Well Done My Faithful Servant: Remembering My Father

My father was a Southern Baptist Minister.  September is the anniversary of his death.  His death pushed me away from God for a while.  Not because I did not believe, but because I was scared.

His death was a slow suffering death.  At the age of 12, he began smoking.  He contracted TB and developed serious lung issues in the military immediately after WWII in Japan.   As long as I can remember, he had problems breathing. 

In the last couple of years of his life, his brain became tortured from lack of oxygen.  A calm, gentle man with a great intelligence outwardly became hurting, angry, and frustrated.  At one point before his death, connected to a ventilator, he could not talk so he suffered even more.

I remember him lying there and dying.  The ventilator breathing for him in a constant rhythm: woosh-click, woosh-click, woosh-click.  It was the hardest thing to go there and visit my father, the man I loved so much.  I did not want to see him small, fragile, and struggling to live.  Suffering and dying at 55 years old, I did not want to remember him that way.  So, I ran and hid from it.

I only wanted to remember his good times.  I wanted to remember his largeness, his laugh, his smile, his hugs.   I wanted to remember his life for God, the love and kindness showed to everyone.  I wanted to remember the lives he touched.  Changing rough, grumpy, callous people with his presence.  Always ready with a prayer.  Preaching in the pulpit, sharing Christ's message, not for money but for love.

He told me that each and every person has their own relationship with God.    Some have a deep relationship and some only a casual acquaintance.  The God a person's life could be the God of the Bible or maybe a god they thought was God.  A god fashioned to fit their lives.   His ministry was to guide them to a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  He was only part of a person's journey to a relationship with Christ.  A relationship found in themselves.

Twenty years later, I lay in a hospital bed, with a ventilator breathing for me.  Woosh-click, Woosh-click, Woosh-click.   I was alone and quite with God.  The first time I had been alone with God for some time.   I remembered my father's funeral.  The sermon came from Matthew, the parable of the "good and faithful servant."   As the minister closed the funeral, he said God was welcoming this man with "Well done my good and faithful servant."  

I looked at the crucifix on the wall, Christ suffering for the sins of humanity.  There in the hospital bed, my father's message continued twenty years after his death.  Mr father had been only part of my journey with God.   In the example of my father's life of faith and suffering death, God spoke to me in the woosh-click of the ventilator.  

Forgotten over the years was the understanding offered by my father.  I had taken what God had given me and made it into what I needed it to be.  My father's gift of faith and example had been buried.  I had done this because I was scared like the foolish servant who buried what the master had given him.  

Christ's parable tells us to take the gifts and talent God gives us and build his kingdom.   The greatest thing God gives us is the simple example of our lives.

  

It's All in Forgiveness

This semester in the Diaconate training program, we are beginning our second class in homiletics -  Preaching.   The focus of this semester will be reflections for special occasions:  holidays, funerals, weddings, and holy days of obligations.  Our first assignment is a homily for Holy Thursday.  

I did not want to reflect on the obvious.  I am sure that there will be several reflections on the last supper or the washing of feet.  I wanted to look at what the readings more deeply had in common.  So I wrote my reflection.  I have changed it. I tweaked it. I ran it over and over in my head.  I knew I had the perfect reflection.

That last paragraph had a lot of  "I"s in it.  However, what I think and what God wants are usually two separate things.   

What God wants me to do I usually do reluctanly.  I don't want to exercise, but God makes me fight my weight.  But my walk/jogs gives me quite times to be with God and my thoughts.   Reluctantly exercising not because I don't want to be alone with God: but, because I can always find and excuse to not exercise.  Again a lot more "I"s.

Last night, as I went around and around on the track at the high school, my homily ran around and around in my head.  Suddenly, the Holy Spirit placed in my heart that what I was saying was not enough.

The true message is forgiveness.  This is what makes our Christian faith different from every other faith.   God's grace found in the love and forgiveness that Jesus brings.  It is the truth of the Eucharist and in the washing of feet.  It is the truth that sums up the entirety of Jesus' public life, the message of His ministry, and the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ's passion.  Through God's grace and our faith, we find forgiveness.

"I" thought "I" had crafted a great homily; but, it was based in pride: all those "I"s.  Christ's true message comes from opening your heart to the inflowing of the Holy Spirit, and as John the Baptist said - "I decrease so that He may increase."  Unless "I" do this, "I" will never truly be able to bring the Lord's message, but only bring my message.  When I truly realize my selfishness and ask, my pride is forgiven.

Strength Lies in the Small Things

To a young lady, who leaves today to begin her journey with the Salesian Sisters of John Bosco.

If your want a message of love to be heard, it has to be sent out.  A message sent loudly in small faithful things.  It is in these small things where strength lies.   It is in the love and charity seen in your eyes.  Sharing with others until it hurts and hurt is no more.  It is in speaking words in the love of Christ to rid the darkness in others lives.  It is in the small faithful things were strength lies.   

Arranged from the words of Mother Teresa

Unity is Sharing Our Diversity (Jgs 2:11-19; Mt 19:16-22; CCC 813-820)

The Trinity is exemplar of unity. (CCC 813)   The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit separate distinct persons, yet one.  This is the basis of the faith of the Church.  But, throughout all times, unity has been disparaged.  

In the early history of Israel, the unity of the nation was God.  However, the people often fell away from God to worship the gods of nearby nations. (Jgs 2:11-19)  The unity of their faith, community, and nation was compromised and the Israelites suffered.

When the young man comes to Jesus and asks what he must do to have eternal life, he was told to "keep the commandments."  The young man feels he is still lacking.  Jesus gives him a lesson in unity.   "Sell what you have and give to the poor," be one with those who need.   The young man was sad because he had many possessions.  In this remorse he showed his failures.  The young man "went away sad, for he had many possessions."  The young man's selfish diversity kept him from unity.  (Mt 19:16-22)

The Church exists in diversity.  (CCC 814)  This sounds contradictory to a statement of unity.  However, this is the mystery that is the Triune God.  We find diversity in the distinct persons of the Trinity.  The Church is a celebration of the diversity of God's gifts and the diversity of those who receive them.  The the richness of diversity is the strength that is the unity of the Church.  Diversity shared in charity. 

Christ gave the Church unity from the beginning.  But like so many, through time people fell away from unity, forgetting charity called for in our diversity.  In the historical schisms in the church, people fell away because of their possessions.  Both sides were at fault in this wrong against unity. (CCC 817)

It is not wrong to be born in non-Catholic denominations. (CCC 818)  Wrong is straying from God for selfish reasons.  Wrong is not to recognizing the diversity of  Christ's church.  It is wrong as Christian not to seek unity.  As Jesus did, we must pray for the unity of Christ's Church. (CCC 820)

You're Not Ugly, You're Just Fat (Jn 21: 1-14)

One of my favorite ministries is working with the St. Vincent de Paul weekend meals for the elderly.  Seeing these people who have lived so long,  happy at the opportunity for a short visit. Sharing brief smiles and words between the visitors is a gift for everyone.  

Usually I do this with my wife and my daughters.  As my daughters have grown up it was a family ministry.  Now, my daughter are grown women.  Our ministry is becoming more often, just my wife and I.  One  Saturday, my daughter was out of town.  My wife and I were delivering meals, when my daughter called just as we pulled up to Ms. Sadie's house.  While my wife chatted with my daughter, I took the meal and knocked on Ms. Sadie's door.  Ms. Sadie was delighted to see me.  She enjoyed the people who visited her with the meals.  One set of visitors she really enjoyed was a young man and his two young sons.  She loved to visit with those two beautiful young boys.

I told Ms. Sadie that God had given me many gifts and good looks was not high on the list.  Usually my daughter and wife knock on the door to delivered the meals.  As big and ugly as I am, I do not want to scare any of the elderly people who lived alone.  Ms. Sadie look at me and summed it all up, "Honey, you're not ugly, you're just fat."  

Sometimes God speaks to you in places and ways you may never recognize.  In this passage from the Gospel of John, a man call's from the shore. "Children have you caught anything to eat."  The apostles then recognized that it was the risen Christ.

Christ was not asking about their physical nourishment or how many fish they had caught.  Christ was not asking them to make sure he had enough fish on the fire for breakfast.  It was a hidden question the apostles should have recognized.  

After Jesus encountered the Samaritan woman at the well, his disciples are telling him to "eat something."  Jesus said to them "My food is to do the will of the him who sent me and to complete his work."(Jn 4:34)  So Christ's hidden question was,  "Are you carrying on my work?  Are you fishing for men, are you casting your nets for the Kingdom? Is your food doing my will?"

It was all about their ministry.  Peter and the apostles are to b spreading the Gospel to the world.   Christ already has a few fish; but they are to cast the nets of their ministry and  bring them to me.

I thought about Ms Sadie during the reflection on this passage.  Maybe it was Christ speaking to me.  The apostles were happy to be humiliated for preaching the Gospel, maybe I need to be as well.  I'm not ugly in God's eyes and I have the right intention; but, maybe what nourishes me is not the will of the one who sent me.   

We should all look at our lives and ask, "Are we still beautiful?  or Have we gotten fat?"   It is not that we have become physically ugly but have become spiritually fat.   How we look to Christ is not our outward beauty.  We are beautiful in God's work.  We do not get fat if we do Christ's work in the world.  We exercise our spiritual selves in our church life, in our ministries, and in our prayers.

You never know when Christ will speak to you, maybe through the words of an 85 year old woman.

Freedom of Conscience

The Feast of the Assumption celebrates Mary's assumption to heaven.  But it also a feast that is a celebration of freedom.  It is celebrating Mary's freedom, humankind's freedom, your freedom, and my freedom.  A celebration of freedom's choices and the freedom that allows us to obtain the same reward.   

Mary's freedom was her ability to say "yes" to God.  Humanity's freedom is in the reason and will that allows growth and maturity in truth.  Our freedom is perfected in our ability to direct it towards God in a "yes" to the divine will. 

Freedom, however,  is hampered by our own fallibility.  The fallibility of sin and refusal of God's plan of love that results in an unjust exercise of our freedom.  Freedom has given humanity a history of oppression and wretchedness from our denial God, forgiveness, and salvation.  Here we find humanity's fallible exercise of freedom that denies the just freedom of others.

One of the most basic attributes of our freedom is the development of a conscience.  The root of the word is from Latin "to know". This conscience is how we make the decisions of our freedom.  Your conscience is the process by which you make the choice between good and evil, right and wrong, moral and immoral choices.  With a just freedom your conscience is going to point to the good, the right, or the moral choice. 

So when a person says they have made a conscious choice it does not mean that it is a choice of conscience.  Conscious means awareness.   If it is a choice that is against the teaching of the moral truths, then it is a conscious choice made without or against conscience.  It is an anti-conscience choice.   It is a denial of what is good, right, and moral.  A choice saying "no" to God.

Mary was given a choice.  It was a choice made in freedom.  A  choice of conscience to say "yes" to  God.  A choice that celebrated her freedom.  It was a choice that has magnified the freedom of others in self dignity and love.  If she had made a choice of conscious based on self, it would been an act of her freedom, but contrary to a just exercise of freedom that God seeks. 

Mary's assumption resulted from Mary's freedom.  She continually said "yes" to God even to the foot of the cross.  The assumption of Mary into heaven is a promise to all of us of what is possible by saying "yes" to God.  A true celebration of freedom is the conscience decision in our conscious choice answers "yes" to God. 

Let's Go Fishing (Dt. 10:12-22; Mt. 17:22-27)

In the gospel reading, Jesus foretells of his death and resurrection.  Then the reading follows with a fish story.  Being charged a temple tax, Jesus tells Simon to cast a hook into the sea and take the first fish.  In it, he will find a gold coin worth twice the amount of taxes, "pay it for both you and me."

Why is this paired with the foretelling of Jesus upcoming death? Some say that it is two separate stories.  Paying the taxes could be about doing what is right and not rocking the boat until it is Jesus's time.   

I am not a great theologian, I only see what I see in stories.  I may not be correct and sometimes the stories can be read in many ways.   This is what I see in the relationship between the gospel and the paired old testament reading.

What God does in the smallest ways has so much rewards.  God took the 70 that came to Egypt as the sons of Israel and made them the nation of Isreal, as numerous as the stars in the sky.  Just like catching a fish would seem a meager attempt to pay the temple tax, it more than sufficed for the debt owed.   Jesus' sacrifice, "The Son of Man"  paid for the sins of the world.   It paid not only for the sins of Israel, but for the sins of the whole world.  This payment by the "Son of Man" was done so that as "Sons of the King" we would be free.

Looking at these examples, what can the God do with the little bit that each of us can offer?  It is not us with our small talents that does great deeds.   God makes our small talents great and bountiful for His needs.

Offer what you have to God in prayer.  Offer what you have to God in all you do.  Offer your self totally to God.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Consubstantial (Mt 13:54-58)

In our creed, Jesus is announced consubstantial with the Father.  What a great word that means "of the same substance" or simply "made of the same stuff."   

The creed does not say consubstantial with man but Jesus is.  He was born of the Virgin Mary.  Most Christians seem to want to forget this.  They want Mary out of the picture.  They forget Jesus's human side.

Catholics do not forget that Jesus was a man.  God's Word that experienced Humanity.  He lived.  He suffered.  He died.  In other churches you see an empty cross.   In the Catholic Church you see the crucifix which has suffering tortured man, Jesus.  

The Catholic tradition remembers Jesus'  life and ministry.  It is contemplated in the rosary.  His human suffering is remembered in the stations of the cross.  His birth is celebrated in the Christmas celebration.  His agony, torture, and suffering experienced in the Easter Tridium.  We do not forget that Jesus was consubstantial with us.

This human man Jesus is what the people knew in Nazareth.  They did not see a prophet.   People were astounded at Jesus' expertise and authority in the synagogue, but, could not except it.  Jesus was the carpenter's son.  A man with callouses, he knew wood.  People did not have to ask "whose your momma."   He was just a local boy, from a poor family.  The locals were offended by his authority, ability, and deeds of power.  

Jesus was consubstantial with us.  Through this shared humanity,  Christ gave his authority to his apostles.  Authority which has been passed down through his Church.  

Maybe we have become like the people of Nazareth.  We are not seeing the substance of the Christ in the Church.  We only see the human side with all its shortcomings.  Too many have forgotten the consubstantial Christ.  One with the Father, Christ said "this is my body".    Too many live in a world view of spirituality, religion, and faith; seeing the  faith the world not the divine.   

Consubstantial with the Father is the source of our faith in Jesus Christ.  Consubstantial with man is the event of our redemption and the act of our salvation.  It is important that we remember both and we remember that it is found in the Church.