27th Sunday in Ordinary TIme

Our readings for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time are:

1. Genesis 2: 18-24
2. Psalms 128: 1-2, 3, 4-5, 6
3. Hebrews 2: 9-11
4. Mark 9: 38-43

• Life with you is a gift
• If you knew that your spouse was going home to Jesus in a day, how would you spend that last day?
• If you knew that they had a week?
• How about a month?
• How much of that time would be spent thanking them for all that they have been for and to you through the years?
• What's to keep you from telling them that today?  Before you start that conversation, reassure them that you are feeling just fine.

• The fruit of your handiwork
• None of us likes to have the results of our hard work snatched away before we get a chance to enjoy it.  But sometimes, our work yields different fruit than we anticipated.
• When you were a teenager, where did you think that you would be by now?  For my part, I figured I would be dead of old age.  After all, to my mind at the time, why would anyone in their right mind even want to live to be 64?
• What do think would be a just reward for all of the work that you have put in over the years in your life?  Maybe a great retirement, the respect and admiration of your children, grandchildren coming by to visit regularly, a glowing article on you in Wikipedia. ...?
• How do you think that God rewards His children?
• Do you think that's just?

• You have a friend in me
• One of the things that I love at the Mater Dolorosa retreat center in Sierra Madre is their outdoor stations of the cross.  They are about 3/4 scale, and when I really give myself over to the experience, I feel a deep sense of Presence going through them.
• We are comfortable singing "what a friend we have in Jesus".  How are you a friend to Jesus?
• Have you ever just sat in His presence, just for the sake of being there?
• If you've never tried it, what do you think might happen?
• If you have tried it, what would you like to happen there?
• What do you think makes it a good prayer session from Jesus' perspective?

• In for the long haul
• I've often thought that it's a mercy that marriage is for life.  It's looking as though it's going to take me about that long to get the proper hang of it.
• For those of you married, how does your spouse complement/complete you?
• For the rest of you, what would you like to see in your spouse?
• How is your relationship with your spouse different from any other relationship?
• How does that relationship to your spouse color/change your relationships with others?
• If the two of you met each other for the first time today, and both happened to be single, do you think that you would strike up a relationship?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. Where is love calling me to be appreciative?
2. How is God rewarding me right now?
3. Where is Jesus asking for my companionship?
4. Where is love calling me to be more generous of the both of us?

Shalom!

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time are:

1. Numbers 11: 25-29
2. Psalms 19: 8, 10, 12-13, 14
3. James 5: 1-6
4. Mark 9: 38-43

• Are we a non-prophet organization?
• Every ministry has its qualifications.  Perhaps the most important qualifications for any participant in any ministry are humility and inclusivity.
• Think of the ministry or ministries that you are a member in.  If your members suddenly doubled, what would be the good news there?
• What would be the bad news?
• What makes it hard to welcome new participants?
• How do we gently tell someone that maybe God is calling them to another (any other) ministry?
• Who among us is honestly humble enough to give that sort of advice well?

• Make me pure of heart
• Just about all of us has had the experience of realizing, sometimes in time to make amends, that our motivations for doing something were mixed, at best.
• When you find that there just might be a hint of selfishness to your motives for doing good, what do you usually do?
• Do you think that we should wait until our motives are 100% pure before we do anything in God's service?
• Do you think that God honors prayers for pure motives from His children?
• What can we do while we're waiting for those pure motives to arrive by UPS?

• Missing the forest for the trees
• We've all been there.  Caught up in the details of what's right in front of us, we forget to take the longer view.  Maybe you forget to enjoy your vacation because you worried too much about keeping to the schedule.  Or your child's infancy flew past before you had a chance to really savor parenting.
• What are some of the "trees" in your life: things that occupy your attention on a frequent basis?
• Are any of those "trees" part of a larger forest, do they have a larger meaning?
• How often do you think about those forests?
• Why don't you take a walk in one of your forests right now?

• Looking out for the little ones
• I imagine that just about any of us has gone through fragile periods, times in our life when we were just hanging on, when some loving connection with others would have made all of the difference in the world.
• The last time that you really needed a friend, did you reach out?
• If not, why not?
• If not, what could have made it easier for you to call for help?
• How might the rest of us be more sensitive to those in our midst who are silently suffering?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. Where is God calling me to be more welcoming?
2. Where is God inviting me to be pure of heart?
3. Where is God inviting me to savor my life?
4. Where is God inviting me to reach out to another?

Shalom!

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time are:

1. Wisdom 2:12, 17-20
2. Psalms 54: 3-4, 5, 6-8
3. James 3: 16-4:3
4. Mark 8:30-37

• Defend me oh God
• We always like to be on the winning side.  No one likes to be a member of the team that consistently loses, it's just bad for morale.  We all are betting that God will come out on top in the end, but what about in the meantime?
• As a faithful (and faith-filled) disciple, do you feel as though you are entitled to anything?  Maybe good health, the respect of your peers, retirement home in Martha's Vineyard ...?
• What makes you think that your list of entitlements should come your way?
• Where did that list come from?
• What do you think Jesus felt entitled to?

• Be careful what you ask for
• All of us want to know that God hears us when we pray.  But sometimes He's a little hard to predict.
• If you asked God for something that would ultimately do you harm, do you think that He would give it to you anyway?
• Do you think that everything that comes to/at you in life is a gift from God, or at least allowed by God?
• When things go wrong in life, just what is it that you think that God is looking for from us?
• Why is this so hard?

• Passion gets a bum rap
• What are your passions?  What moves you so much, that when you are doing that thing, enjoying your passion that time seems to stop?
• Where do you think that passion came from?
• What role do you think that passion should play in your decision-making?
• Do you think that we should all have the same passions?
• How did you discover yours?
• Do you think that your passions can change over time?
• Should they?

• Missing the forest for the trees
• I once thought that a person was truly old when everything that they once took for granted, getting out of bed in the morning, eating a hearty meal, being able to drive to the grocery store, ... become a chore that had to be carefully managed.  Then I thought that the onset of old age came when you thought more about the past, than you do about the future.  Lately, I've developed the opinion that old age comes when change, any change, is seen more as a bother, than an opportunity, a gateway to see God in some new and profound way.  And in that sense, I never want to grow old.
• In today's Gospel, the poor disciples just could not get their heads wrapped around the concept of a suffering savior, so they started working on a different problem, one that they could understand: figuring out the hierarchy in this new kingdom.
• Do you suspect that God might be calling you into a new kingdom in some way?  Calling you from a familiar, comfortable place into a broader horizon, an undiscovered country of some sort?
• How long has this been going on in your life?
• What do you think would happen if you answered that call?
• What is the first step?
• What's holding you back?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. Where is God asking me to rethink my expectations of Him?
2. Where is God trying save me through adversity?
3. Where is God leading me through my passions?
4. Where is God calling me out of my comfort zone?
5. Where is God?

Shalom!

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time are:

1. Isaiah 50: 4c-9a
2. Psalms 116: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9
3. James 2: 14-18
4. Mark 8: 27-35

• Embracing it
• Sometimes the best that we can do with something in our lives is to manage it.  Sometimes, we get lucky and there's a solution for the problem.  Other times, God calls us to embrace it like Paul's mysterious "thorn in the flesh" in 2 Corinthians 12: 6-7.
• Have you ever doubted God's presence with you during a time of loss, grief, stress?
• Did you ever figure out whether God sent that into your life?
• Does it matter whether God sent that into your life?
• Do you think that God can get some benefit out of anything that comes our way?

• Stumbling
• When calamity strikes, it is easy to feel isolated from God, from others, even yourself.  You begin to wonder what happened to that happier you that you are having a hard time recalling.
• The last time that you prayed really really hard to God, what did you pray for?  Faithfulness on your part, God's presence in your life, courage to keep on keeping on, perseverance, relief, ...?
• What did God give you in response to those heartfelt prayers?
• What did you learn about God in that experience?
• What did you learn about you?

• Hands on
• As part of Confirmation prep, we require a certain number of service hours from each young person.  Hopefully that exposure will help them see themselves in a larger context, help them realize that serving others is sacramental, help them realize that living out their faith is more than just an intellectual exercise.  But I often wonder.
• If we had the resources, what sort of service projects would you think would make good Confirmation sacramental preparation fodder?
• How could sacramental prep be transformed so that the focus shifts entirely from weekly teaching and fellowship with a sprinkling of service to a two year service project with supporting theology sprinkled in to help them see their service in the bigger context?
• So, these kids get confirmed, they are now adults.  Then what?  How is the rest of the parish going to be ready to receive them?

• I'll take you up if you take me up
• Taking up your cross is easy to mess up.  Particularly when we identify someone else as our cross to bear.  Even more so when we let them know that they are our cross to bear, and we are very grateful to God for giving us that cross.
• What/who are some of the crosses in your life?
• How are you taking those up?
• How do you pray about/for those crosses?
• Are you getting any better at bearing them?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. Where is God calling me to be more grateful?
2. Where should I get angry at God?
3. Where is God asking me to look at my world through the eyes of service?
4. Where is God calling me to let Him help me with the crosses in my life?

Nostalgia

There once lived a little girl born with an old soul.

Tucking her into bed one night, her father heard her ask
"Daddy, do you miss the toddler me?  I think I do sometimes."

Her father, being something of a philosopher pulled up a chair.

He knew the start of a long conversation when he heard it.

"Well dear," he said, "yes and no."

Your mother and I enjoy the you that you are today.

Your toddler self will always be with us in treasured memory.

We know that we had to give up the old you for the new."

"But what if I was a better person as a toddler.  What then?"

"Then ", he said "the rest of us would be here to help you

Grow into the best version of you that you can be."

"But how do you know that's going to be better?

No one knows what lies ahead, how I'll grow

Whether I'll ever get the right of whatever's next."

Her father leaned back in his chair, stared at the ceiling.

His daughter held her peace, having learned this was thinking time for her dad.

Eventually he came back to her room from his wanderings and said:

"Remember that crab that we saw molting at the aquarium?

If that crab never got out of its old shell, and grew a new, bigger one

It would die because it could not grow into its new horizons.

You & I, we are like that crab.  We have to leave our old selves behind

To embark on new, wider, bigger journeys,

Or we die."

"I understand.  But I'm still afraid."

"So am I, so am I.

But never forget that neither of us is ever alone in this process."

Shalom!