Church of St. Mary at Clinton Heights

Last fall, I planted some tulip bulbs here and up at my brothers. I am anticipating that I will see them begin to poke up in the next few weeks. It would be easy to think that the bulbs are doing nothing all winter. But, things are happening. They are waiting for the water from the melting snow to seep down, for the earth to unfreeze, and the warmth of the sun to warm the earth and help it begin to grow. Think of what is happening as it begins to poke its head out of the ground. The tulip needs to push its way up from the ground; then once its stalk comes through, it forms a blossom and the world is changed by its beauty. Our life in Christ is like the tulip bulb. Sometimes it looks like nothing is going on; but then there are times when we see our faith bearing fruit. At times, the hard soil of our hearts needs to be broken up by the gentle warmth of God’s presence or the dew of the Holy Spirit. This gentle warmth is grace. We cannot bear fruit if we think we are the gardeners; God is the one who has planted the seed of faith within us and only with God can the seed of faith grow in us. Our life of discipleship is a constant dying and rising, of planting and harvesting, of forgiveness and joy. The life of faith needs to be lived even when it appears that nothing is happening. Our faith sustains us when we feel cold and apart from God or it seems like God is silent. This is the time when it is most important to be people of faith. We are called to remain faithful even when it looks like winter and nothing is growing, and it is dark and cold …. remember the tulip bulb and the seed in the ground…it is alive and will blossom one day.  Our life in Christ means that we embrace the cross: “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be.” Like the seed struggles to grow; like the bulb has to work to break out of the ground; so must we. No one wants the Cross; but, it is real. Life has its struggles and challenges, but with the Cross ever before us, we will never be defeated. The Cross is the promise fulfilled. The Cross is the sign of the Seed of Life that went into the ground and rose triumphant from the grave. The Cross is scandal to the world; but, to us it is the victory and the full blossom of God’s love for all people. It is through the Cross that the law of Christ is written on our hearts. The Cross is Love; the Law of God is Love; it is Love that blossoms from our hearts into the world. As we begin this Fifth Week of Lent, may we allow Christ to plant his love in our hearts and allow it to bloom with the flowers of peace and justice. May we rise from the darkness of doubt and sin and know the light and warmth of God.

When I was in seminary at Seton Hall University in Newark NJ, we went to a soup kitchen in Patterson to volunteer some time at a soup kitchen….I am an upstate New York guy who had some exposure to the needs of the poor, so I had an idea of what we were walking into. Getting there, we divided ourselves up to do the tasks and talked with the person who was in charge……toward the end of the line, I think we all were feeling pretty good about helping the hungry,,,,Isn’t that what Mt 25 says……we also were talking about stopping at Burger King on the way back to the university to get something to eat…..when the sister in charge announced to us…..Now, you all fill a plate and find a table and eat with our guests……I was ready to run out the door…..one, the food didn’t look appetizing( most of it was donated) and some of the guests, were a little ripe. What I learned was that I really was the guest in their house. They were the Christ who welcomed me…this upstate New York white middle class do gooder and shared their bread with me. I was the Other…..I was the stranger, I was the hungry one and they fed me.

I go to CDPC once a month to celebrate Mass with the people there…I also am available if the chaplain has someone for confession or the anointing of the sick…..I have a BA in Psychology, a Masters in Social Work and I am licensed in New York State as a clinical social worker…..so I felt I could walk in and “help” these people and I would know what their lives were like. I rarely go on Sunday, but one Sunday I rearranged things, got someone to take the second Mass for me (It was before I came to this side of the river) and celebrated Sunday Mass. At the end of my homily, they applauded. I remarked “Wow, they never do that at St Clare’s); one person piped up and said “Father you really belong here with us”. Again, I was the Other in their house, I was the one who came to “help” and they welcomed me and they continue to every third Friday of the month. I often remark I feel more welcomed and accepted by them than I have in some Catholic Churches I have gone to. Me, with all my knowledge and all my skills really knew nothing about them until they opened their hearts to me and changed mine

Jesus didn’t create a church that builds walls and classifies people according to their mental health; he didn’t look at their visas or green cards, he didn’t ask to see their bank statements or if they had a criminal record; He embraced the leper, the woman caught in adultery, the little child who made noise in the crowd, the surley teenager, Dismas the thief, the centurion at the foot of his Cross and the soldiers who crucified him…..and He commanded the Church to go make disciples like these;…what he didn’t tell us was that when we went to make disciples, the new ones would change us and call us to a more radical way of life. The mission of our communities is not be isolated groups of believers who are myopic with blinders on and miss the other right next to us. We are all good at seeing the issues in Africa, we have mission trips to Appalachia, we build houses with Habitat, but do we really see the other right here? Do we see the other who walks into our churches on Sunday? Do we allow them to make us better Christians, are they truly a brother or sister in Christ and not our project or “one of those people”

In the book we have been reflecting on, Bishop Willimon offers 10 things to do. When I read them I came up with a couple of ideas: • If we spend one hour in Church..maybe we need to spend one hour a week with Colleen at Concerns U or some other agency that needs a volunteer • I need to look for the new person on Sunday morning and say hello and talk and explicitly say you are welcome and needed(by the way, we all better be ready to welcome and people with tattoos and piercings, a person who wears head phones as a way to deal the auditory hallucinations of schizophrenia, the person who may not smell good or have clean clothes • Who is the one person we will get to know, and invite them into ministry and know we will have to sacrifice the most sacred phase in the Church. “We have never done it that way or we did it that way and it didn’t work” • Who do I exclude and how will we in our own communities create an opportunity to listen to people who feel excluded and unheard

Thanks be to God this is not our Church, but God’s….. and as Mary said to Gabriel: All things are possible with God

One area of therapy that I have extensive training in is anger management. This is one area of life that I work on with someone which for the most part is normal. Anger is part of the human experience. If the energy of anger is used in a positive way, then it can change worlds. I think of the young people in Florida and across the country who are channeling their anger about the loss of friends and peers into a movement that governments and us older people cannot and should not ignore. Our young people’s anger needs to challenge us all. I think of Mahatma Gandhi and how Indian independence was won. Not through violence, but nonviolent resistance.

So now, we come face to face with Jesus in the cleansing of the Temple. He definitely was angry. But, did his destruction of property justifies the means? Conflict resolution says to have a dialogue, express your thought and feelings, and look for consensus. I am quite sure that this approach would have not worked. Jesus’ s righteous anger was not against the individuals but against what they were doing. The money changers played an important role. The Roman coins used in ordinary life could not be used in the Temple because the coins had Caesar’s image on them. As we heard in the first reading, there could be no graven images. The money changes changed the money into a temple coin with no image. So far, so good. But, of course, there was a surcharge and fee…. which kept increasing. The poor were being ripped off…. a grave injustice against the Commandments and the Covenant. Jesus’s anger was justified because he confronted injustice. The same with the people selling the animals for sacrifice. Those animals needed to be pure and without blemish. The sellers were performing a good service, but, like the money changers, they were ripping off the poor. Again, we see the reason behind Jesus’s anger. He confronts the injustice done against the poor and needy. He was faithful to the Covenant of Sinai.

There are times when we as Christians cannot remain silent. We need to symbolically turn over the tables of those who do injustice; we need to remind the world about the need to return to what is right and just. Jesus did not harm those corrupt money changers or the corrupt animal sellers. But, he destroyed the structures that kept them in the business of taking advantage of others. Our righteous anger needs to do the same. Complicity can be as dangerous as violence. In Penitential Rite A which we have been using for Lent, we admit that “we have done and that we have failed to do.” The young people in Florida and throughout the country teach us how to handle our anger about the tragedy they experienced. Get angry and demand change.

This is really what the 10 commandments are about. They are not suggestions or punitive. The commandments are about human and divine relationships. They challenge us to put God first, to honor others, and to respect one another. They are about human relationships. Our justified anger, and Jesus’s, arises when God is disrespected and others are objectived and exploited.. Jesus know the mandate of the covenant. We are called to it too.

Jesus’s righteous anger reminds us to use the energy of our anger to change the world, not destroy it. May we learn from the youth of Florida and get angry and change the world. May Jesus give us the courage to speak loud enough to be heard.

 

 

Lord Jesus, Your anger in the Temple spoke boldly about the rights of the poor and needy Your action calls us to the reality of our call to being voices for those who cannot speak for themselves. May we use the angers of righteousness we feel to work for the Kingdom; not to destroy one another. Lord, thank you for the young who challenge us out of fear and complacency. May this Lent be the challenge to us to be those you use to bring about the Kingdom Amen

On Sunday, we went up the mountain of Transfiguration.  On that mountain, we caught glimpse of who Jesus is and who we can be.  We are reflections of the Divine Light of God’s glory.  Jesus showed the apostles who he was as they approached Jerusalem where he would suffer and die.  They needed to know who Jesus was so they could be sustained in the days to come.  I think that they also needed to reminded of who they were.  The troubled times that were awaiting them in Jerusalem would be the most difficult times they would face.  Jesus gave them something to hold onto in those dark days.

We need to be reminded during Lent who we are.  In the struggles of our life, we can get so self focused that we miss who we really are:  we are reflections of the Divine Light of God.  In the darkest night, in the darkest time of life, we are called to shine forth.  A spark in the darkness is a bright as brightest light in day time.  So many people  struggle in darkness every day.  When I reflect on the recent events in Florida, the passion of the young people who are speaking out is a bright light shining in our world.  Their light shines in a world that seems to have more concerned about the status quo than making the changes to make our society a better place.  These young men and women are the lights shining in the darkness of political rhetoric and inactivity.

As we enter the Second Week of Lent, may the Light of Jesus give us the sight to see in the darkness of the world, the glimmer and spark of hope.  May the transfiguring light of Christ change this world into the world God dreams it to be: the Kingdom of Heaven.

The desert can seem to be a scary place.  After all, there are snakes (not my favorite animal), scorpions, plants with spines that hurt, and it is extremely hot during the day and extremely cold at night.  Given how retreats happen today in nice comfortable places, a room with heat or AC, meals, I can not think that Jesus could have a more comfortable place to be with the Father.  However, the desert image returns us to the wanderings of the People of Israel for 40 years in the desert on their way to the Promised Land.  They had to learn to depend on God for everything: water, food, direction.  They had to learn to worship God alone and not golden calves.  They had to learn that power comes from service and faithfulness to the covenant.

Jesus’s temptations are the challenges of the 40 days of the Lenten season.  In his homily on Ash Wednesday, the Holy Father offers a plan for our Lenten observance.  The first step is to pause.  Jesus’s going into the desert after His Baptism was a pause before He began his mission.  He challenges us this Lent to take a pause and honestly look at our lives as His followers.

Remember the second reading from St Paul on Ash Wednesday:

Working together, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says: In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you. Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation

Our Lenten pause is a unique opportunity.  Yes, God willing, we will be here next Lent, but the invitation is today…..Jesus stands in front us today and asks us a very simple favor:

Take a pause from the ordinary stuff of life and listen to me. Spend some time with me. Let me remind you about your call to continue the work I give you

There is no reason to be afraid of meeting Jesus in the Lenten desert.  He wants us to take a pause to let him into our life anew or maybe for the very first time.  Yes, Lent is hard work.  In the pause of Lent, our extra effort at prayer asks us to spend more time with Jesus.  In the pause of Lent, our effort to walk away from idols means we need to ask ourselves some very hard questions about what to get rid of.  Finally, in the pause of Lent,  only in Jesus we will find the living Bread of eternal life to sustain us in desert times of Lent and life.

And remember, do it all with joy!  The joy of being a disciple of Jesus, our crucified and risen Lord.