2006

4th Sunday of Lent

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Where do you see yourself in this story? As one who can see or as one who is blind?  The answer may not be so apparent to those of us who presume to see what is going on like the Pharisees did, but really couldn’t see the light.
 
In my childhood, perhaps the best known blind person in our country was Helen Keller who lost her sight and hearing when she was 19 months old.  She grew up to become a highly regarded author.  On our failure to see what is around us, she wrote, “One day I asked a friend of mine who had just returned from a long walk in the woods what she had seen. She replied, ‘Nothing in particular.’
 
“How was this possible? I asked myself, when I, who cannot hear or see, find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate shape and design of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly over the rough bark of a pine tree.  Occasionally, if I’m lucky, I place my hand quietly on a small tree, and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song.
 
“All this has convinced me of one thing: the greatest calamity that can befall people, is not that they should be born blind, but rather that they should have eyes and yet fail to see.”
 
A blind man who fell in love with a young woman raises that same observation in the film, Butterflies are Free. To get away from an over protective mother, Don moved into a shabby one-room apartment.  He tries to support himself as a singer and a composer. Along comes Jill who was briefly married once.  Her love was rejected and the experience wounded her badly. Jill becomes affectionate toward her next door neighbor and falls in love with him. But when Don proposes marriage, she turns him down.
 
Although she loves him and wants to marry him, Jill is afraid that she will be hurt again just as she was the first time she married. Don tells her that although she has eyes to see, she is the one who is really blind because she is afraid to step out in faith and make another commitment to love someone. His faith and courage eventually convince Jill to open her eyes and see the freedom from fear she could have.
 
There is a striking parallel between that movie scenario and the blind man and the Pharisees in today’s Gospel. As the blind man slowly progresses from darkness to light, those most critical of what is happening, the Pharisees, seem to be moving in the opposite direction.
 
The blind man gradually comes to see who Jesus is.  At first he refers to Jesus as the man who healed him. Then he describes Jesus as a prophet. Then during an intense interrogation, he insists that Jesus must be a man from God. Finally, he believes in Jesus as the Son of Man.
 
The Pharisees on the other hand plunge deeper into darkness.  They thought of themselves as having the light but they cannot bring themselves to recognize who Jesus is. Their closed-mindedness keeps them from seeing that Jesus was not only a great man and a great prophet but also the Son of God.
 
This really isn’t a story of a physical healing intended to awe us. Rather, this gospel passage is about us in our spiritual blindness.  As the line in the renowned hymn, Amazing Grace, puts it, “Was blind but now I see.”
 
All of us came into the world blinded by original sin from the fullness of God’s light and love.  By virtue of our baptism, we can see Jesus but is our vision still on the fuzzy side?  Anyone who has had cataracts knows what I mean by that. Are we still blinded by our personal sinfulness from seeing all that we can be?
 
Like the Pharisees and Jill, we can blind ourselves in so many ways.  We walk in darkness whenever we close our eyes to our fears and selfishness or whenever we refuse to face the truth about our hang-ups, addictions and greed. We walk in darkness whenever we fail to see the sufferings of the poor, the sick, and the abandoned or whenever we ignore the lonely, the oppressed, and the downtrodden.
 
To walk in the light means not literally to see but to see more than meets the eye, to have a vision of our potential, and to make commitments to live our faith. As Paul tells us in his letter, we are children of the light whenever we produce every kind of goodness and justice and truth. Light shines through us every time we brighten the lives of others.
 
The good news on this Laetare Sunday is that Jesus wants to do for us what he did for the blind man. Like him, we can be cured of our spiritual blindness, but first we must rid ourselves of those false values that blind us from the truth of who Jesus is.  Imagine how deep our faith would be if we could open our eyes and truly see what Jesus has to offer us.  John’s intent here is to show us what Jesus can do for us. To come to him in faith is to accept the light; to reject him is to remain in darkness.  The choice is up to you.

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3rd Sunday of Lent

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Where do you see yourself in this story? As one who can see or as one who is blind?  The answer may not be so apparent to those of us who presume to see what is going on like the Pharisees did, but really couldn’t see the light.

In my childhood, perhaps the best known blind person in our country was Helen Keller who lost her sight and hearing when she was 19 months old.  She grew up to become a highly regarded author.  On our failure to see what is around us, she wrote, “One day I asked a friend of mine who had just returned from a long walk in the woods what she had seen. She replied, ‘Nothing in particular.’
 
“How was this possible? I asked myself, when I, who cannot hear or see, find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate shape and design of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly over the rough bark of a pine tree.  Occasionally, if I’m lucky, I place my hand quietly on a small tree, and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song.
“All this has convinced me of one thing: the greatest calamity that can befall people, is not that they should be born blind, but rather that they should have eyes and yet fail to see.”
 
A blind man who fell in love with a young woman raises that same observation in the film, Butterflies are Free. To get away from an over protective mother, Don moved into a shabby one-room apartment.  He tries to support himself as a singer and a composer. Along comes Jill who was briefly married once.  Her love was rejected and the experience wounded her badly. Jill becomes affectionate toward her next door neighbor and falls in love with him. But when Don proposes marriage, she turns him down.
 
Although she loves him and wants to marry him, Jill is afraid that she will be hurt again just as she was the first time she married. Don tells her that although she has eyes to see, she is the one who is really blind because she is afraid to step out in faith and make another commitment to love someone. His faith and courage eventually convince Jill to open her eyes and see the freedom from fear she could have.
 
There is a striking parallel between that movie scenario and the blind man and the Pharisees in today’s Gospel. As the blind man slowly progresses from darkness to light, those most critical of what is happening, the Pharisees, seem to be moving in the opposite direction.
 
The blind man gradually comes to see who Jesus is.  At first he refers to Jesus as the man who healed him. Then he describes Jesus as a prophet. Then during an intense interrogation, he insists that Jesus must be a man from God. Finally, he believes in Jesus as the Son of Man.
 
The Pharisees on the other hand plunge deeper into darkness.  They thought of themselves as having the light but they cannot bring themselves to recognize who Jesus is. Their closed-mindedness keeps them from seeing that Jesus was not only a great man and a great prophet but also the Son of God.
 
This really isn’t a story of a physical healing intended to awe us. Rather, this gospel passage is about us in our spiritual blindness.  As the line in the renowned hymn, Amazing Grace, puts it, “Was blind but now I see.”
 
All of us came into the world blinded by original sin from the fullness of God’s light and love.  By virtue of our baptism, we can see Jesus but is our vision still on the fuzzy side?  Anyone who has had cataracts knows what I mean by that. Are we still blinded by our personal sinfulness from seeing all that we can be?
 
Like the Pharisees and Jill, we can blind ourselves in so many ways.  We walk in darkness whenever we close our eyes to our fears and selfishness or whenever we refuse to face the truth about our hang-ups, addictions and greed. We walk in darkness whenever we fail to see the sufferings of the poor, the sick, and the abandoned or whenever we ignore the lonely, the oppressed, and the downtrodden.
 
To walk in the light means not literally to see but to see more than meets the eye, to have a vision of our potential, and to make commitments to live our faith. As Paul tells us in his letter, we are children of the light whenever we produce every kind of goodness and justice and truth. Light shines through us every time we brighten the lives of others.
 
The good news on this Laetare Sunday is that Jesus wants to do for us what he did for the blind man. Like him, we can be cured of our spiritual blindness, but first we must rid ourselves of those false values that blind us from the truth of who Jesus is.  Imagine how deep our faith would be if we could open our eyes and truly see what Jesus has to offer us.  John’s intent here is to show us what Jesus can do for us. To come to him in faith is to accept the light; to reject him is to remain in darkness.  The choice is up to you.

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2nd Sunday of Lent

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A century ago there lived a young boy out in the country who had never seen a circus, so imagine how excited he was when a poster went up at school announcing that a traveling circus was coming to town.

Eagerly, he ran home to ask the big question, “Dad, can I go?” His family was poor, but his father sensed how badly his son wanted to go, so he said, “If you get your chores done in time, I’ll see to it that you can go.” The next morning, the chores were done and the young boy stood dressed in his Sunday best by the breakfast table. His father reached down into his overalls and pulled out a dollar bill –the most money the boy had ever had at one time in all his life.
His father cautioned him to be careful and then sent him on his way. The boy was so excited his feet hardly touched the ground along the way. When he got to town, he noticed people were lining the street, so he worked his way through the crowd until he could see what was coming. And there in the distance approached the spectacle of a circus parade.
It was the grandest thing this boy had ever seen. There were tigers and apes in cages, along with elephants, bands and clowns and all else that makes up a circus parade. After everything had passed by where he was standing, a traditional circus clown, with floppy shoes, baggy pants and brightly painted face came up in the rear.
As the clown passed by, the boy reached into his pocket and took out the precious dollar bill. Handing the money to the clown, the boy turned around and went home. He thought he had seen the circus. He didn’t realize that the best was yet to come. All he had seen was a preview, a glimpse of the wonderful performance that was to come under the big top.
 
As awesome as the transfiguration must have been for Peter, James and John, they hadn’t seen anything yet. They had yet to witness the passion or the resurrection or experience Pentecost. Certainly, the moment of the transfiguration was incredible but that’s all it was, a moment Peter wanted to lock in time when he offered to build tents for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. “Let’s hold on to this forever.”  And who could blame him? Until then, Peter, James and John had been fishermen who had abandoned their nets to follow a man whom they believed would save them. Jesus saved them all right, not as they had expected from the oppression of the Romans but from the oppression of sin.
Our first inclination when we read this gospel is to think that Jesus was the one who changed that day but the real transformation took place in the apostles. Their eyes were opened. In that moment they saw Jesus in his true nature as he really was and always has been. Fortunately for us, they saw the transfiguration as God’s invitation to move forward on a new path of faith.
We can allow ourselves to be transformed when we give Jesus the opportunity through the power of prayer and penance to take us up on the mountain and be enlightened as well. Like the boy, many of us think we have already seen the show but we really haven’t yet.
For many people, making time for Jesus is like making time for a favorite TV show, only this time, instead of an easy chair in the living room; it’s a pew in church. When the show is done, we move on with other activities until the following weekend, but as the week progresses, how often do we think to “listen to him?”  
At any given moment, we can find ourselves in a tug of war between the values of the gospel of Jesus that lead us to salvation and the values of our secular culture, which beckon us with promises of short lived pleasures that captivate us like any parade passing by.
More often than we care to admit, we sin without much thought to the consequences of our actions. We play down certain sins, convinced they will do no harm. Come judgment day, we may be surprised like the teenager who was stunned to find himself grounded after missing curfew one time too many. “Dad, if you had told me you were serious, I would have gotten home on time!”
Be advised, Jesus is serious when he tells us to turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel but for any number of reasons, we are reluctant to listen to him. We consider ourselves Christians yet how committed are we to doing what Jesus expects of us? Until we see the value of why God calls us to be faithful and obedient, we are apt to miss the show, just as the young boy missed seeing the circus.
Having seen the parade, the young boy thought he had seen it all and he went home. Think of how much he missed!  Think of how much the apostles would have missed had they left the mountain, figuring they had seen everything. Think of how much we are missing if we think right now that we know all there is to know about our faith or that we have as intimate a friendship with God as we can possibly have. Jesus has so much to teach us, to show us, and to share with us. No wonder, God says, “Listen to him.”  Jesus invites us to ascend the mountain with him and to place our trust in him.  Are we willing to give him the chance to transform us through prayer and scripture in the remaining weeks of Lent?
If you really want to “do” something for Lent, then listen.  Listen to the 
Son of God who invites you to journey with him to the mountain-top.  When we refuse to listen, we are likely to sin and for those times we now seek God’s forgiveness.

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1st Sunday of Lent

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This is a short gospel passage, but it’s long enough to get us thinking. Jesus remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. That brings to mind a Native American adolescent who prepared himself for manhood by venturing into the desert himself. There he fasted and prayed. On the third day, as he gazed at the mountains, he noticed one rugged peak, capped with snow and decided to climb it.

He put on his buckskin shirt, threw his blanket over his shoulder and set off to climb the peak. When he reached the top, he could see forever and his heart swelled with pride at what he had accomplished. He then heard a noise, coming from the leaves near his feet. Looking down, he saw a slithering snake. Before he could move, the snake spoke.
“I’m about to die,” whispered the snake. “I’m freezing up here. There is no food and I’m starving. Put me under your shirt where I will be warm and take me down to the desert.”
“No,” said the youth. “I’ve been warned about you. You are a rattlesnake and if I pick you up, you’ll bite me, and your bite will kill me.”
“Not so,” the snake protested. “I will treat you differently. If you do this, you will be special for me, and I will not harm you.” The youth resisted for awhile, but this was a very persuasive snake with beautiful diamond markings. Finally, the youth tucked the snake under his shirt and carried it down the mountain to the desert. Once he was there, he placed the snake on the ground.  Without warning, the snake coiled, rattled and struck, biting the young man on the leg.
“Ouch,” the young man cried, “You promised not to bite me.”
“You knew what I was when you picked me up,” the snake replied as it slithered away. 
 
However we visualize the evil one, be it as a serpent, as Satan, or the devil, its mission is to lure us into thinking there is nothing dangerous about temptations. When we are tempted, we may rationalize, “What is wrong with a little sin?” On the surface, perhaps nothing, but as the ad for a certain potato chip used to go, “You can’t eat just one.”
 
Temptation is everywhere, supposedly offering us a better life with promises to take away our hurts and loneliness. Don’t kid yourself. We all experience temptations. They come in all shapes and sizes from white lies to lurid websites on the internet to multi-million dollar schemes offered under the counter and many shades of gray in between.
 
To be tempted is to be tested. This is what happened to Jesus shortly after his baptism. For forty days in the desert, Satan tempted him to no avail. With any temptation, Satan’s goal is to separate us from the love of God and others.
 
Obviously Satan is successful with us for there would be no need for the season of Lent if all Christians were in a close and intimate relationship with God.  As Christians, we share the common experience with Jesus of baptism and through this sacrament; we entered into a covenant with God that promises us everlasting life.  As was the case with Jesus, our journey following baptism has been and will always be filled with temptations, too numerous to count, but unlike Jesus, our temptations have and will lead us astray at times. Baptism does not make us devil-proof.
 
If anything, we become devil bait, just as Jesus did. Some of us are even tempted to assume a “what me worry?” attitude so far as our relationship with God goes. So what if I miss Sunday Mass? So what if I won’t forgive my brother? So what if I tell a lie? So what if support abortion? So what if I cheat on my taxes? So what if I don’t bother to pray? So what if I don’t share what I have with others?  So what if I gossip? So what if I disobey my mom? Those aren’t mortal sins, so they won’t send me to hell.  Maybe not, but no sin brings us any closer to God either. Temptation can seduce us into ignoring the danger that any sin has the potential to derail our relationship with God and others.
 
Fr. Killian McDonnell, one of my seminary professors, had this to say, “Many people do not recognize Christ, because they do not recognize themselves as sinners. If I am not a sinner, then I have no need of Christ. No man will celebrate the mystery of Christ in joy if he does not first recognize in sorrow that he is a sinner.”
Jesus knew first hand from experience how difficult the journey following baptism could be for us. He proclaimed to anyone who would listen, “This is the time of fulfillment! The kingdom of God is at hand! Repent and believe in the gospel.” His sound advice offers us the antidote for finding what truly matters in life, unlike Satan who will never take the blame for the consequences of our actions. Nor should he.  George Eliot, an English novelist, wrote, “The devil tempts us not. It is we who tempt him, beckoning his skill with opportunity.”
 
Lent is a time for confronting our sinfulness and coming to grips with whatever separates us from God and one another. Those who were here on Ash Wednesday were told as the cross was traced on their forehead, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel.” We could not be given better advice for living, not just these 40 days of Lent, but every day of our lives.
 
My friends, as we begin these forty days of Lent, we are encouraged to become more aware of God’s love for us, evidenced by his son’s willingness to die for our sins.  Imagining now, his outstretched arms we apologize for the times we have not resisted the temptations we encounter in life.

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3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

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Being the fourth shortest book in the Hebrew Testament, the Book of Jonah can be read in minutes. What we just heard is its only appearance in the Sunday lectionary. You would think that this little book would be as obscure as the other lesser known books of the Bible yet Jonah’s story captures our imagination.

God calls out to Jonah, “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city and proclaim judgment upon it; for their wickedness comes before me.” But Jonah chooses not to, fleeing in the opposite direction. He boards a ship, finds himself in a storm. The crew blames him for their plight and at his suggestion throws him overboard. The sea calms down. In the book’s most famous scene, Jonah spends three days in the belly of a big fish. In response to his prayer, he is spewed upon the shore. This time, as we just heard, he goes to Nineveh and relays God’s message to its residents. Much to his displeasure, (after all, they were pagans) the citizens of Nineveh change their ways and are spared.
 
The narrative is hardly believable and Jonah isn’t much of a hero but he delivered a timeless message. He awakened countless listeners to the fact that morality is the one quality God seeks in us humans. God doesn’t care about our status in life, or where we live, or the color of our skin, or what we have done in the past. What God desires is that we conduct ourselves in a moral way in the present moment.
 
Repentance is the one thread that runs through these readings. Even Paul is cautioning his readers of the need to repent, telling them that life is passing away. Now, you may think that I am out of season. After all, repentance is the message we hear throughout Lent, but repentance isn’t just a Lenten activity. As I said earlier, God desires that we live the moral life, not in some distant future, but today.
 
One could see Jonah’s ultimatum as a threat. “Do this or else, God will punish you!” That was a message we heard often while growing up, and it was a message we shared as parents with our children as well. We are still told to do certain things or face the consequences if we don’t. Ignore the speed limit around here, for example, and you are apt to get a speeding ticket that could put a hefty dent in your wallet. Simply put, the math is simple. If we act immorally, the pleasure is likely to be fleeting but the consequences could be long lasting. No wonder Jonah’s message is well known: change direction or else!
 
Jesus, on the other hand, isn’t marching on the scene as a prophet of gloom and doom. He is telling us, “Something great is happening! Change direction or lose out!” In other words, there is more to life than simply avoiding sin. With the good news of the gospel, Jesus is offering us the fullness of life, not just light years away in heaven, but even in this lifetime. The Kingdom of God, which we pray for often, can be realized when we strive to live our lives today according to his teachings.
We Christians can be the happiest people on earth if we accepted Jesus’ invitation like the apostles did. They put aside everything and gave Jesus their undivided attention to learn his message. This message impressed them so much that, unlike Jonah, they went forth with great enthusiasm to share God’s simple message with anyone who would listen. Sadly, a fair number of us aren’t so willing to really listen to what Jesus has to say about living the moral life and yet we wonder why the world we live in is such a mess.
 
Jesus’ call to repentance is not intended to be a guilt trip; it is an invitation to change our outlook on life and see life as God does, your path to heaven, a path that may be shorter than we expect it to be.
 
A first century rabbi would tell his followers, “Repent one day before your death.”“But how,” they would ask, “does anyone know when that would be? One might die any day; it could be tomorrow, next week, or next year.”“Then repent,” he would say again, “One day before your death.”
 
So, what should we do? For starters, keep in mind that repentance isn’t an emotion. It isn’t feeling sorry for one’s sins. It is a deciding that what God wants from you and what you want from God aren’t going to be achieved by doing the same old things or thinking the same old thoughts. Jesus is urging us to abandon our nets of self-centeredness, fear and despair and walk with him to become “fishers” of the life and love of God. A few weeks ago, I urged you to take on the New Year’s resolution of spending more time in prayer each day then you did last year. Have you been doing that? If so, you have exercised an act of repentance. Prayer, as I pointed out last week, is God’s prescription for dealing with sin in our lives, the root of whatever self-centeredness, fear and despair we are experiencing.
 
We Christians should be the happiest people on earth. We know why we are here, we know where we are going and we know how to get there. Along the way, there will be trials and tribulations to disrupt our journey. There are weaknesses in our human nature that often lead us astray, but then God knows we cannot make this trip alone. That is why Jesus is on the scene. It comes down to you and me, today, hearing his call and responding as though our lives depended on it.

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