A Regular Joe

Friday, January 8, 2021

TRADING PLACES

In the 1983 movie, “Trading Places” an upper-crust executive Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) and down-and-out hustler Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) are the subjects of a bet by successful brokers Mortimer and Randolph Duke. The bet was a social experiment on how, through a moment of misfortune, framing Winthorpe for a crime he didn't commit, would turn him into a violent social outcast and by installing the street-smart Valentine in Winthorpe’s former position, would lift the street-smart Valentine into a polished business socialite.

Jesus stretched out his hand, touched [the leper], and said, “I do will it. Be made clean.” (Lk 5:13) The Torah taught that a leper was to be excluded from the community’s worship (Lv 22:4). Leprosy made a person ritually impure and so it was for anyone who made physical contact with them. Jesus effectively traded places with this man. He tells the leper to “Go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them.” (Lk 5:14) restoring him to the community and Jesus would be considered ritually impure and outside the community.

Our passage from the first letter of John speaks eloquently and passionately about God’s love without sentimentalizing or romanticizing it. The writer talks of it in terms of water, spirit, and blood. Because in the end, God’s love is revealed through a great miscarriage of justice resulting in a death, accompanied by terrible physical and psychological pain, that reveals the depth of His love made manifest in Jesus Christ.[1]

Unlike the Duke brother’s social experiment bet, Jesus demands that we reach out to people who were regarded as unworthy participants in the community’s worship: public sinners, nonobservant people, and all the lepers of our time. To find ways to reach out to those on the margins of the community, because this is the mission of the Church, this is what makes visible the incarnation of God’s love. Jesus, who possesses us, is the means by which God touches the lives of people excluded from the community, enabling them to experience the love of God.

Do you believe Jesus is able and willing to reach out his hand to touch you, to heal you, to possess you and you to possess Him? (1 Jn 5:12) How would we know someone possesses the Son? Mass attendance may be an indication. Maybe an active and visible prayer life is a good indication. Pope Francis offers this suggestion in Frutelli Tutti, “Each day offers us a new opportunity, a new possibility … to take an active part in renewing and supporting our troubled societies. A great opportunity to express our innate sense of fraternity, to be Good Samaritans who bear the pain of other people’s troubles rather than fomenting greater hatred and resentment. We need only to have a pure and simple desire to be a people, a community, constant and tireless in the effort to include, integrate and lift up the fallen.” (FT 77) Let us foster what is good and empathetically place ourselves at the service of God’s love

[1] Weekday HomilyHelps, Exegesis by Leslie J. Hoppe, OFM.

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

LOVE THEM

The two questions I most often get from a parent/grandparent concerned for the salvation of their children/grandchildren are: “How can I help them back from the abyss of the many forms of additive behavior?” and “They don’t go to church any more, how can I get them to return?” My short answer is you must love them back to wholeness. Not of over simplify the magnitude of each situation, yet the reality is the child (who now may be an adult) needs to see and know the parent’s love, even in their deepest disagreement and disappointment. The child needs the kind of love that listens without judgement, a love that listens for what is not being said, that seeks to understand their deepest need, and a love that selflessly offers themselves in service to their need.

John Neumann was looking forward to being ordained in 1835 when the bishop decided there would be no more ordinations. As difficult as it might be for us to imagine now, but all over Europe there were so many priests, no bishop wanted any more. John, disappointed, yet certain he was called to be a priest, wrote to the bishops in America. Finally, the bishop in New York agreed to ordain him in 1836.[1]

His many priestly assignments found him on horseback, heading off miles away from his home parish. Staying in the open air, taverns, inns, or parishioners’ barns, bringing Christ to the people at Mass, through teaching and through his gift of language hearing confessions in 7 different languages. He was rugged and didn’t mind “roughing it” in order to help his people come to know Christ. In today’s phrasing we would say, “He was a man’s man!” In Catholic phrasing, we can say, “He was a good shepherd.” John saw his parishioners’ needs and loved them, by serving them.[2]

“When Jesus saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd;” (Mk 6:34) and he challenged His disciples to trust in God to love, and serve God’s children. Telling them to, “Give them some food yourselves.” (Mk 6:37)

This and today’s passage, from the first letter of John, underscores the priority of God’s love as shown in sending His Son “as expiation for our sins.” (1Jn 4:10). In other words, the times we fail to love as He has loves us. God’s love as revealed in Jesus, requires mutual love on the part of the disciples. Suggesting, we do not demonstrate our love of God directly, but only indirectly, through our love for each other. The love of God impels us to reciprocate His love, by our genuine love for one another.[3]

John Neumann was a great shepherd in his life because he knew Jesus loved him, pitied him when necessary, taught him life lessons, and fed him with the Bread of Life. Through the example of St. John Neumann, we are likewise invited, as shepherds of our families, to trust in God; for what Jesus’ coming reveals is God’s love for us; our response to that love, is through our love and service to all our sisters and brothers, who are the beloved children of God.

[1] Catholic Online, St. John Neumann.

[2] Weekday HomilyHelps. Homily suggestion by Rev. Steven R. Thoma, CR.

[3] Ibid. Exegesis by Leslie J. Hoppe, OFM.

Friday, January 1, 2021

GRANDPARENTS DO MATTER

Call me skeptical, but I couldn’t imagine what all the hype was about having grandchildren. I love my daughter and I assumed I’d also love my grandchildren, but there had to be more to it than that. Why else would normal, rational, level-headed adult turn into absolute fool at the mere mention of their grandchildren? Author Lois Wyse once said, “If I had known how wonderful it would be to have grandchildren, I’d have had them first.”

Now that I have two grandsons of my own, I get it. I’ve never been so thoroughly loved by any human beings than I have by my grandchildren. They fight over who gets to sit on my lap, share a popsicle, or read the next story. They ask to Facetime when they can’t visit, fling themselves into my arms with joyous abandon, and cry when they have to leave me. Who else in my world adores me like this?[1] Grandparents, and grandparent figures, do matter.

Today’s Gospel highlights two grandparent figures—Simeon and Anna—they are two wisdom figures, almost like Temple lights, yet seemingly out of place and forgotten in the midst of the Temple. These two elders, whose lives are spent in waiting and wondering, remind us that life does not always unfold in the way we may want. But, enter Jesus into the mix, and we experience a new way to develop, age, and love.

It is Simeon and Anna who, in their grandparent wisdom, as they welcome, speak of, and prophesy to the Holy Family, tell us to look beyond great empires and find God among the lowliest and downtrodden. How similar is the message of Pope Francis, who challenges powerful nations and wants our great Church to be poor for the poor and to look to the fringes for the poor and forgotten children and families. Simeon’s song that Jesus is a “light to reveal God to the nations” reminds us that the revelation of God in Jesus is the source of true light for our world.[2]

As disciples of Jesus, we are challenged to speak and act in ways that place others on the path to salvation. However, while many will say they are in the light, yet their words and behaviors suggest a hate for their brother/sister, thus are, in reality, still in the darkness. (1 Jn 2:9)

John emphasizes to his readers, and us, that as long as we love one another as the Lord loves us, then we can be assured we are walking in this light, instead of stumbling about in the darkness of pride and self-interest. This light opens our eyes to see beyond the realm of this world with all its limitations. With this light we walk as Jesus walked. We then become the wise grandparent figures, the Temple light, spending our days in waiting, loving, and shining our grandparent wisdom on the grandchildren of our time. Grandparents do matter.

[1] Crosswalk.com, 10 Ways Grandchildren are a Blessing by Lori Hatcher. July 24, 2019.