14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time are:

1. Zachariah 9: 9-10
2. Psalms 145: 1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13-14
3. Romans 8: 9, 11-13
4. Matthew 11: 25-30

• The challenges of humility
• In corporate America, it's often the case that advancement very much depends upon who notices you, what projects you get to take lead on, who your sponsors/mentors are.  It can seem that getting "the right press" can eclipse doing good work for its own sake.
• Do you feel appreciated for all that you do/all that you are?
• What do you think would be fair appreciation for what you've accomplished in life?  A promotion, a raise, recognition at the next department meeting, a word of thanks from your spouse?
• If you are not getting appreciated, for what you do, why do you do it?
• Some think that humility is about never speaking up for yourself.  Do you agree?
• Is there an up side to being humble?

• Care for the lowly
• Can you think of anyone in your life who is marginalized in some way?  Maybe they are old and it's hard for them to get out.  Or they have health issues of other sorts.  Maybe they don't have much money and no one hears much of them for that reason.
• How does God care for such as these?
• How did they get to be in that "all but invisible" state?
• Do you think that they deserve help?
• Do they deserve your help?

• Life in the Spirit
• How would you define "holiness"?
• Are there any people in your life that you would describe in that way?
• How did they get that way?
• What has that holiness really gained them?
• Is it enough to make you want to be like them?

• The joy of work
• Do you think that it's possible to find work for yourself that you are perfectly suited to, were born for?
• Should such work pay enough to provide for you & your family?
• If a particular function, say neurosurgery, pays vastly more than working as a florist, what does that tell you about the surgeon and the florist?
• What's more important about your life's work: that it brought you & those you served joy, or that it earned a lot of money?

• Preparation for Reconciliation

1. How can I grow in humility?
2. Who do I care for, take care of, care about?
3. Do I genuinely want to be holy?
4. Am I doing God's work in my life?

Shalom!

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time are:

1. Jeremiah 20: 10-13
2. Psalms 69: 8-10, 14, 17, 33-35
3. Romans 5: 12-15
4. Matthew 10: 26-33

• The cost of discipleship
• The life of a prophet is seldom easy, they often have harsh truths that they need to convey.  Increasingly, our mere existence, our way of life, our priorities as Christians will cause others discomfort, confusion, eventually hatred.
• Think of a time when you felt led to speak up about something that no one seemed to want to talk about, something that had to be talked about.
• What gave you the courage to be that voice?
• How did it turn out?  Were you able to bring about change for the better?
• Would it have been better had you never said anything?
• Why?

• Humility and ambition
• St. Ignatius identifies three levels of humility that can be summarized: obedience, indifference, identification.  Obedience to God's will in my life over my own wants and desires.  Indifference regarding the outcomes of my actions so long as they lead me closer to Christ.  Becoming so close to Christ in my life that I partake of His shame and rejection, and rejoice in it.
• God hears hears the cries of the poor.  All of us can be poor in the sense that we can be humble, regardless of how God has blessed us in our lives.
• Where do you find yourself on the humility journey as Ignatius describes it?
• Is that good enough?
• How do you think greater humility would benefit you and those around you.

• The sin of the world
• I have a hard time deciding whether to repent of my sin, or my sins.  The first suggests a holistic look at my life in general, and ask whether I bring life and healing to those around me.  The second perspective is more immanent, seeking to find individual thoughts, words, and deeds of mine that need to be forgiven, atoned for, healed.
• How do you go about finding healing from your sin?
• How do you become aware of your sin?
• Is that awareness getting any better with age?
• Why?

• It will all work out in the end
• Calamity is isolating.  Everyone else has all of the normal concerns and demands on them, they don't understand what it's like to suffer.  Perhaps our greatest fear is being alone when we most need company.  Jesus assures His disciples that He is the ultimate companion, that everyone else in our life who brings us compassion, comfort, love, is an expression of Him.
• Think of someone who has "been there" for you for a long long time.  How did that relationship develop?
• We don't have to earn Jesus' friendship, but we do need to nurture that relationship.  How do you nurture your relationship with Jesus?
• If Jesus never leaves us, what does that say about the suffering that we all share?

• Preparation for Reconciliation

1. How can I grow in humility?
2. What is it in my life that consumes me?
3. How can I bring more life into the world?
4. How am I drawing closer to Jesus today?

Hero

"My hero" breathlessly exclaims the damsel as she rushes into his arms.

Scenes like that are in short supply these days,

The damsels are quite capable of saving themselves, thank you very much.

The knights all seem to have feet of clay and skeletons in their closets.

And yet, and yet the need for men and women of bravery, and nobility continues

Now more than ever.

To the point that we can no longer afford to outsource heroism

To an elite round table of knights.

The heroes have to be all of us.

The brave must be there gazing back at each of us in the mirror.

And bravery finds its true mettle

In far-seeing humility.

Lord grant me your ears that I might hear the cries of your poor

Give me your eyes that I might see how I can make a difference

Give me your voice to summon the best from myself and others

Give me your hands to touch and heal the afflicted.

Let me be your hero.

Shalom!

Corpus Christi Sunday

Our readings for Corpus Christi Sunday are:

1. Deuteronomy 8: 2-3, 14b-16a
2. Psalms 147: 12-13, 14-15, 19-20
3. 1 Corinthians 10: 16-17
4. John 6: 51-58

• The life of a nomad
• Jewish history is studded with God's efforts to remind His People that they ultimately draw their sustenance from Him and Him alone.  Every time that we bless our food we remind ourselves of the same thing.
• I suddenly realized the other day that our financial planner stopped talking about how Mary & I would spend our money in retirement and started talking about what legacy we were going to leave our kids.  I'm not sure what to conclude from that.
• What plans do you have for the next 10 years, or if your young enough, for the next 20?
• How much of that planning is rooted in counting on God to provide your needs?
• "God helps those who help themselves" is not found verbatim in the Bible.  Why is that?

• God in the land
• Once humanity settled down to raise crops and tend herds, life got a lot more complex, and things could go very very wrong.  All it took was a couple of years of drought, and the entire village would go hungry.
• Does it really make sense for humans to settle in desert areas, or regions subject to violent storms, and then beg God to preserve us from drought or hurricane?
• Climatologists are predicting dire consequences to the human race if we do not reverse the accelerating carbon footprint that we leave on the environment.  Does it make more sense to pray to God for better weather, or pray that we, as a people, will finally take better care of our planet?
• Are we willing to pay the price for living sustainably?

• What purpose the body
• Paul likens us to organs in the Body.  Personally, I'd rather be a guitar.  But that aside, the purpose of the various parts of the body is not just to sustain each other.  The Body has a higher purpose, an over arching calling that we each contribute to.
• Does your church have a mission statement?
• Does anyone refer to that statement regularly?
• How do the various ministries in the church support that mission?
• How often do you as a Body review that mission to keep it fresh?

• Bread of Life
• In times past, the Church had to guard against folks taking the consecrated host and trying to use it as some sort of talisman, manipulating God's presence for their purposes.  Such misuse of the Presence is essentially a desecration.
• If we not only have the Presence within us, but we are the Presence is it possible for us to desecrate ourselves?
• If I am called by God to be a plumber, but I insist on living my life as a carpenter, is that a desecration of the Presence within me?
• How then can we show honor to that Presence within us?

• Preparation for Reconciliation

1. How does my trust in God transform my life?
2. How am I stewarding God's gifts to me?
3. How am I living out God's mission for my life?
4. How am I God's Presence in the world?

Shalom!

Holy Trinity Sunday

Our readings for Holy Trinity Sunday are:

1. Exodus 34: 4b-6, 8-9
2. Daniel 3: 52,53,54, 55
3. 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13
4. John 3: 16-18

• Introductions
• Whenever a speaker is introduced at a conference, their current position, and their many accomplishments are listed so that the audience has a context for what they are about to hear.  They know where the speaker comes from, what has shaped their perspective on this topic, and ultimately, what authority they have to speak on this matter.
• God introduces Himself with "The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity."  If that was our first and most prominent impression of God, it might well change us in many ways.
• If someone were to ask you to introduce yourself in one sentence, what would that be?
• Would your introduction change for different audiences, different people asking?
• Why is that?

• In the heat of the moment
• This passage from Daniel comes just after Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had them thrown into the furnace for refusing to worship the king's statue.  These three disciples did not know whether God would deliver them or not, but they did know, that they would not abandon their God.
• How do you decide what to pray for?  Do you pray for the really important things, things that others ask you to pray for?
• Or do you try to find what is important to God for you to pray for?
• Has your prayer changed over time as you have prayed for something?
• How have you changed over the years through your prayer?

• Seeking peace
• No matter what your definition of peace is, peace seems such a long ways off these days.  More and more Evangelical Christians see the end times in the morning newspaper, the violence and rage seems to mount week by week, and yet, God calls us to find peace.
• Is peace the absence of conflict?
• Is peace the absence of emotion?
• How are we to find peace during these times?
• How will peace change us once we achieve it?

• Hope brings pain
• I used to work with a programmer who's catchphrase was "I feel so much better now that I've given up all hope."  Until you've been in a situation where all seemed lost and there was no way that things would improve, it's hard to see that perspective.  The opposite is also true.  Hope for many of us can be painful because hope draws us from our comfort zone, holds before us the promise of a better day in our lifetime, invites us to work toward that new day.
• If Jesus did not come to condemn us and the world that we live in, what did He come to do?
• Is that process over, or is it ongoing?
• How can we, as church, participate in that process?
• How can you participate in that process?

• Preparation for Reconciliation

1. How does God define me as a person?
2. How can I be more open to the outcomes that God wants in my life?
3. Where is God calling me to create peace around me?
4. Where is God working redemption in my life?

Whatever

Often signals the bitter end of conversation with teenagers these days.

Signaling a giving up, a passive aggressive surrender

When they feel that nothing that they say will really matter,

The deck of life is hopelessly stacked against them,

And no amount of work or effort on their part will change that.

Whatever transformed is far removed from giving up, giving in.

Whatever transformed acknowledges God's deep commitment to us,

Banks on His mercy and trustworthiness,

Opens up to the possibilities,

And puts trust into action, and discernment to the test.

Whatever transformed prays "whatever you will, 

However you reveal it,

Whenever you reveal it,

I'll be ready to help make it happen,

Because I trust your trust in me."

Whatever transformed places my hand in God's

My footsteps in His,

My motivation, energy, vision at His direction.

There's freedom in such abandon,

And always more than a little fear.

I'm banking that the freedom is worth it.

Shalom!

7th Sunday of Easter

Our readings for the 7th Sunday of Easter are:

1. Acts 1: 12 - 14
2. Psalms 27: 1, 4, 7-8
3. 1 Peter 4: 13-16
4. John 17: 1 - 11a

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• Prayer list
• No one likes a meeting without an agenda.  Without clear goals a group of folks can conversationally wander the Sinai Peninsula for a long time and accomplish nothing.  We used to term that "death by meeting."
• But sometimes, agendas fall short.  When you pray, do you always have an agenda, a list of things to pray about?
• Does your prayer ever change along the way?
• Do you ever change in the course of prayer?

• House of belonging
• All of us want to have a sense of belonging, a sure knowledge that we are exactly where we can do the most good, be the most fulfilled, in short, find holiness.
• Where do you belong?  Is that a place, a community, an activity, a time?
• How did you find that house of belonging?
• How are you helping others to belong there as well?

• Clean suffering
• In a way, Jesus was an ambitious activist.  Rather than try to bring about justice through reform in social structures, governments, even culture, He went to the heart of things, our hearts.  He suffered, not so much because others didn't understand Him, but because they didn't have the courage to see the growth opportunities that Jesus offered.
• What are the great causes in your life?  Where are you trying to make a difference?
• How have those causes challenged, and changed you?

• Time for a change
• The context for this prayer of Jesus' is set just before His betrayal.  He knows that His time here is just about over.  Perhaps Jesus knows that His passion is the only way to complete His work.
• When have you had to leave something behind for something else?
• How did you find that the time had come for that transition?  Maybe it was getting married, or moving to a new city, taking on a new ministry and leaving an old, familiar one behind.
• If you could have had it all, that is you could somehow step into that new opportunity as well as hang on to the old and familiar, would you?
• Why?

• Preparation for Reconciliation

1. What are you praying for today?
2. What does my faith have to offer anyone else?
3. Where is God calling me to change the world around me?
4. What grace do I wish from God?

Shalom!

6th Sunday of Easter

Our readings for the 6th Sunday of Easter are:

1. Acts 8: 5-8, 14-17
2. Psalms 66: 1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16, 20
3. 1 Peter 3: 15-18
4. John 14: 15-21

• Great joy
• When have you felt a tangible joy?
• What caused that?
• Why did that event, revelation, feeling bring you joy?
• How long did that joy last?
• How did it change you?
• Do you think that joy came from God?
• Why do you think that He gave that to you?

• My God is better than your god
• Monotheism was an aberration at one time.  Sensible people believed that the world was thick with gods, large and small, each with specific roles and functions.  To assert that there is just one God would bring the question: "what makes you think that your God is so much better?"
• How would you answer that question if the one asking was incredibly wealthy, or famous, or much loved, all without any religion, no worship in their lives?
• Do you think that your argument would be very persuasive?
• Why is that?

• Canned response
• Religious apologetics attempts to provide reasoned response to questions on matters of faith.  Through the centuries, Christians have struggled to provide good arguments to support our beliefs.
• When all is said and done, just what is the relationship between the intellect and faith?
• What does it take to have strong faith?
• What is a person of strong faith really capable of?
• What are you doing to build your own faith?

• Spirit of Truth
• In the 2003 Jim Carey movie Bruce Almighty, Jim Carey's character get's to take on God's responsibilities for a small stretch of lower Manhattan so that he get's to know what God deals with day in, day out.
• If there was one quality of God that you could have for the asking, what would that be?
• How would that change your life?
• Why would you want that?

• Preparation for Reconciliation

1. What/who brings me the most joy?
2. What does my faith have to offer anyone else?
3. How important to me is my faith?
4. What blessing do I wish from God?

God Gave me Empathy

I was praying one day.

Exhausted from all of the demands on my time and energy.

Trying to decide what to do with the slowly emerging certainty,

That there was more need in the world around me

Than I could ever fill.

I could have prayed that God take some of the burden away.

Or that He give me more help to get it done.

Or more wisdom that I could discern where to plunge, and where withdraw.

Or even that God would somehow take care of some of this Himself.

Instead, I asked that He make me more like Himself.

Crazy thing to pray.

And I'm no saint, but I should have known better than to ask something open-ended like that.

God has a funny way of answering prayers without borders.

But I asked, and waited.

And God surprised me with empathy.

I went to the battered woman's shelter.

Their lives were still the products of bad decisions, and worse coping mechanisms.

Their children just as unruly, and plentiful.

But now, when I looked in their eyes, 

I saw the desperation, and yet the sense that maybe they were not going to drown,

The hope that the love and consideration that they received here,

Was not just some fairy tale, or silly aberration,

But a living, breathing, enfleshed sign

That God's love was everywhere.

And that they were worthy of that love, no matter what people told them.

I helped a friend with a Mass at the juvenile detention center

And those kids, those children of God were still criminals,

But I saw the awful conviction that so many felt,

That they had been abandoned, and their end was certain, 

Just a matter of time.  And I wondered how to tell them otherwise.

Everywhere I looked, God gazed back at me

Through the eyes of His children.

Not accusing me, or asking for more help than I could give.

What God needed from me was tenderness

Toward others and toward myself.

Not so that I could be some superstar.

Solve every evil that I chance upon.

Or heal every heart that crossed my path.

But to get past the fear of inadequacy.

And let His empathy be my discernment.

Peace isn't the absence of stress.

It isn't even the absence of doubt.

Peace is the certainty that we're not alone in this.

That we're part of something far greater and more durable

Than any tragedy that we'll ever encounter.

Shalom!

5th Sunday of Easter

Our readings for the 5th Sunday of Easter are:

1. Acts 6: 1-7
2. Psalms 33: 1-2, 4-5, 18-19
3. 1 Peter 2: 4-9
4. John 14: 1-12

• Won't power
• Discernment - the practice of making decisions and taking action at the Spirit's prompting, is both challenging and rewarding.  One of the biggest challenges of discernment is choosing not to do something, in order to have room in your life for something else.
• Has there ever been a point in time, or even a season in your life when you wanted to be in two places at once, or wanted to somehow get more time?
• Were both (all) of those demands on your time and energy equally good, at least by some measure?
• How did you decide on one over the other?
• Did that decision bring you any peace?
• What role did prayer have in that experience?

• The eye of God
• Hate is not the opposite of love, indifference is.
• Have you ever tried to reach out to someone in deep need?  Maybe they were going through a health crisis, lost their job, suffered violence or hatred of some sort.
• What was the hardest thing about that encounter?
• Why do you think that was so painful?
• Do you think that God, with His intimate awareness of us, feels pain, empathy, sorrow for us?
• Do you think that we can share that burden of God's in any way?

• Indwelling
• Perhaps the most radical theology of the Trinity is its inclusiveness.  God is not content with us merely gazing in wonder at the Trinity, He wants for us to join in that eternal dance between/among the Trinity.
• Sports figures, entertainers, motivational speakers all have their definition of "in the zone", a state in which you are able to utterly focus on the matter at hand, and leave aside any distracting influences.  Do you think that God calls us to be "in the zone" in life?
• When was the last time that you felt totally at peace in what you were doing at the moment, totally alive, and totally "in the zone".
• Was God there in any way?
• Do you think Jesus was "in the zone" while He was here on earth?
• What does it take to get there?

• Show us the Father
• It's hard to tell what was going through Phillip's mind when he asked Jesus to show them the Father, but perhaps he wanted, in seeing God, to finally understand the place of things in the grand picture of life, where it all fit, what it all meant, and what it all was worth.
• If you had to furnish your room in heaven, what/who would you put there?
• Assume that, in heaven, we get all of our memories back, so we might not need so much memorabilia to remind us of favorite people, times, events.
• Does that change how would furnish your room?

• Preparation for Reconciliation

1. What blessings to I need to set aside to make room for even greater blessings?
2. When was the last time that I prayed for God's provision?
3. Is my faith strong enough for me to accept condemnation from others?
4. What in my life today is important enough to take in Eternity??

Shalom!