A Regular Joe

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

HAWAIIAN RULES!

One of the tougher tours of duty my family had to endure while we were in the Navy was being stationed in Hawaii for six years. While we lived there we were very engaged in the base parish’s liturgical and educational ministries, as well as local sports for our children. Judy and I have always taught our children how to play by the rules, to be a gracious winner and loser, to always look to improve in our own abilities and responsibilities, and when on a team play with the team’s success in mind, not just playing for our own benefits and stardom.

Hawaii was beautiful, most of the year you could leave the windows open and let the Hawaiian breeze cool the house. It also allows you to hear a lot of what was going on outside. One day the children were out playing a pick-up football game with the local children. I could hear voices being raised in dispute, it was a loud discussion over the rules of the game, the last thing I heard was a loud acclamation by the neighbor’s son “Hawaiian rules!” In other words, while we live in Hawaii, we get to change the rules to suit the home field or the one who owns the ball.

In our reading from Kings the high priest Hilkiah found the playbook (the book of the Law). A book that documented the covenant between God and his people Israel. Once read to the King, he realized they’d been playing by “Hawaiian rules” in Jerusalem! So the King gathered all the people had reminded them of God’s desire and the covenant that their fathers made with the Lord to revive the covenant and right relationship.

“Remain in me, as I remain in your, says the Lord; whoever remains in me will bear much fruit.” (Jn 15:4a, 5b) Jesus warns us in the Gospel, beware of false prophets who play by “Hawaiian Rules”. He tells us, you know them, “by their fruits”.

Our world, nation, and communities are becoming increasingly segregated and individualistic in how it approaches life and success. Pope Francis is constantly trying to remind us of the covenant we entered into through our Baptism, to realize we were created for each other and baptized into the “one” body, the Body of Christ. It’s not all about us as individuals!

Our Mass is a communal prayer, once the procession starts our individual prayers stop and we unite as individual living stones that make up the “one” holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. We raise our “one” voice in worship to the “one” God in thanksgiving for all he has accomplish through us as the “one” body of Christ. Then we process in communion to receive his Son, who offers himself, body and blood, soul and divinity, to feed us, to nourish us, to go and seek the lost and forsaken and invite them back to the table of his love and mercy.

Wednesday, June 20, 2018

GET IN THE GAME!

Several years ago while I was working with Habitat for Humanity, our affiliate was building out our first subdivision. 28 families in need were working to build a simple, decent, affordable place to call home. But this is not the important part. As the crews worked on these houses, every Saturday 3 young teenagers would show up to work on the houses. They were respectful, hard workings teens willing to do anything necessary to move the house construction along; framing, roofing, insulation, painting. One day when I saw them on site I began a conversation with them, wondering what motivates them to work on these houses every weekend. Their response floored me.

Ten years ago it was their mother who was in need of a simple, decent, affordable home for their family, and it was Habitat for Humanity who gave them the opportunity to succeed in her dream. The boys anxiously awaited the day that they would be old enough to return the blessing to other families. They saw their work on the construction site as a way to fulfill other families dreams of safe, affordable housing. This was their way of getting into the game, of contributing to the success of their community, who contributed so much to their family’s success so many years before. They told me, “They wouldn’t trade this experience for the world.”

Sometimes we fall into the trap of not showing up, nor participating because we get so lost in our own life challenges or our own daily grind. That there just isn’t anything left to give.

In the Gospel today, Jesus invites us to show up and participate. We are to give alms, pray, and fast. Our job isn’t to give the most money, to starve ourselves, or even to become the best pray-ers like the saints. Jesus is telling us to just show up and offer whatever you have and just get in the game.

Christians participate by giving money—a lot or a little—so others might eat. Christians pray every day so our lives are conformed to that of Jesus. Christians fast—especially in North America where there is so much—because we don’t need all those calories, alcohol, or technology. We participate because that’s what Jesus did and He calls us to do the same.

Let's all show up because in fasting, giving alms, and in praying, we can share the blessing we have received from our Heavenly Father and we become more like His Son, who gave everything.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

A SPIRITUAL SUBMARINE

[1]The story is told of a father of five children who came home with a toy. He summoned his children and asked which of them should be given the present. “Who is the most obedient one here? Who never talks back to Mom and does everything that Mom says to do?” He inquired. There were a few seconds of silence, and then all of the children said in one accord: “You play with it Daddy!”

A godly father is an unseen spiritual submarine who lurks below the surface of every activity of his child’s life. A man who has put on the full armor of God and with that armor, goes to warfare on his knees for his children, is a force to be reckoned with. We cannot be with our children 24 hours a day. Yet, through his prayers he has the ability to affect situations even when he is not physically present. He may be undetected but that does not mean he’s ineffective.[2]

Using the agricultural analogy, I see my role as a father much like a farmer. By word, and more importantly by deed, I must be a sower. As a sower I must prepare the field, my children, to receive the seeds of faith. This may include the need to remove rocks, uproot bushes and remove weeds that will disrupt growth. I also have to have the sense that, through it all "the seed would sprout and grow, I may not know how. Of its own accord the field yields fruit.” (Mk 4:27-28) Sometimes I need to realize I need to be the unseen spiritual submarine.

Jesus uses the image of the tiny mustard seed, the smallest of seeds, scattered on the Earth, and we’ll hardly notice that it’s growing, yet it grows, a purely organic growth. What an image of how change happens, how growth happens, how love happens. You see, it’s not in doing great, big, heroic things, but doing little things with great love, little things like being a good daddy on an ordinary day, when no one notices.

Jesus’ parables of the Kingdom are intentionally non-glorious. They’re not big. They’re not organizational or institutional images. Jesus doesn’t talk about creating a huge building. He doesn’t talk about running an institution from Rome. He just talks about little people doing little things that are hardly noticed and they change the world. Little by little, often unnoticed they yield a harvest. Isn’t this the story of most of our lives?

The “mustard seed conspiracy” has little to do with formal or clerical ministry. It is more about the little things that we all have the power to do in our everyday ordinary, simple lives.

The point Jesus is making in today’s parable is, once a mustard plant takes root, it takes over everything, even where it is not wanted. It gets out of control, and it attracts birds and animals, it is teaming with life and it wreaks havoc with our crops, and our plants, and our plans.[3]

The parable of the kingdom is about God’s reign on earth, where people respond to God’s grace and try to live in justice and peace. It looks forward to a day when God’s will is done on earth as perfectly as it is in heaven. The Kingdom of God is not like the majestic and orderly cedars of Lebanon but like a pungent shrub with dangerous takeover properties.

When the seed of Catholicism first reached North America remains a complex conversation. We do know the seed planted grew to include the formation of the Diocese of Orlando and now 50 years later, our diocese has grown its branches across Central Florida to include 79 parishes, 12 missions, 2 basilicas, 37 schools and hundreds of ministries.

As followers of Jesus it is our challenge to be the messengers of hope that changes lives. We are challenged to be like tiny mustard seeds taking over hills and fields, spreading the Good News of the Kingdom of God everywhere.

We are called to sow the seeds of faith and to allow our Heavenly Father to act on these seeds, so they remain true to themselves and their purpose. His Fatherly influence, often as an unseen spiritual submarine, begins with something very small, that grows of its own inner strength into something very big, that provides a nesting place for the birds and home for His adopted children, which is an image for the universality of the Father’s love.[4]