Out of town!

I'm pleased to say I'm leaving today for a few days out of town! I'll be back on Sunday night, November 2. While I'm away, posting here will be less frequent than usual - I'll be back to my regular schedule on Monday, November 3.

 

 

 

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Pause for Prayer: TUESDAY 10/28

   Image souorce

 

I pray this morning, Lord, for the person I know 

    who may be most in need of prayer...

 

And I pray today for all of those I don't know

    who are standing in the need of prayer...

 

I pray for those who haven't prayed in years

     - or have given up on prayer...

 

I pray for those who've forgotten how to pray

    - and don't know how to start again...

 

I pray this morning, Lord,

    for those afraid to ask for prayers

        - or who have no one to ask...

 

And I pray for those who always pray for others

    but find it hard to pray for their own needs...

I pray for those who often pray

    in sighs and tears and sobs...

 

And I pray for those who can't find words for prayer

    but whose silence echos clearly in your heart...

 

And I pray for those who pray today

    with gratitude, in joy...

And I'm grateful for the prayers, Lord, 

    that others pray for me:

 we're all in this together,

    we stand in need of prayer...

Amen.

Standing In the Need of Prayer, 

    an African-American Spiritual

        performed by Beyond the Walls Choir 

 

If a video doesn't appear below, click here!

 

   

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NIGHT PRAYER: Monday 10/27

I posted this prayer way back in Lent...  As you'll see it's a prayer based on words we pray just after the Lord's Prayer every time we celebrate the Eucharist.  Each time I pray these words at mass they seem to echo more clearly and tragically how much we need call on the Lord for help - especially in these very troubled times...  So let's pray this again - and don't miss the awesome song at the end of tonight's prayer...

 

Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, 
    grant us peace in our own day,
        in your mercy, keep us free from sin
            and safe from all distress...

 

Every time we come to your table, Lord,

    we make some very big requests

        - the same big requests!

 

We pray for  

     - deliverance from every evil

     - peace - right now

     - freedom from sin

     - and a life safe from all distress...

As this day ends, I'm thinking:

    maybe we should pray these words every night!

 

Those four petitions sum up so well

    so much of what we need from you,

    so much of what we long for:

        the deliverance, peace, freedom and safety

            that only you can offer, that only you can give...

So, tonight, Lord, I pray again

  that you deliver us from every evil:

    - the evils of racism, poverty and war 

    - the evil of consumerism, greed and selfishness

    - the evil of twisting and distorting the truth

        for personal gain, pleasure and advantage

    - the evil that masquerades as virtue
    - the evil of assaults on human life

        in all its shapes and forms
Deliver us, Lord, from every evil...

 

And I pray, Lord, for peace in our own day, 

    the peace that only you can give:

        - peace in our world and in our nation,

            in our communities, streets and neighborhoods

        - peace among peoples of different faiths

            and peace in our own Church

        - peace in our families and in our homes

        - peace in our minds, hearts and souls,

        -  peace with you, Lord

            and peace with ourselves

And I pray for this peace to come sooner than later:

        even now, Lord - even now...

In our own day, Lord,

    graciously grant us peace...

 

And tonight I pray that you keep us free from sin, Lord:
   - free from temptation and its wily ways
   - free from sin that becomes a habit
   - free from sins of omission and silence
   - free from the sins we find hard to acknowledge

   - free from sin that divides your people
   - free from sin that keeps us from you

        and your word, your love and your peace
Keep us free from sin, Lord...

 

And tonight, Lord, I pray 

that you  keep us safe from all distress:
   - the distress of worry, doubt and fear
   - the distress of disease, illness and pain
   - the distress of terrorism, tyranny and war
   - the distress of grief, anxiety and depression
   - the distress of hunger, homelessness and want
   - the distress of discouragement, loneliness and despair
Keep us safe from all distress, Lord...

 

I know, Lord - I'm praying for, I'm asking a lot!

But this is what we need 

    and you are all we have;

you're the source of every blessing,

    our best and only hope!

We pray with humble hearts, Lord,

for the grace that's yours to give:

    - the grace to help us turn from all evil

        whenever, wherever, however we meet it;

    - the grace to work for that mercy and justice

        whose harvest is unity, fairness and peace

    - the grace to turn from the path of sin 

        and follow the path your wisdom and truth

    - the grace to turn to you in distress

         and to offer refuge to all those in need...

Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, 
    grant us peace in our own day,
        in your mercy, keep us free from sin
            and safe from all distress...

And all of this, Lord, while we wait for you 

    to come again, at the end of time,

and even now, in our own day:

    our Savior, our hope and our God... 

Protect us, Lord, while we're awake
    and watch over us as we sleep
that awake, we might keep watch with you
    and asleep, rest in your peace...

Amen.

I'm not sure there could be a better song to accompany tonight's prayer than this piece by Paul Zach.

 Good Lord, Deliver Us by Paul Zach

If a widget doesn't appear below, click here!

 

Good Lord
Good Lord
Good Lord, deliver us
Good Lord
Good Lord
Good Lord, deliver us

 

From the merchants in the temple 

and the worship of our greed; 

from the whisper of the tempter:     

    we should take more than we need; 

from the chains of wealth and plunder.

from our avarice and pride, 

from the ever growing hunger, 

from our vanity and strife

From our constant quest for power 

    over all that we survey; 

from the lies that we devour; 

from the fears we cannot face; 

come and save us from our demons,

come and strip away our hate;

come O Lord, restore our reason;

come O Christ, the time is late

 

Good Lord, good Lord, good Lord:

    deliver us! 

Good Lord, good Lord, good Lord:

    deliver us! deliver us! deliver us!

  

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Monday Morning Offering: 10/27

Image: George Mendoza

Good morning, good God!

What I offer you this morning, Lord,

    is a very simple prayer

        for a gift we need so much... 

 

I offer you a prayer for peace:

    in my family, near and far,

    at work and in my neighborhood,

    in my nation and my town,

    in my Church

    and all around the world...

 

I offer you my prayer, Lord:

    for the peace we've failed to make or find, 

    for the peace that only you can give,

    for the peace that goes beyond our dreams,

    for the peace we need to survive,

    for the peace we need to thrive

    for the peace that finally makes us one

    in you and in your Spirit... 

 

So I pray for your peace

    to soften our hardness of heart,

    to relieve our fear and foreboding

    and to tame our lust for power...

 

And I pray for your peace 

    to free us to feed the hungry, 

    to give us a hunger for justice, 

    to transform our arms and munitions

        into tools for building and farming...

 

Give us your peace, Lord, 

    to sweeten our speech with kindness, 

    to heal what divides and tears us apart,   

    to resolve all our stubborn conflicts,    

    and to render our world a place of trust,

        of hope, compassion and love...  

 

So, this is my morning offering, Lord,

    this very simple prayer,

a plea for a gift we need so much,

    a prayer for your gift of peace...

 

Amen. 

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Twenty-one years ago this weekend...

Photo by CP

 

A friend worshiped this weekend at Holy Family in Concord where the people at Mass were reminded that this weekend marks the 21st anniversary of the first Mass celebrated by the combined communities of the former St. Bernard and Our Lady Help of Christians parishes. (More recently, Holy Family joined with St. Irene Parish in Carlisle to become the Concord-Carlisle Catholic Collaborative.)  

 

Since I didn't have a preaching assignment for the present weekend, I thought I'd share again the homily I delivered on the tenth anniversary of Holy Family's beginning, back in 2014...

 

Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time 
(Scriptures for today's Mass)

Audio for homily 
   

Ten years ago this weekend while all of Boston was still celebrating the Red Sox winning the World Series for the first time in 86 years, the Catholic community of Concord was gathering in this church to celebrate its first Masses as Holy Family Parish.

The people of Our Lady Help of Christians Parish in West Concord and the people St. Bernard Parish in Concord center came together to celebrate the Supper Jesus left us on the night before he died.

The first scripture reading that weekend was taken from Ezekiel: a passage in which the Lord tells the prophet to take two sticks and to write on one the name of Judah and all the Israelites of his tribe and on the other the name of Joseph and all those of his tribe. The Lord then instructed Ezekiel to hold the sticks together and told him, I will take the stick of Joseph and join it to the stick of Judah and they shall be one in my hand. They shall live by my statutes, carefully observing my decrees, and I will make a covenant of peace with them. My dwelling place shall be with them: I will be their God and they shall be my people.

So, during my homily that weekend, ten years ago, I took these two sticks and labeled them: one, for the tribe of Our Lady Parish; the other for the tribe of St. Bernard Parish. And I tied them together and placed them over the baptismal font, a reminder of the waters that welcomed each of us as members of the  one tribe of Jesus, of his Body, the Church.

And as the pastor of Holy Family Parish I called us, in the Lord’s name, to become one people, one parish, in Christ.

Ten years later, the Lord drops by today, in the scriptures, to see how his Concord tribe is doing on their anniversary.

He won’t be looking at our two sticks to see if they’re still tied together but rather, as in the words from the Book of Exodus today, he'll inquire about how we have welcomed one another and how we’ve welcomed new comers over a decade and especially, how have we welcomed and reached out to those in need.

He'll inquire about our generosity in giving to others and our compassion for those in need. And we can report that our Special Events Committee and our Service and Justice Committee and St. Vincent de Paul Society have been very active in welcoming and serving others. 

But the Lord looks closely and he will likely find that many of us hold back and still have more than we need, that we hold on to our surplus even as others go without. The Lord hears the cry of the poor: do we?

But it’s in the gospel, the Lord asks the really tough questions in our 10 year review.  And again, the inquiry here isn’t about sticks or structures but rather, it’s about our hearts. In the gospel Jesus reminds us that it all comes down to two things: loving God – with everything we have (heart, soul and mind) and loving our neighbor – as much as we love ourselves. Everything, he says, all laws depend on these two commandments.

How watchful and wary we should be, then, of love’s enemies and not be misled into thinking that love’s greatest enemy is hate. If only it were that simple:  hate is so easy to spot. But the real enemies of love are less obvious and more subtle than hate. Love’s greatest enemies are realities in our daily lives. Realities like envy and jealousy,  apathy and spite, prejudice and pride, stubbornness and contempt, suspicion and mistrust, anger stewing, and resentments closely held.

These enemies of love live in our hearts, in our relationships, in our families, in our neighborhoods and in our tribe: our parish. And these enemies have no legitimate place in the lives of us who belong to the tribe of Christ’s Body, the Church, in Concord.

So the symbolic joining together of the two sticks, held in one hand, is simply that: symbolic.  • What counts is what lives in our hearts.  • What counts is our outreach to those in need.  • What counts is how we welcome all who come seeking Jesus and the gospel. •What counts is how we love God and how we love our neighbor, remembering that everything else, all rules and regulations and structures, depend on these two commandments as given by Jesus and handed down to us through millennia of wise teaching.

So, there is very little room here this day for self-congratulation. The symbol of the two sticks joined is only as strong as how generously our parish serves those in need.  The joining of the two sticks is only as meaningful as the ways we invite one another and newcomers to share and join in the life we have. The holding of those two sticks in one hand, the Lord’s hand is what makes of us a tribe of Christ’s Body, his Church. And the beauty of the symbol of the two sticks joined is only as deep as the love we have for God and for one another.

There’s another image here, in God’s dwelling place, this church - another image of two sticks joined - and that is the Cross. And what but the very Body of Christ brings unity to the two beams that make the Cross.

And so it is with us. In the love offered us in the suffering and death of Christ we find the life we seek in faith. From the wood of the Cross to the wood of this altar comes the life that is ours in Jesus.

So pray with me on this tenth anniversary of Holy Family Parish. Pray that Christ hold the sticks of our lives in his hand and free us more and more every day to be his tribe, to be his people, and to grow in our love of God – and one another.

 

 

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NIGHT PRAYER: Sunday 10/26

Fast and furious the leaves fall

and lay a golden earth-toned carpet 

stretching from my backdoor 

to the church across the yard...

 

I cannot simply walk here, Lord:

some muscle memory, deep within,

sets my gait to shuffling 

as I scuffle through the crisp and crunch 

of leaves beneath my step...

As when I was younger, Lord,

a child on my way to school or out in my backyard,

looking for a heap of leaves, raked in rounded piles,

inviting me to jump, to dive and softly land

with glee and and pure delight  

on pillows left each autumn,

fall's leafy parting gift...

 

And I love that lovely swooshing sound:

a soft shoe tapped on your dance floor,

whispering of your presence 

underfoot and all around... 

I'm too old now for diving 

into heaps and piles of leaves

but grateful just to shuffle, Lord,

and softly dance and make my way

'cross autumn's backyard carpet

from my backdoor to the church...

 

Protect me, Lord, while I'm awake

    and watch over me while I sleep

that awake, I might keep watch with you

    and asleep, rest in your peace...

 

Amen.

 

Tonight, just the natural music of a walk through fallen leaves...

 

Walking on Fallen Leaves 

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