The Easter season is almost over. This week finds us celebrating Ascension Thursday and the coming weekend brings us to the Seventh Sunday of Easter. (UNLESS you live in a diocese where the Ascension is transferred each year to the Sunday before Pentecost - the 7th of Eastertide.)
Scriptures for the 7th Sunday of Easter and for Ascension are here, along with commentary on them. If you're bringing children to Mass with you, hints for helping them to prepare to hear the Word can be found here.
The readings for the Seventh Sunday of Easter are relatively brief and simple. The readings for the Ascension are appropriate to the feast celebrated. Whatever your local church may be celebrating, take some time to sit with the day's scriptures and let them begin to percolate within you so that come Sunday, your ears and mind and heart will be all the more open to what the Lord will speak to you.
On FaceBook today I came across a post that led to a blog new to my eyes although it's written by a member of my parish (Andy's Blog). Andy is a veteran and its from that personal perspective that he posted, Why I Stay Home on Memorial Day. Here's just a sample. Follow the link to read the whole post.
But war is and has always been about death. No matter how much it’s glamorized, no matter how much we paint it over with ideas like “duty” and honor,” war is about death. The death of others and the possibility of our own. And death in war is not clean. The human body was not built for absorbing steel-jacketed bullets, red-hot shrapnel, concussion waves, intense immediate heat, and all the other means that people have devised to tear apart other human beings. As so many warriors have remarked over the centuries, there is no honor or glory in battlefield death. Those are terms the living use to deal with the horror of war.
This is why I’ve chosen to stay home on Memorial Day since 2006. I feel that solidarity with the dead even more for having been close to the dead. The dead have faces for me now, faces of the men and women with whom I served for twenty years. All the speeches and flags and parades and bugle calls cannot hide those faces from me. I feel grief far too deeply, and I feel it far too personally to share with a crowd of others.
Perhaps it’s alright in a larger sense to honor the fallen. I will certainly never presume to take away the sincere sentiments of those who remember the dead, even those whom we only know through a name on a brass grave plaque and a small American flag. For me, though, no speech, no flag, no parade, no playing of “Taps” can hide the horror that is war. No collective memorializing can, for me, mask the individual deaths of the men and women who never wanted to die. Hundreds of thousands. Millions. The grief from the loss of all these individual lives combines into the heat of a bonfire that overwhelms me, heat that holds me in thrall while threatening to consume me. I am left looking at the brutal, awful, distillation of, in Joseph Conrad’s words, “The Horror! The Horror!
Sunday is the Sabbath in my weekly experience but it's far from being a day of rest. The same is likely true for many of my readers. Sunday is often a busy day for those who work, minister, help out and volunteer in the life of the local parish.
Today's Memorial Day and after Mass in our cemetery at 10:00 a.m. and then offering a prayer at a town Memorial Day program, I took a deep breath and began enjoying a day off from my usual round of appointments and meetings.
In taking that deep breath I thought, "This is what the Sabbath is meant to be - a breather..." Sabbath is for breath-catching and for catching up on time for rest and time with the Lord and time to enjoy the God-given world around us.
Of course, it's not only those who work for the church who might be unfamiliar with Sabbath rest. The demands of family life in the households of my parish make Sundays less than a breather for many folks. But we all need Sabbath rest. Vacations and school breaks are great but they can't offer what the Sabbath intends: a weekly break, given, actually enjoined on us as a commandment, to insure we'll slow down, stop, rest, enjoy the blessings of creation and praise God for them.
I'm old enough to remember when the prohibition of "servile work" on Sundays was strong enough to solicit negative comments about neighbors who mowed their lawns on the Lord's Day. As odd as that might sound today, there was a respect for that Sabbath the default of which was rest!
My "weekend" falls in the middle of most folks' weekdays but as other folks do on Sundays, I bring work to my own sabbath and thus rob it of its potential for rest and grace.
Do any readers here truly keep the Sabbath? How do you do it? What are its fruits?
I'm praying today, Lord:
remembering those who died,
who passed from this life to the next,
who have at last met you, their Maker,
lover of their souls...
I'm praying today, Lord:
remembering those gone long before,
marked with the sign of faith,
marked as your own in ways unknown
to others' grief and mine...
I'm praying today, Lord:
remembering those who gave their lives
without a thought of self,
who laid down all that I might stand
in freedom dearly won...
I'm praying today, Lord:
remembering selfless souls and
hearts with courage purpled true,
so sure and brave on danger's roads
where I'd not dare to tread...
I'm praying today, Lord:
remembering love in sacrifice
so freely, fully given,
so easily forgotten by just the ones
for whom the gift was made...
I'm praying today, Lord,
and of''ring you my memories now
in thanks for those who loved
as you have loved by giving all
for all who stand in need...
I'm praying today, Lord:
Receive my morning offering
for those who now may need my heart laid down and given up
that they, too, might be free.
Good God of Monday mornings,
of every memory mine,
be with me on this special day
and every day this week...
Amen.
(Click here for an archive of Monday Morning Offerings)
Each year the soldiers of the Third United States Infantry Regiment ("The Old Guard") take part in the ceremony called "Flags In." Just before Memorial Day, each grave in Arlington National Cemetery is decorated with a small American flag. The flags remain in place until the conclusion of the Memorial Day Weekend when they are all removed. It is the only time during the year when American flags are permitted at all grave sites in the Cemetery.
Memorial Day Prayer
In the quiet sanctuaries of our own hearts, let us call on the name of the One whose power over us is great and gentle, firm and forgiving, holy and healing…
You who created us, who sustain us, who call us to live in peace, hear our prayer this day.
Hear our prayer for all who have died, whose hearts and hopes are known to you alone…
Hear our prayer for those who put the welfare of others
ahead of their own: give us hearts as generous as theirs…
Hear our prayer for those who gave their lives
in the service of others, and accept the gift of their sacrifice…
Help us to shape and make a world where we will put down the arms of war and live in the harvest of justice and peace…
Comfort those who grieve the loss of their loved ones: in our hearts let your healing be our hope.
Hear our prayer this day and in your mercy answer us in the name of all that is holy.
The Concord Minutemen at St. Bernard Cemetery on Memorial Day - Photo:ConcordPastor
In many cities and towns today, uniformed personnel will parade in formation up and down our streets and walk to and fro between salutes and ceremonies. Flags will be everywhere and some folks will wear the stars and stripes or dress in the national colors for Memorial Day.
We will celebrate Mass at the parish cemetery under an archway of flowering trees and before an image of the risen Christ. Shortly after Mass a small parade of soldiers, bagpipers, Minutemen, horses, honored citizens and town officials will stop at our cemetery and gather hard by the Resurrected One where I will offer a prayer, someone will sing America the Beautiful and two high school trumpeters will play Taps and Echo. A large brass canon will deliver three exclamation points to all of this and then the parade will move on to its next stop: Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
None of the above is very unusual. I'm describing a scene that will be repeated "from sea to shining sea" across America.
It is, of course, a good thing to remember the dead, to pray for them and to honor the bravery of those who have served and protected us. Still, the memory and present reality of war will cloud this day and its rites because we know that sisters and brothers of ours stand in harm's way as we celebrate our picnics and cookouts.
Here's a poem from William Stafford - some good for reading on a day when we gather at monuments and pray...
Pie Jesus is a simple prayer brought to life beautifully in these three settings by composers Faure, Rutter and Webber. Find a quiet moment on this Memorial Day weekend to remember in prayer those who have died.
Before playing Pie Jesus, you might want take a moment to remember and write down the names of those you want to pray for this day...
Pie Jesu, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem, requiem sempiternam... (Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem, requiem sempiternam...)
Sweet Jesus, you take away the sins of the world, give them rest, eternal rest... (Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, give them rest,eternal rest...)
With some frequency I’m required to do just what’s asked of all of us
in today’s second scripture, that is:
to be ready to give an explanation of my reason for hope.
Do you recall the words? Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope…
People do ask me for a reason for my hope for the Church
how and why I stay in and with the Church
through what have been and continue to be some disastrous times.
So, allow me to give an explanation for the reason of my hope.
I have hope for the Church because of what I see in nature.
I see all around me a universe covered with the fingerprints of God:
indescribably beautiful and terrifyingly powerful.
I believe that even as creation is ours from the hand of God
so, too, is the Church
and I believe that everything that comes from God
is worthy, good and deserving of my faith, my love -- and my hope.
Of course, nature is also covered with the fingerprints of humanity
and sometimes, even often, those prints are forensic evidence
of the harm we’ve done to what God has given us
and how we’ve wasted what was entrusted to our care.
So, too, the Church - no stranger to carelessness and abuse.
But just as humankind’s damage to nature doesn’t tempt me to doubt
that God is its origin, its life and its sustainer,
neither does the damage done by some to the Church
tempt me to doubt that God is still its soul.
I have hope for the Church
because I know the natural resiliency of human beings.
I know the capacity of human beings to grow, to develop, to heal,
to forgive, to mature, to change, to adapt -- to survive!
I know how human beings survive
harm, hurt, illness, pain, disappointment, abuse, abandonment,
scorn, infidelity and sin, their own and others.
While that’s a resiliency common to all human beings,
the same is certainly true for people of the Church
and the natural human resiliency we all share cannot but be
enhanced, deepened and strengthened by faith.
And so precisely because the Church, with God as its soul,
is made up of human beings,
I have hope for its resiliency, its capacity not only to endure
but to survive whatever harm might come its way
from within or from outside the household of faith.
But the Church is not just a collection of resilient human beings.
I have hope for the Church because its people,
its graced, redeemed resilient people, all of them,
are the Body of Christ.
Or, to put it another way,
Christ’s Body in the world today is the people of the Church.
I have hope for the Church because I believe,
as Scripture and Tradition testify,
I believe that the Church is more, so much more,
than just the sum total of its membership.
We are not the Church because we call ourselves that.
It is because Christ names us his sisters and brothers
that we are his body, that we are the Church.
Were we the Church on our own, I would have no hope at all.
But because we are baptized into the Body of Christ,
because Christ has chosen the likes of us to be his Church,
because the Spirit of the Risen Christ is the soul and breath and pulse
of who we are as the Church -- I have hope.
And on the worst of days,
when the headlines and stories are tragic and seem without end,
when I’m most tempted to lose hope
that’s when I look for and find my hope for the Church
in the power of the gospel which is ours to preach
and in the grace of the Eucharist which is food for our souls.
Our greatest hope is not in our virtue.
Our greatest hope is in the message we’ve been given
to live and to share: the gospel of Jesus.
In the gospel we have the most powerful Word ever conceived,
ever spoken, ever heard, ever lived, ever preached.
What fools we would be to hang our heads in defeat
as if we’ve been rendered powerless by our and others failures.
I have hope for the Church because we, the Church, have the gospel,
that Word of God’s love made flesh in Jesus
and ours, now, in his Body the Church.
And it’s that very Word that brings us to this place today
and to this table.
In the shadow of the Cross of Jesus
whose defeat is our victory, whose death is our life,
we gather as his Body, the Church,
to receive his Body, his Blood, in the Eucharist.
In the gospel and in the Supper we share
and to deepen our love for our neighbors.
In this Word and in the sacrament of this altar,
I find reason for my hope for the Church
and, gladly, this morning,
I share the reason for my hope with you.
My beloved porch is a simple place but one I love dearly. Yesterday it was cleaned of its winter grime and the shovel and ice-melt were consigned to their fair-weather retreat.
That I'm sitting here this afternoon, enjoying the fresh air and warm sun, is a sure sign that the gift of seasons changing has dropped into my lap.
One of the features of this page is my Monday Morning Offering. I enjoy writing these weekly prayers and other prayers that appear in my posts from time to time. What I try to provide is what I might call "prayer from where we are." By that I mean prayer that rises out of our ordinary day to day experience with all its ups and downs, joys and sorrows, dreams and disappointments, spiritual victories and sinful failures.
I find the same kind of prayer in what Alden Solovy posts at To Bend Light. Alden writes from the spirituality of his Jewish faith and I delight in how comfortably I find myself at home in his "prayers from where we are."
I'm pleased to share with you another prayer scribe whom I recently discovered. Bob Hostetler writes Bob Hostetler's Prayer Blog - and Bob, too, "prays from where we are."
Hotetler collects prayers from spiritual writers, saints, composers, poets and other bloggers (including, on occasion, Concord Pastor) - all of them "prayers from where we are."
On occasion, he takes one of the psalms and prays/rewrites it as his own. Here's a sample, My Own Psalm 142 - you won't be disappointed.
And here are a few of Bob's own briefer prayers:
Sump Pump
Thank you, Lord,
for sump pumps,
that work unceasingly,
unseen,
unnoticed,
and yet prevent so much harm.
Kinda like your Spirit.
Amen.
Not
Lord God, Heavenly Father,
I know that I am not yet
what you call me to be,
but I thank you from my heart
that I am not now what I once was.
Amen.
Alpha and Omega
Alpha and Omega, First and Last, I pray:
be my first thought every morning,
and my last thought every night.
Claim my first allegiance,
my last full measure of devotion.
Take first place in my heart,
and rule over every last affection.
Make me first to serve,
last to seek credit.
Let me please you first,
and all others last, amen.
Socks
Abba, Father,
my Lord God,
thank you for a family
that blesses my socks off.
On Saturday, May 21, the Archdiocese of Boston celebrated the ordination of 6 priests: John Anthony D’Arpino, Michael Joseph Farrell, Br. Sean Patrick Hurley, FPO, Andrew Taegon Kwang Lee, Mark William Murphy, and Carlos David Suarez. These men were ordained by Cardinal Sean O'Malley.
Although I don't know any of the newly ordained, there's a chance that one of them will celebrate Mass in my parish here in Concord on June 5 and we'll be happy to welcome him for that occasion. Unfortunately, all of the archdiocesan photos of the event are unavailable for downloading from the RCAB Flickr page. You can see them here.
And the image above? That's the front cover of the worship aid for the ordination liturgy on May 21, 2011.
I wrote this prayer three years ago and through Google searches it has brought many readers to this page. It's a prayer I use at Memorial Day exercises conducted by the town I live in and so it's phrased to be as inclusive as possible of all who might be present. On Memorial Day my parish will celebrate Mass in our own cemetery where, of course, our prayer will be offered through, with and in Christ the Lord. This year I've received a number of requests to use this prayer in parish bulletins and online as well. It's offered today for those who are planning Memorial Day prayer services. I'll repost on Memorial Day, May 30.
Memorial Day Prayer
In the quiet sanctuaries of our own hearts,
let each of us name and call on the One whose power over us
is great and gentle, firm and forgiving, holy and healing…
You who created us,
who sustain us,
who call us to live in peace,
hear our prayer this day.
Hear our prayer for all who have died,
whose hearts and hopes are known to you alone…
Hear our prayer for those who put the welfare of others
ahead of their own
and give us hearts as generous as theirs…
Hear our prayer for those who gave their lives
in the service of others,
and accept the gift of their sacrifice…
Help us to shape and make a world
where we will lay down the arms of war
and turn our swords into ploughshares
for a harvest of justice and peace…
Comfort those who grieve the loss of their loved ones
Tonight our RCIA team and newly confirmed and received (along with spouses and a fiance) went out for dinner. We shared a great meal at Vincenzo's in West Concord, an evening marked by laughter, sharing and a good deal of story telling.
Over dinner I discovered that one of our recently confirmed writes a blog on of my favorite topics: cookies! Although I don't think cookies have appeared on this page to date, it's certainly time to take a look at the work of someone who understands the cookie craft very well indeed.
Cookie Monster's blog includes recipes, baking tips and step-by-step photos for baking cookies - and, here and there, bars, biscotti and other mouth watering treats.
Shannon's getting married this summer and her groom has a lifetime of wonderful desserts ahead of him!
to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope...
I've begun working on my homily and may go with this verse from 1 Peter. Consider its import for Catholic Christians today.
The first lesson for this Sixth Sunday of Eastercomes again from the Acts of the Apostles and details the power and joy that came from Philip's preaching and the gift of the Holy Spirit shared through the laying on of hands. The second lesson, from 1 Peter, includes the verse above and counsels suffering for doing good rather than for doing evil. The gospel is from the farewell discourse in John's gospel and gives us the comfort of these words:
I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
In a little while the world will no longer see me,
but you will see me, because I live and you will live.
To read these scriptures as they'll be proclaimed this weekend and for commentary to help you understand them, check here. Children coming to Mass with you? Find hints to help them prepare to hear the Word right here.
Rocco, at Whispers, offers aQuote of the Day from Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, reported in an article, "Between church and bloggers, a successful face-to-face" in L'Osservatore Romano for May 22, 2011.
The article reflects on the May 2 meeting of 150 bloggers from around the world with Church officials at the Vatican.
Sample a few snips:
We can say that we are in new squares and new cathedrals -- virtual spaces, to be sure, but ones inhabited by people who communicate, express ideas, tell stories, ask hard questions and expect answers. We can not, then, avoid this call to dialogue, taking into account that it entails a fluid world, a complex, articulated one in continual movement...
From this appeared the need, expressed clearly during the meeting, to decipher the mentality, the culture and philosophy that animates the bloggers, so that the church might be able to undertake a new evangelization and spark public opinion, learning itself to be interactive and not anchored only to a pyramidal style of communication that is foreign to the culture of our time. It can overcome a merely one-directional communication, without possibilities of dialogue and exchange, something destined to leave an impression of rigidity and self-reference...
...a new reality is growing that communicates emotions, sentiments, impulses of the spirit, opinions and stories in an unedited way... Let us seek, then, to reflect on the ideas raised in this dialogue, even the most suggestive, interesting and even slightly provocative, to highlight the necessity of not letting this meeting of bloggers remain only one event to be consigned to the annals of history, but that it becomes the first step of a long path of listening to the many people who wish to speak with us.
Such comments give one pause: a peaceful, contented, hopeful pause.
Pause for a moment yourself as you read Cardinal Ravasi's words...
Can you feel the fresh air wafting through the room?
So, Jesus says,
“I’m leaving to get a place ready for you.
and then I’ll come back to take you with me.
but don’t worry about that because you know how to get there!”
But Thomas, the practical guy, says,
“Jesus, we have no idea where you’re going!
How could we possibly know how to get there?”
Have you ever been in a place where you feel lost,
where you don’t know the way out,
where you don’t know the way home?
Have you ever wanted to go where the Lord was leading you
but just couldn’t figure out where he was leading you?
Have you known the frustration of believing
that you want to know the way,
that maybe you should know the way,
that you need to know the way: but you don’t - you’re lost!
What Thomas really wants here is a GPS
all set up with the destination and route all calibrated.
But what Jesus offers is more like:
“Well, Tom, it’s down the road apiece.
Just follow me – and if you lose me…
well… just keep following me…”
Jesus says,
“Thomas, I AM the map!
Stay close to me, as close as you can,
and you’ll always be heading in the right direction.
Follow whatever path leads you to what’s true
and avoid the shortcuts that skirt the truth.”
Follow the way that brings you life
and stay off the paths that dull and deaden you.
Even when you don’t know where you’re going or how to get there;
stay close to me and you won’t lose your way.”
It’s easy to get lost.
And it’s especially easy to get lost if I begin to think
that I can find my way without God’s help,
that I can know the truth apart from the Lord’s Word,
that I can lead a good life without God being a daily part of it.
As soon as I begin to think like that, I begin to lose my way.
But when I walk with the Lord and stay by his side,
letting his Word map my route;
when I walk and work and pray with this community of believers
who seek and follow the Lord’s way,
that’s takes me to the life I’m called to live.
and takes me to where I’m called to be.
In a few moments we’ll come to this altar where Christ will meet us
in the bread and cup of the Lord’s Supper,
Though it may be easy to lose sight of the Lord along the way,
we can always find him here in the Eucharist.
He waits for us here every Sunday,
ready to renew his friendship with us,
and to show us again the path that leads to peace.
He promises to be the way for us when we are lost,
to show us the truth of things when we are confused,
and to be our life even when we stand in the shadow of death.
Come to the table, then, and be refreshed
by the One who is our way, our truth and our life.
Click on the bible above to find the readings for the Fourth Sunday of Easter and brief commentary on them.
The Importance of Baked Fish
HOMILY
A Sung Blessing
A prayer for when you're worried, anxious, afraid...
Help for Haiti
Reach out to the people of Haiti with health care, education and community development through Health Equity International (formerly known as the St. Boniface Haiti Foundation).
