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Daily Scripture

+ 20th Week in Ordinary Time

I’ll do it myself.

Readings: Ezekiel 34:1-11 Psalm 23:1-6 Matthew 20:1-16

Therefore, shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: because my shepherds did not look after my sheep, but pastured themselves and did not pasture my sheep, I will claim my sheep from them and put a stop to their shepherding my sheep. I will save my sheep, that they may no longer be food for their mouths. [Ezekiel 34:10]

There is much talk about a vocation shortage—fewer young men entering the seminary and fewer still persevering to ordination. Not withstanding some notable exceptions this has resulted in the lowering of standards for ordination. Moreover, priests and candidates for the priesthood are being ‘imported’ from other countries whose needs are as urgent as ours.

The prevailing accent seems to be on the need to have a sufficient number of priests to ‘say Mass’ and provide for the sacramental needs of the faithful. But surely in the light of the Second Vatican Council, priests need to be more than presiders at Mass and providers of the sacraments, as important as are these roles.

The earliest experience of the Church can be instructive in this regard. The notion of presbyter provided the early church with presiders for worship and leaders for base communities. Celibacy was not an issue and there was no clerical caste. The gifts of the faithful were recognized in such a manner that men and women, married and single fulfilled the spiritual needs of the community including the sacramental needs.

Notwithstanding the inadequacy of the notion of shepherding people (sheeple?) the need remains for qualified men and women to minister to the needs of the community.

Ezekiel warned the priests and assured the people of Israel that God would find away to pasture his people.

Ezekiel’s words need to be taken to heart again and in fact we already see that God is indeed providing a way through the action of the Holy Spirit in the lives of men and women, married and single, who are tending to the needs of the faithful.

Feast of Pentecost

Sunday May 11, 2008

In real time.

I celebrate Mass every Thursday for the residents of Care One Health Care Center in Morristown. In as much as we usually anticipate the liturgy for the following Sunday, we celebrated the Feast of Pentecost this last Thursday. Though it was a cloudy day, everyone in that makeshift chapel—our own version of the ‘upper room’—truly believed that the sun was shining brightly above the clouds.

I invited them to the Jersey shore—in mind and heart of course—for a conversation with the ocean. It’s a great metaphor for conversation with God. The sea with its changing moods and currents speaks a language reflective our own. We can shout at the breakers and they shout back. At ocean’s edge, we can also experience the calm that follows the storm. The ocean is an attentive listener to be sure but is not afraid to speak out when the situation warrants.

Anyhow, the residents enjoyed their trip to the shore in celebration of the great feast of Pentecost. In the words of the folk tune, “the Spirit is a-movin all over, all over the land!” and sea. The ocean and everything that breathes life cries out that God’s energizing spirit is pervasive and is present everywhere within and around us.

The residents told me that our liturgy on Thursdays is the highlight of their week. What a wonderful reminder to me that in God there is no east or west, north or south. God is indeed everywhere and there’s a wideness in God’s mercy, especially for those whose physical prowess and will to power have given way to the inevitable defeat that comes with age and years of wear and tear on brains and brawn.

On my return home I reflected further on the mystery of Pentecost and the power of the liturgy to alert us to the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit who spreads her wings over the earth and over the church. It is that same Spirit that makes us aware that in the final analysis, the Church is not an institution but a movement in which there is no hierarchy of power or rank or authority but Christ, only the energizing grace of God that surges through our veins and makes us truly sisters and brothers in Christ no matter what our age or rank.

I suppose I should call our little Thursday gathering a ‘wisdom community’. You would be amazed at the depth of faith of these humble people who are living the final chapter of their life in the upper room of their minds and hearts. They know who they are in God’s sight and they are cozy with the God who loved them into life and who they know will love them one day into eternal life.

So, on this Feast of Pentecost, we are invited to kairos or ‘opportune time’ rather than chronological time at the shore or to our own version of the upper room reflect on our membership in the Church as a movement of the Spirit ‘in real time’—where we have been and where we are going.

Over forty-two years have passed since the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council. I still remember very vividly the pageantry of the closing ceremonies in the Basilica of St. Peter on December 8, 1965. Many of you are not old enough to remember the Council much less Catholic worship and faith practice prior to the Council, but you have heard lots of stories — serious and satirical, inspiring and scandalous — about “growing up Catholic” in the thirties, forties and fifties. Some have suggested—tongue-in-cheek—that the greatest challenge that Catholics face is getting over their early Catholic upbringing. I think that’s a bit harsh but even in satire, there is some truth.

I can’t tell you how often I have been called to minister to a senior tortured by the memory of the mistakes of the past drawn out of proportion by some abusive preachers and teachers. Evangelization does not begin with the catechism and Christian doctrine but with common courtesy and humn sensitivity.

For many Catholic ‘elders’, the Council was about externals — changes in the way we worship rather than changes in the way we think about ourselves as Christians. Of course, the way we worship is a strong indicator of what we believe. Despite my hesitation to inquire among non-Catholic observers what they think we believe, I did ask one of my Lutheran friends, a pastor, how she knew if there were Catholics in the congregation. She said they arrive late and leave early.

Sunday Mass in the average Catholic parish is not exactly a “Pentecostal” experience for most Catholics. May we conclude therefore that the full impact of the Council has yet to be experienced fully? I believe the answer is a resounding yes. Life is layered. We never get it right the first time and most of us don’t get it right after the fifth time. I suppose it is accurate to say it takes a lifetime. That’s why we need to keep coming back to the font – literally, dipping our fingers into the baptismal font and approaching the table where we are fed with the Eucharist bread or as some our first communicants refer to it, ’ the Jesus bread.’

Luke introduced the coming of the Holy Spirit with the same words as he used in his Gospel to announce the time of Jesus birth. Pentecost as portrayed in the Book of Acts and in John’s Gospel launched a new era, a radical change in the way the disciples thought about themselves as followers of Jesus.

Pentecost also effected a radical change in the way they viewed other people regardless of their origin or language. It was truly a reversal of Babel. The preaching of the Apostles attracted people of very different backgrounds. They were fired up as it were, about their association with Jesus. They were ready to live the very life of Jesus. In essence, they were convinced that Jesus lived in them through the gift of his Spirit. “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” [John 14:16]

I’m not sure that even now at 71 I fully appreciate the gifts of the Spirit that I received at Baptism and Confirmation. I’m still afraid to recognize or allow them to be activated for fear that I might have to change my way of thinking about myself and other people. After all, my biases and prejudices are working just fine for me. Forsaking them could have a devastating effect on my lifestyle. I am so much more comfortable with superficial changes in the externals, e.g., in the way we worship, and I find the lightening up of old rules and ascetic practices just fine. They make Christianity a lot easier to live and/or to explain.

On the other hand, don’t ask me to get involved in issues such as the impact of the global market economy on the poor in our own country as well as in third and fourth world countries. I still want my bargains especially during these hard economic times, at the expense of cheap labor in foreign and domestic sweat shops. And what about my denial of the race card that continues to haunt our electoral process and progress or the glass ceiling that prevents women from advancing in the corporation, in politics and yes in the Church?

The “New Pentecost” about which Pope John XXIII spoke so often and repeated by Paul VI and John Paul II is not so much about changes in liturgical protocol as it is about a true change of heart towards the world not in order to become more worldly but in order to take on the pain and anxieties of a changing world so that over time, the Church may pave a path to peace through justice that world may be made whole.

Pentecost can become the great equalizing feast, breaking down barriers to communication and dialogue among disparate and often desperate people.

The mighty wind of God’s spirit continues to blow where it will imparting the rhythm of God’s life, bringing with it the gifts of wisdom, courage, knowledge, reverence for God and zest for life.

The fruits of God’s spirit will be reflected in our charity, joy, peace, generosity, gentleness of heart, faithfulness and most of all in our hardnosed compassion.

How about we open up our minds and hearts and take the risk “again as if for the first time,” in real time?