A Regular Joe

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

IDENTITY & RELATIONSHIP

Many years ago, a couple on the brink of divorce sought the assistance of a counselor. The wife had decided to leave but they were giving it a last-ditch effort to save their marriage. She told how she had tried to get her husband’s attention for years, but he wasn’t there. She would have to beg him to spend time with her and the kids on weekends. She would talk to him but he didn’t really listen. If she asked him to help her with housework and all the things she had to do, he would put it off. She felt she was raising those kids on her own. She was lonely and frustrated.

Then, the sink broke in the kitchen and the plumber came to fix it. After he did the job, she offered him a coffee and they sat at the kitchen table and talked for a half hour. That’s it. Nothing more happened. But when he left, she made up her mind to get a divorce. She realized that the plumber, a perfect stranger, gave her more attention in that half hour than her husband had in the entire past year.[1]

Our readings today continue the conversation of understanding our identity as a people of God and our need to maintain relationships. It seems so easy to lose ourselves and track of relationships in the things and culture of this world. Whether it be work, social groups, even ministry can be taken so far that we lose important relationships and assume an identity quite different from our original identity. Elijah is appealing to the children of Israel to get off the fence, to remember who they are and who their Lord and God is.

Now we most likely will not see a slaughtered calf, grain, altar and water lapped up by the Lord’s all-consuming fire. Jesus does remind us he came to fulfill the law, that not even the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until heaven and earth pass away.

The fourth commandment illuminates other relationships in society. In our brothers and sisters, we see the children of our parents; in our cousins, the descendants of our ancestors; in our fellow citizens, the children of our country; in the baptized, the children of our mother the Church; in every human person, a son or daughter of the One who wants to be called "our Father." (CCC 2212)

As we enter into the communion procession, let us be keenly aware whose children we are, who our brother and savior is, and that our relationship with each other and the world is a proclaim that “the Lord is God. The Lord is God!” (1 Kgs 18:39)

[1] Psychology Today. "I Have to Beg to Get His Attention, A Wife’s Lament” by Vikki Stark M.S.W., M.F.T.

Sunday, June 10, 2018

OUR ORIGINAL IDENTITY

[1]"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

I wasn’t to sure how the congregation was going to respond to me standing tall to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in the parish environment. If it would have been a government building or sports event many would pop to, hand over their hearts and join in.

Modified three times over the last 62 years, in its current version, it has communicated been our national vision statement and expresses our national identity since 1954. The original pledge, written in August 1892 by the socialist minister Francis Bellamy. Bellamy’s vision was that his more generic pledge would be used by citizens in any country.[2]

For the United States, the Pledge has become both a patriotic oath and a public prayer. It expresses our national values for which so many have given their lives in its’ defense. Yet it is not without controversy. Many question whether we truly live the values professed and question, with our house so divided against itself, how long our nation will be able to stand in the current atmosphere of division between races, gender, and politics.

To fully understand this disharmony, we must go back to the Garden of Eden.

The story of the fall of Adam and Eve, what we call “original sin”. This is the place that we, as Catholics, often get stuck. But we have to realize, this was not the only original human experience. In Saint John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, he discusses the original human experiences that “are always at the root of every human experience … Indeed, they are so interwoven with the ordinary things of life that we generally do not realize their extraordinary character.” (TOB 11:1)

According to Saint John Paul, three experiences in particular define the human person in the state of innocence: solitude, unity, and nakedness.

In Original Solitude man is alone (Gen 2:18) because he is the only bodily creature made in God’s image and likeness. As he names the animals, he also discovers his own name, his own identity.

In Original Unity God creates woman (Gen 2:21-22). Both are alone in the world, they both are different from the animals, both are called to live in a covenant of love.

In Original Nakedness "the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed" (Gen 2:25). This is precisely the key to understanding God’s original plan for human life according to Saint John Paul.

Nakedness without shame demonstrates that the first couple participated in the same vision of God. They knew their goodness. They knew God’s glorious plan of love. They saw it inscribed in their bodies and they experienced it in their mutual desire. We lost this glorious vision with the dawn of sin.[3]

“Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins.”(CCC 2336).

The Gospel story sets Jesus’ family in comparison to influential religious leaders. Both groups express an inability to understand who Jesus really is. The religious authorities conclude he is possessed by Satan. His family assumes he has lost his sanity. At the time, these diagnoses were roughly equivalent to each other.

The scene underscores how those who presumably were in great positions to make sense of Jesus still were not immediately able to see him as God’s agent. As Jesus announced and re-inaugurated God’s intentions for human flourishing, many could not overcome the disorienting character of his message. Even close relatives and religious insiders were bewildered by what he said, which threatened to disrupt so many aspects of human society.[4] They couldn’t see past the ways things were in their present time, religious disciplines and power structures.

Jesus’ words prompt us to consider the relationship in the human family and what it means to know, and do, God’s will. To undo sins’ work of disrupting relationships, relationships with our immediate family, parish & local communities, but most of all our relationship with God himself. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians calls us to “look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, [I couldn’t help but think, as I was driving the other morning, it was a beautiful morning. Sun shining, the bright green Spring foliage, the cars, the buildings. Yet it hit me, it’s all temporary. Buildings will decay, we’ll eventually have to replace the broken-down car, even our bodies will eventually fail.] but what is unseen is eternal.”(2 Cor 4:18)

Participating in Jesus’ reconciling mercy and receiving His body and blood, soul and divinity, moves us closer to opening our eyes and heart, to discovering/rediscovering our true identity in God’s original vision for the human experience. His vision is that of an unashamed love and communion.

[2] The Pledge of Allegiance. UShistory.org. http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm

[4] THE BLOG 06/06/2012, Updated Dec 06, 2017. “Mark 3:20-35: What Makes a Family?” by Matthew L. Skinner. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-l-skinner/mark-3-20-35-what-makes-a-family_b_1573923.html

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

COURAGEOUS WITNESS

I just spent 5 days with 8 men on their canonical retreat in preparation for their ordination to the Order of Deacon. Our own community is still on an ordination high witnessing Fr. Matthew’s ordination to the Order of Priests.

The ordination of a priest and a deacon is a heart moving experience, for the individual priest and deacon, as well as for the witnesses of the ordination. The is full of ancient traditions: a greeting filled with the same love expressed by Paul in his letter to Timothy, the laying on of hands, the calling upon the assistance of the saints by the community, the donning of the vestments of their respective offices and then they receive a specific charge:

Priests (Hands on the gifts of bread & Wine)	Deacons (Hands on the Book of the Gospels)
“Receive the oblation of the holy people, to be offered to God. Understand what you do, imitate what you celebrate, and conform your life to the mystery of the Lord’s cross.”[1]	“Receive the Gospel of Christ, whose herald you have become. Believe what you read, teach what you believe and practice what you teach.”[2]

Then there is the fraternal kiss of peace. Together this is a great image of perfect communion between God and his children on earth.

Paul’s letter is a sort of rallying cry—as were most of Paul’s stirring messages. Here his powerful summation emphasizes joy and hope. Before putting forth the daunting challenge to Timothy to carry on the good work, Paul urges him—and us—to join in a celebration, a recognition of what has been gained, despite all the hardships. What has been gained at this point? Everything! We have witnessed and experienced “the appearance of our savior, Jesus Christ, who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tm 1:10).

Just as our priests and deacons are set apart for particular ministries, the same Holy Spirit was given to you at your Baptism, we all receive the same living Christ from the one tables, confirmed with our ‘Amen’. This is the same Spirit who provides you with power, love, and self-control. “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice …” (2 Tm 1:7). So eat and drink this sacred food, and so nourished go into the world and courageously witness to the living hope of the reality of Kingdom of God, here and now.

[2] Ibid (210) “Ordination of Deacons”.