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Daily Scripture

+ 7th Week of Easter

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

Readings: Acts 20:17-27 Psalm 68:10-11, 20-21 John 17:1-11

I am in the world no longer, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. [John 17:11]

Shakespeare ‘penned’ the phrase quoted above. I didn’t understand it as a student of Shakespeare in high school but I began to understand it when I waved goodbye to my family as I sailed off to Italy on September 21, 1963 for a three-year stretch in Rome. In fact, it has multiple meanings and applications that I appreciate now more than ever before.

There is another phrase that perhaps gives credence to my thoughts so poorly expressed and it’s this: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Ah, that’s it. At times we need to separate from ‘the source’ in order to appreciate how important it is to stay connected.

The farewell speech of St. Paul in Acts and the farewell ‘prayer’ of Jesus in John’s gospel were more likely composed by the authors of these texts along the lines of the farewell speeches of great leaders of their times in order to attract the attention of Jesus’ followers.

The departure of Jesus and later that of Paul created ‘fallow’ time in the hearts of the neophyte believers that was absolutely necessary if they were to grasp the significance of Jesus’ message and the teachings of St. Paul.

We are once again in ‘fallow’ time as we prepare for Pentecost. It’s a time of discernment during which we are invited to ponder the words and deeds of Jesus so that in his absence, we may come to know his presence in the Spirit that remains within us and around us.

As we ponder, it is important to reflect on the gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and reverence of the Lord. And the fruits of the Holy Spirit are qualities that are characteristic of a community living in Christ: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty self-control and chastity.

There is much to ponder as we wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

"An Awesome Quote"

Saturday September 23, 2006

John Danforth

This poignant quote comes from a Brooklyn priest and colleague, Fr. Joe Hassan. I though visitors might appreciate its succinct wisdom.

Danforth is an Episcopal priest and was an Ambassador to the United Nations. He served three terms as a Republican Senator and a special envoy to Sudan for President Bush. He’s the author of Faith and Politics.

If public religion is, in truth, a show of religiosity more than an act of faith, and if its influence on behavior is doubtful, then I wonder why so many people feel so strongly about the importance of religion in the public square. Why would anyone care enough about nonsectarian prayers in schools or granite-inscribed versions of the Ten Commandments in courthouses to hold vigils to promote his cause? Indeed, why is public religion significant enough to amount to a cause?

I think the reason behind this fervor is an understandable concern about the state of values in our society. When the divorce rate is 50 percent and unwed teen pregnancies are 34 percent, when it seems that family entertainment is impossible to find among the obscene, when children have access to drugs, then there is little wonder that many Americans are desperate to restore some measure of decency to our common life, to return to a world which, at least in our memories, was better than what we have today — a world in which religion seemed to have more force in influencing how people live their lives.

So it seems we live in a godless age, and we feel deeply that we must reverse this; we must restore God, and we seize upon public religion as a way to do this. School prayer, the Ten Commandments, the teaching of creationism or intelligent design and crèches in front of public buildings all become parts of an effort to reverse our moral course and return our country to a time of public decency.

It is a worthy objective. The problem is that public religion is not up to the task. An innocuous prayer has no power to make us more godly. A display of the Ten Commandments will not make us obey the commandments. What public religion can do is create an appearance that faith is a formality contrived to impress people more than God. It can give us something to argue about among ourselves, in political campaigns and in courts. And when it is not merely vacuous, when it slips into the expression of one religious tradition or another, as it did when I read that prayer at Yale, it tells us that even in our common life, we are not one people, but people on one side or another of a sectarian divide.

The practice of religion is an effective antidote to the disease so apparent in our society. People who practice their beliefs will live according to moral and ethical standards their religion teaches them. They will be witnesses against the tawdriness of the culture around them. They will be examples of the people God expects us to be. They will be that because they understand and live by the tenets of their traditions. That is the practice of religion. It is different altogether from the public display of religion.