Presentation of the Lord Sunday

Our readings for the Presentation of the Lord Sunday are:

1. Malachi 3: 1-4
2. Psalms 24: 7, 8, 9, 10
3. Hebrews 2: 14-18
4. Matthew 2: 22-40

• Refiner's fire
• Purity of heart seems like an unlikely goal to reach.  All of us have choices to make, and we often long for the issues, and the relative importance of those issues affecting our decisions to be clear.
• Do you feel that someone pure of heart has no fear, no selfishness, no vice?
• How do you think that a person pure of heart gets to be that way?
• Do you think that life is harder or easier to someone truly pure of heart?
• What would it take for you to achieve that purity?

• Being sensitive to the meaning
• I once knew a man in his 80s who still had his original baptismal candle.  This candle was carefully preserved, beautifully carved, clearly a work of devotion.  Every year on the anniversary of his baptism, he would carefully take that candle out, light it, and repeat his baptismal vows in prayer and rededicate himself to God's service.
• What are some meaningful commemorations in your life, your family's life, your community's life?
• How do those observances make your life more meaningful?
• How did they get started?
• Are they sacramental at all for you?

• Testing as a way of life
• Every world class athlete, musician, writer, teacher, ... strives to become better at what they do.  Not because what they do is not good enough, but because testing themselves, pushing their limits, going beyond what they thought possible transcends merely what they do, and makes them better at being who they are.
• Do you think that Jesus understands you when you try and fail?
• When was the last time that you disappointed yourself in some way.  Was God disappointed in you to?  If so, was it for the same reasons?
• Does the image of God as coach make any sense for you?
• Do you think that you could ever get cut from the team?

• Is there a prophet in the house?
• How would you define the word "prophet"?  Would you include Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, Mahatma Gandhi, Bishop Desmond Tutu?
• What do prophets have in common?
• Why do we still need them?
• Who are some prophets in your life?
• What are some small ways that someone can be prophetic in their home and community?
• Do you think that God would like for us all to be at least a little prophetic?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. What have I done today to improve my purity of heart?
2. What am I doing to deepen my dedication to God's service?
3. How am I strengthening my faith?
4. What message has God for me to spread?

Called

St. Ignatius invites us to imagine someone that we truly admire
Who has done a great deal for the world to bring holiness and peace.

Imagine that this wonderful person comes to your town for a visit.

You go to the convention, thinking how lucky you are to be there.

The lecture over, the crowd begins to disperse, and you sit, lost in thought.

Then, still thronged by admirers, this prophet makes their way.

They head down the very aisle that you are seated in.

And stop next to your seat, and look you straight in the eye.

They tell you "I have heard much about you from your friends,

Relatives, and pastor.  And I want to talk with you in a few minutes.

They move on, and you are stunned.  You wonder what they might want.

They come back, this time all alone, and gently sit down beside you.

Looking you straight in the eye, they begin.

"I need someone like you at my side, day in, day out.

All the rest of these folks, they bask for awhile in my presence,

And then they move on, hardly any different for the encounter.

But you, in you I see someone who can make a real difference,

Someone with spirit, and fire, and desire to serve.

I want you to come with me.  Share my ministry with me, work side by side with me.

It won't be easy.  I cannot tell you just where this will take you.

Your friends and family will not understand at first.  But I promise you this,

If you enter this life with me without reservation, you will be happy beyond measure.

Are you willing to take this plunge, can you go where I go, suffer what I suffer,

Minister to those in crying need, and slowly, make this world a better place?"

Ignatius goes on in this exercise to say that this is the very offer that Jesus extends to us

Jesus will never push, or clamor for our attention, He won't try to manipulate us.

But He extends this offer to us, and waits for us to take His hand and see where He goes.

What do you say, today?

Shalom!

3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time are:

1. Isaiah 8: 23-9: 3
2. Psalms 27: 1, 4, 13-14
3. 1 Corinthians 1: 10-13, 17
4. Matthew 4: 12-23

• Working with Jesus
• It's natural for your children to want to help.  One way that they can help, particularly if you are under the family car, trying to fix a broken starter, is to hand you tools.  You and your child get to do something together, they learn some vocabulary when your wrench slips, and they learn some confidence around mechanical things.
• In the book of Judges, God had Gideon "attack" the Mideanites with nothing more than torches, clay jars, and trumpets.  God asked Gideon to have a hand in that victory, to help God perform a miracle.  Of course, Gideon question God's judgement, but he obeyed anyway.
• Think of a time when you were moved to say or do something and it really touched someone.
• Where do you think God was in that encounter?
• Why do you think that God chose you to to be involved in that?
• What do you think that you contributed to God's action?

• Contemplating the Lord's temple
• I grew up in San Pedro, home to communities from Italy, Czechoslovakia, Serbia, Norway and other European nationalities.  In Holy Trinity parish, there was an undercurrent of competition between these various communities when it came to adorning the inside of the church, or contributing to the parish carnival.  To look around that church is to see a lot of history, a lot of generosity.
• How connected do you feel to the history of your church?
• Do you think that those past generations have anything to tell us today about our faith?
• How would you find out?

• Unity within the body
• I think that Mary was the world's first Jesuit.  Ignatius of Loyola recommends that we go back to previous prayer experiences and relive them in our hears, either alone or with a spiritual director, to get the most benefit from those.  I suspect that was what Mary was doing when we read that she "pondered" various events in her life.
• Does claiming Mary as a Jesuit exclude her from perhaps being a Franciscan, or a Carmelite?
• These many spiritualities that we have in the Catholic Church are diverse.  Is that good or bad?
• With that much diversity, what do we really mean by "unity" within the Church?

• What is your calling?
• What do you think you are called to do in this life?
• How did you come to that realization?
• Do you think that our calling never changes, or changes constantly?
• How do you think that calling related to our fundamental personality type?
• How do you think that calling relates to what brings us joy?
• How do we tell what that calling is?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. Where is Jesus asking me to help Him today?
2. Where does God want to fit me into the history of my community?
3. Where is God calling me to broaden my horizons?
4. How can I better live out who I really am in God?

Change of Scenery

Jesus' travels took us through my home town once.

I dreaded setting foot there, not knowing what sort of welcome I would receive.

I had left so abruptly when the Master called me.

Partly because I felt that a clean get away was going to be less painful

Than a prolonged good bye, with lots of explanations.

This village was good to me in so many ways.

Here it was that I first learned to fish, to clean the nets, to tend the boats.

Here it was that I learned how important a supportive family is,

And what a blessing it is to be there to pass our sacred traditions on

And watch the next generation grow into thousands of years of history.

I wondered where I would have been today if I had stayed.

Probably married to Miriam, with a passel of children rampaging through the house.

I heard after I left that she was inconsolable at my parting.

Funny, I never thought of her that way.

And I'd still be attending the same synagogue each Shabbat.

For now, these followers of His are my family.

There's no telling what will happen in my future.

Making plans is hard when you follow Jesus.

And I feel more alive in my faith, more attuned to God than ever before.

Maybe I'm closer to my roots than I ever knew.

Everything looks different now, I see old friends, familiar places

From a different perspective.  They are precious to me, familiar and comfortable.

But I realize now that their purpose was to bring me to God,

Make me ready for that sudden, unexpected call.

Following Jesus has led me home, just in ways that I hadn't realized,

Ways that I didn't think possible.

Shalom!

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time are:

1. Isaiah 49: 3, 5-6
2. Psalms 40: 2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10
3. 1 Corinthians 1: 1-3
4. John 1: 29-34

• Incarnation day by day
• The Harry Potter story arc appeals to all of us on a number of levels.  Two of them are identity and destiny.  Harry didn't know growing up that he was at all different from his aunt and uncle (except maybe in temperament) and unaware of any calling in his life.  As he gradually stepped into his identity, his destiny as a leader also emerged.
• Who would you say that you are if you were to tell someone about you in 30 seconds.
• Has that vision of your identity changed since you were young?
• What happened?
• Was that change in vision good, bad, or just "growing up"?
• How did you come to find that new vision for your life?
• Where is that vision going in the future?

• Stepping into your destiny
• Think of some people that you admire greatly.  How did they discern what God was calling them to in life?  Do you think that they stepped into that calling all at once, or was it a process?
• What steps have you taken in your life to fulfill the destiny that God set out for you?
• How is that going?  What advice would you give some young person who comes to you looking to find out what their true calling in life is?

• Unity within the body
• We used to flock T-shirts and sweatshirts for the confirmation candidates for their retreat.  We gave them out to them on Sunday morning to help build a sense of community on the retreat.
• What contributes to a sense of community for you?  Is it common customs, shared memories, a common tie clasp or some other accessory, ...  How exactly do those things work?
• At bottom, what do we, as Christians, have in common?  What makes us brothers and sisters?
• How does that influence how we relate to each other, pray for each other, work with each other?
• How can we remind each other of what binds us together?

• Spirit flying low
• Have you ever opened your mouth to say something, maybe you've prepared for this moment for weeks on end, and suddenly, something clicks for you, you see what you were about to say in a whole new light, and you hear yourself saying something that you never planned.
• At my age, that could just be a stroke.  But in your case, what do you think prompted that sudden change of paradigm?
• If you had known that was going to happen, would you have worked so hard to prepare?
• Do you think that such interventions might be the work of the Holy Spirit?
• How can we make ourselves more open to such visitations?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. How am I exploring who I am in God today?
2. Am I living the life of fulfillment that God has for me?
3. What am I doing to strengthen true unity among God's people?
4. How am I opening myself up to the influence of the Spirit?

Shalom!

Baptism of the Lord

Our readings for the Baptism of the Lord are:

1. Isaiah 42: 1-4, 6-7
2. Psalms 29: 1-2, 3-4, 9-10
3. Acts 10: 34-38
4. Matthew 3: 13-17

• Victory of Justice
• Victory calls for a victor and a vanquished.
• Who or what would those vanquished be in your life if/when justice triumphed in your life?
• If justice were to triumph, in those circumstances, what would change, what would that new reality look like?
• What part would you play in making that happen?

• The blessings of peace
• There is a sense of the word "peace" that we think of when we say "keeping the peace".  There is even an intercontinental ballistic missile system called the "Peace Keeper".  In both of those cases, I propose that the peace is not so much "kept" as it is "enforced".
• How would you define peace at the personal, family, community, parish and national levels?
• What is common between all of those different sorts of peace?
• How do you see God working today to make peace happen?
• How is that activity a display of God's might?
• How can we become part of that "peace movement"?

• Chosen
• Think of a time when you met someone for the first time, and as you talked, it turned out that the two of you had a great deal in common.  Maybe all of those things in common paved the way to a lasting friendship.
• 1 Peter 2: 9 tells us that God's followers are a "chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." (NIV)  No matter who we are, we have a lot in common with each other.
• Given that all of us are called, all of us are chosen, how might we, as God's children celebrate that commonality within our communities?

• Stating the obvious
• Back before 23 and me, the paternity of children was never an absolutely sure thing.  In some cultures, the father would formally accept the child as their own after the birth.  That acceptance was intentional, permanent, immutable.  As profound as that claiming is, there is still a lot of work that the child has to do to live up to that heritage.
• Do you feel claimed by your family, your community, your God?
• If that sense of belonging were stronger in you, how might it change you?
• Is that a good thing?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. How am I bringing about greater justice in my life?
2. Where can I bring more peace to just one person?
3. What specifically is God calling me to today?
4. What are my truest roots?  Am I faithful to them?

Holy Water

The sun was setting, the dry desert breeze shifting with the changes in temperature.
I had no idea how many more of us John would baptize that day,
I just hoped that I would be among them.  I had come a long way to get here.

Watching John baptize was a study in being present to the now.

Each person who came to him received his full attention.

Nothing else on the planet mattered to John during that encounter.

Going under the waters was an act of communion for each one of us

Joining all of the others who had already entered that muddy river

Making a welcome for those unseen countless pilgrims behind us.

The fellow ahead of me startled John.

A spark of recognition, a moment of worship, prayer in both directions

And then a sound like a thousand thunderclaps.

For a moment the veil was shredded and heaven shone through creation.

We all knew then that the two sides of eternity were really one.

And this newly baptized arose from the waters.

He stood there in the stream, joining heaven and earth.

A dripping reminder that our God is present in both.

And I started to shake with the realization -

The realization that those baptismal waters were forever changed.

That I was about to step into that same priesthood

Become a part of that same incarnation.

The water felt so ordinary, it was just as muddy as before.

But it flowed past me, transformed, revealed

As a connection to all of creation, all of humanity, and the love of God

As never before.  The rocks and hills looked fresher

Illuminated by a holy light that I had not seen before

As I saw them for the last time before I, too went under.

Pray for me that I may fulfill the promise of that baptism

Always finding new ways to celebrate that ongoing borning

That calls me forward, enlivened, each day.

Merry Christmas!