• Bulletin Board, Announcements, Calendar
• Editorial - Op Ed
• Welcome and Website Protocol
• Article Archive

Print this page

Article Categories

• Book Reviews
• Open Letter
• Editorials
• Notes, Quotes & Comments
• Pastor's Study
• Project Millstones
• Sidebar Comments
• Weekly Message

Links

Liturgy
This link will keep 'parishioners-at-large' in touch with current creative liturgy sources and resources that respect a variety of 'traditions' within the Church.

COMMONWEAL Magazine
A 'lay' Catholic weekly publication with an accent on an intelligent analysis and commentary on curent issues, trends and concerns of interest to Catholics.

National Catholic Reporter
A national Catholic lay newspaper covering events not usually covered or presented with a clerical bias in the local diocesan press or but of concern and interest to Catholics.

Survivos' Network for those Abused by Priests or Religious
A National Network of self-help support groups for people abused by clergy or religious.

Bishop Accountability
Vital information about the disclosure of sexual abuse and related issues affecting Catholics in the pew and the manner in which Bishops continue to exempt themselves from accountability

Voice of the Faithful
A 'movement' of lay Catholics 'inspired' by the abuse scandal calling for greater accountability of bishops to 'Catholics in the Pew.'

Search

Daily Scripture

+ 33rd Week in Ordinary Time

Keep hope alive!

Readings: Revelation 5:1-10 Psalm 149:1-6, 9 Luke 19:41-44

_As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “if this day you only knew what makes for peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.” [Luke 19:41]

In Christian liturgy and literature, he Church has often been referred to as “the new Jerusalem” and heaven as “the new and eternal Jerusalem.” I think it’s a good simile. If you have ever been to the old section of Jerusalem, you surely would have noted the appropriateness of this comparison. Ancient Jerusalem is still very much in evidence if not literally, surely in its ambiance. A walk from the site of the ancient praetorium to Calvary – now well within the city limits – will surely give you a sense of what it may have been like when Jesus made that last fateful journey.

Today Jerusalem is truly an international city and bears within its womb and walls, the extremes of every race and religion. Jews still narrate the story of the great exodus and Christians break the bread of Eucharist while Islamic temples broadcast their ancient chants from minarets that echo through the streets in the wee hours of the morning.

This is the city over which Jesus wept not because it did not make him king but because it did not recognize its day of visitation, that is to say, its moment of opportunity. In reading a passage such as this, we need to put away preconceived notions about our understanding of Jesus’ messianic role in the light of its Christological evolution in Christian teaching today. Jesus was not about establishing new religious structures but about announcing the universality of God’s love – for Jews and gentiles, male and female, of every race and nation.

Would it be accurate to state that Jesus is weeping not just over Jerusalem but over our war torn world? And yet one cannot fail to see signs of hope on the horizon. Bernard Lonergan, Carol Rahner and Carl Jung support this very Christian notion that it is in our moments of deepest despair that a new wisdom emerges leading to a common vision of a new world in which love and respect overcome evil and injustice. Is it possible that in the midst of the turmoil in which our world seems enmeshed people of good can bring that vision to reality not through confrontation but through collaboration?

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 'C'

Wednesday August 15, 2007

Hold on to your Family Heroes

Who among us does not possess an encyclopedia of family stories; stories that take us to another time and place; stories that make us laugh and stories that make us cry. Whatever the gathering, a wedding or wake, occasioned by a photo album or wall gallery; a super 8 millimeter film, video or DVD, the stories unfold. I like to call them grandma and grandpa stories because they take us farthest back into history. We may tell the same story with a different twist. The details are not as important as the message and its meaning. After we have listened for a while, someone may sit down at the piano or pick up a guitar and grove into an old tune that matches the event or the times in which the stories originated.

Sooner or later in their telling, we may be introduced to a family hero. Every family has at least one—an aunt or uncle, an ancestor who faced a particularly difficult challenge with exceptional strength, courage, and grace. Although they may not have been perfect, they are our heroes. After all, saints were not always saints! We need both the heroes and their stories because they empower us to greatness in difficult times.

Although written long after the great exodus, the Book of Wisdom is a kind of hero story about our ancestors who were delivered from Egypt. It’s about their faith and courage. It is interesting that the Greek word used for ‘faith’ is emunah which is related to the Hebrew word for ‘Amen’. It denotes conviction and courage and the hope that God would be faithful to them. Even more than this, it was the gut conviction that God was already fulfilling a promise about what would happen in the future. I suppose it’s something like smelling the sweet fragrance of a rose that has yet to blossom.

According to an ancient Jewish midrashic legend, when Moses raised his staff and extended his arms over the Sea of Reeds, the sea did not divide as described in the Book of Exodus or as portrayed in Cecil B de Mille’s production. It was not until the first man had jumped into the water that the promised miracle happened and the waves receded. Of course, this cannot be documented or proven (that’s what makes it a midrashic story) but it does make a case for that proactive faith to which every believer should aspire. It is this quality of faith to which the author of the Book of Wisdom called his Jewish compatriots living in Alexandria during the first century before Christ. The Jews were heavily influenced by Hellenistic thinking, ready to abandon their tradition in favor of a philosophy more to their liking.

The Letter to the Hebrews pursues this same notion of faith using the Greek word, ‘hypostosis’, defined as the absolute assurance that what God promises, God will fulfill. The author then goes on to extol the faith of Abraham who without a second thought and without knowing where he was going, left everything behind and followed the inspiration of God to venture out in search of a new land. By faith, although they were too old, he and Sarah received the power of procreation and were blessed with a family which blossomed in the great progeny of Israel—“as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.” They believed and they were justified before the Lord. And so to this day, we claim Abraham and Sarah as “our ancestral parents in the faith.”

Luke understood the exodus as a prefiguring of the Christian Passover with Jesus as the hero of the story. Jesus leads us daily through rough seas and provides a dry path on which we can travel safely. We need to live in the conviction that he was there and that he is here. We need the conviction of our ancestors—that kind of faith that keeps us alert and ready to recognize his coming into our lives, indeed, his presence here and now. With his grace to uphold us, there is nothing we cannot endure.

When we come into this assembly, we bring our encyclopedia of family stories, be they stories about grandma and grandpa or perhaps figures from our extended family—ball players like Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig; poets like Gerard Manley Hopkins and others who captured the mystery of life leaving us with anthologies that buoy up the human spirit so that we might be able to look beyond our noses to see reality through the lens of faith. Our heroes do not have to be saints. Isn’t it interesting how even after a rogue passes away, we find something nice to say about him at his funeral!

When we come into this assembly, we connect our family stories with the God story and with the Jesus stories or perhaps with Mary or one of the saints. This is called in our tradition, the “Communion of Saints”.

Every day is a challenge but every day is also a gift. Faith makes all the difference in the world. Even in the face of disappointment and even death itself, faith helps us not just to believe but to know that failure is never final and death is not the end; that the regeneration of the spirit is endless and that life continues as we pass into the bosom of Abraham and into the heart of God.

Perhaps one day you and I may become someone’s hero!