Feast of the Holy Family

Our readings for the Feast of the Holy Family are:

1. Sirach 3: 2-6, 12-14
2. Psalms 128: 1-2, 3, 4-5
3. Colossians 3: 12-21
4. Luke 2: 22-40

• Dignity cannot be given
• We have all seen it: an elderly, or homeless, or diseased person treated as just a problem to be solved, just one of far too many such problems for the staff on shift, for the allocated budget, the time allowed.  And we wonder what such treatment does to the dignity of the subject of such treatment.  Maybe we shudder, wondering if we are looking down the barrel of our own future.
• Where does dignity ultimately come from?
• Can it be truly taken away?
• How then should we treat each other with dignity, regardless of whether the other person is able to speak up for themselves, demand better treatment, assert that they are worthy?

• The fruit of our handiwork
• We never actually stop working.  Every time that we exercise creativity, build something that was not there before, be it a civic organization, a local library, or a belt buckle, it is all work, all creative, all part of the unfolding of the creation if we do it in prayer.  Injustice deprives us of the fruits of that labor, steals our work from us, gives it away.
• What does it mean to fear the Lord?
• How do you think that fear of the Lord brings justice?
• Does that connection and fear of God always work out?

• Not talking about it is not mercy
• Honesty is the best policy.  Really?
• Think of times that you have finally "had it" with someone, and you decided to speak up about something that's been bugging you for a long time.
• How did that go?
• If something else started to bother you about that person, would you try that honesty thing again?
• Why do you think that worked out that way?

• Trust
• Simeon and Anna both trusted God.  Their trust had no timetable, no expectations of what the promised Messiah would look like, form whence He would come.  They were there, ready, waiting, to see God's deliverance.
• What are you waiting for in your life?
• Is that waiting just a matter of killing time, or is it creative, active, productive?
• Does it have to be all of those things?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. Who in my life deserves to be treated with greater dignity?
2. Where is God calling me to bring even a little justice?
3. Where is Love calling me to speak up?
4. Where am I trying to limit God?

Prayer of Anna

Lord, thank you for all of the love that you have heaped upon me through the years.

From those within my family who accepted me when no one else would.

From friends who encouraged me when I was inconsolable.

For the heartaches that have given me strength to persevere.

Thank you for your constant promise of Your Presence in my life,

In the life of my community,

In the life of your people.

Thank you that you never wavered even when I did.

Thank you for this long string of days leading up to this one.

Each providing strength and sustenance for the next.

Each giving me new graces to look back on and rejoice in.

And thank you most of all for today, always today.

Shalom!

Christmas Day

Our readings for Christmas Day are:

1. Isaiah 52: 7-10
2. Psalms 98: 1, 2-3, 3-4, 5-6
3. Hebrews 1: 1-6
4. John 1: 1-18

• Singing ruins
• It's easy to lose our way.  We lose sight of the giver and settle for the gift instead.  Maybe because we don't understand the true nature of gift.
• What are some of the gifts that God has given you in your life?  Maybe friends or family who have sustained you, talents that you have been able to share with others, an experience.
• How have you been changed by that gift?
• Did there ever come a time when you had to give that gift up?
• How did that change you?
• Do you think that you have made the best use of all of your gifts?
• Why?

• Reminding God
• The most powerful form of prayer comes when we remind God of His essential nature.  At that point in our prayer life, we have moved beyond treating God as some cosmic Santa Clause.  We have entered mysticism, we are relating to God out of appreciation for His incredible goodness.  We have fallen head over heels in love.
• Think of a time when you were desperate for God to do something for you.  How did you pray?
• How did God respond?
• How did that response change you?
• Did you expect that?
• Why?

• Are you talking to me?
• We all tell stories.  The ones that begin with "when I was your age" are often directed to just one person, so you know who the speaker is talking to.  Often the rest of the conversation sets the context for the story, so the listener has an idea of the import of the story.  Salvation history is God's story telling to us.
• Looking back on your life of this past year, what do you think God has been trying to tell you?
• Can you imagine yourself telling stories from this past year to others in the years ahead?
• What lessons do you think that you might try to impart in those stories?

• Refulgence
• That's a word that is a tough one to work into a sentence.  "My, you are simply refulgent in that dress."  What woman could resist that?  Try it and tell me how it goes.  And yet, it describes Jesus' presence among us, in spite of the fact that so few realized who He was.
• If someone were to ask you "prove to me that God exists by your life", what would you say?
• Where would you start?
• If you had a year's warning of that challenge, would this past year have gone any differently for you?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. Where is God doing a work of rebuilding in my life that I need to help?
2. Where can my prayer get closer to the heart of God?
3. What events of this last week should I spend some time pondering?
4. Where is God calling me to be His glory?

Shalom!

4th Sunday in Advent

Our readings for 4th Sunday of Advent are:

1. 2 Samuel 7: 1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16
2. Psalms 89: 2-3, 4-5, 27, 29
3. Romans 16: 25-27
4. Luke 1: 26-38

• Why are you here?
• "What's the use?"  Especially when things do not turn out the way that we had planned/hoped, we want to know whether there was any purpose or reason behind what did happen.
• Think of a great disappointment in your life.  How did that change you?
• Looking back on it now, if you were to live through that same disappointment now, how might it change you?
• How many other decisions about how you responded to a disappointment would you like to change?
• How can you prepare for your next disappointment?

• Litany of saints
• God has taken care of His people through the centuries in many ways, maybe most notably in the form and person of His various saints and prophets who have arisen to call His people to deeper awareness.
• Who are some of your ancestors in faith who have gone before you, preparing the way in one way or another for who you are today?
• Do you ever thank God for them?
• Who do you think is looking up to you, right now, and gaining inspiration from the life that you are leading?

• Finding holiness in obedience
• Why do you try to obey God?
• You know that if you do, things will work out in the end?
• You know that if you do not, people will get hurt?
• You know that this is the way for you to be most fulfilled as a person?
• You love God and you want to get closer to Him.
• Come up with some answers of your own, and rank them.
• What does that tell you about your relationship to God?

• Jesus among us
• God comes to you in a dream, and tells you that He has a very important message for you, and that He is going to send Jesus Himself to your door to deliver that message.  God doesn't tell you when Jesus will come, or how to even recognize Him.
• How would you prepare?
• How would you know that this person at your door was Jesus for you?
• How would you receive them?
• What makes you think this is just conjecture?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. Where is God inviting me to be transformed through my sufferings?
2. Who is that great cloud of witnesses cheering me on right now?
3. How can I deepen my prayerful obedience to God?
4. Where is God talking to me right now?

Making Time

Sacred art is replete with nativity scenes

In which everyone is stock still.

I've seen young infants in action, 

I've seen their parents striving to keep up with their needs.

No one is ever that calm around a baby,

Unless one or both of them is asleep.

So, just what are these icons meant to portray?

What inner reality beckons?

Maybe those scenes depict contemplation.

The picture of prayer

Prayer conducted after all of the immediacy of the day

Prayer that picks up the scattered moments,

Weaving them back together into the larger whole,

Seeing the unseen for what it was,

Camouflaged against the backdrop of the urgent and necessary,

Hidden in plain sight, yet accessible to anyone with eyes to see.

A silent invitation to each of us,

To take nothing for granted in the busyness of life.

To see the grander scope of the incarnation,

In the next spoonful of food offered to the hungry

In the welcome given to those with nowhere to go,

And the light offered to those who realize they are lost.

Shalom!

3rd Sunday in Advent

Our readings for 3rd Sunday of Advent are:

1. Isaiah 61: 1-2a, 10-11
2. Luke 1: 46-48, 49-15, 53-54
3. 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24
4. John 1: 6-8, 19-29

• What breaks your heart?
• Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:4 that those who mourn are blessed.  Normally we associate mourning with mourning the dead.  But Jesus has a different type of mourning in mind.
• What brings you sorrow?
• What have you received from God in prayer about those things?
• Are they the same things that made you mourn five years ago?
• Why is that?

• How much mercy do you need?
• All of us try really hard to be good, and we probably feel as though we are at least modestly successful.  But before we are able to really receive the mercy of God, we have to first see how much we need it.
• When has God been merciful to you in the past?
• Did you ever find the time to thank Him for it?
• How/when have you been able to show mercy to others?
• Was that mercy extended to them generously, or reluctantly?

• Praying or being in prayer
• Do you ever pray without words?
• Some get to that place with God out of desperation.  Life seems so overwhelming that words seem inadequate, or worse, pointless.  Others get there as the fruit of long hours spent in prayer, finally leading them to contemplation.
• Is it possible to pray at the same time that you are doing something else as well?
• Is that a good thing? 

• Jesus among us
• John told his followers that Jesus was among them, anonymous, unheralded.  That might have been because Jesus was trying to "lay low" until He was ready to "make His move".  Or it could have been that He simply vanished in plain sight.
• Why do you think that Jesus was so unnoticed?
• What does that say about our attitude when our good deeds go unnoticed?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. Out of all that is going on around me, what should be breaking my heart?
2. How ought I to live, given the mercy that God has shown me?
3. How is my prayer life deepening lately?
4. How much attention should my accomplishments be getting?

Shalom!

2nd Sunday of Advent

Our readings for 2nd Sunday of Advent are:

1. Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11
2. Psalms 85: 9-10, 11-12, 13-14
3. 2 Peter 3: 8-14
4. Mark 1: 1-8

• The courage of hope
• Cynics are cowards.  The cynic expects the worst of people, events, new developments because they are afraid to be disappointed.  The prophet, on the other hand, reminds us of where our actions and attitudes are taking us, where they are leading us, giving us the bigger picture if you will.
• What do you hope for in life?
• How well do you think that hope is grounded?
• Where did that hope come from?
• Why do you think that faith, hope, and love are the three cardinal virtues?
• How do you think that hope supports faith and love?

• Justice and peace
• Pope Paul VI once said "if you want peace, work for justice."
• If he had said "if you want peace, pray for justice", how would that have changed the meaning?
• Which is more meaningful for you?
• Which gives you more hope?

• Who issued your passport?
• Advent calls us to look at both of Christ's comings to Earth in the context of each other.  Same Earth, same Christ, but very different in many ways.
• How do you celebrate, remain faithful to, shine your true eternal identity in the midst of getting the laundry done, washing the dishes, and caring for your family?
• Do you feel that you have any sort of an advantage over someone with no faith?
• What might that be?

• OK, now what?
• John the Baptist's message seems so stark: "repent of your sins to prepare for Him who is coming".  Makes you wonder what sort of follow-up ministry John had.  Maybe he had "people" for that.
• What, or who, are you preparing for this season?
• How will you know when it/they arrives?
• How will that arrival change you?
• How long do you think that change will last?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. How is my hope changing me?
2. Is there some small way that I can bring some justice to those around me?
3. Where, ultimately, am I from?
4. What is God transforming in me?

Finding the courage to repent

Repentance is like the wings of a butterfly.

One wing: the regret for the outcomes of our actions, our thoughts, our failures to act.

The other wing: what we will do instead.

Long have I been reluctant to repent of some of my actions

Because I feared what that other wing would call forth from me.

Knowing that the butterfly cannot take flight on only one wing.

But now I am a little older, ever older.

I trust my God a little more, and even myself.

And I am sure that as I ease into the first part of repentance

As I ease into the first part of repentance,

The second will emerge

With God, gently holding my hand.

Holding my hand as I make my way into the change

That my heart calls for in faith.

Giving me the courage to enter the journey of repentance

Towards a shore at best shrouded in fog.

Knowing that life lines the path,

And growth the final outcome.

Shalom!

1st Sunday of Advent

Our readings for 1st Sunday of Advent are:

1. Isaiah 63: 16b-17, 19b; 64: 2-7
2. Psalms 80: 2-3, 15-167, 18-19
3. 1 Corinthians 1: 3-9
4. Mark 13:33-37

• Lord show yourself
• Let's face it, humility can be annoying.  It would be so much simpler if God would do something dramatic, prove that He's here among us, and show those foolish heathen who's boss so the rest of us can get some peace.  If only.
• What, in your personal experience of God, has been truly awesome?
• Have you, do you tell anyone about that event?
• Why or why not?
• Why do you think God chooses to be anonymous?

• The God of second chances
• Giving someone a second chance is dangerous.  They could disappoint us again, make us look foolish to friends and family alike, break our hearts.
• Can you think of a time when God called you, you declined, and you got a second chance?
• Why do you think that God bothers?
• Can you think of any times in which you gave anyone else a second chance?
• Why is that?

• Ready
• Jesus sent His disciples out to tell the world about Him, and I'm sure that at least a few of those early apostles thought "you have got to be kidding!"
• Have you ever accepted a call of some sort and felt unready?
• How much more time, more training, more study would you have needed at that time before you really felt ready?
• Why do you think God pushes us into the deep end like that?

• Each with his own work
• I invite you to look here, and read about the power of having a purpose?
• Why do you think that you were put here?
• If God came to you and asked you what purpose you wanted in life, what would that be?
• What makes you so sure that's not your purpose?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. How can I show the glory of God?
2. Where is God calling me to show His mercy?
3. Where might God be calling me to step out of my comfort zone?
4. What is God's calling in my life?

Is there a poet in the house?

We have all seen those dramas where disaster strikes,

Someone desperately needs medical attention,

Too soon to get them to a hospital.

And the plaintive call goes out "is there a doctor in the house."

There once was a young man, humble of circumstances and attitude,

Who loved to connect with those around him.

Put him alone in a train station, and within minutes,

There would be a small swarm of folks wanting to talk to him.

He never took notice, he was always just glad

That no matter where he went, he was never alone,

He always found other's stories so very interesting.

He would remember them in detail for months and months.

And when someone would share their story, 

He could recall another story very like it.

And he would share that other story with his companion,

And they would feel a kinship, a community,

That had never been there for them before.

Depending on the story that he shared, he would weep,

Rejoice, laugh, sometimes even sing a little,

Whatever the moment seemed to call for in the telling.

Finally, an old friend of his asked him

"What are your stories, what have you experienced?"

To which he said "oh, nothing worth telling really.

Except maybe how folks encourage each other who've never met."

"But how do you decide what to share with someone.

How do you know what to tell them?"

To which the young man said "I am but a mirror,

Reflecting back to them how much they matter."

"This exchange that I have, one story for another,

Is just my way of celebrating the meaning of the life in front of me,

And the story that I have heard elsewhere.

A building of community one experience at a time.

The beauty is that I never am poorer for giving myself away.

My listeners always give me more than I can ever offer.

I make no grand conclusions,

I don't change anyone's mind.

I just help them see their own life in a larger frame,

Get their attention out of the "right this minute"

And soar a little, even just a minute.

To know that they are not alone, have never been alone."

I had to go.  A little girl was waiting impatiently.

To tell him about a tooth that she had lost.

And he listened with rapt attention,

Taking it all in, applauding her courage and tenacity.

That young man helped others to see the meaning

In and of their lives, whether they knew it or not.

His was the ministry of being a poet, without fanfare.

And a community growing by the day.

Shalom!

Christ the King

Our readings for Christ the King Sunday are:

1. Ezekiel 34: 11-12, 15-17
2. Psalms 23: 1-2, 2-3, 5-6
3. 1 Corinthians 15: 20-26, 28
4. Matthew 25: 31-46

• Servant Leadership
• We've been through a grueling several weeks as a nation.  We used to complain that the campaign leading up to the presidential election seemed to take an eternity.  Now the bitterness, accusations, legal maneuvers after the election have become a season all its own, and there is still no end in sight apparently.
• When you pray for our leaders, for the world's leaders, what do you ask God for?
• When you think about elections, what sort of framework do you long for?  Is it a gladiator winner take all, perhaps vindication of the right perspective over the wrong perspective, maybe preservation of all that's good against the forces of evil, a chance to discuss different point of view and forge a consensus, a time for prayer and reflection, several of the above, ...?
• If you could bless every one of our leaders with just one virtue which would that be?  Maybe courage, integrity, patience, ... those are all good.  Personally, I'm going to vote for humility.
• How will you pray going forward?

• Giving what you deserve
• Luke 6:38 "Give and it shall be given unto you.  A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
• The hardest thing about spiritual discernment is often knowing when to say "no" to a request that comes our way so that our "yes" can really mean something.  How do you know when to say "no"?
• Once you have said "yes" to something, how do you know when to review that "yes" at a later time?
• What are some things that prevent you from becoming an altogether cheerful giver?

• Finding the real enemy
• Mary & I watched a movie about prayer called War Room.  Very moving.  One of the lines was to the effect that we are often fighting, be it with a heartless manager, a lazy coworker, a self-absorbed child, but the real enemy remains hidden because he likes it that way.
• What are some of the things/people that you are fighting in your life?
• How do you pray about/for them?
• Do you ever stop to think about what the root/source of those problems might be?
• Should that change the way that you pray?

• Playing to your strengths
• I call it the service inoculation.  Your church has a vibrant ministry to some group of marginalized and needy constituency, and part of you wants to say "great, we have that covered, glad that's done."
• "Needy" comes in lots of forms.  It might be someone who never learned to read, someone who's never learned the life skills to manage a budget on their own, or someone who's been abused as a child and can never trust anyone, or the result of a broken marriage, or ...  Who are the needy in your circle?
• Which of those needs calls to you in some way?
• How qualified do you think that you have to be, in order to be useful to the needy?
• How deserving do you think they have to be before Jesus would ask you to help them?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. How can I help our leaders to lead more wisely?
2. Does my generosity need a tune-up?
3. Do my prayers go deep enough to make a difference?
4. How am I giving myself away?

Happy New Years

The liturgical calendar reminds us of an alternate reality,

One not governed by month end closing, or Black Friday specials,

But one framed in signs, and wonders, and memories near and distant.

The warp and woof of this hidden life has been gradually a weaving

Since our first parents gazed into the heavens and recognized the hand of God

And gave thanks in return.

It can all seem disconnected, unreal.

What is Advent without Christmas Carols, big family parties, shared football games?

How are we to truly celebrate in this quarantine?

But still, we turn the calendar page, and there it is,

The end of this year, the start of the next,

Seemingly indifferent to all that has gone on this year.

Or maybe we have it all wrong.

And the steady march of seasons, feasts, remembrances,

Is there to remind us not that recent events are petty, or small,

But that they fit into a much larger story that is easy to miss

Simply because it spans so much time, so many lives, all peoples,

The story of God's faithfulness in our midst through it all.

So I pray that this Thanksgiving, wherever and however you celebrate,

You take a little time to ponder whatever heavens arc above you,

And be as specific as you know how to be

As you breathe your prayers of thanks.

Shalom!