On the local mania...

Someone asked me tonight where I was going to watch the Super Bowl. I replied, "How do you know I'm going to watch the Super Bowl?" Shocked, he said, "Well, after Christmas it's the second biggest holiday of the year! How could you NOT watch it?" (Yes, this person knows I'm a priest; no, this person wasn't kidding!)

Truth be told, I will be watching it but mostly because I was invited to join some folks to watch it with them. (On my own, I'd be blogging!)

I live just outside of Boston and I'm always happy to hear or read that the Pats or the Sox or the Celtics or the Bruins or the Revolution have won a game -- and certainly pleased if one of these teams wins a title. But I don't lose a moment's sleep over any of this. I'm not anxiously counting down the hours until the kickoff on Sunday. Any time the home town team wins, I'm happy for them; when they lose a game, I lose no sleep! I don't go to games and I rarely watch them on television. While I hope the Patriots win on Sunday and achieve this remarkable undefeated status, I wouldn't go within ten miles of the victory celebration in Boston on Tuesday if you paid me - even it weren't taking place on Primary Day.

I fault no one's team spirit: I don't understand it but, hey - go for it! I just hope that sports fans can understand that there are some folks out there who lead normal, happy, productive lives outside the battles fought on fields, floors and ice.

Certainly, there are others of my kind out there, too?

So, I'll be watching on Sunday and having a good time with the fans I'm with. And when it's all over, I hope everyone will going home to enjoy sweet dreams of Super Bowl XLII. I know I will!

And for all those loyal fans for whom this Sunday is second only to Christmas: Go Pats!

The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple

The Presentation in the Temple: Simeon (holding Jesus) and Anna (on the right); Mary with the two turtle doves and Joseph. Unfortunately, I've been unable to locate the source of the image.

Saturday, February 2, is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple. On the pre-Conciliar liturgical calendar it was the Feast of the Presentation that ended the Christmas season and in the Archdiocese of Boston this date was, years ago, often the date of ordination to the priesthood. Luke is the gospel source for this event in the life of the Holy Family.

When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord just as it is written in the law of the Lord... and to offer the sacrifice of "a pair of turtledoves..." Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Messiah of the Lord. He came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him, he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying: "Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in sight of all the peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel." ...There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer. And coming forward at that very time, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.

This feast is sometimes called Candlemas Day because on this day there may be a blessing of candles and a procession. There's a tie between the candles and the phrase, a light for revelation to the Gentiles in Simeon's canticle in Luke's gospel.

While there's a significant amount of art based on the theme of this day's feast, Anna is sometimes absent where Simeon is prominently featured. The image above includes Mary and Joseph and both Simeon, the holy man, and Anna, the prophet. Here's a quilted image of Anna where she seems ready to run from the temple to invite others to Come, Listen and Rejoice for salvation has come for all!



Anna the Prophetess by Larkin Van Horn

Need to stop and ask for directions?

Not sure where you're going?

Having trouble figuring out how to get there?

Wondering which way to turn?

Need directions?

Stuck?

Well, Lent is just around the corner and it's a good time to sit back, take stock, think about where you've been, where you want to go - and how you're gonna get there.

All those questions about directions are also questions about our spiritual lives.

Where's God in my life? Which path is God asking me to walk? Is God on the journey with me? Am I on the journey with God? Do God and I have the same destination? If I'm lost, will God find me? Will God show me the way to peace?

Lent is a season for pondering some of the questions we keep putting on the back burner...

Wednesday, February 6 is Ash Wednesday but today isn't too early to begin wondering about this holy season and what it might hold for you...

He went up on the mountain...

Once called Mt. Eremos, this is the site where it is thought that Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount and so the place is now called the Mount of the Beatitudes. The domed structure, upper left, is a chapel.

It's time to begin looking to the weekend ahead and the scriptures for this Sunday's liturgy which you can find here, along with some background material on the same texts.

Our parish is having a Mission, February 4-7 and the priest preaching the Mission is also preaching at all the Masses this weekend. This, then, will be one of those rare weekends when I need not prepare a homily. A bit of a breather? Yes. But I really ought to have a bumper sticker made for my car with the slogan, I'd Rather Be Preachin'!

Sunday night I had my annual "Ask Fr. Fleming Anything" evening with our confirmation candidates. One of the questions on the 3X5 cards they handed in was, "As a priest, what do you enjoy doing the most?" That was an easy one to answer: preaching and celebrating the sacraments!

Click on the link to the St. Louis University site above and start your pondering of the Word. I'll be joining you and wondering with you, "Hmm... wonder what the homily will be about this weekend?"

A Solitary Tear

Image by Cadfael
 

A Solitary Tear

by Austin Fleming

 

Do you feel the tear I see

move slowly down a crevice

worn by grief

upon your cheek?

Now it stops,

too tired to move on,

one sorrowed drop welled up

from springs of empty ache,

a solitary tear

slowed, stalled,

no place to go,

no sweet hand to wipe away

the dew that slowly seeps

from deep inside

where pain pools

and spills

your hidden secret:

a parched heart's thirst

for a sip

of love now lost.

-ConcordPastor

Five years later...

In the combox for the post below on the sacrament of reconciliation, a reader suggests that I post an article and editorial from the January 25, 2008 edition of the National Catholic Reporter. The NCR items discuss Cardinal Bernard Law's position and life, five years after his resignation as Archbishop of Boston.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned...

The simplicity and sweetness of the image above is NOT my contemporary experience of second graders' first confessions!

Our parish celebrates First Reconciliation with our second graders in small groups on Saturday afternoons.

In the preparation session with their parents I speak about the spectrum of levels of maturity in these children and how some children may simply not be ready for this sacrament on a number of levels. I also address the issue of parents insisting that their 7 year olds, on a preset time table, celebrate a sacrament which the parents themselves have pretty much stayed away from for 20 or more years. Among the parents of more than 70 children, only a couple of families have decided to delay their child's first experience of this sacrament.

As I sit in the penance room and meet a parade of second grade "sinners," I meet a variety of children. While most are well prepared (they know what to do and what to say) I'm not convinced that many of them understand why they're doing what they're doing and saying what they're saying.

On the other hand, I realize that in a culture that eschews taking responsibility for moral failure, these children are being encouraged to take some personal inventory of their behavior, to assess what they find, acknowledge responsibility before God and neighbor, 'fess up and receive a penance, something which, I tell them, one does to make up for something one has done wrong.

There's something good, even healthy in all of that. And of course, that's why I encourage parents to celebrate the sacrament themselves.

I think back to my own childhood and while I don't remember my own first confession, I do remember that confession was an important and significant fiber in the fabric of Catholic life. Even before children came to this sacrament for the first time, they knew that others in their family frequently entered that "box" and in the dark spoke their sins and promised not to sin again. Children saw their older siblings and parents and friends and neighbors doing this on fairly regular basis. The sacrament enjoyed the support of public witness.

Now, it's not uncommon for moms and dads to inquire at the parent catechesis, "Father, I don't know where the confessionals are in our church." Granted, the only confessional is in a basement chapel where Sunday worshipers seldom go but these adults walk by our penance room with its open door all the time. It's just that they've not walked through that open door and are unfamiliar with it.

On Confirmation retreats in the parish we have a penance service for our 10th graders. A large majority begin their confession by noting that it has been eight years since their last confession, which was their first confession...

Do you have children preparing for First Communion? What do you think of their receiving this sacrament in the second grade? Is your child (was your child) ready for this sacrament? Would you prefer to postpone it?

We find ourselves just about on the eve of Lent... How many readers here plan to come to the sacrament of reconciliation in this holy season? Has it been a long time? What has kept you away? What might bring you back?

Sunday after the first full moon...

Moonscape by Gareth Buxton

Here's some additional interesting info from the CNS News Hub on the dates of Easter and the beginning of the Lenten season. I was surprised to see how long it's been since Easter last arrived this early!

Lent begins on Feb. 6, and Easter is March 23. That’s the earliest Easter since 1913, when it fell on the same date.

In 1913, however, Ash Wednesday came on Feb. 5, a day earlier than this year.

Is that possible?

Yes, because 2008 is a leap year, thus adding an extra day in the middle of the Lenten season.

The earliest Ash Wednesday possible is Feb. 4, and the earliest Easter is March 22. That last happened in 1818.

The fact that Easter is a moveable feast confuses many people, even in Rome. So is the fact that Catholics and Orthodox Christians usually celebrate Easter on different dates, because they follow different calendars. This year, for example, the Orthodox celebrate Easter on April 27 — more than a month after Catholics.

It’s not easy to explain in a sentence or two, but here’s how the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” puts it:

At the Council of Nicaea in 325, all the Churches agreed that Easter, the Christian Passover, should be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full moon (14 Nisan) after the vernal equinox.

Because of the different methods of calculating the 14th day of the month of Nisan, the date of Easter in the Western and Eastern churches is not always the same. For this reason, the churches are currently seeking an agreement in order once again to celebrate the day of the Lord’s Resurrection on a common date.

Catholic and Orthodox leaders actually sat down several times in the late 1990s to try and resolve the problem of different Easter celebrations, but didn’t come up with an answer. At that time, the Vatican made it clear that the Catholic Church, following the lead of the Second Vatican Council, could accept the assigning of Easter to a specific Sunday agreed upon with other Christian churches.

One proposal was to celebrate Easter on the Sunday after the second Saturday in April. That sounded do-able. But, perhaps because old traditions die hard, it hasn’t happened yet.

The United States Naval Observatory offers a web page on which you and determine the dates for Ash Wednesday and Easter (on the western liturgical calendar) for any year up to 9999!

At once they left their nets and followed him...

Homily for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time – A
Isaiah 8:23-9:3
1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17
Matthew 4:12-23

At once they left their nets and followed him…
It didn’t work that way with me!

When people ask me when I decided to become a priestthe most honest answer I can give is,
“About six years after I was ordained.”
I was ordained in 1973. I truly decided to become a priest around 1979.
Those six years were very interesting years!
(That's a story I may share at another time...)

I’ve heard married people say the same kind of thing,
that the real decision to be married
came some years after they stood at the altar.

And the last six years have been interesting years, too.
These have been six years in which I have had to rethink
many things about the church –and you have, too-
but one thing I haven’t really needed to rethink
was my call to be a priest.

Well, “call” is really too strong a word to use here.
I had no visions, heard no voices, experienced nothing mystical.
Less than a call, what I experienced was a nudge, a prompting,
an intuition, a suggestion that becoming a priest
might be what I was meant to do with my life.

Actually, it was more like a hunch,
a “holy hunch,” if you like,
but a hunch nonetheless…

That’s just the way it was.

So, I followed the hunch, hoping that God was behind it and,
to the best of my ability,
I believe that indeed, I’m doing with my life what God asked of me.
But what God originally nudged me into
has turned out to be very different than what I expected.

Reminds me of an ad for new books last week,
offering this interesting title:
This Isn’t The Life I Ordered!

Well, whose is?

Even though I believe that God and I are still on the same page,
I’ve found that my work is often frustrating, disappointing,
difficult, painful, lonely, confining, confusing, depressing,
unsupported and suspect.

But at the same time, I find my work is also exciting, challenging,
fulfilling, uplifting, liberating, validating, appreciated, needed,
joyful, blessed and deeply rewarding.

And I have these two sets of experiences of my ministry
precisely because my work invites me
and allows me inside the tender, fragile heart of your lives:
your joys and sorrows, your dreams and disappointments,
your successes and failures, your sin and grace – and mine, too.

If you think a priest’s work is mostly doing "holy things"
or saying "holy words" – or even "being holy" himself –
you’ve got it inside out.

We live in a culture of junk.
My work is to sort through, with you and for you,
all the junk in our lives
and to dig deep enough to discover the holy
in our hearts, our lives and in the world around us.

And when we find the holy within and among us,
we celebrate it and share it with us who are searching for it, too.

In sorting through the junk in pursuit of what is of real value,
we Christians use the gospel as our treasure map
and the Church’s wisdom as light for our path.

Like the ancients of Zebulun and Naphtali,
something deep within us longs
for anguish to take wing,for darkness to be dispelled,
and for the holy to be discovered and revealed.

And like the Corinthians,
we screw things up a good deal of the time:
we make our own maps and cast the Lord's aside;
we forgo wisdom's light and stumble in the dark;
we prefer rivalry to unity and loose sight of our goal.

We need to heed Paul’s warning that unless Christ be our light
and his Cross the standard of our lives,
we will be lost, buried in the junk
failing to find the holiness our restless hearts are always seeking.

So once a week we gather here, God's people,
as modern members of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali,
and contemporary Corinthians.

We study again the scriptures’ map
and pray to find the Church’s path to what is holy
with wisdom’s light to lead way.

Here Christ nudges us and invites us to believe
that leaving our nets to follow him
might, indeed, be a very good hunch.

One in Christ and in the shadow of his Cross,
we celebrate and share what is already ours,
the Eucharist:
the Holy One, broken and poured out for us
in this table’s bread and cup.

- Rev. Austin Fleming

Another chance to vote!

As you can see on the sidebar, a kind reader has nominated this blog for a Blogger's Choice Award.

Thank you!

If you click on the image on the sidebar, you can cast a vote for my blog and/or nominate and vote for other blogs. You will need to register with Blogger's Choice (no charge) to vote or nominate.

I don't expect to win, but the exposure might be helpful and the more readers the merrier!

Don't forget!

Don't let the purple and the palm fool you - Palm Sunday is still a way off!

But...

A few days ago I posted a reminder about bringing your old palm branches to church to be burned for ashes for Ash Wednesday. As you probably know, there are two acceptable ways to dispose of blessed objects: burning and burial.

Clearly, disposing of old, dried palm branches by burning for ashes is recycling of a very sacred order! You can contribute to the greening of the church by bringing in those old bits of palm about your house.

Put that palm in your car today so it will go with you to Mass on Sunday!

Word for the Week of January 27, 2008

As you can read at the top of the sidebar, Paul is writing to a faith community beset with divisions and rivalries. These words of reproof and admonition are meant to call the Corinthians to task and to make them see how their factions fraction the unity of Christ's body, the Church.

This would not have been a easy letter for the people of Corinth to read. Nor is it an epistle without implications for our own times. In these troubled and troubling times in the life of the Church, to whom do we offer our allegiance? Do divisions in theology and church polity divide us into camps of mistrust and anger? Do we find in justifiable anger license for unjustifiable enmity and scorn? How does the unity of Christ's body call us to heal the divisions and to work towards unity in word and deed?

Generations of Faith

Three Generations by Kendra O'Donnell. Click on the image for a larger version of this beautiful painting...

Today (January 26) is the feast of Saints Timothy and Titus. The readings for today's Mass can be found here. There are two options for the first lection, the first of which is taken from Paul's letter to Titus:

Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus...
to Timothy, my dear child:
grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father
and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I am grateful to God,
whom I worship with a clear conscience
as my ancestors did,
as I remember you constantly in my prayers,
night and day.

I yearn to see you again, recalling your tears,
so that I may be filled with joy,
as I recall your sincere faith
that first lived in your grandmother Lois
and in your mother Eunice
and that I am confident lives also in you....

My parish distributes quarterly a pocket size daily prayer book called Living Faith. The current issue includes this reflection based on the text above:

I am fascinated by Paul's reference to Timothy's grandmother, according to my concordance, the only place in the Bible the term grandmother appears. Paul says Timothy's faith first lived in her.

Why is it that a grandmother's faith can be so deeply alive? Perhaps it is because she has received and given life through three generations of the journey. She has taken part in so many stories where love was stronger than pain and God brought life from what had seemed like death.

I have my grandmother's rosary and the crucifix that hung on the wall of her room. I remember the faith that lived in her as we say the blessing at a family gathering with my nine young grandchildren. I feel wonder at being part of the chain of life that is both physical life and living faith.

Dear God, I am so grateful for all those before and after me in the chain of life. Thank you for holding us together in your love.

-Patricia Livingston

All this reminds of me some nice exchanges in the combox on my Fifth Day of Christmas post about the grandmother of Jesus. (This and several other posts on St. Ann can be found here.)

Happy feast day to men named Timothy and Titus and to mothers and grandmothers - especially those named Eunice and Lois!

Our reputations precede us...

It's true that reputations (good and bad, true or false) precede the individuals to whom they are assigned.

I'm thinking of someone whose reputation I knew quite well - and long before I'd had any opportunity to meet or work with him. Then circumstances chanced for us to meet and work together a bit and I discovered that while parts of his reputation were indeed true, I experienced those elements positively and not at all in the negative ways they were usually reported by others. In fact, I've come to know this man as a dedicated minister of the gospel whose love for his people is exemplary and self-giving.

Makes me wonder... how many other reputations have I accepted as true when I've never even had the opportunity to make the person's acquaintance in any serious fashion? I'm sure there's a word for that... yes... it's prejudice...

Makes me wonder... and that's a good thing.

Word for Kids!

Last week I drew your attention to the Sadlier site which offers reflections on the Sunday scriptures for children. Oops! I forgot to include a link to this week's installment which you can find here. I hope that some parents and children (or adults on their own!) might find some help here in reading and praying over the Word in preparation for Sunday Eucharist.

Gone fishin'

My thanks to a faithful reader from Florida for the image above, a stained glass window in the choir of Christ the King Church in Tampa. Click on the image for a larger version and a better view of the spectacular colors in the glass. In the enlarged version, note the detail in general and, in particular, the shield to the left of Peter...

The texts and some background material on this weekend's readings can be found here. Familiarity with the scriptures to be proclaimed at Mass adds a dimension of understanding and participation that is extraordinary.

Skip down a few posts to Immediately they left their boats... and see the responses and suggestions of other readers regards preaching these texts. My homily is still in process - any other ideas?

The blogger on blogging...

As you can see from the SiteMeter at the bottom of the sidebar, the number of readers continues to remain strong here - and I'm pleased about that. I'm also pleased by growth in the number of folks commenting and the good exchange between commentors. As always, it's most helpful when those commenting use a screen name so that we all can follow a train of thought. (Not to worry: anonymous comments continue to be welcomed and appreciated.)

I'm hoping to have a daily post for Lent, beginning on Ash Wednesday. I'm working now on gathering material for that purpose. Truth be told, the hardest thing for me to give up for Lent would be this blog - but the possibilities are too many to do that. Over the month of November with the series on "All Souls" and my Advent posts, I was aware that working on such posts for you is also enriching of my own spirituality and attention to feasts and seasons.

Thanks to those who contributed response on this coming week's homily. I hope that I'll be able to incorporate most of the threads you mentioned in response to studying the scriptures for January 27.

EMBARGO for Tapas!

The bar at Embargo - click on image for a larger version

Those who read this blog really closely may have noticed that when I visited the Cape right after Christmas I made no mention of my favorite restaurant there, The Roo Bar. That's because things have changed at The Roo since I was there in August: new owners, a new chef, and some new staff. If you check the link above to my earlier post, you 'll see how enamored I was of this place. My recent visits (Christmas and this week) yield a different report. Chef Leah Dubois has left and her replacement, while presenting respectable fare, cannot meet the level of excellence that Leah had maintained for some time. How good is respectable? I ate there several times just after Christmas and twice this week but The Roo is now closed on Tuesdays so tonight I visited a new place on Main Street in downtown Hyannis, Embargo.

Embargo was my first venture into the culinary world of tapas. Tapas? Here's some info from the menu helpful for novices like myself:

The exact moment of the birth of the tapa is lost in time. The closest estimate of its humble origins would possibly be sometime in the eighteenth century. Weary travelers would disembark from coaches and saddle horses, to be met by eager innkeepers with glasses of wine or sherry covered with a slice of bread. In the Spanish language, this covering referred to as a tapas, from the verb tapar, ‘to cover.’ This ‘tapas’ kept insects, dust and unsavory debris from settling into the wine and also served to whet the appetite of the hungry travelers. From this simple beginning the tapa evolved... Tapas today are small, delectable portions of food, served individually, or in groups as a custom designed meal. The use of lean, grilled meats and fresh seafood, vegetables, olive oil and that wonderful flower of flavor...garlic ensure not only a heavenly taste experience, but also a light, healthy fare... The enjoyment of tapas is a way of life for the Spanish casual dining in an unhurried atmosphere where spirited conversations flourish and are shared among family, friends and new acquaintances... The small portion or tapa size allows you to sample many dishes, possibly many different cuisines all in one evening. You have the choice of ordering tapas one at a time or all at once. Each dish will arrive at your table as it is completed in the kitchen for your enjoyment, therefore, not all dishes will arrive at the table simultaneously. This is the essence of tapas- to experience a multitude of different flavors, textures, and tastes...

While the menu is dominated by tapas, there's also an offering of regular entrees. But if you've ever dreamed of just ordering a series of wonderful appetizers, well - that's the essence of tapas! Keeping small, light portions in mind, here's what I enjoyed this evening from the menu:

- A salad of arugula and goat cheese garnished with candied pine nuts and tossed in a warm bacon and maple dressing... Two thinly sliced, fried beet chips topped the salad. The portion was generous and was served with an ample basket of warm bread cut from a baguette and accompanied by a side dish of EVOO over a decent mound of roasted garlic.

- A serving of a manchego grilled cheese with a rather generous cup of curried butternut squash bisque... Readers here know that I couldn't pass up a grilled cheese and I'm glad I didn't let this one pass me by. The cheese was mild, the bread toasted just enough with a buttery crunch sealing in the goodness. I accepted an offer of fresh ground pepper on the bisque - just one grind - but the next time I'll let the curry be sufficient piquancy for this dish. The bisque was as light a soup as I've ever had - having an almost souffle-like airy texture: superb! And it was steaming hot as any bisque or soup ought to be upon arriving at the table.

- Next I ordered one of the two tapas recommended by Harry, the bartender: Kobe beef sliders garnished with bacon and pickled red onion, and a dash of chipotle catsup... The little burgers were served on very fresh buns, toasted perfectly on one side and warm and soft to the touch on the other: perfect! If you've never enjoyed Kobe beef, take my word for it: it's the best beef in a burger you have EVER tasted!

- Harry's other suggestion was the garlic chicken legs which arrived as a leg and a thigh... No complaint here - the thigh was larger than the leg. It may have been my imagination but the chicken surrendered in its tenderness and fell off the bone as my fork approached it but before any contact was made: moist, juicy and tasty with enough garlic to make its presence known but not to overpower. The "legs" were accompanied by baby tomatoes and some basil. Harry was right on both the Kobe sliders and the garlic chicken!

- One more course? Of course! Remember: these are appetizer-sized portions. I wanted something light so I tried the vegetable spring rolls with sweet chili sauce. They were delicious but another time I would order these up front and skip the sauce whose saltiness overwhelmed the delicious rolls and their vegetable filling.

With my tapas I enjoyed several glasses of Yalumba Shiraz Viognier which I found well paired with the variety of other tastes that crossed my palette.

The staff at the bar (Harry and Kat) were warm and welcoming, and helpful for someone ordering for the first time from a tapas menu.

Around 10:00 a keyboard and vocal duo offered soft rock tunes and ballads at a volume that did not overwhelm.

The ambiance is sparse and contemporary but still warm and inviting. The bar where I dined is a large horseshoe in the center of the room with comfortable banquettes lining the wall, interspersed with large table lamps that give a kind of homey but not hokey touch to the room.

A nice surprise was running into a former bartender from The Roo who left to study and live in Boston last year. Back in Hyannis to visit his family, Rodrigo is now working at a place in Cambridge where I'll be having dinner in March and I hope to see him again.

So, if you're in Hyannis - stop by Embargo! And you might try going on a Tuesday night when nearly all the tapas are half price!

But names can often hurt you...

It's a lesson that still sticks with her three years later.

When Amanda Melo was in second grade, her teacher wanted to show the students what happens when a child is teased.

The teacher drew a stick figure on a piece of paper and passed it around. Each student had to say something mean about the drawing, and then crumple it up.

The next time the teacher passed the piece of paper around, the students were asked to say something nice and then smooth the paper out.

The result: "After everyone said something nice, it was still all crumpled up," said Amanda, now a fifth-grader at the Quashnet School.

She relayed the story to her fellow students in preparation for "No Dissing Day" tomorrow, and they liked it so much that they affixed the message to their classroom door.

The districtwide event, sponsored by the Quashnet School K Kids, a student version of the Kiwanis Club, is one way that administrators and teachers are trying to enforce positive behavior in the schools.

"It's just bringing another level of awareness to how we tease each other," Quashnet School principal Patricia DeBoer said.

The Quashnet kids have already started signing paper bricks as a pledge that they won't call anyone a name tomorrow.

Their pledge day falls right in the middle of national No Name-Calling Week, which started yesterday...

-Stephanie Vosk
Cape Cod Times 1/22/08

The students are pledging that they won't call anyone a name - tomorrow.

I know: not calling anyone a name tomorrow is a step in the right direction. Maybe a first step for many kids. A day at a time... I know.

But as an adult who remembers taking some dissing when he was a child, tomorrow seems painfully too small a pledge.

We all know children and in one way or another many of us are responsible for the children we know: responsible for their welfare and for raising them with the understanding that Christians do unto others as they would others do unto them.

As schools observe No Name Calling Week and No Dissing Day, we adults might look for ways to engage our children in conversation with two purposes in mind: first, to see if the children in our care are objects of name-calling, dissing or bullying; and second, to see if our own children are sometimes among those who name-call, diss and bully their school mates.

From my own experience I know it's not easy for a child to report to anyone the disrespect he or she may be suffering and few bullies will brag to adults of their harassment of others. School communities are taking a lead here and the religious education program in our parish is beginning to pay attention to the ways children can abuse other children. Adults at home and in other appropriate venues have a like responsibility to reach out to children subjected to such behavior and to intervene with those who behave in this way.

Immediately they left their boat...

The Calling of the Apostles Peter and Andrew by Duccio di Buoninsegna

The weekend's readings offer the homilist several possibilities. The texts and some background material on them can be found here.

As you'll see, the first reading has been chosen at least in part because of its geographical complementarity with the gospel selection. The lectionary offers a long and short form of the gospel: one with and one without the story of the call of Peter and Andrew, and James and John.

I'm looking for some advice here. What strikes you in these scriptures? Where does the Word lead you this weekend? Should my homily look to the call to repentance in the short form of the gospel or to the vocational theme in the longer form? Or should I center my homily on Paul's admonition to the Corinthians with regard to unity in Christ and the abandoning of rivalries in the faith community?

I trust that only those who have taken the time study the texts and the background material will step forward with counsel!

Welcome to the homilist's world!

Getting ready to get ready for Easter

No, the image above is not of the blessing of the new fire at the Easter Vigil!

Some readers will remember the term Septuagesima Sunday, the name given to the third from the last Sunday before Lent and approximately 70 days before Easter. Such a Sunday is no longer found on the Church's calendar but it's always good to remember that Lent is around the corner lest it catch us by surprise. Although Lent is a season of preparation for Easter, it's a good thing to prepare for the preparatory season!

In my parish and many others, old palm branches are being collected now to be burned to make ashes for Ash Wednesday, just ahead on February 6. If your parish is collecting palm, take a minute now to remove any pieces you have tucked behind a crucifix or another place in your home and put them in a place (your car!) where you'll remember them this coming weekend.

Some good points about pointing

St. John the Baptist by Titian: it was not unusual for the Baptist to be imaged pointing away from himself to Christ.

Homily for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Isaiah 49:3, 5-6
1 Corinthians 1:1-3
John 1:29-34

Do you remember being taught: It’s not nice to point!
I wonder if children are still taught that lesson in manners.
But right here in the gospel
we find John the Baptist in a serious breach of good manners:
John saw Jesus coming toward him and said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!”

You can just see John’s finger pointing towards Jesus!

The question of whether or not it’s polite to point,
and in particular to point to Jesus, is very much alive today.
It’s interesting that the words polite and political
derive from the same root
and it’s interesting to watch politicians pointing impolitely to Jesus
in hopes of winning voters to their side.
(John, of course, points to Jesus not to advance his own cause
but to direct all attention to the One who came before him.)

How about us?
Do we find ways to point to Christ in our daily lives?
Maybe not so much.
Pointing to Jesus to others is not politically correct
but even those who don’t worry about being politically correct
may feel uncomfortable pointing to Jesus in public,
fearing that doing so might draw too much attention to themselves.

But there are ways we point to others that are acceptable.

Most parents enjoy bragging about their children’s accomplishments:
how well they’re doing in school, in sports,
with their particular talents…
But I wonder how many parents would feel free to point out
to someone at work:
Ya know, my kid served Mass on Sunday morning
and I was so proud to see my child helping at the altar.
That’s much different than telling someone,
I was at the field on Saturday and my kid played a great game!
In one case, we acknowledge we went to a game;
in the other we ‘fess up that we went to church – and enjoyed it!

Most of us would feel free to mention a good concert we went to
or a great CD we just bought,
but how many of us would feel free to point out to someone at work,
Wow! This song we sang at church on the weekend was so beautiful.
I couldn’t get the tune out of my head all day!

Many of us would easily to recommend to others
a good book we read or an article we came across in a magazine
but how man of us would feel free to point out to others
(now, I’m going to make a bit of stretch here!)
“At Mass this weekend the homily was awesome.
For a minute I thought the priest was speaking right to me.

I’m not suggesting that any of us stand on a street corner, preaching.
I’m just wondering how many of us are open
to even broaching the possibility of sharing something -anything-
of our spiritual lives with others…?”

A recent Google survey reported that in the year 2007
the most Googled Who is…? question was, Who is God?

Who would have guessed that?

More people than we may suspect are wondering about God
and beginning a conversation about things spiritual
might be a really good thing to begin.

Why are we so reluctant, even afraid, of sharing with others,
pointing out to them, some of the realities
most dear to our hearts and lives?

Every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist,
we hear the words,
This is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Happy are those who are called to his supper.

Are we happy enough to let even one person this week know
that we were here?
that we have a spiritual life which brings us some measure of peace?

It’s true: It’s not nice to point…
unless we point to Jesus, the Lamb of God,
and how he touches our hearts and lives.

-ConcordPastor

The wearin' of the green!

I finally took down my Christmas tree tonight! It hasn't been lit since last Sunday but it's been sitting in my window, reminding me that Lent is around the corner.

It was an extraordinary simple joy, this evening, to celebrate a Sunday in Ordinary Time: no special music; no special environment; no special candles to light or vestments to wear; no seasonal "burden" on the preaching. Just green time and after the liturgically heightened seasons just past, it's a welcome, if brief, breather.

Looking back on Advent and Christmas it strikes me that if liturgical ministers take the seasons seriously they then carry the weight of those seasons in word, song, rite and prayer. There are added preparations, rehearsals, schedules, instructions and, most important of all, an added awareness of the season without which those who serve in liturgical ministries will fail in helping the assembly to offer the fitting worship and praise the season seeks to draw from us.

As the year cycles 'round, each parish faces the option of being a venue of rich seasonal fare, fit for a King and his people - or a Burger King with Whopper boxes seasonally stamped with elves and snowflakes.

Although most parishioners recognize and are grateful for "how nice the church looks" and "how wonderful the choir sounded," few will know how much time and effort went into the prayer that rose up from their midst, ministered by those who love the liturgy.

To the many in my parish -and in yours- who gave of themselves for Advent and Christmas and who will soon do the same for Lent and Easter: be faithful in the work you do for through it the Lord saves his people!

New Word for the Week

At the top of the sidebar you'll find the new Word for the Week. This text is similar to the gospel text for Sunday's Mass (January 20) but occurs just after it in John's gospel. To appreciate the whole context, read John 1:1-51.

This passage nutshells a huge portion of our spiritual lives in the brief exchange between Jesus and the two disciples:

Jesus, to us: What are you looking for?
We, to Jesus: Where are you?
Jesus, to us: Come, and you will see...

It is always Jesus who begins the conversation - even when we think we've gone looking for him, it was his Spirit who sent us looking to begin with...

The search for Jesus never ends. Even when we find where he is, we want to enter more deeply into his presence...

Jesus always beckons us to see him more clearly, love him more dearly, follow him more nearly...

Day by day...

If you could do a MapQuest for Hope...

Hope...

Here's what the dictionary says:
- to expect with confidence
- to desire with expectation of obtainment
- to cherish a desire with anticipation

My parish is having a mission from February 4-7, right at the beginning of Lent. Our mission speakers are building this retreat time around the virtue of hope. Seems like a good idea to me!
There are so many realities in our lives that hedge our hopes, dash our expectations and drain us of our confidence. We need the Spirit to fan the embers of fading hopes into flames of confidence and trust.

Some of my readers live close enough to join us for this time of prayer and reflection but others live far away from Concord. Over those four days in February I'll be sharing with you here what's happening in our parish: a kind of virtual retreat, if you will. It will all be very simple and I hope fruitful for your spirituality as we all begin the season of Lent.

Every week in our intercessions at the Sunday Eucharist, we pray for: the healing of those who have been abused and betrayed and the restoration of trust and confidence in the Church... I know that's one of my biggest hopes... what might be some of yours?

What do you want to expect with confidence?

What do you desire with anticipation?

What gift to you hope to obtain?

What did you make of the One Way sign in the image above?

Look! There is the lamb of God...

I hope you've already begun to look over this weekend's scriptures. There's no finer way to prepare for Mass on Sunday than to pray over the readings ahead of time as a way of readying ourselves to hear them proclaimed in the liturgy.

This one link to the St. Louis University liturgy site will bring bring you to the scriptures for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time AND some good background material on those same texts. (After linking to St. Louis U., click on Get to Know the Readings.)

Parents: you might want to take a look here to see if this is something to help your children prepare for Sunday's Mass and engage more fully in it.

On riding a dead horse...

Statue of St. Wenceslas Riding a Dead Horse by David Cerny

Welcome!
To those who arriving here via a search for "Wenceslas riding a dead horse!"

I had a delightful coffee hour this morning with some colleagues in ministry and one of our number shared this bit of wisdom which I've tweaked for our own corner of the vineyard...

Lakota tribal wisdom says that whenever you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in the church we often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:

- Buy a stronger whip.

- Change riders.

- Say, "This is the way we've always ridden a dead horse."

- Declare, "No horse is too dead to beat."

- Study alternative uses for dead horses.

- Require all parishes to have a dead horse.

- Visit other parishes to see how they ride a dead horse.

- Run a workshop to increase sensitivity to dead horses.

- Provide funding to increase the performance of dead horses.

- Harness several dead horses together for increased speed.

- Appoint a diocesan committee to study dead horses.

- Cluster parishes to share the benefits of dead horses.

- Promote a dead horse to a position of authority.

Preach it, Preacher!

Last week my parish offered four opportunities to attend a Faith Festival, a parish-wide, intergenerational opportunity for community and catechesis, including a light meal, prayer and faith formation in age-appropriate groups.

Our January Faith Festival carried this title: Am I a Catholic? What do I need to believe? We chose this topic because it encompasses two of the questions I am most frequently asked in the course of my ministry.

I was the presenter for the adult and high school student contingent. Over the course of the week I gave my presentation to a combined audience of about 275.

Something happens to a presentation as you offer it four times over the course of a week. Some penciled editing is done and some redaction occurs even as you are presenting (to be penciled in later!).

The greater command the speaker has of the material, the freer the speaker is to add and subtract from the prepared text, especially in relationship to the audience listening and its response (verbal/body language).

Repetition, of course, can also be deadly. If the speaker is tired of the material, the audience will tire of listening to it. But if the material continues to engage even the speaker, it has potential for new life each time its offered. That was my experience this past week. Although I had confidence in my material before presenting it the first time, by the end of the week I found myself significantly more personally engaged by it, even though the fourth offering was on a Sunday night after the morning's liturgical schedule and an afternoon of other pastoral work.

I was pleased, too, that by Festival IV my presentation was tighter, not more unwieldy, and thus allowing for greater interaction with my audience after my talk.

Some of this dynamic also applies to preaching a homily on the weekend, albeit in a tighter time frame. No matter how long I work on preparing a homily, I don't really know it's strengths and weaknesses until I have preached it in the liturgical setting. Our weekend Mass schedule includes an anticipated Mass on Saturday evening and three Masses on Sunday morning. I generally preach at 3 or 4 of these celebrations.

Preaching at the 5:00 on Saturday has something of the "out of town tryout" about it - even though it plays in the heart of the home "town." It's in the preaching that preacher discovers what further work the homily needs.

My 5:00 preaching often shows me that my homily began in the wrong place! That's right. I often realize after preaching once that my opening material is either unnecessary or that it delays my getting to where I want my work to take me and God's people. Saturday night and the cut-and-paste feature of word processing make for a better beginning on Sunday morning.

After preaching a text once I also often realize that I have unnecessarily repeated words/phrases/concepts/sentences. Almost always my Sunday preaching ends up being a shorter homily because of my Saturday night redactions. If a deacon preaches on Saturday night my homiletic processing doesn't begin until the 7:30 a.m. liturgy. Between Masses I find a corner in the sacristy for editorial work but there's no keyboard or printer there so it's done by hand: scratching out and writing in.

The final redaction occurs when I prepare my text for publishing here on my blog or on the parish website. I will often see that phrasing that worked in an oral presentation doesn't do as well in print and so a final sweep of the text takes place before I click on "Publish Post."

As was my experience with my Faith Festival talk last week, preaching the same homily three or four times in a 19 hour window allows the presentation to steep, like a pot of tea. Feedback from parishioners over the weekend (observed attention or inattention during the homily and comments as folks pass by at the church doors) either builds the preacher's confidence or indicates the need for more work.

Perhaps most of all, repeated preaching of the same text affords me a comfortability with it that yields a better delivery and presentation. I know that pauses, inflection, emphases, tone of voice and a better "shaped" delivery become more effective over the course of the weekend's preaching.

As you can tell from the above, I almost always preach from a text and I write that text in sense lines which I believe enhances delivery and frees me for better eye-contact with the assembly. That's why my homilies appear in that form on my blog and on the parish website.

I've noticed over the past year or so that my homilies are getting shorter. My ambo text used to be generally 5-6 pages, double spaced, 16 point print. They are now generally just over 3 and sometimes up to 4 pages. I'm pleased with what's happening although it was not a change I had set out to make. My memory is that some less lengthy homilies seemed, to me, to be more effective and I slowly but surely found myself writing that way.

And, as you might guess, no one has complained that my homilies are too short!

Thanks for reading - I've found it helpful to think these things through and organize my thoughts.

Below: Now here's my dream! Monitors scrolling the text of my homily right at the ambo, with a computer in the sacristy where I could do some editing between Masses on a Sunday morning! How will I present this request to the Parish Finance Council?

Cheez whiz! *

Including the one you're reading, I have published 529 posts since July 19, 2007.

I have written about things both ridiculous and sublime: I am, after all, a Catholic. I have posted poetry and song, videos and cartoons. I have written about the tragic and the joyful, the sacred and the profane. I have offered prayers and reflections on the mysteries of faith. I have linked you to a variety of thoughts, commentary and news items.

But of all these posts, none has elicited more comments than my recent musings on a grilled cheese sandwich...

Go figure!

* No self-respecting grilled cheese sandwich lover would ever think of making a grilled cheese with Cheez Whiz!

Frost: Dust of Snow

Image: Squirrel Basket

Dust of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

- Robert Frost

I saw the Spirit come down...

Baptism of Jesus by Gwen Meharg

Time to look at the scriptures for this coming Sunday. (Some of the imagery from Matthew's gospel last week repeats here in John's text.) The Advent-Christmas cycle on the liturgical calendar is now complete and for a few weeks we go back to Ordinary Time* until the imposition of Ashes calls us to Lent.

This coming Sunday is the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time. You'll recall from last week that this one link to the St. Louis University liturgy site will bring bring you to the scriptures of the day AND some good background material on those same texts. (After linking to St. Louis U., click on Get to Know the Readings.)

Soutenus over at A Catholic Notebook offers a great link to a service of Sadlier, a well-known publisher of religious education materials. The Sadlier site includes a kid's version of what I try to do for you each week in nudging you to prepare to hear the scriptures by reading and studying them ahead of time. Parents: take a look here and see if this is something that might help your children prepare for Mass and engage more fully in it.

*This interlude of Ordinary Time is unusually short. Over at Catholic Sensibility, Todd has some interesting calendar data the peculiarities of 2008 and on the dates for Easter being "early" or "late." Check it out!