As I have been reflecting on the baptism of the Lord, I started reflecting on my own baptism. Like most of you, I was baptized as an infant; my godparents did my profession of faith. My parents raised me in the faith. Like many of you I was confirmed around fourth grade and was told that I was going to be “soldier for Christ” and would need to suffer for the faith (remember the tap or slap on the cheek). I have had my moments of asking why do stay in the Catholic Church and is there even a God.
So, what is it about my baptism that keeps me in the Church? The grace of God’s love that began on that day. I have gone many times into the desert and met Jesus. He has been there for me so many times even when I didn’t want him there. In that desert, I have found a joy that nothing else can match. I have realized that it is fun being a Catholic even though it has not always been easy. For me as a priest, the privilege of celebrating the Sacraments at important moments in your lives and every weekend to gather with you at the Holy Table is one of my greatest joys. We’ve lost some of the things that set us apart. Never eating meat on Friday(a hard for those of us who don’t like fish!), fasting on Wednesday and Friday during Lent, having our throats blessed, May home altars, Confession every Saturday to go to Holy Communion on Sunday, carrying and saying the Rosary, novenas, blessed water or oils from shrines, making the sign of the Cross on our foreheads every time we passed a Catholic Church, blessing of homes during Epiphany and after Easter, praying at the cemetery, having a crucifix in our homes and St Christopher in the car, and that list continues. Did superstition get wrapped around some? Yes. Did the Church need to connect mortal sin to some of these practices? No. However, it set us apart and made us who we are: A Baptized Roman Catholic.
We need to celebrate our identities as baptized Roman Catholics: a child of God, a brother of Jesus, and a temple of the Spirit, which is not a new teaching, just something that may have not been emphasized, but it was lived, at least, in my home.
Some of my fondest memories are connected with my faith: the realization one day as I stood at the baptismal font of my home parish baptizing my cousin’s baby how many of my family had been baptized at the very same font and there were a lot. As I had the privilege of celebrating Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa at the Jasna Gora Monastery in Poland and in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, and the joy and peace I have at the Oratory of St Joseph in Montreal. I have also known God’s comfort in the tough times, too.       Today, I invite you to celebrate the joy of being a follower of Jesus and a Roman Catholic.
I am not advocating seeing ourselves as better than other faiths because there is truth there, too. We have been baptized into the truth of our Faith and into a way of life that is rich and beautiful. I realized this week that my baptism and yours, needs to bring me joy and not anger or frustration. Do I have my questions about some of the doctrine, but I realized that I was baptized into a relationship with Jesus not with a doctrine. Jesus is the cause of our joy and the center of our lives as Catholics. I come to this Eucharist every week because I want to; or more realistically because I need to. I can’t live with out it and my deepest sorrow is that many people who say they are Catholics prior to the pandemic did not share my deepest conviction. Yes, since the pandemic we have had to stay home and be safe, but after this is over, I am afraid we will not get people back. If we could fill these pews years ago; then, we can again. However, this time, people will be here because they will see the joy we have as being Roman Catholic with a love of the Mass and a love for the mission. Here, we can be a community of imperfect humans who are willing to be proud of who we are and willing to do the mission that is ours in baptism.
Remember the theme I set at the beginning of the year: Who are we as a church? We need to celebrate that we are Roman Catholic proud of our faith and servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

There is a country and western hymn written in the 1970’s that we are all familiar with: “One day at a time, sweet Jesus, one day at a time”. Marijon Wilkins wrote it at a time when it looked like she had everything: money, nice clothes, fine car, but she didn’t feel like she was in the right place; she only wanted to be a gospel music writer. After speaking with a young minister in a small country church who asked her one question: “Did you ever think about thanking God for your problems?”, she went home and with Kris Kristofferson, wrote this song. From that one question comes the focus that begins our Advent reflections for this year.

Over the last months, I have heard people say and thought it myself that we cannot wait to get back to normal. But all of todays readings point us in another way. They call us to remember that we cannot change the past. We can only live today in “joyful hope” of the Lord’s coming. However, that doesn’t mean sitting around doing nothing waiting for Jesus to come. He will come again, but will we recognize him? Will we know him? In reality, this is the Christian paradox. Our normal is that there is no normal. We are a people who live in the expectation of a new heaven and a new earth but living out the message of Jesus today. We need to pray the words of the song:

That’s all I am asking of You,
Just give me the strength to do everyday what I have to do.
Yesterday’s all done, sweet Jesus
And tomorrow may never be mine
Lord help me today, show me the way
One day at a time.

          The people of Israel in the part of Isaiah we heard were in the exile of Babylon longing to go home but realizing that their “normal” had led them into the exile. They prayed their problems in the hope of a Messiah who would bring them home to the land of Israel. The admitted their faults before God and realized that if God brought them home, it needed to be different. We need to do the same. But the lesson we learn from them is that when things begin to calm down, we cannot go backwards. We need to realize that the problems of today are teaching us to live our Christian lives in new and in faith filled way today.

      One day at a time sweet Jesus
That’s all I’m asking of you
Just give me the strength
to do everyday what I have to
Yesterday’s gone sweet Jesus
Tomorrow may never be mine
Lord, help me today, show me the way
One day at a time

This year’s Advent season can be the moment of our conversion if we just turn to the Lord and ask for the strength to be awake. When, not if, Jesus comes, he expects us to be busy doing the mission he left us to do. Remember last weeks Gospel,

For I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
a stranger and you welcomed me,
naked and you clothed me,
ill and you cared for me,
in prison and you visited me.

This is the normal of a Christian and this is the work we are to be doing when he comes again. We can only do it one day at a time.
The Advent season we begin this year is the challenge to live one day at a time in joyful hope of the new heavens and the new earth that only Jesus can bring, but, we need to do our part today. Do not waste this time looking backward! That is all done and over. The mission is now; it is today.

May we live “one day at a time, Sweet Jesus, one day at a time”.

   

            I was in Jerusalem a few years ago and I had the privilege to go to the Upper Room where the Last Supper had been.  You were would think there would be an altar and all the visible signs of Christianity.  However, it was an empty room with nothing in it. As I imagined the scene in the Upper Room from Acts,  this empty room captured the moment for me.

            They felt alone, didn’t know what to do next, they knew they were waiting but didn’t know for who or what . So what did they do?  Together with Mary and a few others, they sat in prayer waiting to have the emptiness in their heart filled.  They took that time to stop and enter into a time of prayer and reflection about who they were as the followers of Jesus.  What amazes me is that they just didn’t just come with up their own objectives and plan and just do it.  But, would it be the Body of Christ if they had done it?

            There is a lot to learn from the empty Upper Room.  The very first is that we as a community of faith need to remember whose Church this is; it is not ours.  We  have to remember that Jesus left us the Apostles and their successors to lead and guide us.  As a priest, I promised respect and obedience to the Bishop and to the teachings that have been passed down since Jesus himself walked among us.  The Church can never be built in my image or any human image; it is the Body of Christ who is wounded in a very real way at this moment in history.

            The second thing we learn is that before we do any pastoral program or movement, we must time spend in prayer.  We do not need to be in the same physical space to do this.  Like those in the Upper Room, we need to be committed every day to stop at a certain time and spend some time in God’s presence waiting for guidance; not telling God how to do it.  Mary needs to be in that mix.  What mother would lead her children to harm or disunity?  What mother would not give tenderly care for her children and only want the best for them?  Mary is the model of how to be Church; with gentleness, care, service and putting God’s will before our own.

            The final thing that the empty Upper Room teaches us is that we need to have an empty heart when we approach God in prayer.  To empty ourselves of the need to be right, to have it our own way, of our pride and sinfulness, our anxieties and fears and what ever else we have cluttered the room of our hearts with, is the essential step to being led by the Spirit.

            As we prepare for the Pentecost, let us join with one another like they did in the Upper Room.  May our hearts be one this week and may the Spirit reignite our fire.  At noon everyday this week, let us commit ourselves to stop and pray in silence awaiting the Spirit.   As I have been saying, I pray that the Spirit move us into the Apostolic Church that was in that Upper Room and He will recreate us into the Body of Christ, which is alive and ministering to all in His Name. 

 

Come, Holy Ghost, fill the hearts and minds of Thy faithful servants

 and enkindle in them the fire of Thy Divine love.

Send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created.

            Who can we be post PAUSE?  My hope is that we return, not to who we were in March 2020, but we return to the Church that was alive in the Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles in today’s first reading.  The same teachings and structure were there or developing, but the Advocate that Jesus promised ignited them with the power to witness and serve and love.

            I wonder if for many years we have tried to be church on our own, without Jesus leading us.   The Gospel today reminds us that we are not orphans who are alone in this world.  In our baptism and confirmation, we become immersed in an eternal relationship with God.  We have never been  alone.  The early Church knew this.  They were less than a generation away from those who knew Jesus, heard him preach, shared meals with him and witnessed his death and resurrection.  They met  the real Jesus through these men and women who had a deep friendship with Jesus..  The early church continued the relationship; they knew that Jesus was alive and they lived in His Spirit; the divine Spirit of God.  They knew that they were not orphans.

            I have been praying this week asking myself the question:  where has that Spirit gone in my life?  Is the Divine Spirit, the Advocate, alive in our communities?  For myself, I would say yes, to the degree I allow it and try to control it.  Asa community yes, but  I do think we need to allow that Spirit to set us ablaze with a love for Jesus that it spills out from the walls of this building into the world.  I truly believe that our life needs to be a the return to the model of the apostolic church and to their fearless proclamation of Jesus.

            How will know that this will happen?  Again I refer back to the the Jesuit writer John Kavanaugh, SJ, who would ask these questions of someone who had left our church for another church or was trying to deepen their relationship with Christ and was wondering if they were on the right path:

 

            “To each person I put the following questions:
Does it lead you into deeper union with Christ?

                        Does it foster a life of greater virtue and service?

                         Does it increase your faith, hope, and charity?

 

An honest reflection on these questions will help us see how we need to grow as individuals and communities  of faith.  The non negotiable will be a radical commitment to the person of Jesus and a living relationship with him.   We are not orphans who have to earn God’s love; we are not the slaves of Christ, but his friends empowered to do his work.  This is His commandment.

            I invite you to an honest reflection of Fr Kavanaugh’s questions; first as an individual and the as the litmus test of whatever faith community you belong to.  Even this virtual community that is developing can be have the same fire of the community of Acts; we just need to give our lives over to Jesus.

            Let us begin to pray for the grace to open our hearts for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God.  May the Advocate recreate us, not in the pre PAUSE church, but into the early community that preached fearlessly and was on fire with Jesus.  Jesus, our brother and friend, will do it, if we get out of his way.

                                                                                       What holds a church up?  If your instant response was the walls, then we need to reread the letter from Peter.  These words were spoken to the newly baptized and they were told who they now were.  They were the living stones of the church.  it was the community that made up the church because in most cases they worshiped in the homes of other Christians, at times in the catacombs, or where ever they could.  I would never say that our sacred buildings are not important but the one thing I have learned in the last two months that without people in these pews and within this concrete walls, then it is an empty building except for the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.

            What I have learned is that we as a church continue to prosper not confined by concrete walls..  In our area, masks have been made, the hungry and the poor have been fed, we have taken care of each other, we have prayed together, we have remade our homes into the domestic church, parents have taken over the faith formation of their youth with Maureen’s help, and I have seen the same thing happen through out the diocese.  It is my firm belief that the grace that has been released into our Catholic communities has been a wake up call to not be confined by the concrete walls, the boundaries of a parish, or own by our own fear of change.  We worship on Sundays with people from St Marys and St John/St Joseph, people in Colonie, people in Greenwich, in Lake George, Virginia and others from out of state.

            Isn’t this what it means to the Catholic Church?  To be the universal community that, like Stephen and the first deacons, who serve the most vulnerable in our time. We exist to be living stones of Christ’s Kingdom, not walled in out of fear or anxiety, but men and women who trust more in God than money or power.  We exist to be a living community not confined by human boundaries, but men and women who serve every person no matter who they are.  We are, like the early deacons, to be the voice of the voiceless and disenfranchised.  The deacons are first and foremost ministers of service who lead us into getting our hands dirty and smell the sheep.  The deacon embodies the call to service that in mandated by baptism.  They are a challenge to the priests and bishops to not be CEO’s but servants.  At the ordination of a Maronite deacon, I heard Bishop Gregory say that the diaconate is the foundation of the priesthood and the episcopacy.

            As I look beyond the gradual reopening of our communities and our churches, my fear is that we will try to go back to hiding behind the concrete walls of a fear to change.  Our focus must be on the promise of Jesus in the Gospel:  “in my Father’s house are many mansions,” not built of stones and concrete but the love that Jesus showed us on the Cross and opened for us by His resurrection.  Now is not the time to hide, now is the time to trust and move led by Spirit of the God that we can trust.