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
   

• Your God is king!
  
• Whenever a lot of chaos is in evidence, the first question to come up is "who's in charge here" be it a crime scene or a commercial loading dock.  We want to know whether there's a plan in place, whether all of this frenzied activity has any direction.
• What are some events in your life that make you think that God is in charge in your life?
• What was your role in those events?
• How might you have been more open to God at that time?
• What did you learn?
  

• What are you praising God for lately?
  
• Organized praise is a tricky matter.  On the one hand, you don't want to be so structured that it becomes nothing more than a formality.  On the other hand, (at least for those of us in the OCD ranks) too much freedom in a large group can lead to liturgical mayhem.
• What would you like to praise God for in a large gathering?
• How would you go about expressing that praise?
• Do you think that it matters to God whether you express that privately or in a large setting?
• Do you think anyone else is interested in hearing why you think that God is great?
  

• The physicality of sacrament
  
• Presence comes to us in many ways.  A warm hug, a sunrise that takes your breath away, the sight of a soaring hawk, the baptism of a close friend, that close friend themselves.
• What are some ways that Jesus is present to you?
• How are they the same?
• How are they different?
• Why do you think that God comes to us in so many ways?
• What do we lose if we miss one or more of those Presences?
  

• Have you incarnated today?
  
• The incarnation is not an event, it's a process.  Bringing God's Presence to the earth is not limited to Jesus.  How could it be?  He told us to follow Him.
• How have you been that Presence to others in your life?
• How has that gift that you give changed you?
• How do you know when you have given enough?
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation
  

1. Where might God be looking for my participation in His kingship?
   
2. How might I express my appreciation for/to God more deeply?
3. Where is God Present to me that I may not have noticed?
   
4. Where might God be calling me to give of myself in new ways?  What might he want me to leave behind?
   

Arrival

I can't hear the angels singing anymore.

At least not the way that I used to.

But I hear the sound

Of my mother's blood

Washing back and forth

In a responsorial chorus to her great heart.

I feel my heart too.

Different it is, from hers.

The to and fro, not as stately.

The rhythms not as slow.

Separate, yet not alone here.

Her blood keeps gentle company with mine.

While we wait together

For the day when we will part.

I belong.

Here, with her, right now.

Finding my way in the world through her.

Shaking with her laughter, mourning in her tears.

All is arrival, all is sacrament.

This season of togetherness and oneness.

Makes all birth holy, all blood sacred.

All water a baptism, a doorway.

My hands feel each other in the dark.

My fingers interlock.

Separate, yet one none the less.

I stretch out my hand and feel -

Feel the walls of my new home.

Feel the tidal rhythm of my mother's breathing.

Know our oneness, and separateness

In our flesh, shared, yet distinct.

This place I tabernacle in is holy.

Holy as it has been since the beginning.

This embrace of flesh surrounding

Surrounding and sustaining.

This flesh is not a wall, but a door to an ancient love.

An old old love with a new expression.

An intimacy unimaginable,

Yet one imagined so long ago.

Rhythmic spasms pulse through us,

My limbs are squeezed through the narrow door.

My lungs emptied of the familiar fluid.

My eyes open for the first time.

I get my first glimpse of creation through these eyes.

I smell the warm moistness of the cattle, sheep, chickens,

I feel the rough cloth upon my tender skin,

And I am comforted by the sound of angels singing once again.

Shalom!

Fourth Sunday in Advent

Our readings for the Fourth Sunday in Advent are:

1. Isaiah 7: 10-14
   
2. Psalms 24: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6
   
3. Romans 1: 1-7
   
4. Matthew 1: 18-24
   

• God, are you there?
  
• Trusting in God can be a tricky matter.  There is always the question whether what we think is God's will really is God's will.  Particularly when the stakes are high.  Think of a time when you felt the call of God to go outside of your comfort zone.
  
• How did you tell whether or not this was God's leading?
• How did you find the courage to follow that leading?
• How did that turn out?
• Do you still think that was God's voice?
  

• Standing in a holy place
  
• Holy places are all around us.  Certainly there are shrines aplenty, but I believe that any place where love is found soon becomes holy, the love practiced there seeps into the fabric of that place, making it a doorway to the sacred.
• Where is a place that you find holy, where you go to find God?
• How did that place become holy for you?
• Is it possible to make your home, your place of work at all holy?
• What could you do to bring that about today?
  

• Set apart, but for what?
  
• It's a sacrilege to use something for anything other than it's divine purpose.  In a small way, washing your car with the priest's alb would be a sacrilege.  In a similar way, using our lives for anything other than God's purpose for us is a sacrilege.
• What is God's purpose in your life right now?
• How did you find that purpose?
• Do you think that it's ever going to change?
• Where would you like for your life to go next?
• Do you think God cares what you want (careful, this is a trick question)?
  

• What makes a family holy
  
• Joseph and Mary were doubtless both trained from their youth up in what made for good parenting, what the responsibilities they were going to shoulder as adults, and how that would look.  Only some of the training prepared them for what lay ahead.
• All of us are in a family in some role or another, many of us play several roles.  I am still son to my mother (I get reminders from time to time) and still father to my children (fortunately, I don't seem to need to remind them), husband to my wife.  Which of your family roles brings you the most joy?
• Was that joy always there, or did you have to grow into that?
• How has being in your family changed you through the years?
• How would you like for it to change you?
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation
  

1. Where might God be calling me out of my comfort zone?
   
2. Where can I bring some holiness today?
3. Am I at all sacrilegious in how I spend my time, talent, and treasure?
   
4. Where is God inviting me closer to Him with, in, and through the crazy messy gaggle of folks that I call family?

Casting out Fear

Some of my fears are old friends that are so familiar, they all but define me.

Fear of failing, of being a failure, of being seen as a failure.

Fear of going to my grave without a commendable list of accomplishments.

Fear of not seeing where God has worked through me until I am gone.

Fear of being paralyzed by my own fears, sidelining myself,

Until the last play is over, and the lights go out on the stadium of my life.

I used to strive to slay my fears.

Wrestle with them, beat them into submission.

Banish them for good, score a solid triumph.

Then I realized that they were a lot more resilient than I was,

For they kept coming back like stray dogs that I had once fed.

Just as strong as ever.

 

I tried giving them up to God.

I wasn't sure quite how to do that, 

My prayer was one of "here, I don't need this, you take it"

And I was disappointed in God that he didn't take me up on my offer.

And I began to fear failing at dealing with my fears.

Getting on some fear treadmill.

Then I learned, slowly, 

That my fears were going to be my companions for good,

And I needed to let them be my companions for good, and not evil.

Acknowledge them, pray about them,

Listen carefully to the various voices in my life,

And find that one still small voice that called forth the best in me.

It's not easy, or quick.

I have need of a lot more humility and trust.

But somehow, I feel that the process, messy though it is,

Is a form of devotion in its own right.

And I look forward to hearing less and less from my fears,

As all of those voices within learn what's truly important.

Shalom!

Third Sunday of Advent

Our readings for the Third Sunday in Advent are:

1. Isaiah 35: 1-6a, 10
   
2. Psalms 146: 67, 8-9, 9-10
   
3. James 5: 7-10
   
4. Matthew 11: 2-11
   

• Be strong, fear not!
  
• It appears that, as we get older, we fear more and more things.  Some of them are understandably physiological in nature, such as who will care for me when I cannot care for myself, will others still treat me with respect even when I am feeble?  Other fears center around all of the changes that we have witnessed in the world around us, and the certain sense that those changes will only grow more frequent and intense with the passage of time.
• What do you fear?
• If you pray about those things, how do you pray about them?
• Do you think God will guide you around those things that you fear, or through them?
• To what extent do you feel protected by God from those fears?
  

• Lord come and save us
  
• As Christians, we often think of the word salvation in connection with salvation from our sins.  But there are so many things that we can cry out to God for salvation.
• What would you like to be saved from?  Maybe you find it hard to trust God, or you have a feeling of hopelessness, or you feel stuck in some soul-sucking job.
• How are you praying about that today?
• What do you expect God to do for you in that situation?
• What do you feel God is calling you to do in that situation?
  

• Patience in the face of need
  
•  God's timing often is very different from ours, and that is hard for us to understand.
• When have you had to have patience with God in your life?
• How was that patience rewarded?
• What is the difference between being patient, waiting in hope, and just giving up?
• How did you keep that hope alive?
  

• Working through your offense
  
• We used to have a priest celebrate Mass with us named Fr. Al Scott.  Fr. Al always seemed to be asking two simple questions: "what are you doing for the poor" and "what are you doing to actively draw closer to God in your own life".  You never walked away from one of his homilies without being challenged.  Some took offense at him and his message.
• Have you ever been offended by a word from God?
• How did you get past that offense on your part?
• Do you think that God was patient with you?
• How has that experience continued to change you in the years since?
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation
  

1. Where might God be waiting on me to transform my fear?
   
2. Where is God calling me to participate in my own salvation?
3. Where might God be offering me hope, maybe in unexpected places?
   
4. Where is God inviting me to go deeper with Him?

Water me oh God

With the dew of your mercy that I might shower it on others.
Especially when they demand more of me than I know how to give,
When they seek what I scarce can find, even in myself.

Give me your hope in you, that I will rely on your saving help
For all my challenges large and small, day in, and day out.
Instead of trying to go it alone, and growing bitter in the attempt.

Help me to appreciate the gift that you have been in my life.
The faithfulness that you have shown me all of my days.
So that your life in my life can feed my faith, and my faith feed me.

Open my eyes that I may see your angels ever around me.
In the form of family, friends, loved ones, even the annoying ones.
That I may receive Your presence with open arms and heart.

Shalom!

Second Sunday in Advent

Our readings for the Second Sunday in Advent are:

1. Isaiah 11: 1-10
   
2. Psalms 72: 1-2, 78, 12-13, 17
   
3. Romans 15: 4-9
   
4. Matthew 3: 1-12
   

• Transformation, not starting over
  
• Time, ultimately, is on God's side.  If He builds something and it doesn't turn out the way that he planned, he could just start over.  But He never does.  Several of the kings who were the descendants of David were pretty miserable, but God chose to bring Jesus forth from the house and lineage of David.
• Think of a time in your life that you felt as though you had failed.  Was there any good that came out of that?
• Do you think that there might yet be more good to come from that experience?
• So, was it really a failure?
• Do we always have to succeed as Christians?
  

• Celebrating Justice
  
• Justice is all about making sure that everyone receives what is due them.  Fair enough, but how do we tell what is due someone?  In the University setting that I live in, an affordable, quality education is considered everyone's due.  A mere hundred years ago, that would have been considered abject nonsense.  Does justice evolve?
• Think back to a time when you were treated unjustly.  How did that make you feel - fearful, angry, outraged, depressed, ...?
• Once you had suffered that injustice, what should have happened to right that wrong?
• Ultimately, who is it that should be righting that wrong, even today?
• Coming out of that experience, do you feel any kinship with others who are unjustly treated?
  

• Welcoming one another
  
• One problem with getting old is painful memories.  Some years back we had a young lady in RCIA who was making minimum wage, barely getting by on her income and permanent disability from her live-in boyfriend.  He was abusive, but she loved him anyway, and he helped pay the rent.  To this day, I still don't know how we as a church should have welcomed that young seeker into our midst.
• When/where have you been welcomed?
• How did that make you feel?
• What are some tangible ways that you are welcoming?
• What would disqualify someone from being welcome here?
  

• Resting on your laurels
  
• Sometimes, living a life of faith can get harder with time.  Your faith life becomes almost like the air you breathe, taken for granted, invisible, hardly thought about.
• How do you celebrate your relationship with Jesus?
• How has that changed through the years?
• How do you hope that relationship will sustain you in the years ahead?
• What are you doing to make that relationship stronger/deeper?
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation
  

1. Where/what is God transforming my life lately?
   
2. Where can I help make justice emerge?
3. Who are the lost in my world who need a warm welcome?
   
4. Where is God inviting me to go deeper with Him?

Shalom!

First Sunday in Advent

Our readings for the first Sunday of Advent are:

1. Isaiah 2: 1-5
   
2. Psalms 122: 1-2, 3-4, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9
   
3. Romans 13: 11-14
   
4. Matthew 24: 36-44
   

• Peace in our time?
  
• Peace between nations, tribes, communities, families seems so distant.  One party takes advantage of the other, threatens them in some way, and conflict breaks out.
• How would you define true peace?
• Can we rationally expect to see true peace in this life?
• Who are some peace heroes in your life?
• How did they accomplish what they did?
• Is any of their lives something that you can emulate?
  

• Bring a friend.  Better yet, bring two.
  
• Evangelizing comes in many forms.  You belong to a reading group, and you bring a friend.  You know someone who has nowhere to go for the holidays, and you invite them to Thanksgiving with you.  You know someone curious about the Catholic faith, and you offer to sponsor them in RCIA.
• Think of a time when you evangelized.
• What gave you the courage to offer?
• Was that person that you brought warmly received and welcomed?
• Is there anything keeping you from inviting others today?
  

• Waking up
  
• It's easy to get so caught up in the day to day that we lose track of the larger picture, essentially to be unaware of, asleep to the greater shifts in our world.
• How do you find the broader meaning in your life?
• Why do you bother?
• How do you think Jesus makes your life more full of meaning?
  

• Being ready
  
• Each of us has responsibilities in this life that are particular to us, things that no one else can do or say.
• How have you gone about finding out what those things are that God is calling you to in life?
• Did His call in your life ever change?
• How did you figure that out?
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation
  

1. Where is my faith journey taking me today?
   
2. How can my community, my family, my very heart be more welcoming?
3. Who are the prophets that I'm listening to today?
   
4. Am I doing what's important?

Doing God's Work

Most of us look incredibly ordinary.
We get up each morning, get dressed, get breakfast, commute to work.
Then we spend the day fighting entropy - that constant force
That wears everything down, promotes the path of least resistance,
Gradually, inexorably, reduces the finest buildings to rubble.

Or is there more to life?

Is it possible that the mere fact that we are, where we are,
As Christ's advance men and women here in this world,
Doing our best to put skin on Christ's presence in this world,
That we are making a witness, a proclamation,
That holiness can be found in the strangest places.

The question is, do you feel holy?

What moves you, stirs you, energizes you each day?
Is it just about success, recognition, appreciation, even a paycheck,
Or is there something more?
Do you step into your work with anticipation,
Knowing that you are making the world a better place to live?

Are you doing what you were born to do today?

What would that feel like?
Would you be proud of what you are doing,
How you are doing it
Why you are doing it,
What the doing has done to you?

Or will you hang your head in tears of shame for wasting your life?

What's holding you back from the holiness that God has for you?
Is it fear of being alone, not getting the support you need, failure in the end?
Do you fear that this next chapter in your life will not be enough to sustain you?
Do you fear that you will not have the ability to do your dream boldly and well?
How will you know until you try?

What would it feel like to live the dream, to be fully alive, to be holy before God?

Shalom!

Christ the King Sunday

Our readings for the solemnity of Christ the King are:

1. II Samuel 5: 1-3
   
2. Psalms 122: 1-2, 3-4, 4-5
   
3. Colossians 1: 12-20
   
4. Luke 23: 35-43

• Heeding the call
  
• In large corporations like Boeing, there is a distinction between management and leadership.  Management makes the best use possible of limited resources to accomplish necessary tasks on time and within budget.  Leadership, by contrast, inspires the rank and file to bring their their very best to whatever task is at hand, fully committing themselves to giving their all consistently.
• Which do you think that we as a community need more of: management or leadership?
• Where is that next generation of leaders and managers going to come from?
• What can we do to make sure that God's work continues when we are gone?
• How do we know what that work will be by that time?
  

• On the road again
  
• Apparently Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher once said "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step."  Maybe today he would have said "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a call to Uber."
• No one knows what the future will bring in terms of what might happen to us, what twists and turns our career might take, what the kids are going to name your next grand baby, but we should have a goal of where we want those events to take us.
• What kind of a person do you hope to be in five years?
• How does God seem to be taking you there?
• What are you doing to help?
  

• Peace - how and when
  
• One perspective is that this life, corrupted by sin, is never going to be what God intended for us.  At best, it's a spiritual boot camp where we learn endurance, perseverance, and fortitude to get through this life.  Sounds rather grim.
• Can we expect peace of any sort in this life?
• Why is that?
• What can we do, at our level, to help make that peace?
• How does making, and enjoying, peace in this life prepare us for the next life?
  

• Being awake
  
• By all accounts, crucifixion is perhaps the most agonizing way to go that mankind has devised.  Yet in the midst of that, St. Dismus, the penitent thief, found the grace to see the bigger picture, realize what was going on in his life at the moment, and pray.
• In times of stress and hardship in your life, how did that affect your prayer?
• Do you think that God understood?
• What does that tell you about your relationship to God?
• What does that tell you about God's relationship to you?
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation
  

1. Where can I be a force for transformation in my community, family, household?
   
2. Am I open to the graces that God has for me today?
3. Would anyone who knows me characterize me as a peace-filled presence?
   
4. Do I believe that God is with me right now?

Hangin' With Jesus

 I looked out over the sacred hills of Jerusalem.

And tried to remember that they would be there long after I am gone.

I looked this way and that, taking in the golden sunlight of that day,

Just one last time before the inevitable blackness of death.

I hoped that there was some small shred of my life,

That would benefit those coming after me,

Some reason for my shameful existence,

Some meaning in my life, even now getting cut short.

Even raised up, and exposed this horrifying way,

I enjoyed a certain anonymity here on this cross.

The usual onlookers were focused on the one they call Messiah,

I and the other reprobate were just backup.

I had heard of this Jesus before, wanted to meet Him,

But knew that I was unworthy, beneath His consideration.

Somehow, despite His humble origins, His simple ways,

I knew Him to be special, a beacon of hope for the lost.

But I always thought that even Jesus had to have standards,

Depths to which even He would not go.

But seeing Him there, accepting this horrifying punishment,

I realized how wrong I was about Him.

His mercy has no limits, His love no frontiers.

His empathy for those on the edges has no edge.

I was so ashamed to hear my fellow prisoner jeer at Him,

I lost my temper with him, and immediately regretted it.

But I locked eyes with Jesus, saw pools of mercy there.

And I took the plunge, one last moment of prayer,

And I asked Him to remember me,

So that I would at least have one human being to recall my name.

He took that feeble request, that humble plea,

And gave me so much more than I ever imagined.

I knew peace in that moment.  All the rest fell into place.

The pain, still just as searing, was bearable now.

And I knew that the end was just a beginning.

Shalom!

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time are:

1. Malachi 3: 19-20a
   
2. Psalms 98: 5-6, 7-8, 9
   
3. 2nd Thessalonians 3: 7-12
   
4. Luke 21: 5-19

• What continues, what doesn't
  
• When we suffer loss, whether it's a loved one, a ministry that we have devoted ourselves to for years, someone special in our lives moves on, we wonder whether there is any part of what is gone that we can still benefit from.  By contrast, evil, in all of its manifestations, always comes to a complete end.  Just maybe not soon enough for us.
  
• What is an evil that you wish could end today?
• Are there evils that in one way or another contribute to that?
• Are any of those root causes anything that you can do about?
• If not you, then who?  If not now, when?
  

• Ruling the world with justice
  
• Politics is the second oldest profession.  That doesn't say much for prostitution.  Just rule seems like a distant possibility, a fantasy even for some.
• Why is just rule so difficult?
• When was the last time that you prayed for a politician?
• How can we contribute more as a community to just rule?
• Do you have to be an activist to effect change?
  

• Earning your bread
  
• All work is essentially creative, bringing to life something new, building a new tomorrow that was only an idea before.  As such, all of us are called to work in this life, to join our hands with God's in the ongoing work of emerging creation.  It doesn't really matter whether you get paid for it.
• How has your work made the world a better place?
• Do you have any regrets about how you spent your career?
• How did you get into that work in the first place?
• How has that work changed you?
  

• What matters
  
• Long Beach State lately banished the statue of the 49er to an obscure part of campus because he had become an embarrassment.  The 1849 gold rush brought fortune seekers to California in droves, and they stopped at nothing to wrest the precious gold from the land, often trampling the ecology and the indigenous peoples.
• A monument doesn't have to be a statue.  It could be an institution, a way of doing things, even a person.  In each case, it stands for something that endures, or that we hope will endure.
• What are some monuments in your life?
• If one or another of them disappeared, what would that do to you?
• How would you mourn their loss?
• Do they really have eternal value, or is it something that the monument points to that has eternal value?
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation
  

1. Where is God offering me the courage to combat an evil?
   
2. How can these two hands of mine bring some measure of justice to the world I live in?
3. In what sense is my work sacred/holy?
   
4. Do I worship anything that is not enduring, not eternal?

When it ends

We like to think that things that matter, the really important, the good

Will last forever.

And when it doesn't we wonder -

Was it as good, life-giving, holy as I thought?

Was it just time to move on?

Had I gotten too attached, and God granted me freedom?

Mourning a loss is therapeutic,

Reflecting on the good times, being thankful for the blessings,

Stoking the embers of hope that tomorrow has blessings all its own,

Waiting for me to step into them.

But still, you have to wonder -

Do things have to change so much, so often, so violently at times?

Why couldn't God just leave well enough alone,

And grant some comfort once in awhile?

Is that asking too much?

 

Shalom!