher, and which goes like this: You cannot truly know another person unless you have walked in his (her) moccasins. I hope I have that quote close to correct!) Anyway, correct or not, I think it is true, whether it's moccasins, shoes, sandals or flip-flops we're talking about, it's still true.

Actually, as you may have already surmised, we're not talking here precisely about shoes, but about identifying with another person, the whole person and not someone's feet.

When you think about that, about identifying with another person, it is really very difficult. You obviously can't get into another person's skin. So, identification ends up being a mental process, an imaginary pursuit, a matter of asking one's self, for instance, the question "I wonder what it's like being a little kid again? I wonder what it's like not having the use of one's arms or legs as so many of the veterans from the Iraq war do not, or I wonder what it must be like not being able to see?" These are questions, obviously being asked by someone who does have all these faculties.

These are also questions which came to mind last July when so many men and women who are physically handicapped came to Anchorage, all riding their nice little electric cars and getting along just fine. I asked myself then, "what does it mean or how does it feel not to have the use of one's limbs?" Again, one does not know how it feels, but it is important nonetheless to ask the question for many reasons.

First of all, the reason I even bring up this subject in a homily is because of the lovely little story in today's gospel about Mr. and Mrs. Timaeus' son, who was blind (his own name is not given). He is sitting along the road begging; he obviously has no other source of income; perhaps his parents were dead or they had little income themselves. At any rate, here he is sitting in the dirt along side the road begging when Jesus happens along. Hearing that Jesus of Nazareth, the healer, was passing by, he yelled out "Son of David have pity on me." You know the rest of the story: People standing around got a little irked at him for bothering the Rabbi and so they say to him, "Why don't you just shut up? But that didn't stop Bartimaeus. He did not "shut up", indeed he yelled out the louder until Jesus finally asked him what he wanted. "I want to see," the man said. (What else could a blind man say in those circumstances?) So, Jesus simply said, "go your way, your faith has healed you." Because you wouldn't let the crowd silence you, you are healed. He was healed. We'll never know what he did after that, but I'm sure he will remember what it was like to be blind.

There are lots of implications, as usual, in that short story and I have more questions than answers. But the questions are very revealing in themselves. There are also lots of similarities to life in our own day.

First of all, obviously, the man was handicapped, and as a result he probably got into other peoples' way occasionally. He may even have embarrassed them by making friends with Jesus the healer, the worker of signs.

I can remember a day in our own American history when handicapped people were a bother to the rest of the populace, insisting on approaches to the sidewalk so they could manage their wheel chairs. They yelled loudly like Bartimaeus, until they got what they wanted, so too bathroom facilities, doors that they could manage and many other common necessities. But it was not until they yelled some more that the Federal Government finally passed the Americans With Disabilities Act. Obviously, the reason why it took so long was because those who had no disabilities could not understand why this was so important. They did not place themselves in the other person's shoes.

Finally, all this leaves me with some questions (few answers). For instance, could it be true that when we say, "I know how you feel," that we really do not know how the other person feels? Do we even know how we ourselves often feel about something?

Could it be true that we are sometimes a little impatient (irked) when we need to wait a little longer for a person in a wheelchair make his or her way through the checkout counter?

Could it be true that we often see the world around us purely from our own perspective, and not from the other person's?

Could it be true that we sometimes think of handicapped people as being different from "the rest of us?" Are they really so different?

Is it not true to say that we are all a little handicapped (perhaps very handicapped without admitting it?) There are obviously few of us who are perfect human specimens, physically, mentally, psychologically or spiritually? So, in the last analysis, perhaps being handicapped is a relative term.

I have no answers to all these questions except to say that life in this world could be a happier situation if occasionally we tried to see life around us through the mind and heart of others. It might happen that we would find ourselves looking in a minor and saying, "Hey, that person doesn't seem that much different from me! What a discovery that would be!

The scriptures: Jeremiah 21: 7-9, Hebrews 5: 1-6, Mark 10: 46-52

Posted by Julie Galligan at 10:41 AM.

October 22, 2006

Twenty Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Being Number One

There was a time in our seminary training for the priesthood when our superiors thought it rather important that we learn something about humility "because." they said, "being humble was a very important part of our life as future as priests."

I can still remember two incidents from those days which I do not think made me any more humble but at least they taught me something about being a servant.

The first was a tradition or a task which all seminarians needed to do at some point in their religious life, namely, serving at table. At the end of our novitiate year, in the heat of August, on our return to the seminary to the Notre Dame campus we were all assigned to serve table at a huge men's retreat. (I think it saved the Holy Cross community considerable money!) At any rate, we served at table in our wool cassocks in the 90-degree heat for a period of three days. We could not wait for all this to end, of course, but the Catholic men making the retreat thought we were all being very pious, keeping silence, doing our work of service. A few men even fried to pay us for our sweat!

The other incident happened at my graduation from Notre Dame. Our class of seminarians was elected to serve at the graduation Mass in the Notre Dame Stadium, again in the heat of Indiana summer. Somehow, I was chosen to serve as the archbishop's trainbearer, the one who held up the long trailing vestment so it would not become grass-stained as he walked in procession into the stadium. Even then, I said to myself, "this has to look pretty stupid to all those folks up in the stands." Other seminarians may have thought it a privilege. I thought it was simply dumb.

But the fact that I can still remember those two incidents so vividly tells me something about humility and service. Actually, I have been humbled in other ways and many times since then, but mostly because I deserved to be humbled. I may be a slow learner.

I suppose humility and service go hand in hand because most of us end up having to do a lot of things in life that we might not choose to do but they are important to someone's life and on many occasions we do not have the freedom or the opportunity to ask why this is important. We just do it because it is the Christian and the human thing to do.

I am mentioning all this because the gospel which is assigned for this Sunday relates an interesting incident about two of Jesus' close associates, up and coming politicians, who thought that he (Jesus) would some day become a very important person in government, the military or even religion. So, they "made their move" early on demanding of Jesus that they (his special friends) be accorded the privilege of sitting at left and right hand in his kingdom, just like all those other civil servants did in King Herod's court.

Jesus surprises them by letting them know that this would be a possibility as long as they would be ready to "take the heat", the persecution and possible death in the process. Then Jesus went on to give them a little lesson in humility and service. In so many words, he told them, “In my kingdom we don't operate like the kings of the world operate. If you want a place in my kingdom, you need to learn how to serve people. If you want to be a `big shot', learn first how to start on the bottom of the hierarchy."

I'm sure that did not go down well with those two aspiring politicians, at least not at the time, because they had an entirely different sense of service. They only learned the real meaning of humility and service later in their careers when Jesus time of persecution came.

But let me then give you an example of a modern-day humble church-servant, who actually died only a few years ago, Bishop Kenneth Untener of Saginaw, Michigan. All the while he was bishop; he lived in mobile home which he used every week to visit all the parishes of the diocese. If there was a social event connected with the trip, he never used his position to sit at the head table. He insisted on sitting with the folks, so he could get to know them better. If he were asked to "say a few words" he would begin by saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ken Untener and I will be your waiter this evening.

This may sound a bit odd for a bishop (you don't often hear it said publicly), but he was truly sincere in using those words because he believed that a bishop should, indeed, be a trusted servant. In fact, he always made the point that it was not only bishops who were supposed to be servants. This was to be a model for the whole Church, all Christians. If the Church is anything, it is to be a servant community. "If we are Catholic Christians," he would say, "we have an obligation to our brothers and sisters whether they are Catholic or not. People should recognize Jesus the servant in us." It's simple as that.

If what Ken Untener said is true, and I believe it is, then perhaps we still have more to learn about how to be Church together. Unfortunately for us, we often think being Catholic means taking care of our own personal life and letting everyone else take care of theirs. But if Catholic means anything, it means being universal, all of us together, doing the Lord's service. It's not an easy thing to learn, of course, because we have such a long history of personal, individual piety.

I have to tell you that I am still learning humility and service every day, despite the fact that once I served meals at a men's retreat in a sweaty cassock and carried an archbishop's train in a liturgical procession. Perhaps humility and service are hard things to learn or maybe they are sort of contrary to our human nature. Whatever it is though, we have to keep learning it, at least if we want sit on Jesus left and right hand in his kingdom. This is not about politics, you see!

The scriptures: Wisdom 7: 7-11, Hebrews 4: 12-13, Mark 10: 17-30

Posted by Julie Galligan at 03:36 PM.

October 15, 2006

Twenty Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Treasures

From time to time (actually pretty often) I have twinges of concern over the stuff I have or own. I don't actually have a lot of stuff, and it's not exactly a feeling of guilt I have in my own regard, but rather a question about the great gulf between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have nots in this vast world of ours. It's really a great dilemma for me when I sit down to my dinner over a nice salad, a salmon steak and vegetables and reflect on the fact that some little kids in Darfur have nothing more to eat than a dish of barley soup, if that. This realization doesn't make the food taste any better, that's for sure. And yet, there is always the great dilemma of knowing what one should do. The problem is so vast that even governmental agencies are unable to solve it. Perhaps, in the end, it comes down to a matter of being able to live with ourselves with a sense of peace with what we do have.

Obviously, this is not a problem which I alone face. Most people in the world have something; some have more and some have less, but we all face and live with the fact that a great disparity does exist in the world. Perhaps the solution is being able to have things without allowing them to be the reason for our life and existence. In other words, the issue is not allowing these things and possessions to "own" us. I should think that this is concern that causes us some conscience problems.

If the scriptures for this Sunday's liturgy are any evidence, this is not a problem unique to our own age. Indeed, there are two words; two ideas in those scriptures that can help us gain some insight about all this. The words are wisdom and eternal life. The author of the Book of Wisdom, our first reading, says that he prayed and prudence was given to him. He pleaded and a spirit of wisdom came to him. In comparison, he says, riches mean nothing to him, gold and priceless gems are as sand. Knowing the difference and living with the difference for him was wisdom. He was aware, obviously, that material things could be lost in a moment, but wisdom was everlasting, perhaps even everlasting life.

The same question about material possessions comes up again in the gospel. It is the well-known story of the young man who comes to Jesus, the teacher, the wise sage, the rabbi, and asks him how he can obtain everlasting life. This question is of great concern to him, he says, because he has vast possessions and he is probably worrying about how he can obtain everlasting life and still retain these possessions. Perhaps he was also asking the question because he felt that he could not possess both at the same time.

That may also be a question we in the Twenty First Century need deal with. How can we be rich and still get to heaven? None of us would like to believe that having earthly possessions would make eternal life impossible for us. Again, everyone in this world needs something to exist on, small or insignificant as it might be.

Getting back to the rich young man as a metaphor for us all, we who have or own things in this life. Perhaps what the rich young man was asking Jesus was not "how do I get to heaven (eternal life), but rather, is there anything more to life than this...these things, this money, or whatever?" Or even a better question: "Does life itself have any meaning? If I must some day die how can I satisfy my desire to live, live fully, at peace, not in the next world (whatever that might mean) but rather in this world, here and now?

So, you see, it is the wisdom question we talked about a moment ago, the question of what is really important in life, what really counts and how we live with that?

There are actually a lot of things in our life that make this question one we need to ask. Things such as our concern over wealth, power, privilege, family, status, security, appearances, consumption, domination, competition and a host of other things, do any of these help us appreciate life in its deepest and fullest meaning? Could we get along without them and still find peace? Or could they short-circuit our need even to ask the question of eternal life?

Perhaps in the end it is not a question of what we have but how we feel about what we have. Do we own them or do they own us? If they own us, then eternal life ceases to be an issue at all. We already have everything we need now, and we don't need anything more. Of course, I hope that is not the case with most of us. (Maybe it is a question only for folks like Donald Trump or George Soros with their millions!)

So, again, like the situation of the rich young man, it's all about being brave enough to ask the right questions. If we do ask those questions, it is likely that we will find that everlasting life does not lie somewhere, some time in the future. It has actually already begun here and now. I would like to think that this answer might settle my anxiety about the stuff I have; we'll see.

The scriptures: Wisdom 11:7-11, Hebrews 4: 12-13, Mark 10: 17-30

Posted by Julie Galligan at 10:39 AM.

October 08, 2006

Twenty Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time - A Cure for Loneliness

I don't often frequent the city malls, but when I do, I notice, especially on weekends or holidays, that they are packed with young people, teenagers mostly. Observing the size of the packages they are carrying out of The Gap or Banana Republic, I assume that they have probably spent considerable cash.

But another thing I notice is that they hang together, arm in arm or arms around waists. (You know what I mean) It almost seems that they are afraid to be walking the malls alone, paying closer attention to the quality of the clothing they intend to purchase. (It's almost always clothing!)

You may well say, "What's so peculiar about that? Most people, adults and youngsters alike, hang out together in some form or grouping. We all gravitate toward others with whom we feel we have an affinity."

It has often occurred to me that this grouping is not simply a matter of finding company. I think it has something to do with our deep-seated (I think it is deep-seated) desire not to be caught up in loneliness or isolation. It seems as though we are afraid that if we have no one whom we can call friend or companion we will lose our way or not be able to say where we fit in this universe. The word "companion, by the way, means "the one I dine with.)

Despite this innate hunger for companionship, however, it does seem true that we all spend a great deal of our time in life being alone. Notice, for instance, the number of people on their way to work in the morning: Mostly, they are riding alone in their cars. Perhaps it is mostly a matter of convenience, but, nonetheless, they are alone. Or if you work in a large office complex, you and most of the other workers there are relegated to small cubicles. Again, it's a matter of convenience and privacy or space, but privacy is also aloneness. At any rate, we spend most of our day working alone, being alone. Sometimes it almost seems like a distraction when we need to communicate with others.

But to return to the young crowds at the malls and other places as well: What they are doing is a perfectly normal thing. It is a human habit we are born with and which we practice in some form or other during our entire life. Indeed, this trait is what we might call humankind's most fundamental need, namely the longing or desire to be with someone, not just occasionally at the malls but permanently, for our entire life: It is called marriage; it could also be called some form of intimate relationship. But whatever form it does take, it is a sign that we are human and normal and that our attraction to one another is God-given.

Our scriptures for this Twenty Seventh Sunday in the year seem to bear all this out because they speak of man and woman's innate human desire to "cling to one another." It's the well-known story of the creation of man and woman in the early chapters of the Book of Genesis. Whoever wrote the Book of Genesis surely knew something about human nature because it occurs to him that life in this world is incomplete without "the woman." Hence, the author immediately imagines that God needed to create a partner for Adam. So we have Eve, "the mother of all the living." And then the author adds an interesting insight: "That is why a man leaves his mother and father and clings to his wife and the two of them become one flesh."

It is interesting that he uses the word cling.

Why would a man cling to his wife? You might say, "Well, the woman is all he has to cling to. Without her, life would be utter loneliness."

So, we might say that this author is giving us his personal insight about the naturalness or the sacredness of marriage, or perhaps it is even something deeper than that. It is holy because God created the man and woman to cling to each other and that is what gives meaning to their lives. Without that relationship, who knows what life would be like?

Although the Genesis author does not say so, we could add that this is, indeed, why people marry: We look for someone who will fill up, complement, whatever is incomplete in us. In a sense, the author seems to say that we are not even fully and completely human by ourselves. We need another (an other) to make us more human than we already are. We might even add that we will never be happy or fulfilled unless we search for that other, that one who will ultimately satisfy our search for meaning.

Given all this from Genesis, it is interesting that Jesus referred to it when someone asked him one day about the matter of divorce. "Is it permissible for a person to divorce his (her) mate?" Jesus does not allow himself to be pulled into a trap, looking for another exception, another Legal option. He raises the question to a higher level: He asks, "What was it like in the beginning when God created man and woman? What it was like was that God created them one flesh, one spirit? You already know what it was like. They were created to be one.

Therefore, what God has joined together, let no human person set apart."

All this, according to Genesis and Jesus, is the ideal in human life: Man and woman join one another and when they do, they are no longer two, but one.

The author of Genesis and Jesus also insisted that this is the eternal human ideal, this oneness. But as we all know, despite our best and most honorable intentions and sincere efforts, some human relationships do not last. The human will is sincere, but often weak. Hence, it sometimes seems better that they separate so that they will be able to continue living with some semblance of peace. Nonetheless, the fundamental desire of people is that that they will be able to support one another for life. Separations are never easy; indeed, they often appear as a failure. Life is messy. It must truthfully be said at the same time that priests along with men and women who make vows in religious communities also find that the vows they made at an earlier time in their lives are also now unsustainable and so they ask that they be released from then so that they can pursue another way of life. Again, the best of human intentions sometimes cannot be fulfilled.

Despite all that, however, I think it is still true to 'say that all of us somehow desire to cling to one another because we are convinced that life without another person or persons will be a long loneliness. Clinging to one another is our salvation, our best and only choice. At any rate, until now, it seems that no better option has come along. I'm sure we are all happy to know that.

The scriptures: Genesis 2:18-24, Hebrews 2:1-11, Mark 10: 2-12

Posted by Julie Galligan at 11:37 AM.

October 01, 2006

Twenty Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Finding A Place

I imagine that there are many adults here in the assembly today who may wonder how they ever ended up doing what they are doing in their lives. How did this career or job ever become the one that you have been pursuing all these years? It is all a great mystery.

I suspect most of us when we were young imagined that we would be doing something totally different than what we are, in fact, doing today. In a sense, that is good because it tells us today that we had great hopes, great expectations, that we trusted our intuitions and our giftedness.

The problem, of course, is that we gradually found out that there wasn't room for us in this or that career or that when we examined it, it didn't fit with what we had in mind. We may even have said to ourselves: Why should I join this organization, I can already do what they do and do it better. I think that is true many times: We all know our own gifts; our talents and we would rather have the freedom to follow those instincts. We may have said to ourselves, there should be room for me to do what I feel best qualified to do. Why do I have to fit in some sort of box that someone else has constructed? There should be room for me in the world somewhere.

The problem, of course, is that we often find that we can't be individualists. There isn't room in the world for everyone who wants to "do his or her own thing."

With all that, I want to call attention to a situation mentioned in two of our readings for the liturgy today. It's the question of how we get to do what we love to do and are capable of doing when we find out that someone else is already doing that, someone else has already set up a plan or program to cover that field.

That was the situation described in the first reading from the Book of Numbers when two men in the Hebrew camp decided to begin preaching purely on their own, despite the fact that others were already responsible for that. One of Moses' trusted assistants brought this to his attention, assuming that Moses would put a stop to this business of "free expression." But Moses, in all his wisdom simply says: "Relax, don't worry about it. They are doing a good thing.

Wouldn't it be great if everyone could preach? Wouldn't it be nice if God inspired everyone to do this and not just the assigned preachers? In other words, Moses is saying that there ought to be room for everyone to find a place to do what he or she like to do, even if someone else is already doing it.

The same scenario appears in the gospel: John, one of Jesus' favorites, notices that someone was doing exorcisms, so he brings this to Jesus' attention. "I thought that was our job", he says. "This guy is not of our group; he shouldn't be doing that."

Again, Jesus, like Moses, in his great wisdom simply says: "Let him alone. If he's not against us, he must be for us. He can't be all-bad if he is doing something good. End of discussion.

It has often occurred to me that in the Church, over the centuries there has been a lot of unused talent! There are so many lay folks who are skilled, who have natural gifts and talents who never get a chance to do what they are so qualified to do. There are many who simply feel that because they are not ordained or have not taken vows of poverty, chastity or obedience, as nuns do, that they are not qualified or that there is no place for them and for their Christian giftedness.

Well, I must qualify that a bit because, in fact, we know, first that many Christians, Catholics do have natural and grace-filled gifts to offer their Church and that they are already exercising those ministries. Practically every Church in the United States has lay people doing a variety of ministries; we have them in this church too. Without such folks the Church would be the poorer for it. So, my point is that there a "slot" for everyone, for ever Catholic, not only to do the more formal ministries that we are used to at Mass each Sunday, but also ministries that are done out there in the world every day: Caring for the poor, visiting the sick, setting up peace and justice services, et cetera. Most of these do not require permission from anyone; folks just go out and do these ministries because they need to be done, and there is room enough even though someone else is already doing something similar.

I think what we need to realize in the Church is that we are not in competition with each other. There is room for everyone to bring to the table whatever they feel will be of value to the community as a whole.

So, as I mentioned at the beginning of all this: If you don't think you have found your niche in the Church yet, there's still time. Check in with your local pastor. He'd probably tell you, "Sure, there's plenty of room for you. You didn't even have to come in and ask for permission!"

The Scriptures: Numbers 11:25-29, James 5: 1-6, Mark 9: 38-43, 45, 47-48

Posted by Julie Galligan at 11:30 AM.

September 24, 2006

Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time - A Child's Vision of Life

If you were to ask the ordinary Christian who reads the gospels with any regularity, ask what they like best about Jesus, besides the fact that he was Son of God, they might tell you without hesitation, that what they like best is the way he treated little kids, or how he appreciated little kids. Who can argue with that? Anyone who likes little kids can't be all bad!

It is true; most people remember with great delight those several passages about Jesus and little children. We can identify with that sort of attitude. After all, we were kids once ourselves, we all know little kids, how cute they are, how loving, how innocent, (at least until they are six years old) how dependent they are on the adult world, et cetera. Most folks, therefore, would say that Jesus' attitude toward children proves that he was as human as the rest of us. God probably loves little kids too, but Jesus proves it. Jesus defends kids; he speaks of them as models for what he says his kingdom is like. "Such is the kingdom of God," Jesus says.

Now, right there, my friends, we will get a sense that, for all his affection for children, Jesus is not all that interested in little kids as such.

True, Jesus loved kids, but not simply because they are cute and cuddly. If he is going to compare them to politics, then we know immediately that something serious is going on.

Now, don't be put off with the word politics because politics often has a bad "odor." Politics has to do with the affairs of the people, the polis, with peoples' concerns.

You will notice I said "politics" but whenever Jesus uses the word "kingdom", he is actually talking about politics, that is, about a certain way of looking at the world, at culture, at the concerns of people, especially a certain number of people, namely, the poor.

So, what Jesus is suggesting is that when you observe the lives of little children you will immediately begin to understand how he thinks of life in this world or, better, how God thinks life in this world could be in the best of circumstances.

So, that is what Jesus means when he uses the word kingdom. One author I read recently described it like this: "Kingdom, in Jesus terms, means what life would be like in the world if God decided to come and be in charge." Another author described it as "God's dream, God's dream of life", as opposed to our understanding of reality, the way things really are.

So, when Jesus talks about the model of the life of little kids, he is actually referring to two different ways of looking at life.

The first is one we know best if we simply look around and see how things are, how life happens, the way politics and culture and even religion have developed over these many years. We could call that the secular or worldly model.

How should we characterize that model? Here are some words we often hear: "Politics as usual." We immediately know what that means. Some other words: Competition, winning at all costs, domination, power, privilege, consumption, affluence, appearances, individualism. That is pretty much the way life goes in this world. People are interested mainly in "getting ahead," getting a "leg up" on the other person, never being thought of as a loser.

Now, this does not mean that all these characteristics are bad in themselves or that people are bad who espouse them. It just means that life in this world is often conceived of as a struggle, competition at the expense of the neighbor, about taking advantage over others.

So, according to Jesus, life in this sort of world is a battleground: The one who has the most power, the most influence is the one who ends up with all the marbles, as kids say. That's one way of looking at life, at one set of politics, if you will.

Now, here is the way Jesus' politics looks: It can be described simply as a politics of compassion, the politics of the poor, the disadvantaged, the oppressed, the "little ones of God."

Remember, of course, Jesus spoke mainly to peasant people, the little ones of the world. He had less concern with the powerful, whether of the state or of the temple. They could take care of themselves.

So, life or politics in Jesus' kingdom meant that people should be able to live together in peace, to care for one another, to have compassion for one another; that would be the ideal world, the "dream of God".

Now most so-called "upper class" people would probably say, "this is all craziness; life doesn't work that way. Everyone has to take care of himself.

But, of course, we also need to ask: What happens when everyone takes care of him or herself? The rich get richer and the poor get poorer; some suffer while others are able to control their destinies. In other words, the politics of individualism doesn't make life in this world any more bearable for most people. All this is what leads to war and oppression.

Jesus, of course, would say, "Could life in the world be different if we tried? Could peace and compassion be given a chance?"

I think we all would like to believe that it could despite the fact that it does not happen as often as it should.

So, that is why Jesus thought little kids could be an example, a model for us adults. The problem is that we grow up and put so-called "childish ways" behind us, and all that is to our great loss. But God's "great dream" is more than a dream. It's the way life was meant to be and could be. Even little kids would tell you that.

The scriptures: Wisdom 2: 12, 17-20, James 3: 6-4:3, Mark 9" 30-37

Posted by Julie Galligan at 11:22 AM.

September 17, 2006

Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Self Definition

No one has ever asked me the question, but if someone did ask me the question, I would probably think a little bit about it. The question: "Who are you?" Most of us would say, "Well, my name is and I work over at so'n'so's, and you can find me in the phone book, on e-mail or even on the Internet." That might be enough for some, but it would not be asking very much, in fact, it would simply be asking for superficial answers.

The fact is (I think it's a fact!) that we really don't know who we are: We may know our name, obviously, and where we have come from; we know who our ancestors are and all that. But it is really an assumption we know the answer to the question of who we are and that we can give a clear answer. We're just operating on externals, on what we can prove from what we can see in the mirror or hear from our voice.

A better question about our identity might be: "What do you believe in? What is important to you in life? What do you stand for? What would you defend against all odds? That would tell your questioner something, not everything, but something more than your name, address and phone number.

Self-identity is one of those mysterious things that we work at our entire life, at least from the time we begin to take life seriously in our teenage years. It's around that time that we begin to form ideas, convictions, resolutions, et cetera. Of course, all those keep changing as we grow older so that by the time we are senior citizens we may still trying to figure out who we are, which is ok, of course.

I wanted to offer that little introduction so that we can think a little about Jesus and who Jesus was. There is no doubt that Jesus of Nazareth was (is) one of the most interesting and mysterious people who ever lived. He was mysterious not because he was Son of God, but because he contradicted practically everyone's assumptions about himself. I'm sure that if people asked Jesus who he was, he would not have said, "Well, I'm Jesus from the town of Nazareth. Joseph was my father, Mary, my mother. I have relatives who have lived around here for years." Jesus would not have said any of that. Rather, he would have said what he would like people to remember about him. "I would like to be known as a prophet in the model of Isaiah and Jeremiah." He would have said, "I would like to be known as a wise man, a sage, a preacher of compassion, a man who challenges conventional wisdom, a man who intends to establish a new movement of the spirit among my people." Above all, he would have said, "I have come to establish kindness in the place of violence, love in place of hate, peace in place of war. In other words, I'm a person who looks at life in a completely differently than most people." That's probably what he would have said. By the way, Jesus never said, outright “I am God." But he did say that he had come to do God's will that he had come to establish God's kingdom on earth.

In short, I think that tells us more about Jesus than what he looked like, how he spoke, et cetera, although those have always been interesting questions too.

Well, all this comes from the simple question in Mark's gospel: Jesus is interested in knowing what people think of him, but that is not enough because the general public had rather superficial notion of Jesus: Healer, miracle worker, multiplier of bread for 5000, multiplier of wine at weddings, a kind of prophet, a military kind of person, et cetera.

But Jesus, obviously, was not satisfied with that. It was too shallow. So, he asks Peter, who should know, "What do you think, Peter? What is your perception of me? Peter replies: "You are the Christ; you are the anointed of God."

But it is interesting that when Jesus reminded Peter that God's anointed would have to suffer and die, Peter thought that was absurd. “It was impossible for God's anointed to have to suffer and die. In other words, he still didn't really understand who Jesus was; he was merely looking at externals.

All this finally brings us to the question we have to face every day if we are Christians: Who do we think Jesus is, and how does that affect our life? That question really defines our Christian life because the way we answer it will tell us how to live.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that we should not do what Peter did: We can't make Jesus be someone he never intended to be. We can't make Jesus fit our own ideas and assumptions. We simply have to let Jesus be who he is for us today and live with that even though it may make us a little uncomfortable. After all, Jesus asked some hard questions, expected his followers to be ready to suffer a little for what they believed in.

I suppose, for most of us, being Christian or Catholic doesn't threaten us with very much suffering or even much hardship. (Perhaps a little fasting once in a while.) But usually being Catholic is not even very hard work: We go to Church on Sunday, say our prayers, live morally upright lives and that's about it. That alight well be ok, but it might also be well for us occasionally to ask: "Lord is there anything else you have in mind for me? Have I missed anything' If we ask ourselves that question honestly, we can be sure there will be some interesting answers.

The scriptures: Isaiah 50: 5-9a, James 2: 14-18, Mark 8: 27-35

Posted by Julie Galligan at 11:09 AM.

September 10, 2006

Twenty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Human Incompleteness

I never think of it very often, perhaps none of us do, but all of us make hundreds of decisions every day. Pm thinking particularly about the way we use our human senses: What we will watch or look at, what we will listen to, what we will enjoy, what we will avoid at all costs. For instance, I would rather watch a beautiful sunset than a segment of Seinfeld or Treasure Hunt on TV. I would rather listen to a piece of jazz by the organist Billie Preston than something by the Rolling Stones. (this is a personal preference, of course). Nonetheless, our senses, our human faculties give us lots of options.

It has often occurred to me that God must have had us in mind when he created all things of beauty, things to hear and see and smell and touch. What good is a sunset if you can't see it? What good is a Beethoven sonata if you can't hear it, a lilac bush if you can't smell its beautiful odor, a glass of Chardonnay if you can't taste it?

At the same time, we must be honest and say that there are lots of folks who do not have the use of one or other of these senses and perhaps that may seem like a great tragedy, at least to those of us who have never been without them.

Fortunately, in our own times, we have become much more sensitive to the needs of folks who are handicapped. There was a time when we paid scant attention to their need for access to buildings or transportation and all the other things we take for granted; we seem to be slow learners.

From my reading of the gospels and the daily life of Jesus, I get the impression that he was a very sensitive and intuitive person. Hardly anything escaped his notice: He observed changes in the weather and asked what it could mean. He pointed out the loveliness of the birds in the air and the fields of flowers. But he also insisted that, lovely as these may be, every human person is even more precious in God's sight.

Although Jesus was sensitive to beauty, he also knew that not everyone was able to experience all this first hand. So, from your reading of the gospels, you will already be aware how often Jesus would be overwhelmed with grief and compassion for people who were blind, who could not hear, or who had no access to healing water, et cetera. Now, Jesus did not assist everyone who was handicapped, and that is a great mystery we shall never solve. We do know however, that he did have compassion for people who came to him for help.

Of course, that is a model for all of us, whether or not we have full use of our human faculties. People with handicaps do not ask for compassion, they simply ask for understanding and respect. After all, when you think about it, we are all somewhat handicapped. There is no such thing as a "perfect person, a perfect human being."

What can we learn from all this? For one thing, we can all learn how better to appreciate the gifts of our human senses, how we could learn to pray better, for instance, simply by experiencing everything around us to the fullest, whatever is beautiful, lovely, comely, inspiring, enlightening, tasteful, harmonious, full of meaning. In other words, we ought not take our human faculties for granted, but rather let them be more for us than eyes, ears, noses and limbs. They are the means whereby we experience God. In other words, God is in the obvious, but it takes a little noticing.

Speaking of noticing the obvious, I am always reminded here of that little piece of poetry by Elizabeth Barrett Browning that goes like this:

Earth's crammed with heaven
and every common bush afire with God. But only they who see take off their shoes. The rest sit around it and
Pluck blackberries.

I think that might have been something like that which Jesus had in mind when he suggested that we should pay attention to the birds and the flowers. They are metaphors for God if we have the good sense to pay attention.

The scriptures: Isaiah 35: 4-7, James 2: 1-5, Mark 7:31-37

Posted by Julie Galligan at 11:03 AM.

September 03, 2006

Twenty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time - Written in Stone

For those of you who love old movies, there is one that you might remember from the year 1956, The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston, in the role of Moses (who else?). Anyway, what I remember best, besides the famous scene of the parting of the Red Sea is Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai: Fire springs from God's finger tips and the commandments appear written on tablets of stone in Roman numerals. (you wouldn't expect them to be scribbled in sand, would you?) The point, of course, is that now God's law is forever set down, never to be changed, "written in stone," as we say. Anyone can read it who chooses to. You can read it in books of theology, in catechisms, even on the walls of courthouses. Moses himself is enshrined on the facade of the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. as one of the great lawgivers of history.

Well, obviously, the studios at Paramount or Metro Goldwin Mayer may have gotten the history a bit wrong or at least exaggerated, but the idea was good. All law comes from God and it cannot be changed on human whim.

Of course, over the years, down to our very own time, we have been fussing about whether the Ten Commandments should be set up in secular buildings and properties. Indeed, some while ago a judge in a southern state was admonished, disciplined and chastised for insisting that a representation of the Ten Commandments should be publicly displayed on the lawn of the local courthouse. What better place, you may say.

What is so interesting about all this, of course, is that the Ten Commandments, along with thousands of other laws, are actually inscribed on stone for all to see on a ten-foot tall black rock in the Louvre in Paris. It is called the Stele of Hammurabi. Hammurabi was a king and lawgiver who lived around 1780 B.C. in what is today Khuzistan, Babylonia. (Iraq) He is presented on the stone as receiving the Law from the Sun God Shamash, which tells you right away that people in those days knew that all law came from God (or the gods!) All law is divine law.

So then, what should we make out of Law or laws? Oddly enough, laws are something we sometimes hate, but probably need more than we think. What would life be like in this world, even in the local neighborhood, without them?

The author of the book of Deuteronomy, today's first reading, tells the people of his time that if they keep the law they will give evidence to other nations of their wisdom and intelligence. The point he is making is that law is not meant to restrict us but rather to help us be more human, more humane.

Unfortunately, we never seem to think much about the beauty of law except when we, or someone, breaks the law and needs to pay for it.

When you read the gospel for today, you get a pretty clear insight about how Jesus felt, not about Law, or the Law, not God's Law, but about human rules, warnings, et cetera. Jesus was referring, particularly, to the cleanliness codes regarding eating, what Jewish people today the Kosher laws.

What is interesting to notice, however, is that Jesus, who was also a Jew, was not antagonistic toward the cleanliness rules. He was more concerned about the possibility that the keeping or disobeying of these small, everyday rules of kitchen etiquette might distract people from the true Law, the Law of God, or even the Law of the Heart. These are his words: "You disregard God's law and cling to what is human tradition."

So, what should all this mean to us, we Catholics? Lots of folks who are not of our faith, of course, have the sense that we are a religion of rules, habits, customs, rites and traditions: Signs of the cross, genuflections, keeling, sitting, standing, fasting, abstaining, Easter Duty, Novenas, et cetera. It might seem to outsiders that every move in our faith is covered by some rule. It's not so, of course: Most of our daily traditions are meant to help us do things together, to be a unified community.

Now, of course, if we get so entangled in the human traditions, as Jesus says, that we forget what God's Law is calling us to, then we have lost our way. The temptation or the danger of getting lost in rules, as in Jesus day, is not so different from our own times.

That leads us finally to ask some questions about law itself: Why should we need it at all? It would seem as though law is already an admission of our human weakness, of our failure to live peacefully with one another without it. In a sense, that is true: We all live under what is called the Law of Nature, our natural instincts that tell us to do what is

right and avoid what is wrong. But, given our human "falleness," (what we once called Original Sin) we obviously do not follow our best natural instincts. So, in that instance, law comes in to save the day for us, alas, to protect us from. ourselves.

We all know what life would be like without Law or laws. It would be total chaos. Indeed, it is often chaos even with all our laws.

On the other hand, we have to admit that living together in the human community is often a messy thing and those who have made laws over the centuries have done us a great favor; they have helped us and instructed us in ways that are truly humane. The ideal might be that we should eventually be able to live without laws, but I'm not holding my breath for that possibility to happen any time soon.

Perhaps the best we can hope for is that if each of us truly tries to live according to our best natural instincts and according to God's law and the law of our faith, we will be doing something good for this messy world in which we live. It's is something we should be happy to do...even without laws.

The scriptures: Deuteronomy 4: 1-2, 6-8 James 4:1: 17-18, 21-22, 27 Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Posted by Julie Galligan at 10:52 AM.

August 27, 2006

Twenty First Sunday in Ordinary Time - Not to Choose is to Choose

For those of us who are senior citizens, it is no great surprise to us that young folks today (and even we ourselves) have countless more options in our lives than we did, say, even a quarter century ago. Of course, that can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on how we deal with those choices.

Think, for instance, then, about some of the choices we have which were not available to us in our younger days. Communication for instance, where once we might have been limited to handwriting letters, today we have the options of the Internet, cell phones, text messaging, et cetera. If we once needed to travel some distance, we may have had the use of a sailing ship, the railroad or perhaps an undependable Model T Ford. Today we can choose air travel and be around the world in half a day. Job opportunities are endless; where we choose to live today (if we have the money) is our choice. Even our choice of a life partner has greater possibilities than it did in our grandparent's day. In short, what we decide to do with our life is our own choice. We are not limited by place, time or culture. Even our decision how we worship God is our own choice.

All of this tells us, therefore, that human choice can be a blessing but also a serious responsibility. Choosing one brand automobile over another may not be important, nor what sort of cell phone do we use. Those are somewhat superficial. But, on the other hand, how we make ethical and moral decisions, how our religious faith impacts our life and our relations to others, that is very important indeed.

So, what is choice anyway? It seems to me that choice truly defines who we are as human beings. It is a sign of our human nature. Other beings in this world do not seem to have the option that we do to make intelligent decisions, decisions that have been thought out before hand and are meant to be followed out with serious intent.

Hence, we human beings are often judged by our choices, wise or foolish. We are rewarded or punished by how we make our decisions. Lots of folks are in prison because of bad choices. It even occurs to me to say that all human foundations in this world, law, government, religion depend on the assumption that we can make good or bad choices and can be held responsible for them. If that is not the case, then the civilized world ends in chaos.

Of all the areas in our human life where choice becomes very important, religion or faith would seem to hold an important place. Granted, faith or religious life is not important to all people, but many at least believe in something which gives direction and meaning to their life. For that reason, then, most people have a sense of responsibility even a sense of guilt when they make poor choices.

It may seem odd to us, but the area of our life where we have the most freedom is in religion. For people of faith, God is not perceived as a dictator. We are free to do as we choose. That freedom is what gives our actions their meaning and significance. It's called conscience, one of our most precious gifts. How would any action of ours be judged good or bad if we did not have the right to choose?

Two of our scriptures for this Twenty First Sunday also provide us with some insights about choice. Joshua, who succeeded Moses as the leader of the Israelite pilgrims challenged his brothers and sisters to decide whom they would serve once they arrived in their promised land, the God who had rescued them from Egyptian slavery, the one who fed and watered them in the desert, or would it be the choice of one of the nature gods of the people whom they would meet on their desert journey? "As for myself," Joshua says, "I'm sticking with the God of our ancestors. I invite you to join me; it's your choice."

As we have been hearing in the gospel over the past several Sundays, Jesus is trying to explain to the curious crowds who he is and who he wants to be for them: He says: "I am the bread of life; I am bread from heaven. If you accept it, you will have life for ever." Obviously, this was too much for many of them and they decided to go their way. Then Jesus asks his special friends, the Twelve, how they feel. Will they, like the rest of the crowd, choose to go their way too? Peter (always the spokes person) blurts out: "Lord, we don't have any other choice; you have the words of eternal life; you are God's holy one.

I have often wondered: If that choice had not been made, would we all be here today thinking about all this? Would Christian history have taken a different direction if Peter and the rest had decided to go their separate ways? Perhaps we should all be happy that some people did follow Jesus. Here we stand in this church today, following in their footsteps.

Finally, I have always thought that it is a great privilege, not just to be Catholic and Christian, but to have the choice to remain so and to accept the challenges that goes with being Catholic. It seems to me that to call one's self Catholic automatically involves some hard work, heavy responsibility. Catholics, I think, are generally known as people who make hard choices, who live by the rules. That is something we should be proud of even though the rest of the world does not always follow us.

So, today we may be asked by Jesus in some mysterious way: "Do you want to go away too?" Our answer should be: "Lord, somewhere back in history you chose me to follow you. I'm happy to say today that I don't have any other option. Lead the way, I'm behind you!"

The scriptures: Joshua 21: 1-2a, 15-17, 18-19, 20-21, Ephesians 5: 25-32, John 6: 60-69

Posted by Julie Galligan at 10:46 AM.

August 20, 2006

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Food For the Whole Person

Anyone who is exposed even to a half hour of evening television will tell you that most of the advertising will be trying to convince you that there is something wrong with you, that you probably have some problem with your health and you had better get busy doing something about it. Ever notice the concern about obesity today and all the cures for it? Osteoporosis is another big physical problem. The state of your skin and skin care is another. Whatever physical problem you may have, some company already has a cure for it.

Even more interesting is a casual stroll through Barnes and Noble Book Store. Just browse through the section on cook books or diet fads for instance: Whole shelves of 'em. Most of them don't work, of course, but that doesn't keep people from buying the books.

Is psychological health your problem, there are books to cover that as well.

If you have spiritual problems, there is some guru, some expert to help you get through those as well.

In other words, experts of various sorts know that the human person is a very complicated being and there are innumerable things that can go wrong with you. Some, or many of these, are real but others are probably imaginary. Of course, real or imaginary, they sell products.

Of course, long before the current craze to heal all our various ills, there have been philosophers who have helped us understand ourselves and our place in the world. (Mental health, it's called) What does it mean to be a person living in this world at this time in history in community with so many other people with similar and different needs? That's, in part, what philosophers and theologians try to do; they try to help us understand the meaning of life, our human destiny, where we fit in this world. They ask what it means to be human in the fullest sense. It all boils down to the question of wisdom: How does one live wisely in the world? How does one fulfill one's deepest wishes, one's hearts desire?

So, there are several different parts of our human person that need care: The physical, the psychological, the social and the spiritual. In other words, we are a very complicated being with many needs. One begins to wonder if we are ever fully healthy in all these categories. So many things can go wrong with us.

The scriptures for this Twentieth Sunday of the year seem to have some answers to at least a few of these human problems, the question of full human health. What nourishes us totally?

The author of the Book of Proverbs uses an interesting literary device to help us understand the abstract notion of wisdom. Imagine wisdom, he says, as a person, a woman, who invites you to her house where she has prepared the best meat and wine, waitresses to serve at the banquet. Who's invited? Anyone who is simple, anyone

whose life is uncluttered by the concerns of the world, anyone who lacks understanding but is willing to listen, anyone willing to forsake foolishness. That's the banquet of wisdom. It's all free for those who need it.

So, what would that mean in modern terms? Where does one find wisdom today? Well, it will probably not be found at a banquet as the author of Proverbs suggests.

But there is wisdom to be found all over, just for the taking. First of all, wisdom is not just knowing a lot of "stuff." Wisdom has to do with deep thought, with asking hard questions, with the willingness to spend some time each day just thinking, being quiet, and reflecting on life's meaning. Wisdom also comes with reading, with listening to people who themselves have struggled to find it.

I think, for instance, of elderly folks, men and women of age, who have lived a lot of years and who have struggled to understand life in this world. They may have suffered a lot too they can tell you lots about life. That's wisdom.

Conversation and debate is another source of wisdom, being willing to listen to another side of an issue and learn from it. That's wisdom also.

I often think of Jesus as a wisdom teacher. People had a hard time understanding him because he reflected on life's meaning more deeply than most folks. In fact, some asked, "Where did he get all this wisdom? After all, we know where he came from. We know his family."

So, I think Jesus saw his role in life to help people understand themselves and their relation to God. He continually kept talking about God as our Father and about God's reign in our lives. For Jesus, that was human nourishment, spiritual nourishment too.

Then in today's gospel Jesus uses some metaphors or analogies to try and help people understand who he is and what he has come to do for people. He says, "I am like flesh and blood, the sources of life. That is what I want to be for you, human nourishment, nourishment that will last forever.

Then he uses another metaphor: He says, just like ordinary bread nourishes your body, so am I bread that nourishes you spiritually, bread that will last for ever.

I often like to think, then, that Jesus' desire was to cover all the human bases (as it were): To help us understand life (wisdom), to help us live together in peace, to help us understand that heaven is our spiritual home where we will live forever.

The nice thing about all this is that it is all free: No need to go to Barnes and Noble for books or to buy all the stuff the medical industry tries to sell us on television. Jesus offers it to anyone who seeks wisdom and who seeks God's kingdom.

"No point, therefore, going hungry," Jesus says. "Come to wisdom's table, you'll come away a healthier, holier person."

The scriptures: Proverbs 9: 1-6, Ephesians 5: 15-20, John 6: 51-58

Posted by Julie Galligan at 02:31 PM.

August 13, 2006

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Food For the Way

In my reading over the past several months I have noticed a number of events in the news that spoke to me about the human desire or our common need to travel toward some important goal or destination in life. Some of these we can easily identify, others are a mystery. Examples:

Most of us have read about the great dilemma on our southern borders, the desire of many of our neighbors in Mexico attempting to find ways to cross into Arizona or California to find work and security in the United States. This has caused immense problems for Congress attempting to find ways to accommodate immigrant people who seek a home in the United States and yet to bring some order and predictability to this great flood of travelers. On many occasions, of course, entire families find themselves lost in the middle of the Sonoran desert without food and water dying of thirst. Such a great tragedy.

On a more pleasant note also, I recently read a nice article in Commonweal Magazine entitled "On the Pilgrim Road: Hospitality on the `Camino." It described the work of a American volunteer couple who spent two weeks serving as wardens (caretakers) at the Refugio Gaucelmo, a hostel for pilgrims who are making their journey to the great religious shrine of Santiago de Compostela (the cathedral of St. James) in Spain. Like many travelers, the pilgrims have spent an entire day (some 25 miles) on foot and now they come to the refugio in the evening, hungry, thirsty, exhausted, bedraggled, searching for food, water and a comfortable bed before continuing their trek to Compostela the next morning. The "wardens" insisted that in their work (which was not always so pleasant), they learned much about peoples' basic need not simply to "last it out" until they arrived in Compostela, but rather to fulfill some deep and mysterious human desire which often they could not explain even to themselves.

Once again, like the immigrants we noted above, these pilgrims were willing to submit themselves to immense difficulties and hardships in order to realize their sacred goal, a fulfillment of their life's desire. In the case of the immigrants, their life's desire is to find a job and security for their families. For the pilgrims in Spain, their heart's desire is a spiritual matter, symbolized in the arrival, finally, at Santiago de Compostela In both instances, however, the fulfillment of the goal involved much suffering and sacrifice. They both needed bread and water for the journey.

This Nineteenth Sunday of the church year has two readings which match the events I just described: The first is a story of Elijah, a tough-talking prophet who took on the pagan priests of Queen Jezebel up in the Northern Kingdom. His tough-talk, however, got Elijah into trouble with Jezebel, so when we pick up the story Elijah is heading out of town hoping

to make his way to encounter God on the sacred mountain in his own country, Mount Sinai or Horeb, as some called it.

Elijah is in trouble, however: He's without food and water out in the Sinai desert sitting under a tree, still a long way from his destination. It is here that God's messenger (no name given) meets him and provides him with water and bread, enough to get him to his sacred destination.

The lesson: Every great journey in life, every search for what is sacred to us will involve some challenge, some suffering, some hunger and thirst. Indeed, as we know from personal experience, the journey we call life itself is a constant series of ups and down's, but ultimately we say, it's worth the effort.

The gospel for today also talks about "bread for the journey." People are complaining to Jesus because he boldly says he is "the bread come down from heaven." "What's this all about," they ask? We know his history, his family. He's just like one of us." So, Jesus was a great mystery to most of his neighbors.

Well, obviously, Jesus himself was not bread, as we know bread. He was a human person like all of us. So, he must be speaking in metaphors, in analogies. It would be like saying: "Whatever bread is, whatever bread means, that is what I am, that is what I want to be. Bread is basically nourishment, strength, health. That is what I want to be for you." That is what Jesus meant to say.

We have lots of examples in the gospels where Jesus fed people with bread and with fish; water too, we can assume. But when the meal was over, he would ask whether the folks understood what it all meant? Were they simply happy to get another meal and fill their stomachs, or did they understand that the food they had received was only a sign of something more that Jesus wanted to give...himself, life in all its fullness, eternal life? In other words, Jesus meant to say that bread is always more than what it seems to be.

That ultimately leaves us with the question: If we claim to be followers of Jesus, the Bread of Life, what is it that we hunger for in life? Bread and water, for sure. But are there other things in life that provide nourishment for us? Here are some I can think of: When we think about life seriously, we all hunger for wisdom, for knowledge, for understanding, but also for beauty, for loveliness, for the support of friends, for something good to read or listen to: poetry, music, drama, a good conversation, some humor. All of these nourish us in ways beyond what the body by itself craves.

I think Jesus had a clue to all this when he pointed out so well: "People do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." I think that is so true: Everything in life comes from the mind of God, but the point is that all this "energy" needs to be shared by us.

So, that leaves us with the question: What nourishes you every day? What is "bread" for you? What gives life meaning for you? What is precious and lasting? Whatever it is, it is God's gift to you. It could be mine too....if you will share it with me for the long journey home.

The scriptures: 1 Kings 19: 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, Ephesians 4: 30-5:2, John 6: 41-51

Posted by Julie Galligan at 02:24 PM.

August 05, 2006

Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord - The Secret Of Our Self

If my own experience is of any value, I would need to say that I am a very private person; indeed, I think, deep down, we are all very private people. Only in rare instances do we reveal to others who we really are. Perhaps that means that we ourselves really don't know who we are, except in some superficial way. Our human spirit is always a great mystery that we choose not to share.

Perhaps that means that each of us keeps our identity personal and private. We may think that we know the secrets of others' lives, but there is still much that we do not know and don't deserve to know.

Despite all that, of course, there is a lot of what I would call "nosiness" in the secular world. Just consult People Magazine, for instance or those newspapers you find at the checkout counter at the market. The headlines are all about the most recent exploits of the stars, who's marrying, who's divorcing, who's having a child, et cetera. There seems to be a sort of human hunger to find out as much about others as possible. Not that it's all that important or significant, but it seems fascinating anyway.

Aside from the so-called "beautiful people", however we do not know much about our most intimate friends and relatives. Even husbands and wives, I should imagine, do not always share the most intimate elements of their personalities. There is something sacred about us that keeps us from simply divulging who we are down deep.

Speaking about who we are, I think it would be true to say that the person in history who has always commanded the most interest is Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus has always been a fascinating mystery to us. If that is true of the people of our day, it must surely have been true of Jesus own time as well. Jesus was, indeed, a mystery to people who knew him. Even his own mother and his family and relatives did not seem to know him. They knew his name, of course, and where he came from, but they could not understand why he was doing what he was doing: Preaching God's kingdom, doing marvelous signs, et cetera.

Actually, they thought him a bit "daft" and asked him to come home where he would be safe from violence.

You might imagine, of course, that the people who should have known Jesus best were his friends, The Twelve. And yet, even they did not have any deep understanding of him even though they traveled with him from day to day.

So, I imagine that they simply went along with Jesus from day to day; traveling the roads, imagining that they knew everything there was to know about him. That is, until the day he invited them to come up to the top of a high mountain (high places in scripture, of course, are always places of revelation). And here, the gospel text tells us that Jesus was transfigured before them. Scripture scholars do not know precisely what "transfigured" means, but they described it in terms of light.

Peter, amazed as he was over all this, decided that he saw something in Jesus that resembled the great leaders of Israelite history: Moses, the Lawgiver and Elijah the prophet. So, he suggests that three altars, or three tents should be erected there so the sacred experience would not be forgotten.

Now, we have no idea whether this ever happened because when the experience was over, Jesus simply said, "Friends, let's go back down, there's work to be done, but I'm asking you not to tell anyone about all this. Most people would not understand." So, that was it, they came back down, but by now they had a completely different understanding of Jesus than they had before.

That brings us to the question: How well do we know Jesus? Most of us might say, "Well, all I know is what I read in the gospels!" Fair enough. Our only source of knowledge about Jesus is his story in the gospels. We obviously have never had a "transfiguration experience" like Peter James and John and surely cannot expect it in our life time.

But there are also a lot of other human experiences in the gospel that describe Jesus' life, the kinds of human experiences most of us can identify with and learn from. The question is, what did Jesus stand for what were Jesus' strongest convictions? Here are some we could learn from: Jesus had a deep sense of compassion for people who were suffering; he had a deep sense of justice, equal treatment for all alike. Being human, Jesus even had a human leaning toward anger and frustration. But he also had a deep sense of people's problems, their sadnesses and sorrows. One line says: "He had compassion on the crowd because they were like sheep without a shepherd."

So, all that tells you something about Jesus even though we can probably assume that we will never be with him on a high mountain and see him transfigured.

The scriptures: Daniel 7: 9-10, 13-14, 2 Peter 1: 16-19,Mark 9: 2-10

Posted by Julie Galligan at 02:10 PM.

July 30, 2006

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Fast Food

A month or so ago an article appeared in our local paper titled: "AP poll finds a nation that hates having to wait for anything." I can understand that: I hate waiting in lines too, whether at the market, the DMV, the bank or even at the traffic light. We are, indeed, an impatient people. Part of the reason for that, I think, is because everything comes so easily and quickly to us. Think of the computer, for instance: Dial-up for the Internet is not fast enough anymore. Now we need broad band or DSL. and even those are too slow for some folks. In reality, however, there are very few things we have to wait for today.

Another article I read some while ago mentioned that hardly anyone today has the patience to make a good meal. Perhaps it may happen on weekends if guests are coming, but rarely during the week. It just takes up too much of our time. So, we stop at the market and get some fast food or perhaps we have some MRE's in the pantry. Or better yet, perhaps we just stop at MacDonald’s or Wendy’s on the way home. Why waste precious time on food, of all things!!

I must say, however, that fixing a meal and eating a meal is a very beneficial activity, even beside the physical nourishment it offers us. It takes some creativity, some reflection and thinking about what to have and how to fix it, how to make the meal worth sitting down for.

Then, of course, we can't forget the conversation that goes on at a good meal; that's also nourishing.

Well, with all that introduction, we have two incidents in the readings for this Sunday that talk about food going around. I call these "Fast Food Stories." The common thread running through both the readings is that an individual, Elisha, the prophet and Jesus, both provide fast food, one for a hundred people and Jesus for some five thousand.

Practically all the commentaries I have read on these two stories place the emphasis on the miracle of the multiplication of the bread. This is no common meal preparation. There are lots of folks waiting for a handout. I agree, there may well be a miracle element in the stories. But, as usual, we always need ask about the meaning of the story. What was it meant to convey? Was it a miracle or, as Jesus would say, a sign, a sign of something deeper than the multiplication of the bread itself?

My feeling is that the essence of the two stories is not about multiplication but about division, the dividing up of the bread. This does not mean, of course, that there was not a miracle involved but simply that multiplying bread does not get it to the people who are hungry. That operation takes some human effort, some human cooperation.

You will notice, of course, that Jesus took things in hand and made sure that his disciples handed the bread around.

That already tells you something about the meaning of the stories: One that food was made available and, two, that people needed to share the food.

So, what are some implications in these stories that we could apply to our lives today? First of all, perhaps Jesus' "miracle" was not so miraculous when you try to imagine how food comes to our table every day at the hand of God. The way things grow is also "sort of a miracle." The fact that our world provides so much food is truly miraculous, or at least something we cannot simply take for granted.

Of course, then we need to ask the additional question, if there is so much food, why do so many people go hungry every day? Well, the problem is not about multiplication but about division. We just don't know how, or we refuse to divide up. Once in a while, of course, we divide up when there is an earthquake or a tsunami where thousands of people are without food. In that case we can usually pull our forces together and get the food to the folks. So, it can happen, but, obviously, it does not happen often enough because people are still dying of hunger every day.

So, what does all this have to do with the Eucharist that we celebrate each Sunday? Some will tell you that the words of the priest at the altar at the consecration accomplish something miraculous. It could be a miracle, but I would rather call it a mystery or a sign of God's goodness.

I think the sign value in the Eucharist is that the receiving of Holy Communion should be an incentive for us to go out and share whatever food we have, no matter how little of it we have. Again, it's all about division, dividing it up.

Perhaps what mainly keeps us from dividing up the riches of God's gifts is that we are always too much in a hurry. We don't have the patience to figure out how we should go about distributing the bread and the many other gifts that are provided us in this world.

One thing for sure: Meals should not be fast. It takes a while to appreciate something nourishing. The same holds true of the Eucharist, the Mass. What's the big hurry about getting out under an hour? With mysteries, you need some time to figure out what you are receiving. There is still time for MacDonald’s after Mass.

The scriptures: 2 Kings 4: 42-44 Ephesians 4: 1-6 John 6: 1-15

Posted by Julie Galligan at 09:55 AM.

July 23, 2006

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Time Out!

I often admire the dedication of people who are committed to work on farms or in what is called "animal husbandry," that is, the care of animals.

As practically everyone knows who has ever heard or read these homilies over the years, I too lived and worked (sort of) on a farm. It never occurred to me as a youngster how demanding this vocation really was: Cows needed to be milked morning and evening, twenty-four-seven-three hundred and sixty five days a year. One just did not take a break from such work. Indeed, the cows depended upon the care they received.

I can remember only once in my early history that my father took a vacation and that was only for a few days. Mom and I stayed home and milked the cows!

Reflecting on the work of the farmer today, it almost seems like prison. There are not many options other than to be at home constantly.

Of course, this is true of many other kinds of work as well: Ranchers, poultry farmers, even people who work in the so-called "professions," doctors, lawyers, people in industry where one needs to be available at any moment. Think even about parents: They are literally committed to their children until they leave home. The first 30 years of the life of most parents is a commitment to their kids, one after another, as they come into the world. I suppose no calling in life gives us total freedom. Even priests are on call night and day and especially on the weekends.

I've often wondered whether Jesus chose his parables or examples from the life of people around him, folks who seemed dedicated to their work, the local shepherds, for instance. I have said on many occasions in the past that Jesus always had a reason for choosing his stories; he always found meaning in things around him. It was not unlikely then that he should have pointed out shepherds as models of the way leaders, whether religious or secular, should live and lead. I imagine the assumption on his mind was that these people were not, in fact, good leaders. Otherwise, why bring up the subject?

As for Jesus himself, I have always been astonished at his dedication. He seemed to be a driven person, never seeming able to say "no." There was always something new to be said, another person who needed healing, counsel or even life itself, issues to be solved. So often it happens in the gospels that just when Jesus finally decides to "take a break" something comes up and he goes right back to work. He never seemed to run out of energy.

But we finally do have an example in Mark's gospel today where Jesus does, indeed, admit that they all need a break. So, he says, "let's get off into the hills, guys; this work is taking its toll on us." So, they did go off into the hills. What they did there is not mentioned; I'm sure they probably slept as lot.

Another thing that always interests me about Jesus is the amount of work he manages to get done. What was his method? How come he never seemed exhausted? This is my sense of it: I think Jesus just had a deep understanding of what was truly important in life and what could just be left aside. For instance, on many occasions Jesus would criticize the scribes and Pharisees for being too concerned and busy with dietary rules, with the washing of pots, jugs, kettles and cups. The intricacies of the law never concerned him. He would say to his adversaries: Only one thing is important: The kingdom of God, love of God and love of neighbor. Everything else is secondary.

I think that is the clue to Jesus' way of life: He knew by instinct that there were certain things that you simply could not do without. Pay attention to those and everything else will fall into place.

That leaves us with the question: What is truly important in our lives? What can we set aside without feeling guilty about it?

For example, where does prayer fit in our life? How about recreation, relaxation, going off for a hike or a bike ride, or even taking a full day off from work? What should we do to relax our mind, our emotions? What about some good reading, a movie occasionally, some music in the evening after supper, a picnic with friends? What should we do on Sunday after church? In short, what can give us a sense that life is meant to be lived not endured? There is so much beauty in the world to appreciate. Go out, for instance, and plant some flowers or vegetables and watch them grow. Even Jesus noticed the lilies of the field.
None of this may sound very "religious" but it's all part of the totality of life. We are more than souls, after all. We are human individuals with minds and bodies, feelings and emotions, all of which need to be nourished.

It occurs to me that even God took a break on the Sabbath. I wonder what he did on that day, perhaps nothing. As he looked out over the universe, he probably sat back and said: "Hey not bad for a week's work. Now it's time to relax.

The scriptures: Jeremiah 23:1-6 Ephesians 2: 13-18 Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56

Posted by Julie Galligan at 09:50 AM.

July 16, 2006

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Without Baggage

I have always loved to travel, but I must admit that the older I get, the more nervous do I become about traveling. Finding a reservation on the Internet is not a problem now, but it was for a long time. Now, it's the problem of getting my shoes, jacket and hat off as go through screening and finding them once I get through. Besides that, I always worry about getting to the airport on time, getting to the right gate, et cetera. It never used to be that way. I guess I don't quite have the adventuresome spirit I used to have.

Traveling, of course, does have its serious responsibilities: packing enough clothes, medicines, documents, underwear (!), checking ahead to make sure who's going to meet you with transportation when you get there. Perhaps traveling, therefore, never gets any easier because every trip is a new and unique challenge.

I'm sure it could not have been that complicated for people in Jesus time to get from one town to the next. They didn't need signs; they, obviously, must have known where the town was. One thing for sure, however, what they needed most was food and water to last in that hot environment, perhaps also some defense weapons, like a stick to ward off attackers and thieves.

I can only imagine that Jesus must have had considerable experience traveling by the time he was an adult. His whole career was wrapped up carrying his message to distant villages. He must have known the distances and the dangers.

So, with that, the instructions he gives his disciples as he sends them off on mission in today's Gospel seem rather peculiar: No back pack, no money, no food or water. Now, all that advice sounds pretty risky, even for Jesus' time "Make sure, however, that you take a walking stick," he says. Why the walking stick? Again, from a practical point of view, it probably had to do with taking the load off one's feed, and, of course, being able to defend one's self.

From the viewpoint of faith, however, I think Jesus was trying to remind his friends of a couple things: First, if you have something worth while to share with folks when you go to their town, they will take care of you. Secondly, on the road of life you really don't need a lot of "stuff." He was probably saying to them that, for the most part, we overload ourselves with things that we could well do without. We worry too much! If you believe that God protects you on the way, all you need is a walking stick to help you get to your destination.

Now, if one wishes to put this gospel into the context of our own times, we could probably admit that we make a lot of journeys that seem worrisome or dangerous and that take a lot of faith in order to find our way home.

I'm not talking about geographical trips so much as journeys of the heart or journeys of human experience. Every one of us has made such trips and we have probably worried our way through them. Think about the journey of marriage, for instance: Given all the chuck-holes along the way, it surely takes a lot of faith to stick together and finally reach old age knowing that you have done the right thing and helped each other find happiness.

Think about the journeys parents make as their children grow into adulthood. How many times have you stayed up long past midnight worrying whether they are safe? That's not a pleasant journey.

I think too of young teenagers who worry their way through school and finding their future career. That's a journey each of us has to take alone even though we get a little help we get from our friends.

Think too about the journey we have all taken with someone who has an addiction to whatever. That can be a long trip and takes a lot of patience.

Or, take the journey all of us have to make at some point of being with someone who is on the way toward death, but slowly.

Then, of course, there are also many of those happy journeys we make with others when they succeed in life: Getting the first job, earning the Ph.D., getting an award for some original idea, that sort of thing.

Then too, on a broader scale, we are all on the same journey, the journey of life from birth to death.

The form that that trip takes in many ways depends on faith: I don't mean supernatural faith so much as faith that God directs our every move, faith too in ourselves that we are good and capable of doing good things, that we are meant for something in this world and that God has a plan for us that only becomes clear as we move along from one day to the next with our eyes, ears and minds open to the Lord's invitation.

In short, when Jesus tells his disciples that they can get along with fewer things on the road, I think Jesus also tells us that life can be a lot simpler than we make it. We just need to ask what's essential and what we can get along without. The important thing is that we should be able to make our way in peace, knowing that God guides us all along the way to each destination the lies before us.

When you think about it, I suppose one could say that there are lots of different kinds of walking sticks available to us in life, not the wooden kind, but rather friends and associates who would just be delighted to make the journey with us and help us along. In that case, what happens along the way can be as much fun as the expectation of the destination itself.

The scriptures: Amos 7: 12-15 Ephesians 1: 3-14 Mark 6: 7-13

Posted by Julie Galligan at 09:43 AM.

July 09, 2006

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Speaking the Truth to Power

Somewhere I once read a wise saying that went like this: "In his own house, a father is hero only to his dog." I would like to think that cats also have their heroes, but perhaps they do not demonstrate it quite as clearly as do dogs.

Obviously, what I am about to say here has nothing to do with dogs or cats. Part of the reason why that saying came to mind is because it occurs to me so often that parents do not ordinarily seem like heroes in their own homes precisely because on certain (perhaps many) occasions they need to say hard things; they need to play the role of prophet, difficult and unappreciated as that task may be.

I'm sure, of course, that most parents would not describe themselves as prophets because that role holds too much a biblical baggage of cranky, bearded old men who were constantly taking the Israelite people to task for their disobediences and indiscretions. To be truthful, they were not all old, bearded nor cranky, but they had this immense sense and compulsion that God had something to say and that someone had to say it for God. And so, they did speak without worry about whether they or their words would be taken kindly or not.

Interestingly, we can still read the prophets today precisely because they did say hard things. Had they been soft "cream of wheat" individuals, we surely would never have heard of them.

So, we are introduced to two prophetic voices in the scriptures assigned for this Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary time. Interestingly, both come across as unpopular people, but that fact does not bother them. They go right ahead and keep doing what they feel God has given them the light to do.

The first is Ezekiel: God invites him to speak, whether anyone listens or not. "You can be assured that if you have the courage to speak," God says, "the people will know that a prophet has been among them." In other words, their consciences will be stung whether they change their lives or not. The interesting point is that the prophet simply feels he has to be around...if nothing other than to embarrass people into doing something.

Jesus is the other prophet we are introduced to, the hometown boy who returns home from his travels and begins preaching to his neighbors. You know the outcome, of course. No one listens to him. "He was too much for them." Like the father in our opening image, Jesus is no hero in his own neighborhood. In fact Jesus quotes an Old Testament phrase: "No prophet is without honor except in his own neighborhood." So, he leaves and finds neighborhoods where people are more willing to listen to him.

So who are the present day prophets and what do prophets do? First of all, let us be clear: prophets are ordinary people who are fiercely sensitive to evil and injustice in the world. Things that may seem slight to us are a disaster in the minds of prophets. The problem is that world problems seem so immense and pervasive to us that we simply say, "oh well, what can I do anyway? What can I do about the thousands of people who are dying in Darfur in Africa at this very moment and nobody seems to be concerned about it? What can I do about the fact that the Palestinian people are slowly being starved to death? What can I do about the homeless who sleep on the streets of this, the richest nation on earth every night? Can anyone get angry over that?" Well, that is what prophets ask: Can anyone get angry over such things.

The interesting and seemingly contradictory thing about the prophets throughout history is that, despite all the problems of their times they probably did not change society all that much. They seemed to assume that someone was in better position to do that than they. They felt that their role in life was just "to be there," to be around where problems were, and perhaps someone might eventually pay attention. But prophets think of themselves as "voices in the desert," people who see the problems and cry out against them. I wonder if that would mean that those of us who do not consider ourselves prophets might be the ones who should consider doing something about problems in the world?

So, who are prophets? Who are the contemporary prophets? Well, if the definition of a prophet is someone who is simply "there", and simply saying hard things, perhaps that means some of our Twenty First Century writers, singers, artists, poets, et cetera could be prophets: I start, for instance, with rabbi Abraham Heschel who once said this: "I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder and You gave it to me." Perhaps that's what the world needs more of: A sense of wonder, astonishment. Or again, from Heschel: "Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy." I think too of Fydor Dostoyevsky who once said that "the world will be saved by beauty!" I think too of Bruce Springsteen with his guitar who sings peace protest songs. I think of Catherine of Sienna who claimed that "All the way to heaven is heaven." I think of Dorothy Day who, when she was told that some people thought of her as a saint, said: "I won't be dismissed that easily." I think of Thomas Merton who once said: "As we go about the world, everything we meet and everything we see and hear and touch plants in us something of heaven." I think of Ralph Waldo Emerson who once said, "Life is what a man is thinking of all day." I think too of Mark Twain who once tweaked our consciences when he said: "The lack of money is the root of all evil." I think of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the German philosopher who once said that, "The great mystery is that there is something and not nothing." I think of the anonymous writer who said: "Life is short, eat your dessert first." And, lastly, the quote from the ancient Greeks: "Know thyself."

So, those are a few of my favorite prophets. They may never have done anything to change the world very radically, but they said something, some words, for us to think about, perhaps to get disturbed about. Having thought about these words, perhaps we too may become inspired and disturbed and do something.

The scriptures: Ezekiel 2: 2-5, 2 Corinthians 12: 7-10, Mark 6: 1-6

Posted by Julie Galligan at 09:35 AM.

July 02, 2006

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - All Living Beings

We have all heard the oft quoted lines to the effect that the two things in this world over which we have no control are death and taxes. Fortunately, we need face death only once whereas the tax deadline faces us every April 15th.

All humor aside, we face death every day, not our own, of course, but somebody's. Practically everyone reads the obituaries in the morning paper whether they happen to know the deceased or not. I often scan them just to see the church from which they are being buried. Oddly enough (at least for us Christians) some folks have no church to be buried from, so they are "buried from" the local VFW hall or Tony's Bar and Grill where they are remembered to the accompaniment of a pint of Guiness and some Country music. No one should depart this life unremembered, whatever venue you may choose. Hence, many people may wish to set the fear of death aside by "celebrating life." Not such a bad idea.

In all seriousness, of course, none of us wishes to face death, especially our own. There seems to be a natural instinct within us which believes that we should live forever. Those were the words of Nikos Kazantzakis, the Greek novelist whose character, Zorba exclaimed: "A man like me should live forever." Actually, Kazantzakis was a faithful Christian of the Orthodox Church. He took resurrection seriously. He believed that everyone lives forever.

In all truthfulness, therefore, there seems to be something contradictory about death. Obviously, we know that it happens every day, but something tells us that it should not. The body, a living being, is too precious to be taken without our permission and be buried in the earth. This seems particularly unjust to us when it happens to be he life of a youngster who is killed by a drunk driver. Surely, that cannot be God's will. It was a stupid human act which should be punished.

On the other hand, we can deal more peacefully with the death of a senior person who has lived a long and productive life. That does not cause us as much concern. It's the swift and seemingly unjust death of young people that disturbs us.

I get the impression from reading the selection from the Book of Wisdom assigned for this Sunday's liturgy that the author, whoever he was, was not so happy about death either. He can confidently say: "God did not make death, nor does God rejoice in the destruction of the living. He fashioned all things that they might have being (life). God formed man (sic) to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made him." Those are pretty bold words from a person who must have known as well as we do that all beings die at some point in their history.

Of course, I suppose all of us would prefer to say that: Despite the obvious fact of death, this can't be God's will. It doesn't make sense that God would create something as precious as a human person only to have us pass from earth, never to be heard of again.

So, perhaps like the Wisdom author, we admit that it happens, but life is still precious and should be appreciated for what it is by nature.

Reading the gospel for this Sunday, I also get the impression that Jesus was not all that happy with the reality of death. He was faced one day with a family tragedy: A little girl of twelve had suddenly died and the parents were grief-stricken. Jesus simply goes into the room and tells her to get up and she does. Everybody, obviously, is ecstatic. Wouldn't we all be?

Of course, that sort of event doesn't happen every day. In fact, we know from the gospels that Jesus did not raise to life every young person who died. So, where is the justice in that? I have no answer except to say that Jesus always seemed to respond directly to tragedies when people asked him. He didn't go