Fr. B's Blog

"A Reflection on the HHS Mandate" - Sunday, March 18, 2012

2012-03-19T19:45:00.003-04:00

4th Sunday of Lent

1st Rdg. - 2 Chr 36:14-16, 19-23
Res. Psalm - Ps 137:1-2, 3, 4-5, 6
2nd Rdg. - Eph 2:4-10
Gospel - Jn 3:14-21

It seem we have Tim Tebow's favorite passage again: "God so loved the world..."

What is significant today, it seems to me, is that we are given the passage in context not only of its place in the Gospel of John as the whole of salvation history. It is all about God's fidelity to us in spite of our constant infidelity to God.

It was true of the people of God before Babylonian captivity and now it seems the same fate is knocking on our door. This is not yesterday's news but today's as well. I want us to focus not on 3:16, but rather on 3:19:

And this is the verdict,
that the light came into world,
but people preferred darkness to light,
because their works were evil.

This is the call of the new evangelization, the new evangelization to which God calls us through the ministries of John Paul II and Benedict XVI that is yet another moment in God's effort to send light into the world.

Certainly by now all of you are aware of our American bishops' conversations with the President concerning the HHS Mandate and its challenge to the Thirteenth Amendment, the "freedom of religion" clause. More than any other time in recent history anyone who claims Catholic pedigree will have to be clear about what it means.

I am amazed at what is proposed as representing Catholic teaching by some self-identifying Catholic television reporters, which is actually only what they wish it were. I am most amazed at Black Catholics on television, who apparently rarely darken the doors of their parish communities yet have late-breaking news for us all.

Simply claiming membership does not prove ownership. One must show up and "throw down," and I don't mean money.

Being Catholic is not only a religion; it is a worldview which we inherit from Jesus himself. To know this and live it is to prefer light. It is a philosophy of life; to know what your faith is, is to prefer light. It stands for a particular relationship between man and God and humankind with each other, personified in Jesus. To live this is to prefer light.

To be Catholic is to be part of the oldest Christian community of reflection and action in the world. It is to be part of the singular most efficient deliverer of social services and education for poor people in the world.

We are now called upon not only to know the meaning of the nine first Fridays, show up on Ash Wednesday, and come to Church in time for communion. Now we are being called upon to know the faith and share it. Failure to become clear about what is being taught is exposing us to be people who prefer darkness, people who not only prefer it bur purvey it.

I met a priest in the airport who is a member of the soon-to-be established Anglican Ordinariate of the Catholic Church. This structure received those communities who departed from the Episcopal Communion over various issues. They are now to become part of the Catholic Church as a community within the community. They have their own bishop, etc.

This priest said, "We are about to be just like you. We've always been pretty much the same. After all, we wear the same clothes."

Clothes do not make the person. There is more to being Catholic than vestments, ashes, and rosary beads.

We Catholics come to truth not by consensus and vote with today's world, but with continuing conversation with our 2000 year body of values and reflection called tradition. It is handed on through our structures of authority, beginning with the Didache, the oldest surviving written catechism.

The Didicahe explicitly counsels the Christian community to avoid abortion. It counsels us to value social justice and care of the poor and widows, what someone called the "seamless garment of our value for life."

Rolling over and cooperating with legal norm for the sake of peace and quiet or fitting in to American culture is not an option for us today, just as it wasn't an option when the first missionaries arrived. Each of us needs to understand not just what the Church teaches us but why it teaches it.

The Catechism may not be enough for the American believer in 2912, but every adult will need to have hands on at least one source and commentary for Church teaching. We each need to know what the reliable sources for Church teaching are. CNN is not one nor is Fox News or MSNBC. The Georgia Bulletin, Observatory Romano, as well as the USCCB website are. America Magazine, U.S. Catholic, EWTN and Our Sunday Visitor, while reliable, are not official.

This is not the first time we have as the Church been challenged by what we believe and called to challenge others to join us, and it will not be the last. The gospel asks us, the Catholic Christians of America in 2012, to make sure in this singular place in the world we will always be able to do what we say we believe.

Otherwise the verdict of John's gospel will be pronounced on us...

That the light came into the world,
but people preferred darkness to light...

Check out what this lady has to say about the HHS Mandate:

"A New Deal" - Sunday, February 26, 2012

2012-02-28T17:36:00.002-05:00

1st Sunday of Lent

1st Rdg. - Gn 9:8-15
Res. Psalm - Ps 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
2nd Rdg. - 1 Pt 3:18-22
Gospel - Mk 1:12-15

When you and I see a rainbow today, we think, “Oh how pretty!!” Or, “Where’s the pot of gold??!!”

Noah on the other hand had a different set of thoughts and memories. Noah and his brothers and his family were moved to tell stories of life change and divine intervention. Noah had redirected his life and he was very conscious of the “what and why” of his decision making.

Genesis gives us a myth, a meaningful image of how God chooses to relate to us. No more watery destruction; only the promise of divine love held out for our taking. The rainbow was the sign.

Jesus put it a different way: “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news.” This is a new deal. No more threats; now it’s an invitation.

The Old Testament is replete with stories of individuals and communities that suffered the promised wrath of God because they didn’t follow script. The fear of the Lord meant just that: the fear of what God would do.

What we are being asked to look at in our time is a process of growth into the second and deeper meaning of the phrase. “Fear of the Lord” in the sense of the Beatitudes of Matthew’s gospel is built on a foundation of love and relationship. One avoids what is objectionable or one takes a higher road out of fear of offending the one we love and whom we are convinced loves us.

Each day we are aware, if we are paying attention, that we are making a decision to turn toward God who is present in the academic work that we do, in the listening we do to each other. In the silence we keep in spite of our urge to comment on what we feel is foolishness. In the patience we have with the learning/growing processes of others.

How reflective are we really? Does our conviction about the truth of Jesus teaching register whenever we buy something or whenever we make a recreational decision or for that matter when we choose a mate or a “running partner?” The cool factor is a strong force.

We have become very used to living in a country in which most people are at least conversant with Christianity. As a matter of fact most people are pretty matter of fact about their faith orientation. It seems as if Christianity is a political party affiliation with Protestant being the preferred brand.

At worst the notion has descended to a kind of nice-guy-ism that avoids offense or serious challenge of anyone on any topic. It relegated betrayal of one’s convictions to silence in polite company. There does not appear to be much of a price to pay for choices of conviction.

At all cost we are to avoid being politically incorrect about the economy, or about sexual orientation, or about homelessness, or poverty in the city, or immigrants, or the death penalty. For some their American nationalism is more compelling and sometimes confused with their commitment to the ways of Jesus. They see flags not rainbows.

No new deals, just the old establishment and false certainties. It is good that we finally taken national flags out of our churches. The message is clear: fidelity to nation is not necessarily fidelity to Jesus way…

Black History Month holds examples of all kinds of people who like Noah, saw rainbows and believed; they took the New Deal.

I was reading the History of the Diocese of Savannah last week in preparation for my Black History celebration last Sunday; Kathryn Drexel, the SMA Fathers, Mother Matilda Beasley and her IHM Sisters…none of these people responded to the question, “Is it a sin if I….” They only responded to the new covenant question, “Will I reflect Jesus’ love if I….”

The ease with which the question comes and the choice is made is the degree to which repentance, a turning toward the Lord, has occurred.

There are loads of folks watching rainbows these days. Accomplished faculty on campus who have forgone lucrative positions in the Ivy League to teach in the AUC, environmentalists who are convinced we need to stop polluting and have given their lives to helpful research. Jesuit Volunteers, CRS workers, the volunteers who run St. Francis Kitchen, couples who serve as foster parents… the rainbow, their love for God, requires them to repent, to respond to Jesus call to shelter the homeless.

There are some students who see rainbows but their parents, friends and relatives tell them how much money they are going to make in science and engineering. I remember a young woman who changed her major in the second semester of her junior year from Engineering to History. She just felt a strong urge to teach high school in the inner city. Call it chasing rainbows but now she is the superintendent of schools in her city for social studies.

I have been moved today by my discovery in ESPN Magazine of the Baltimore Ravens’ Ricky Williams story. He was a Heisman Trophy winner who was as unconventional as they come. He retired this year after 11 seasons, but not before he became a living sermon for a dysfunctional NFL institution which has no respect for person, only the producing fan drawing units.

When all was going well for him — or apparently well — he opted very early to step aside from the money and fame in his effort to find and be true to himself and help others in the process. He is a modern day hermit, teaching us something about listening to our contemplative side and the price we must sometimes pay for integrity.

Lent reminds us that God has struck a new covenant with us. The rainbow is the image of the day. He has a new deal for us; no more lightning and floods for wrong doing. He is going to wait for us to trust Him enough to let Him have his way.

Read the scriptures, pray daily, read the stories of people of faith and people in search in magazines, on Facebook and on healthy internet sights. Your New Deal might be putting the cost of a meal a week in the Rice Bowl.

Catch the fever, follow the rainbows, take the New Deal.

Ash Wednesday Homily - February 22, 2012

2012-02-28T11:08:00.002-05:00

Ash Wednesday

1st Rdg. - Jl 2:12-18
Res. Psalm - Ps 51:3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14 and 17
2nd Rdg. - 2 Cor 5:20-6:2
Gospel - Mt 6:1-6, 16-18

“The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news.”

How often have we listened to this text? Year in and year out we hear it proclaimed. Year in and year out we take it as our queue to get ashes, give up candy or fattening food, or cigarettes, or gossip, or loose ten pounds...

As laudable as these things are, for they are an exercise in self control, there may be a deeper asceticism which our times call forth from us. As significant as the penance the early desert fathers imposed upon themselves is the penance of listening to each other.

Perhaps more than at any other time in recent history, it is apparent that there is more talking going on than listening. The political campaign process is not, as we would expect, inclining us toward reflective comparisons. We are instructed that the goal of the campaigns is to get one or the other candidate out of office. Criticism and name calling is at an all time high. Critical thinking it seems is at a premium.

Repentance, in this context, takes on a very different meaning...

To repent is to change one’s direction; it is to turn away from one course to follow another. In our time changing one’s course might mean listening rather than talking. Believing, rather than the doctrinal slant it has taken on, may mean exercising confidence in the Holy Spirit and in each other that Jesus way will carry us where we need to be. Repenting from talking to listening may require as much or more self-discipline than abstaining from chocolate, beer, or cigarettes.

To think of asceticism is not for most of us an exercise in considering our listening habits in the face of others. It does not often lead us to consider how we listen or do not, to our friends, relatives, and especially those people we do not like. It is a supreme pain and “penance” to remain in the presence of such a person and, further, to encourage them to converse more.

In this election season which is coming upon us, it would do us all well, to practice the asceticism of reading a book, and article, or listen to a tape about the opposition’s position. It is very painful to read about someone else’s platform when all the while a voice in your head is screaming epithets at their position.

Our soldiers in Iraq found out that as they listened to the prisoners they gathered early on, it was not that they were themselves Taliban combatants. Our soldiers found out that many were fighting and setting bombs because their families were threatened with death and suffering if they didn’t. Listening opened the way to new strategies for healing and frustrating their enemies. By the way, it drove out fear and hatred for the man on the street.

Jesus way assures us that the understanding renders peace will take over if we will but exercise ourselves in it. To believe the good new means to have confidence that it will work. One thing is certain. The other alternatives are not doing very well.

These ashes on our heads and the Eucharist on our tongues commit us to the asceticism of listening rather than talking whether it is to our loved ones who are near or our opposition who are less near.

"Following Jesus Home" - Sunday, January 15, 2012

2012-01-25T19:22:00.002-05:00

2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

1st Rdg. - 1 Sm 3:3b-10, 19
Res. Psalm - Ps 40:2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10
2nd Rdg. - 1 Cor 6:13c-15a, 17-20
Gospel - Jn 1:35-42

Following someone home always has consequences. Jesus invitation to “come and see” was simple enough for the target disciples. As we see from the rest of history, it has far reaching implications.

Ordinary time is all about our individual journeys in the following. It’s all about our individual responses to Jesus invitation to come and see. Each year we begin the second semester very close to the celebration of Dr. King’s birthday. Each semester we get to reflect again on this one man’s response to Jesus which radically effected his life and all of ours.

The longer he stayed the more interesting and dangerous things got. The longer he stayed,
the more his life got intertwined with the mission and message of Jesus. The longer he stayed the more Jesus life and mission got intertwined with Martin’s. The more we celebrate this man king’s mission and message, the more intertwined our lives become with the mission and message of Jesus in Ordinary time.

Trying to see where someone lives gets us tangled up in their lives. It’s is not unlike visiting the new King Memorial. All the pictures are wonderful; the P.R. around it is tremendous. It is a must see, tourist attraction, we are told, and certainly it is. To physically get there is more of a story as I found this Christmas. Much more involved; it takes a personal commitment.

If I drive, I have to be ready to circle the site for 30 or 40 minutes looking for a parking space which will probably be some distance away. I will be walking and then standing for some time. If I take public transit, even the subway, I will be let off some distance away requiring as well, quite a hike.

If I am elderly and deposited at the entrance I will create a flurry upon leaving my vehicle
and suffer the impatience of so many trying to create a short cut to the inevitable long trek in. In any case, I found, getting there requires a commitment to the first step in a long walk or March (if you will) on Washington.

Entering this house of human rights begins a lifetime of new reflections on the implications of the King journey for one’s life. Each visitor must ask, what shall I do, about Jobs, or peace, or freedom from where I am. Every student must ask, what more can I learn bout Jobs, peace, and freedom where I am.

We are all familiar with the hymn that profoundly refrains, “let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”

Occupy Wall Street is initially one person's response to protest corporate actions which guard inordinate profit over the employment of people. What can my one person response to systematic job loss and poverty be.

Perhaps the ever escalating incidence of violence in every sector of our culture and society may need to be confronted by one person’s refusal to respond with physical or verbal violence, or to refrain from patronizing so much violence based entertainment. What can my one person response be to violence of whatever sort?

Perhaps the incidence of human slavery in so many places around the world including right here in the USA can be confronted by one person’s resolve to learn about it and the discovery of all our participation in the fruits of it.

So many of us know so little. Even picking up an article or surfing the web to learn about human slavery in the USA is a response to Jesus invitation to come and see

Somehow our religious traditions become exploited in the midst of all this because we are not acting on a multi-religious basis to confront these issues. This evening’s program of multi-religious celebration of Dr. King is a first step to , come and see, as Jesus says. We will no doubt be changed by this evenings visit. I invite you to come and see at 6pm and visit with all who participate.

Be assured that a checking out any of these issues is a visit to where Jesus lives. A visit to King’s house on the Mall, or on Auburn Avenue takes us right to where Jesus lives. King invites us, like John and Andrew in today’s gospel invited Peter to come and see this Jesus and his concerns in our time. The March for jobs, peace and freedom, continues today, in Ordinary time-the present day mission of Jesus.

Jesus invites each of us at this Eucharistic table, to take our place, and find our voice and lend our strength to this long line of disciples who have entwined their lives with His.

"Don’t Lose the Meaning in the Myth" - Sunday, January 8, 2012

2012-01-25T18:22:00.002-05:00

Feast of the Epiphany

1st Rdg. - Is 60:1-6
Res. Psalm - Ps 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13
2nd Rdg. - Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6
Gospel - Mt 2:1-12

Sometimes we can get so caught up in the story that we miss its meaning. A myth, after all, is a story that carries a meaning and a message.

We don’t know if the magi really existed but we do know their situation exists to this day: that sometimes outsiders are more faithful to the message and the call of God than the insiders are.

Note these guys, the magi (three of them created at end of fifth century, their names came in the eighth century) and their "3’s": there are three gifts and three times we are told their purpose (do Him homage).

The contrast between the response of Herod and the Magi, however, is the core of the story.

Herod with his Jewish connections, who has access to the perfect revelation in the scriptures and the experts to interpret and remind him, is slow to believe and blinded by his ambitions. Matthew is a gospel written by excommunicated Jewish Christians critical of unfaithful, Jewish
leadership.

The Magi, unlike their well informed Jewish hosts, seize upon the imperfect revelation of the star and gather inspiration and information as they go. Their gentile faith is strong. Without the props of prophets, Torah, and tradition, they remain in tune with the call of God.

These three gentiles do the work of following the call of God to do Jesus homage. Jesus is the first of a new people of God, which will include believing gentiles.

Do we get so caught up in the story that we miss its meaning? Our call is like the magi, “do Him homage." So simple a call was not so easy in its doing. There were all manner of doubts and dangers involved in following this star. These guys had to keep their eyes and ears open; they had to gather intel as they went. But they were in tune.

Our call in the 21st century is the same as the magi in the first, “do him homage” Sounds simple. "Doing Him homage" today requires recognizing Him and serving Him where we find him: in the
poor, and prisoners, and those uncomfortable to be around.

In the immigrant, in the widows and orphans of today; in the least of these as Jesus said, “when you did it for the least of these you did it for me.”

"Doing Him homage" means we will have to follow the stars and pointers of today. We will have to read and discuss and think, and pray for guidance. We will have to remain alive to the clues around us.

"Doing Him homage" may include voting as Jesus would, gathering information and asking the primary question of Catholic social teaching: how will this effect poor people?

"Doing Him homage" may include sharing more of our time, talent, and treasure to make him known in the world.

"Doing Him homage" in any case will certainly mean more than putting our bodies in Church on Sunday morning, or saying a prayer or two...

Following a star will take us to dangerous and uncomfortable places and conversations, and people, and decision before at last we can discover him alive in our hearts.

Then we will discover a new meaning for this Eucharist we will take together this day.

Unwrapping Bethke's Rap

2012-01-25T17:23:00.006-05:00

I wish I had thought of it first...but one of the commenters/reactors/responders to Jeff Bethke’s rap beat me to the punch.

I was going to call this blog, "Why I don’t like your poem, but love God." But alas, I am late.

Let me be clear: the first principle of critique is that there is some good in everything.

There are several things to recommend this poetic expression. The first is that, as
cliché as it is, it has caused quite a stir among YouTube viewers. It “went viral” as CNN reported early in the morning, and it was a good sensationalist interlude to distract from the manufactured mayhem of the very mundane Republican primary race.

Beyond that there are other redeeming qualities to Jeffrey’s poetic, all be it deficient, rant as well.

Brother Bethke has underscored what Jesus was saying from day one, “not everyone who says Lord, Lord, will enter the reign of God. Only those who do the will of my Father.” Secondly, religion celebrates the reign of God but it is not itself the reign of God. Thirdly, it is true enough that religion is in some sense man made.

As a matter of fact man can’t stop making it because it is in human nature to create symbols and formulas for the holy which one experiences within. What does one do, after all, when one finds others who share his/her experience.

Fourth, “in a house of peace there can be no disturbance." There must be some truth involved in Bethke's reflection, otherwise there would not be so much attention being paid to this expression.

My critique of Jeff’s poem is this: it is a generalization which does not take into account, among other things, the academic discussion about the nature of religion. Religion is the celebration or gesturing about what is most important to the human person. In this sense there is no being
without it. Humans have not created religion. They are innately religious.

Bethke forgets why Jesus had to come among us to begin with. Human freedom involves a choice to do what is write or wrong. His reflection does not discriminate between gesturing that reflects the worst in human nature — the choice for selfishness — and gesturing that reflects the best — the choice for love and care.

The brush of his condemnation is also entirely too wide and forgets a myriad of facts. Among them would be the following:

- Where he got the scriptures he claims to read from
- What Jesus himself says it means to love Him.
- The fact of Jesus commitment to institutional religion; He was a Rabbi.
- The fact that he and his ancestors would not be in this country if it weren’t for the good and bad of institutional religion.
- Millions of people who have gone to hospitals, orphanages, universities, schools, and colleges do so, thanks initially to organized Christianity.

I could go on...

Brother Bethke is entirely too broad brushed in his condemnation of everything and everyone who has anything to do with religion, which would include himself.

He makes no distinction between the phenomenon and its abuse. What he sings and chants about was a problem for Jesus and is a problem today. If Jesus allowed himself to be associated with insincerity among his favored twelve, surely, Jeffrey who says he loves Him, can abide God’s process of effecting conversion among us; Jesus did leave us a parable about the weeds that God allows to grow with the wheat...

It is as he says, hospitals are for sick people, religion is for sinners. Our rapper friend would do well to notice the first movement in Jesus conquest of our hearts, the forgiveness of our sins, whether institutional or personal for those who try to change. To love Him is to do as he does.

I guess we should thank Mr. Bethke for helping us Christians make it plain, at least to ourselves.

"The Dress Code for the Jesus Party" - Sunday, October 9, 2011

2011-10-13T12:08:00.002-04:00

28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

1st Rdg. - Is 25:6-10a
Res. Psalm - Ps 23:1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6
2nd Rdg. - Phil 4:12-14, 19-20
Gospel - Mt 22:1-14

This is home coming weekend for Clark Atlanta University, and there are all kinds of parties going on. Some are for everyone, others for the cool people only. For those who might be feeling left out, these scriptures are for you.

When I was 16 I had my first birthday party. It was a surprise party my sisters put together. The word leaked back to me about a week before that it was going to happen.

I didn’t know much more so I began to conjure in my mind who would be there. I figured all the cool people, even those I didn’t know would show up because it was the place to be.

By time party night came I had conjured in my mind a vision of about sixty people packed into our back yard. Sixty faceless people.

My friend Larry Hill had been assigned to spirit me off to the movies at 2:00 for a double matinee. We would land back at home about 6pm.

All the way home I had in my head this vision of sixty faceless people dancing and carrying on at my party.

There were about 15.

I feigned surprise of course but my mother, always seeing through me, took me aside and asked me what was wrong. I told her, “Where are all the cool people?”

She said to me, "These are all the right people."

Jesus makes the same point with today’s analogy which we find in both Matthew’s gospel as well as in Luke. This is a very pointed allegory. The king invited all the cool people and they didn’t come. So he said forget them and invited all the right people. The people who were his real soul mates.

And they came. They came with the right clothes on except a few, who got tossed out.

What and whom is Jesus talking about? The King is God, the original invitees are the leaders of Israel, the secondary invitees are the socially rejected - tax collectors, gentiles, prostitutes - who have come to Jesus.

We aren’t talking about clothes here. We are talking about attitudes of heart and mind. Attitudes of justice and care for the poor and care for the little people, and all those things that the Father reveals He is concerned about.

The Kingdom of God may not have many people but they will be those who have put on the mind and heart of God. They will be those who have paid the price to be in sync with His son Jesus even when it is hard to trust his ways.

So often we worry about big numbers in places, especially in Church. And indeed there are some communities, even Catholic communities, that talk about their big numbers. But Jesus rises to tell us today that there is a difference between the Church and the Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God is not in the Church; it is in the world. The Church is suppose to be a doorway to it, and the heavenly banquet is an image of that Kingdom. We hate to think about it but the truth is a large number of those in Church will be excluded from the banquet because they just don’t have on the right clothes.

They aren’t clothed with hearts for the poor, they aren’t clothed with care about justice and mercy for prisoners and the accused. They turn a blind eye to widows and orphans.

Ecclesiastical consumers are not committed followers/searchers of the Lord. To be sure they are stylish, even cool, but they aren’t appropriate to the occasion.

If you find yourself not caring about the Troy Davis case from a Christian perspective, you may need to check your spiritual wardrobe...

If Mother Theresa is a quaint anecdote of history for you, check your spiritual wardrobe...

This Eucharistic table is a foretaste and a foreshadowing of the heavenly banquet. We who want part with Jesus commit ourselves today to forsake our tendency to want to hang with the cool rather than the Christian. Jesus is inviting us to let this mystery of the Eucharist shape our lives.

To think, feel, and act as Jesus did will expose us to exactly what Jesus endured at the hands of cool people. The heavenly banquet is full of those people: people who bear the marks, the wounds of living as Jesus did. Valuing the things and people that Jesus valued.

Today we take the one bread and the one cup and thank God he has put us in the right place, with the right people, trying to keep our wardrobe right for the reign of God.

"Our Generous Uncompromising God" - Sunday, September 18, 2011

2011-10-13T11:47:00.002-04:00

25th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Year A

1st Rdg. - Is 55:6-9
Res. Psalm - Ps 145:2-3, 8-9, 17-18
2nd Rdg. - Phil 1:20C-24, 27A
Gospel - Mt 20:1-16A

We in America are used to rearranging things to suit our convenience.

If mountains are in the way, we move them. If rivers are threatening or not yielding enough water, we dam them. If a product isn’t working we get another one.

Gayraud Wilmore writes in his book Pragmatic Spirituality that If God is not working for us we even try to reinvent God. The fundamental sin of Adam and Eve was to tell God what they were going to do. They wind up watching each other instead of keeping their eyes on God.

Jesus does not tell this story for entertainment. He wants his audience to watch God again.

The story is straight forward. The owner of the field hires folks to go harvest his crops and agrees on their wage. At the end of the day they come for pay and they are paid as they agreed. The problem is there are these guys who come late into the field later in the day but they get the same wage.

What’s up with that?

Let’s be clear. The Landowner is the Lord. They vineyard is the Kingdom of God on earth. But the story is not the only thing. It’s context reveals stuff to us as well.

This is a third in a series of stories describing the reign of God. It follows Peter’s protest about the rich young man and his inference that the apostles should get greater reward for their fidelity and Jesus teaching that the last shall be first and the first last. That story follows the story about the danger of riches. All these are followed by James and John’s mother looking for a place of honor in Jesus reign and Jesus question about disciples readiness for suffering.

The cure of the blind man at Jericho just before going on to Jerusalem places the convincing cap on the validity of his teaching. Even the evangelists placement of the allegory is instructive.

The land owner, God, says, "I can do what I want with my money. I’m generous. They need the money. All y’all go home."

We need be careful lest we get swept away in the tide of modern labor relations or even confused in the issues of affirmative action. Jesus wants to remind us of how generous the Father is to us. He invites us with our gifts and talents to come work in the vineyard and then rewards us for our fidelity no matter how later we show up.

This is not a what-would-Jesus-do parable for American labor relations. This is a reminder of how God is and how we are made in the depths of our being:

Man is a creature composed of body and soul, made in the image and likeness of God.

God is a God not of contract but rather of relationship.

The first group had no relationship with the landowner. Their thinking was based on law and distrust...

The second group was brought in on the basis of grace (unearned favor) and love...

We have to watch ourselves and what we say to represent God.

I went to my friend’s 80th birthday party. At the end of the day he and his visitors took off for 6pm mass. His daughter, a now well healed New York psychologist said to me, "My father is going to church this evening. After all this celebrating is it a sin if he doesn’t go to church today?"

I told her, "You are asking me how much he loves God and needs to hear what God has to say today. You are asking me how grateful he feels to God for these 80 years and all the gifts he has been given?"

"You are asking me," I said to her, "about contract terms in a love relationship."

Our culture conditions us to ask "What does the law say, what does the contract say," even when we are dealing with God’s business.

We ask questions like, "Do I have to go to Church on Sunday if I went to a wedding on Saturday?" "What happens if I don’t?" "Is it a sin to curse?" "What do the rules say about this or that?"

You see, we keep trying to make God act like we do. God does not wear a pin stripped suit; We keep trying to make God operate like a lawyer rather than a lover.

The problem with legalism is not that it doesn’t get what it wants but that it gets exactly what it wants and no more. Human fairness doesn’t equal divine justice. What we will give each other by agreement will never measure up to what God gives out of love and promise. What we give to each other out of agreement will never measure what we will do for each other out of love.

How long will you feed the homeless at the shelter if you are getting service credit as opposed to how much you really want to be God’s hands to the homeless.

This is a parable that celebrates the love relationship which calls us into work in the vineyard of the Lord on God’s terms. It is not about eternal salvation per se; it is about the quality of our lives and service as ambassadors of God on earth.

It invites us to use all that we have as gratuitous gifts from God. It invites us to treat our gifts - whether in intelligence, or income, or position, or talent - to consider them as grace and mercy given to laborers called late in the day. Consider all these things as undeserved gifts given us from God to get his work done.

Today’s texts invite us to listen to the word of the Lord that calls us into his work: “You, go into my vineyard and whatever is right I will give you."

The last are rewarded first and the first last so that even the first hired can see how generous God is and thank Him for their gifts.

"Paying Attention" - Sunday, January 30, 2011

2011-01-31T18:34:00.003-05:00

3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time
Year A

1st Rdg. - Zep 2:3; 3:12-13
Res. Psalm - Ps 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10
2nd Rdg. - 1 Cor 1:26-31
Gospel - Mt 5:1-12a

I’ve always had a problem telling my right from my left. At three years old I started dressing myself and always put my shoes on the wrong foot. My mother marked them with a small L and a small R so I would head in the right direction.

Even today I have to concentrate when I am driving or riding my cycle. In fact, I was six hours late last summer on a motorcycle trip because my proverbial shoes were not marked.

Ever since I was three years old I have functioned in terms of mirror images. Your left is on my right. Your right is on my left. I have to concentrate to head in the right direction. I have to pay attention

Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew is singing Lauren Hill’s song this morning:

“If you wanna be somebody,
If you wanna be somebody,
you better wake up and pay attention.”

His right is our left, His left is our right. We have to pay attention. To live in Jesus world, the Kingdom of God, we have to pay attention.

The Gospel writer is clever. He takes us back to Mt. Sinai where the first paradoxical life was promulgated. We are getting a new set of “commandments” as it were. This is new statement of ethic for a positive relationship with each other and with God.

We have to pay attention. We have to put a mark on our shoes, as it were in order to live in the Kingdom today.

Living in the Kingdom is paradoxical living. To be somebody in our human society is all about putting ourselves and our interests first and foremost. It’s about stacking up riches to make sure I am taken care of because nobody, not even God, is going to have my back.

It is about making sure your misfortune doesn’t happen to me. It is about doing what I must do or saying whatever I have to say to gain advantage or save my skin. In Jesus Kingdom one goes to college to gain wisdom and to seek truth.

In our world we go to college to do math and science so we can get a job. A somebody on Madison Avenue, or in Hollywood is a nobody in the Kingdom of God. We have to pay attention.

To be poor in spirit is to mark our shoes and remember that we are dependent on God for our survival, not on our bank account. The more we rely on our material wealth the easier it is to forget that

If we cannot weep at the misfortune of others because we are too busy making sure it doesn’t happen to us, we will always be uncomfortable

The meek are those who don’t live forever mad because somebody stole their land, but live in hope and expectation that some will be supplied another day.

To do the right thing for the right reason, to be clean of heart, will permit our seeing God and standing in his presence.

Suffering wrong for the sake of right. Suffering persecution put to Jesus was the way of the kingdom first. To mark our shoes and pay attention will assure we don’t get lost in this world or not make it on time to the one to come.

"Why Celebate Clergy? Why Not?"

2011-01-18T11:43:00.003-05:00

Maybe it was because we had eight days at sea, with lots of fresh, cold, sea-salted air, not to mention time. But four of my fellow travelers asked me if I thought Catholic priests should marry. Their real question was “don’t you think you should be able to be both priest and husband and father if you want?" Each of the four times I was inclined to respond from a different perspective. This of course, means there are many perspectives from which a response can be given.

The first gentleman was from central England, east of London. I can’t remember the name of the town. He had prefaced his post Mass dialogue with a reflection on the dearth of priests these days in England. He referenced a Church of England parish that has a staff of twenty-two, people, people everywhere.

His parish, he opined, would be larger with many more programs etc, if priests could marry.

"Where would I go with this non sequitur,"I thought.

My first thought to was, "Are all twenty-two people priests?" (NO was the answer) Then, did he want my personal opinion or did he want to know why this 800 year tradition endures and why the Pope (or others of the hierarchy) don’t feel at ease in declaring it ended?

My momentary silence was broken by the urgency of his ocular and oral silence. First, I reflected out loud, we came to this only 800 years ago because the culture had led to abuse of Church property to the point of nullifying Church mission. Clergy were marrying and trading away church property for personal family advantage and the gospel was not being served.

First, the monks and friars were asked to take over the work. Then, the spirituality of celibacy (non marriage for the sake of the gospel) was mandated for those who would offer themselves for priestly service, sacramental life, and spiritual development of the faithful. Deacons were to handle the administrative and charitable affairs.

The problem 800 years ago was as it is today. Too many forgot that what we see in front of us is not all there is. There is life beyond what we see. Some few have to witness to the fact that the joys of family and wealth and individual accomplishment are not all there is. Simply saying that, is not enough. Human beings need evidence.

There need to be those who live the witness to faith in what is not see-able. We can’t prove there is life without end. We can only give testimony by the radical demonstration of our lives. In a culture skewed in the direction of the here and now, the witness to the not-yet is more needed than ever.

My second response to him was that we need more theologically trained and professional laity who are given to the mission of the Church. Then we would not need to have priests doing so many tasks which are not actually theirs by ordination. I suggested to him that perhaps we have so few priests because young people can no longer see what the role of the priest is. I suggested to him that perhaps it is not unreasonable to ask 1% of the 20% of men who don’t intend to marry anyway, to give themselves to the work of sacraments pastoral life, and facilitating the ministry of the gospel, while the deacons and trained and volunteer laity take care of the rest.

When a woman from Sweden asked me the same question, her point of view was that she knew so many very great priests that would make wonderful fathers. Shouldn’t they be able to fulfill their lives by having families?

I was not ready to accept the notion that the only fulfilled life is a married life. She had taken six of our eight days to summon enough courage (she said) to ask me these questions. They were, after all, “private/personal” questions.

I couldn’t help myself...

I wasted no time suggesting first that her question was eight hundred years old. Secondly, it could hardly be private for a person who made a very public promise. Thirdly, I reflected, maybe her wonderful priests were so wonderful because they have the capacity to be wonderful fathers. But I could not help but seize the pulpit at the corner of the elevators that she had handed me.

Passion grabbed hold of me.

This is not about my private or personal wants and desires, I opined. This is about what I believe God has asked me to do. To be sure, there are those who thought they were called and maturity showed them they were not. There where those called for a time and then not. But in a culture that accentuates personal choice and individual benefit, private/personal ethics, having a rule creates an institution which frees those who want to follow a different and counter-cultural call.

Rules and institutions enshrine values. It is true that one cannot legislate a charism (a special virtue ability, or character in a person). But, without an institution a charism on which a culture depends cannot survive.

There may come a day when this requirement will be laid aside, when the good of the Church no longer seems served by it. But before that day comes, we ought all become clear about the benefits both immediate and long term for the spiritual welfare of God’s people. We ought all be clear about why we want to get rid of it. We ought all be sure that we don’t actually want to erase evidence of divine mystery and call from our gaze.

Changing this structure will certainly change more than what we expect. We all need to be sure we are ready for those changes not yet foreseen.

"Mirror People" - Sunday, January 16, 2011

2011-01-18T10:56:00.003-05:00

2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time
Year A

1st Rdg. - Is 49:3, 5-6
Res. Psalm - Ps 40:2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10
2nd Rdg. - 1 Cor 1:1-3
Gospel - Jn 1:29-34

"Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world..." - Jn 1:29

The beginning of Ordinary Time, this second Sunday, invites our reflection on our extraordinary place in time because of what God is doing in us. We are at the beginning of a new year of grace. All believers are invited today to reflect on Baptism not so much as something we get, or do, or have, but rather who we have become and what God will be doing with us this year in His continuing recreation.

We are given the gospel of John's rendition of the Baptism of Jesus. It is different from the synoptic gospels. In those accounts the disciples and Jesus come to a gradual awareness of who Jesus is. They are victims in the struggle against evil. They are sometimes in and sometimes out. We are given John's gospel today. Right from the beginning, there is no question who this is:

He is the Word, the sent one, the dove settles upon Him. John announces to two disciples: "Look, there is the Lamb of God." Andrew announces to Peter: "We have found the Messiah!" Phillip and Andrew: "The one about whom Moses spoke!" Nathanial to Jesus: "You are the Son of God the King of Israel!" At Cana He reveals His glory...

John's gospel shows us bold disciples right from the beginning. People who are reflectors of this very light, and recipients of this very light that has come into the world.

We are coming out of the gate this new year of grace with boldness. Or are we?

Someone called me to announce that he was going to be baptized again. He had had an awakening of some sort. He was feeling fervent and energized. He needed to "choose" it this time for himself, he said.

God already chose it for us. We need to get real about this.

At some point we will need to cease reflection on how we feel and act on who we have become. We have become intent on consuming God rather than loving and serving Him. We are tempted to fashion the God we want rather than serve the God revealed to us in Jesus' commitments, concerns, and values.

In baptism we became reflectors and agents of God's action in the world just as Jesus was. MIRROR PEOPLE. The question is, who knows it? Are we stalling at the starting blocks? Are our mirrors cloudy? This year of grace is the beginning of new things God is doing. We are involved because we have been brought into the circle of God's action.

Just as the dove settled on Jesus, it has settled on each of us.

We are beloved of God. God is with us. The call is to jump out of the starting blocks this year and choose our field of action. What will we do to reflect God's action in the world this year?

Baptism makes us mirrors of the light that is Jesus. We place a good bit of emphasis on looking at ourselves in the mirror and asking what we see. Sometimes this can be a bit self serving, distracting even. Like Narcissus gazing into the water at his own image and falling in, we can gaze too much at our faults and fall into discouragement.

The scriptures today ask us to polish ourselves as the reflectors of Jesus which we have become in Baptism. When you want to magnify the light in a room, you clean the mirrors. We are asked today to reflect upon where in our world this year we can shine the light, the values, the justice, mercy, and love of God as Jesus has shown us how.

This is a new year for a new us. No need to be baptized again; it is time to be bold about the baptism we have already received.

Time to be bold about our fair treatment of those around us.

Time to be bold about rejecting actions that are not worthy of us.

Time to be bold about service to those not being cared for.

Time to be bold about helping fellow students in crisis.

Time to be bold about trading too much play for study.

Time to boldly polish the glass that mirrors Jesus to those around us.

This is the matter for the sacrament of reconciliation. We say out loud for the community to hear (in the person of the priest) what we need to do to polish our glass. We need to say out loud our recognition of the ways in which we have not mirrored the boldness of Jesus, the justice of Jesus, the care of Jesus for the poor, the insistence of Jesus on telling the truth, the reverence of Jesus for all things living. Reconciliation is the moment we make a bold sign of recommitting ourselves to the call of baptism.

It is a new year to choose a field of action and make new things happen. After all, we are not marketing ourselves but reflecting the light of Christ, who we say has come into the world. The time for hiding is over; like Phillip and Nathaniel we are announcing courageously with our lives that Jesus is the One, the Messiah who has come among us with light.

We come to this table of Eucharist for nourishment and stength to accomplish with boldness the work that the Lord delivers into our hands this year.

"A Living Witness of the Gospel" - Sunday, November 7, 2010

2010-11-19T17:49:00.003-05:00

32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time
Year C

1st Rdg. - 2 Mc 7:1-2, 9-14
Res. Psalm - Ps 17:1, 5-6, 8, 15
2nd Rdg. - 2 Thes 2:16-3:5
Gospel - Lk 20:27-38

Two notable events for me too place this week: I went to the dedication of the new St. Joseph church building in Huntsville, Alabama (the first integrated church and school in Alabama). Second was some readings in Homiletics I was doing.

The point the author was making, among many others, was that more important than the texts is the credibility of the witnesses and their context that produce them. The community of believers makes the space holy and makes God present within.

The believing people make the building holy!!! It is not the other way around. Consecration of a church makes it a sign of the body of Christ, the people who make Christ present in a community.

The Maccabees are stories from an exiled community, people aching to be back in their sacred space, Jerusalem and the Temple. In their suffering they are reminded that it is in their remembering together that the Lord is made present among them. This book is part of the apocrypha, like Wisdom, six books used during exile to encourage the community. The believers assured each other of faith and God’s credibility. They were the reason each other believed.

Church is a community of people committed to being the reason the others believe. In our religiously gluttonous culture we forget that religious symbols, while important, pale in significance compared to the value of being convincing believers for each other.

There is a rite for de-consecrating a Church. It is being used somewhat often in Europe these days. There are so many Christians (so called) deciding to be agnostics, “spiritual” or NON DENOMINATIONAL, or just non attending, that there are not enough believers to make space sacred.

How we live for the edifying witness of others is the essence of Christian community. Popular belief and secular music often carries convictions contrary to the teaching of Jesus that gets into our bones.

For example: Tina Turner's What's Love Got to Do With It. “ Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken.”

Be heartless. Go for the pleasure alone.

What about this familiar lyric: “If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right."

Avoid anything painful. Christianity says suffer if it means being faithful to what God has revealed to us and we have received from credible witnesses.

We are the living witness to the truth of that which we received.

The point of the readings from Maccabees and Luke today is that there is life after death. For both of these communities in which these scriptures developed there was the strong temptation to give in to disbelief. There was a strong temptation to go along to get along.

2nd Thessalonians is a witness to the public effect of private sinfulness in a culture that wants to think it can do anything in private. Going to confession is witness to the fact that sin, no matter how privately done, has public effect. We are all integrally tied together.

Our presence at church on Sunday and our gatherings to pray and to learn are so urgently necessary because they are the only time we can give the building the meaning it has. Marching for AIDS or feeding the poor on Sunday does not take the place of gathering for worship.

Marching for AIDS is a good thing, but it is not as good or as necessary as giving weekly witness to God’s presence even to those stricken with disease and considered unclean.

Reflect this week on how you and your behavior are the cause for others' conversion. Reflect this week on how you, like the Maccabees brothers, give witness with your life and actions that God is here and there is more to life than what we see. No act is neutral. Each of us is a credible witness to what this building signifies,

Christ is among us in this community. Let us take and eat and become the presence we receive.

"A Spirituality of Voting" - Sunday, October 31, 2010

2010-11-19T17:42:00.004-05:00

31st Sunday of Ordinary Time
Year C

1st Rdg. - Wis 11:22-12:2
Res. Psalm - Ps 145:1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13,14
2nd Rdg. - 2 Thes 1:11-2:2
Gospel - Lk 19:1-10

We come to the story of Zacchaeus in the gospel of Luke on this Sunday before midterm elections. Believe it or not, there is spiritual wisdom in this account that will call us to the voting booth and perhaps instruct what we do there.

In some sense we revisit this week Luke’s rendition of Jesus Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. We discovered then what it takes to be near the heart of God. One must realize one’s utter dependence on the mercy of God.

This week the tax collector gets a name and a personality.

The gospel writer goes out of his way to tell us he is short, he is wealthy, he is aware of the requirements of the law. More importantly, he wants to access Jesus, even if it is just to catch a glimpse of him. He wants to be right with God, not just right with the rules. He takes extreme measures, just to catch a glimpse of Jesus. He is close to Jesus. Jesus is attracted to him because he pays a price to come near.

Clearly those around are close by but not apparently close to, the Father’s heart. They know the rules but not the spirit. As the story develops we discover that apparently Zacchaeus is not your average Tax Collector. He is not what the public thinks he is. He is indeed a good Jew. He does indeed attend to the needs of the poor, those who are forced to recognize their dependence. These are Jesus concerns; God’s concerns. So, we find that he does strain to know what God wants of him.

Here is where this weeks events meet this morning’s scripture. The elections are a time for us the do the work of separating truth from PR and Campaign Ads. God is interested in what takes place in these elections. God has one question: what and who are going to best serve the needs of those who cannot take care of their own.

These are modern widows and orphans Jesus cared about. These are issues that are tackled by State Houses and Congressional policy making. The President of the United States sets the tone but the Congress and the State Houses make the laws and approve the budgets

Each of us must convince ourselves of which candidates will best serve Jesus’ concerns; God’s concerns for life, for the poor, for the homeless, and the helpless. Who is not only close by, but near God’s heart? This is going to take some effort. Read, listen to each other, and to mindful analysis on TV and from professors in Political Science, religion, and history, and social sciences.

We will all have to climb proverbial trees this week and do the work of understanding who it is who is running for office and what they stand for. Who will best respond to the concerns of God shown to us in Jesus concerns. Who will best attend to the needs of the poor, be they unwed mothers, homeless or imprisoned men, isolated elderly people….

We will each have to do better than the Pharisees of this morning’s gospel. We will each have to look beyond what is apparent to what is true.

There is one option not available this week to those who claim by this taking of the one bread and the one cup that they want to be not only near but close to the heart of God. The one option not available to faithful Catholics and good Christians, is to avoid thinking about what is happening, have no opinion, and stay home.

It cannot be that way with us. There are a thousand Zacchaeus types waiting to scamper down and dwell in our hearts these days.

"The Cost of Relationship" - Sunday, October 24, 2010

2010-11-04T18:00:00.003-04:00

30th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Year C

1st Rdg. - Sir 35:12-14, 16-18
Res. Psalm - Ps 34:2-3, 17-19, 23
2nd Rdg. - 2 Tm 4:6-8, 16-18
Gospel - Lk 18:9-14

There are many pitfalls in life. A major one is to think we can buy our way into relationships, even our relationship with God. Human love relationships are at their best, a reflection of our relationship with the Creator. We thrive when we recognize our total dependence on the other.

We head in the other direction when we assume that what we buy, say, or do is going to create and advantage. Jesus wants to underscore this with this parable.

Here we have two cases in point, a Pharisee who thinks he can make God love him into eternal life by doing a laundry list of prescribed acts that make him worthy. It gets even worse when he feels he needs to compare himself to someone he has only seen but never met.

He creates a false sense of superiority. Since I am better than this poor tax collector I am good. God, you have to let me in.

We Catholics are very prone to pharisaic living. If I just show up for mass and do my sacraments, and do the first Fridays, and devotional practices, and throw a little charity in there, I’m in.

And heaven knows we’re better than those Protestants, especially those store front people who don’t have any history to them.

We know we have a better hook up. Some say.

I wish I could count the number of students who come and say, "I want to be Catholic or I want to be confirmed, how many classes do I have to take?”

Sometimes we are inclined to make the God we want God to be.

The tax collector on the other hand, in spite of his condition or perhaps because of it, has got it right. He comes before God to acknowledge his total dependence on his mercy. He compares himself to no one, he is only conscious of the peril he is in.

He is caught between a rock and a hard place. Tax collecting is a bottom-rung job in Jesus' time. One took it when one had no other options. To make ends meet, you had to extort and cheat people sometimes.

Our tax-collecting friend had no way of making restitution if he stole from people. According to law, he was out of luck. He was lost.

He was justified because he new he depended on God’s mercy. He could let God be God. He could receive his love and mercy.

Being Catholic does not give us a relationship advantage with God. It gives us a worldview and a set of resources with which we can reflect God’s love in the world. If we have greater spiritual treasures, we, in God’s mercy, share them with all we meet.

To whom much is given much is expected, as the scriptures say. Being Catholic doesn’t make us superior. If anything it should make us more aware of our tax collector status, which we celebrate in the sacrament of reconciliation.

If anything it should make us work harder for God’s reign in the world since we have received His love.

The Church wants us to check ourselves today and check our relationship with God. The Church wants to remind us that we are not saved because we are Christians, or Catholics, or Jews, or Muslims.

If we enter into eternal life it will be because of God’s mercy, which we have celebrated received and have imitated with our lives. The cost or relationship with each other and with God is whatever it takes to realize our dependence, our tax collector status.

There’s no way we can pay. We just have to work and pray.

Come and receive Eucharist today as the bonding agent of this community of believers who consciously stand under God’s mercy.

"The Price of Winning the Battle" - Sunday, October 17, 2010

2010-11-04T17:07:00.003-04:00

29th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Year C

1st Rdg. - Ex 17:8-13
Res. Psalm - Ps 121:1-8
2nd Rdg. - 2 Tm 3:14-1:2
Gospel - Lk 18:1-8

There is all manner of conversation about leadership in the AUC. There is the expectation as well there should be, that you all will be leaders in some form or another. There is a cost to exercising leadership weather it be in our own black communities or wherever we find ourselves. You will have to fight many battles. Today’s scriptures give us some wisdom. They give us insight into the price of winning battles.

We are given in the Exodus reading this rather comic picture of Moses holding up his arms and then Aaron and Hur get a rock for him to sit on, and then they hold up his arms for him. The battle is won.

Yes; Moses was the leader and he was obedient to God’s command but not without the inventiveness of his two helpers from the community. Moses didn’t tell them to hold up his hands. Moses didn’t tell them to get a rock for him to sit on. They were responsible enough to get the picture. They had the communal good at heart enough to be inventive.

All leadership doesn’t come from the front of the bus. Even those on the back seat need to get the full picture of what is taking place on the road to keep the bus going in the right direction. Too often today we focus on driving the bus and not enough on where the bus is going so that we can exercise the leadership of supporting the driver’s task. Leadership from below, from the back is as important as driving the bus.

Being an informed Catholic in the pew and in the work place is as important as being an informed Pope or bishop.

This past week we did a reflection on the rosary and discovered that it is as important to know who Mary is in the scriptures as a model of us who are the church as it is to pray this prayer that brings to mind her cooperation with God and the action of God she initiates.

We are finding rosaries on rear view mirrors and around peoples necks as bling because too many of us in the pews have allowed the symbol to be hijacked.

If the church in the Black community—Catholic or otherwise—fails in its mission, it will not only be the failure of the ministers who lead but the Aaron's and Hur’s in the pews who fail to grasp the larger picture and take leadership from below.

We had the first, and I hope the last, baby shower at Lyke House yesterday. Baby James will arrive in a couple of weeks. The prospects for his success in life are not good.

The economic and social indicators for him are pretty bleak. As high as his mother may want to keep her arms raised in the battle of leadership, she will need inventive and creative leadership from around her that understands what clearly our American political, economic, and religious leadership either does not understand or chooses to ignore.

As we look at the fact sheets in front of us the road little James will travel is strewn with pot holes. Enemies are everywhere. We all need to understand what is going on around him in order to keep his mother’s arms high. We all have to be inventive enough to provide rocks for her to sit on and arm holders on both sides.

We all need to read and understand while we are here in this AUC. We Catholics who are known for collecting data (sometimes to our disadvantage) need to shout from the back of the bus and tell our brothers and sisters that morning after pills in the hundreds will not prevent HIV in women, nor S.T.D’s, nor unrequited love.

Even with a college degree you all can expect 10% more unemployment among you. Knowing how to create a job for yourself will be more valuable than a degree in the career of the year. A brain trained in liberal arts and humanities with a heart for the common good, will create its own job.

We could leave here truly depressed if it weren’t for the gospel.

It instructs us that persistence is the key to victory. We need to keep asking God for what we need and keep working as if it depends on us. It is just a matter of time before victory is ours. Not our time but God’s. The Gospel is clear. If an unjust judge will give a persistent petitioner what she wants, how much more will God be willing to grant what we need if we keep asking?

Little James will have it hard but you who are leaders will make his victory certain if you keep praying and keep working, keep reading, keep informing yourselves, in short keep leading from the rear of the bus. Above all let us take this Eucharistic meal as a witness to our faith in the promise of God to give us victory in response to our persistence.

"Sinfulness In a World of Grace" - Sunday, October 3, 2010

2010-10-25T17:48:00.004-04:00

27th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Year C

1st Rdg. - Hab 1:3-3; 2:2-4
Res. Psalm - Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
2nd Rdg. - 1 Tm 1:6-9, 13-14
Gospel - Lk 17:5-10

IF we seek forgiveness and restoration for sinful people, we will count on eternal life.

Media is leading us to a frenzy of retribution for Bp Long. There has been no trial yet but already there are those asking for his head. At the same time we have had a steady diet of reporting about the young man from Rudgers who jumped off the Manhattan Bridge reportedly in response to two of his classmates having posted a video of him engaged in sexual activity with another male. Some are asking for the heads of the two classmates.

So many questions confront us as we view these reports. How could a minister of God be involved in such activity(assuming he did what was reported). How could some so young be so thoughtless and cruel. Shouldn’t they all be put under the jail? Why do bad things happen to good people. Where was God while all this was going on? How can we believe in a God who lets these things go on? Can I belong to a Church led by a guy who did such a thing?

These are all questions people wrestle with. They are questions some of you wrestle with. They are questions people throughout time have wrestled with including Habakkuk. As a matter of fact, that is what his name means, wrestler, because in fact he was a prophet noted for the questions. We see the list this morning:

How long must I cry? Aren’t you listening?
All this violence, God, aren’t you going to do something?
All this destruction and ruin from wars and revolts, why don’t you stop it?

The Apostles were asking the same kinds of questions. They thought the questions were a sign of a lack of faith. Jesus tells them it is not a lack of faith. The slightest little bit would be enough. What you need is to put faith in action. We must decide to place confidence in the God revealed to us in Jesus.

Jesus was about restoration, reconciliation, and forgiveness
Culturally we are about recrimination, retaliation, retribution.
If we believe Jesus and follow the revelation of God we will be able to move on in the face of tragedy and seek solutions. If not we will be hateful and never be liberated from the violence, evil, and destruction we see.

The South African Woman forgave the white officer who killed her husband in front of her. She made a public display of it in the court room. Repeatedly she responded to reporters who found this incredible, If I don’t forgive him I will become like him. If I forgive him he is likely to become forgiving and loving like me. I do not wish to be like him.

Restoration not retaliation is God’s recipe.

We all have the list, each of us that Habakkuk lays out. Today the Lord tells us that just a little faith, a mustard seed’s worth will be enough for us to keep the vision alive with action.

Where was God when that boy jumped….God was right there crying.
Where God is when violence and destruction, and hunger, and suffering are going on. God was right there.
Why doesn’t he do something? He has done something. He has put faith and love in human hearts.

We have a notion that God only calls saints and perfect people. God calls everyone regardless of their warts. God gives faith to everyone regardless of their warts. That is why sinners are found in saintly places and holy clothes. God is always perfecting his creation, including each of us. God is always working to make his kingdom dream happen in spite of the setbacks. There is grace all around us. There is God’s saving action going on right in front of us. We take it for granted. Our hopes and dreams are indeed God’s grace working in us.

The question is will we keep dreams and hope alive. Will we use just a little bit of faith in the visions before us to do what we are sent to do. We need to stop looking for Santa Clause and be Santa Clause.

Feed the hungry
Work against domestic and interpersonal violence
Create mindsets of restoration and reconciliation instead of retribution and revenge.
Don’t expect God to fix things. He has already sent you to do it.

God doesn’t think like humans do. He asks us in these scriptures to listen to His words to Habakkuk, the wrestler. Keep asking the questions but also keep working on the vision of better things. It is God who has put those on your heart.

"The Lazarus Factor" - Sunday, September 26, 2010

2010-09-30T19:38:00.003-04:00

26th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Year C

1st Rdg. - Am 6:1a, 4-7
Res. Psalm - Ps 146: 7, 8-9, 9-10
2nd Rdg. - 1 Tm 6:11-16
Gospel - Lk 16:19-31

Every academic year we revisit the Garden of Eden. The Adam and Eve story gets replayed right before our eyes except that we are the actors. We are presented today with a guy who can choose to leave the tree of knowledge of good and evil alone. This time, Luke gives us Lazarus, not Adam and Eve. The message of today's scripture is "listen up;" we don't have a lot of time to get our act together. Privilege is not permission to go to sleep on your mission. You won't get a second chance.

The fact is the wealthier we are, the more comfortable we are, the harder it is to keep our eye on the ball. The more invincible we feel. It was true of the Northern Kingdom of Israel to which Amos spoke. It was true before them of Adam and Eve. It was true of Lazarus in Jesus' parable. It is too often true of us today.

Salvation, in fact, is being rescued from Lazarus' attitude.

Each day the battle between good and evil is played out here on campus. Each day we choose again if we will do things God's way, or try to change the rules of the game to suit our comfort.

By the standards of most, African American students in the AUC are well off. By the standards of most of the world, African Americans are the seventh riches country in the world.

What are we doing with that wealth? What are we doing with these opportunities?

Forbes and other reporters on our use of wealth say that we are encumbering it with consumer debt. We are using it to become more comfortable and convince ourselves of how successful we are.

45% of Black wealth is tied up in credit card and consumer debt, compared to 25% of white money.

Are we drinking wine from bowls and leaning back on our couches like Lazarus?

We are watching our Catholic schools in the city close in meteoric numbers. The reason is there is no longer the cheap labor force to keep them going. Most of us in the Black Catholic community who were educated in them in this and the last generation have not given ourselves to the task of following the mission of the white priests and nuns and lay people who carried the water for us.

We can complain all we want, but the fact is too many of us have taken our education, made money, and then spent twice as much as we have in pocket on consumer goods.

As Amos says, "drinking wine from bowls and anointing ourselves with the best oils."

Today's gospel should remind us in modern terms of why we have been gifted with this opportunity to be here in the AUC. It is not to get a good job so that we can have more stuff. The fundamental call of the baptized and the circumcised before us is to care for the widows and orphans of our day.

Before 1964, the year of the Civil Rights Amendment, Black middle class and poor people lived in physical proximity. It was not so easy to forget the poorer brother and sister.

Today the gap, both physical and economic between economic classes, is wider than any time in American history. It is also made worse because of the geographic gap. Urban versus suburban; the Lazarus factor is well in place.

If Amos were alive today, he would be making his prophetic utterance in the AUC and everywhere Black collegians are found. He would be reminding you that you are here to get degrees that will help you analyze our political, social, spiritual, and economic circumstances of the poor and disenfranchised—be they Black, Hispanic, White, or whatever—so that you can better serve the widows and orphans of today:

The homeless; the single parent;the ex-con and the undocumented immigrant who has no vote.

You, brothers and sisters, are in the new garden of Eden. God has made you very comfortable. He has also made it that much more difficult to remember your mission. The Lazarus factor is alive and well.

Like the audience of Jesus' parable, Luke wants to remind us today that we don't have much time.

Will we wake up and smell the coffee, or will the Lazarus factor catch us unready...again?

"The Courage of Conviction" - Sunday, September 19, 2010

2010-09-30T16:12:00.004-04:00

25th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Year C

1st Rdg. - Am 8:4-7
Res. Psalm - Ps 113: 1-2, 4-6, 7-8
2nd Rdg. - 1 Tm 2:1-8
Gospel - Lk16:1-13

Both the prophet Amos and Jesus' parable are touching upon a central issue in our lives. Not only do we have the courage of our convictions, but about what are we convicted and how have we come to these strongly held ideas and ideals? Have we come to faith or have we been dropped in the middle of it?

Faith is confidence that what we have seen and heard from God through Jesus is true. Faith is confidence in the person and values of Jesus.

Amos gives us a snapshot of the behavior of the wealthy in a time of national prosperity. They were having a great time but at the expense of the poor. They were economically well off, but morally depraved. They ignored the fundamentals of Jewish faith conviction about what God wants of us: take care of the widows and the orphans first. Such is the will of God.

What we have in Luke is an unsavory character who knows he is going to get fired, so he creates some good will among his master's debtors. He acts quickly before the day of reckoning arrives.

Smart move, but immoral. Not what God would want.

Jesus was acknowledging the creativity but not the dishonesty of the steward.

I want to reflect briefly on the convictions of these people that are presented to us. How did they come to their passion for dishonesty and greed? There was a boldness in their actions that comes from heartfelt conviction (courage, if you will), commitment to their own personal well-being.

Amos and Luke are talking to communities of faith and commitment. Not to dishonest folks, but to what they have come to know as God's will for us to be other focused and take care of the poor who can't care for themselves. Where do they get this heartfelt conviction? I have to say it is the company they keep:

Their ancestors in faith whos stories come in their sacred texts
Their careful attention to who they hang around with
Their personal prayer and instruction

So much of our Catholic practice and world view is called into question by those around us. Our questions are occasioned by people around us. We can easily fall into the heresy of decision by the multitude. If everyone is doing it, some say, it must be OK.

We are surrounded by a culture that values personal comfort and personal opinion above all else. We labor under the illusion that ours is a Christian country.

There is no such thing as a Christian country. There are only Christian people.

A young woman told me once that her boyfriend said premarital sex is OK because everyone is doing it.

There was a time when every other sermon was on sexual morality. Now that that is not the case, some have concluded that there is no such thing as sin anymore. Silence is not consent or permission. Just because every other sermon does not mention mass obligation does not mean we no longer are obligated to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days.

Because every other Catholic sermon is not about avoiding premarital sex or placing oneself at risk of sin, does not mean premarital sex is OK nor that risky behavior is permitted.

Acceptance by others is a priceless commodity to most of us. Some people will do anything to be accepted in an environment such as college where friends are so important and being accepted so critical. Who is it we want to be accepted by?

It is not that people are not good; the issue is some do not believe what you do no matter how good they are.

You say, "Well, they're good people." Yes, but do they value the commandments, selflessness, and the Beatitudes? Are they in a committed relationship with God?

God makes everyone good, but everyone does not choose to be Godly or moral.

What issues can we raise among our associates and friends? If you find yourself avoiding questions that are critical and important to you, be careful; you are liable to the heresy of the multitude. The courage of your convictions is in jeopardy.

These scriptures ask us to attend to our convictions and be clear about them. Recall that our faith is not in an institution called the Catholic Church. Our faith is in a person called Jesus, to whom we are introduced in new ways daily and whom we introduce to others primarily by what we do.

We come to know Jesus as we come to know others; by personal interaction and his reputation.

How can I become more convicted about Jesus and his ways?

Do spiritual reading (the magazines that are here at the Center)
Inform what you think you believe with reading, study, and discussion
Balance your associations. Make sure most friends value what you have come to value
Do things that will instruct your values and experience of Jesus' truth. Go to presentations and then talk about them with your community of belief; those who gather around you weekly for worship and fellowship
Don't let the week go by without gathering

This is how you come to conviction. This is how you come to deeper confidence in the words, action, and person of Jesus. This is how we come to faith and conviction instead of continuing to simply go with the flow.

From conviction comes courage, not the other way around.

"Upside-Down Spirituality" - Sunday, September 12, 2010

2010-09-30T15:41:00.012-04:00

24th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Year C

1st Rdg. - Is 50:4-7
Res. Psalm - Ps 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24
2nd Rdg. - Phil 2:6-11
Gospel - Lk 22:14—23:56

This parable presents us with the obvious but not so easy lesson afforded us by the forgiving father. Jesus wants us to have a picture of how God is. He goes out of custom to reconcile his sons to himself and his community.

Yes, I said his sons. They both need to be reconciled to each other and to him.

Notice it's not just the father who is to receive him; it is the whole community that is implicated in the younger son's restoration and reconciliation. There is a message here for and about the community, as well as the father and this errant son.

The second son's attitude tells us something about the reconciling community. Unless we are attentive, our spirituality and our relationship with God, will be upside-down. It will be about retribution rather than reconciliation.

Let us focus on the second son and see what revelation there is for us.

T.S. Eliot wrote that great play entitled "Murder in the Cathedral," which depicts the story of St. Thomas à Beckett's assassination in 1170.

"This last temptation is the greatest treason, to do the right thing for the wrong reason," quotes a famous line from the play.

This second son appeals to our sense of justice in a certain way. Sometimes we feel as he does; we have done the right thing, why should those who haven't get rewarded?

What we are really saying is we want our reward now. We are doing the right thing, so we get rewarded. The second son does not share the vision of his father, but he wants the father's patrimony.

We want heaven but we don't want the suffering it will take to be there. The second son wants the goods without exercising the responsibility that comes with them. The second son is not invested in the community good, but only his private circle of friends and their entertainment.

The second son is about retribution; he wants his brother punished because that will mean more wealth for himself. After all, he deserves it because he has behaved.

Why has this second son remained at home doing everything right? Because he loves the father? Because he is invested in the common good of the community?

It doesn't seem so. It seems he behaves because it gets him taken care of.

We live in a culture that rewards behaving for the sake of order. We live in a culture where the rule of law, not the standard of virtue, is the priority. Punishment becomes more important than forgiveness and restoration.

We behave so we don't get punished, or so we can get the reward. Too many come to Church to avoid punishment or to get the reward.

What about the love of the Father? What about the good of the community, the encouragement of others' faith which our presence supplies?

The fact is we are willing to rush to the rescue of others only in a crisis. We need to take heed of this second son's upside-down spirituality.

The forgiving father shows us the mind of God. He calls for celebration when the errant son is reconciled, when his head is on right. The dressing of the sinful son is not about rewarding him; it is about welcoming his gifts back into the community.

We might want to apply this notion in the present conversation about the World Trade Center issue of the building of the Muslim community center. The attitude of retribution doesn't serve anyone well. It continues to foster a spirit of retaliation and suspicion. It does not contribute to community, but tears it down. A few may feel good at the expense of everyone.

God has revealed something different:

The Golden Rule: Love God with your whole mind...

The second great commandment: Love your neighbor as self out of love for God.

I'm not ready to say the second son doesn't love his father, nor that the good pastor from Florida doesn't love God. I'm just saying their spirituality is upside-down. They are about retribution and personal satisfaction, not reconciliation and communal good. We need to be about the attitude of the Father show to us in Christ Jesus, His son.

The second son wants his reward for his behavior now...he wants to have a private party now...

He has stayed home and done the right things for the wrong reason. Notice he is not gathered with everyone else. He was out in the field and out of touch. We would like to think he was mourning his brother's loss.

What we see is that the father has to go get him too! This second son's attitude uplifts neither himself nor his community.

It certainly doesn't reflect the values of his father.

The scriptures ask us to check our attitudes and our spirituality. Why do we behave ourselves, as it were? Why do we do good things? Out of love for the Father and His values and community? Or for the reward? The right thing for the wrong reason?

Let's make sure we are reflecting the values of the Father in all we do.

Let's make sure our spirituality is right side up.

"Our Brother's, Our Sister's Keeper" - Sunday, Mar. 28, 2010

2010-03-29T20:05:00.003-04:00

Palm Sunday
Year C

Rdg. At Procession of Palms - Lk 19:28-40
1st Rdg. - Is 50:4-7
Res. Psalm - Ps 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24
2nd Rdg. - Phil 2:6-11
Gospel - Lk 22:14—23:56

This Palm Sunday as all others we come together to begin again the journey to Calvary and then to the empty tomb. It is a journey of destiny for Jesus and a journey of destiny for us. Jesus knew and accepted his destiny. We, spend so much of our lives trying to avoid it. Jesus recognized that his kingship was not just for himself but for the sake of us all.

It is a call to draw us back to the Father. It was not for himself, but for our sakes. He had spent his life moving steadfastly on this journey.

This he came to show us is the real human destiny, to keep each other for love of the Father. We, on the other hand, victims of the folly of the garden, spend so much of our lives doing our own thing, avoiding our destiny, living for ourselves in competition with others, keeping our brothers and sisters away…avoiding our destiny.

Royalty, Kingship, unlike Presidency, is not a matter of popular vote. It is a matter of destiny. The one designated receives the mantle by birth. William knows it’s coming, and Harry knows responsibility for the people of the kingdom is coming. As a function of their youth, both of them have spent a bit of time resisting and rebelling…but they know it is coming. They are to wear a dignity that is bestowed upon them that is not their own and not for themselves, but for all.

And so we come to this first day of Holy Week to begin our reflection on the destiny of Jesus and in his story discover each of us our own. The crowds, the shouts recognize the inevitable. Notice in Luke we have a mirror in this passion of the proclamations from the birth narratives. The angels voiced it. “Behold I bring you good news…” they said to the Shepherds. “And then there was a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest and peace to those on whom his favor rests.’”

Now he comes across the hill surrounded by a crowd who accompany him into Jerusalem. He enters as would a king, a man of destiny. This is not election, but the Father’s will for the sake of us all. This is His destiny. The stones must tell it if we don’t.

In John’s gospel we note that the crowds come out to meet him at the gate, some because they have seen the raising of Lazarus and want to give witness to who he is and what he has done. Others came from Bethany because they heard and wanted to check it out. They are there for different reasons just as perhaps we gather for different reasons, but we are all covered by the same destiny.

We are all called to the same royalty and for the same reason. We are not called to a royalty that is about ourselves and our own comfort, but rather about the common wealth. We are our brothers, our sisters, keepers. All that we have is for the benefit of all. Like William and Harry, we twist and turn and resist for a while, but after all is said and done the Church calls us together in this week to see our destiny.

Everything in our Western culture screams to us of choice, personal choice. We dupe ourselves into believing that we can do whatever we want and have whatever we want no matter what happens to others. We even try to redefine others so that we can have what we want. Even in the healthcare debate it is a question of framing the conversation in terms of saving money so our grandchildren can have what they each want. We are told that we need to punish the Pope, the priests—those pedophiles—so we don’t have to face who we really are as a culture of abusing, self obsessed people.

We don’t want to face the reality of Haiti and it’s long history due in great part of nations’ greed first in the economic structure of slavery, not in the economic structures of global economies that care for a relative few at the expense and detriment of an absolute too many as if they were not our problem.

Are we our brothers’, our sisters’, keepers? Don’t we have a choice? Jesus shows us we have not a choice, but a destiny. Take out your rice bowls this week and at least give that much homage to our king and our future.

We are destined to live and die with Him for the sake of all, in order that all may be raised and reign with Him. Our crucifixion is inevitable if we tell what we have seen and heard in this Jesus. It is inevitable if we do what he has done, but so is our resurrection and our exaltation. Let us reflect intensely and worship intensely this week in order that we might recognize our destiny to suffer, die, and rise as caretakers, keepers, brothers and sisters to all.

Taking this communion accepts the destiny.

"Avoiding Temptation" - Sunday, Mar. 21, 2010

2010-03-23T14:22:00.009-04:00

5th Sunday of Lent
Year C, March 21, 2010

1st Rdg. - Jos.5:9a, 10-12
Res. Psalm - 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7
2nd Rdg. - 2 Cor. 5:17-21
Gospel - Lk 15:1-3, 11-32

There is an old hymn of the Church, “Yield not to Temptation.” This is the fourth nail for reflection this lent in this series which has been proposed for our reflection, “Avoiding Temptation.”

What will take the power of our temptations away? Really and truly believing in the greater power of God’s promises to us takes away that power. Choosing “apparent good,” that which appears to be what we want or need, has total power over us unless we are attentive to the power of God’s promises for us. The song says, “God is willing to aid you, He will carry you through”

God will deliver on his promises for our greatest benefit.

Let’s face it. Temptations to sin are distraction from God’s program of happiness for us. Temptations to sin present “apparent goods,” kind of like cyanide laced candy bars. Good, but not good for you.

Do we trust God and His ways to deliver us or do we only rely on our own limited resources? There are three temptations that we each live with daily.

1. The temptation to focus on the past or obsess about the future
2. The temptation to give up when the going gets tough
3. The temptation to place authority in fame and wealth

Each of today’s readings presents one of these temptations to apparent good. First is the temptation to focus on the past or obsess over the future. Isaiah tells the people freshly out of exile, “Don’t remember your sinfulness of generations past and God’s prophetic judgment. God is doing something new that pales in comparison to the Exodus and the wonderful things God has done. If we just watch and trust, he says to them, you will see greater things.” God is doing something new with us because something new needs to be done.

Don’t remember the sins of the past when you go to confession. That’s it. Don’t ever think of those things again. Let it go. You and God have bigger fish to fry. It is true that some of our sins and imperfections are stubborn. That’s different. Deal with today’s sins today. Don’t be doing confessions for is insurance.

There is a deeper meaning. Isaiah’s people were living in the framework of the original covenant with God. If they kept it they were rewarded, if not they were in punishment. These folks were coming out of exile and punishment, and Isaiah is telling them “Hold up!”

Isaiah urges them to forget about the old covenant. God is saying He’s striking a new deal. No matter what, He is planning great and wonderful things for you. Just concentrate of the great and wonderful things and leave the apparent goods alone. Keep your eyes on the prize in the here and the now.”

On the other hand, there are those of us who are so focused on the future that we can’t live in the here and now. We’re worried about whether we’ll get a husband; women in college are worried about that MRS factor.

Men in college are worried about whether they’ll be man enough and handsome enough to get a main squeeze. They are worried about if their stuff works, worried about their AXE factor. This is why we have so many pregnancies and sexual encounters because of the anxieties over the apparent good anticipated in the future.

Trust that God will send you someone you could never have imagined. Just keep your eyes opened and do what you are supposed to do today. St. Theresa used to say, “To live in the present is to live in the presence of God.” She got it from a priest name Jean Pierre De Caussade who wrote a book, Abandonment to Divine Providence.

We can’t help ourselves because we want the security of a remembered past, or we don’t trust God’s promise or forgiveness. On the other hand, we are anxious about the dreams of a future for which we are preparing. We want the HGTV dream home and we don’t trust God to give it to us. We want to be the AXE Man with the MRS and Tiger Woods money to live in it with you. And you ain’t taking no chances.

We give the apparent good all the power and don’t trust the power and divine providence and the great things God is preparing for you and only you.

How can we avoid the temptation to sin? How can we avoid the temptations to trust the power of apparent good over the power of providence?

Trust God, talk to God constantly, and let the divine ways, shown us in the scriptures and in the life among the people of God, have the power over you. Keep your eyes on the prize.

Love God and God alone with your whole mind, your whole heart, your whole strength, and your neighbor as yourself for the love of God and then AXE factor, and MRS factor will have no power to sway you. Live in the present and live in the presence of God.

We take the one bread and the one cup this morning as a testament to our commitment to trust God above all things. To believe Jesus who is God among us. We take this communion as our commitment to be delivered from temptation that we may become by grace what God is by nature; to receive what his providence has prepared for us.

"Christian Witnesses: A Testimony"

2010-03-03T13:40:00.002-05:00

I have calmed down since I read the celebrated op-ed offering in the latest Morehouse Maroon Tiger. One of the students at the parallel institution next door, Spelman College, had apparently had enough of being misunderstood. Having announced she didn’t believe in “religion” and didn’t consider herself “religious,” her contemporaries heard her saying she didn’t believe in God. Or perhaps that she wasn’t “spiritual.”

I am sure that her “peroration” has stimulated much conversation on campus, too much of which does not get to the root of her issue. Let me add to the confusion, I hope, in a constructive way.

Notwithstanding the fact that her protest against religion borrows religious language at every turn to establish her non-religious character, and never mind that her stentorian pronouncement is made from the fourth floor of Camille Hanks Cosby Hall - the tallest building on the Spelman College Campus - itself the fruit of religious conviction (“Our whole school for Christ…”).

Never mind that the very existence of higher education which has loosed her stammering tongue, for better or worse, is the child of Roman Catholic history. Never mind that her only “authoritative” sources are her two Northern European buddies who seem as locked and focused in the twenty-first century and neurotically on themselves as she is.

Never mind that Cornell West, were he in sight, would have heaved a copy of his seminal text, The American Evasion of Philosophy at her to help in the revision of her perspective. A teaspoon of logic (the structure of critical reasoning), metaphysics (the philosophy of being), and epistemology (the philosophy of meaning) might help her.

All that notwithstanding, there are some deeper issues her written rant presents to us “believers” who are religious folk of the Roman Catholic persuasion, a tradition which begins with the premise that faith and reason are compatible and necessary to each other’s health.

It is not clear to me where she receives her passion about this subject. What is clear is that the Catholics and other Christians around here have not either been conversant enough, concerned enough, or convincing enough in their deportment to convince her otherwise. As a matter of fact, it seems her conviction is buttressed by those who are more convincing in their misconduct. I wish I could say that what she lacks is having spent time in Catholic educational institutions. I am not convinced of that in light of the fact that at least some of her acquaintances have done so with apparently little ability to simply say, “If you are a human person, you are religious.”

My point is this: this young lady’s ignorance of the nature of religion, the history of Christianity and its many and varied expressions in America not to mention around the world, is more a product of Christian’s ignorance, intolerance, and omission than hers.

So many of us Catholics are too ignorant of the developments in Catholic Social teaching after the Second Vatican Council, that we make no connection between the death of Archbishop Romero and the Four Ursuline Sisters in Nicaragua and “religion’s” stand against an unjust regime propped up by American policy.

Too many of us were and are quick to call their public voice political meddling rather than the religious response to poor people’s needs that it was. There are too many of us who do not see how we spend our money as a religious act of faith. The present health care debates are a case in point. What the President and most of his Democratic colleagues is trying to say is that health care for all is all our responsibility.

The lack of it for anyone is everyone’s problem no matter what the cost. Maintaining the status quo is not moral. Too many of us would rather run to Haiti and tinker with poverty there rather than take a bus downtown and tackle the same issues right here is the USA. Not many of us are willing to confess that we have turned our heads from the challenge of dealing with our attitudes about poor people and poor Black and Hispanics right here at home.

As long as we remain this inarticulate about what is religious for us Catholics, we can’t complain that “sister girl” calls herself irreligious.

Fr. B

To view the editorial commentary, visit Morehouse College's Maroon Tiger Online Newspaper.

"Rosaries, Schools, Hospitals, CCHD, and Other Things Catholic"

2010-01-11T20:11:00.000-05:00

Everywhere one turns, the secularization or perhaps better said, the deconstruction of things Catholic seems apparent. Many assign this to the disappearance of clergy and vowed religious men and women at the institutional heart of things in recent decades.

While that may be true, I think a deeper analysis is in order. One can make a case, I think, that deconstruction was taking place at the height of Catholic Institutional history in America. Even when convents and seminaries were full, the voices of the present realities were whispering.

We have had a good deal of conversation of late about the trend to use rosaries and as fashion statement. In some communities in which the trend is noticed it is greeted among Catholics with a diversity of responses. Some simply shake their heads with disgust. Others voice anger that this sacramental is being “desecrated.” Others, like myself see it as an evangelization opportunity.

This trend is the product as much of Catholics’ no longer needing this tool for mediation because they can now read, as much as it is failure to teach younger generations its proper use. Disuse has opened the way for reuse and reinterpretation by the popular culture. As we have seen in The Da Vinci Code and more recently in its sequel, Angels and Demons, in a secular society, nothing is sacred. Sacred use renders sacred meaning by conscious intent and value.

Catholic schools inception was in response to the toxic environment for the faith in public schools in the 19th century. Now we must be more intentional about their development because quality control assured by priest and religious of common training and purpose is no long automatic, and many parents are seeking not so much Catholic formation as cheaper private education. At the beginning of the 19th century it was poor immigrant Catholics who were the target group. The emphasis is to be placed on poor and immigrant. Thus the need for and availability of cheap labor in the person of clergy and religious.

But was there not the element of the pragmatic involved. Nationalism and ethnic loyalty also played a great part in maintaining the unparalleled system of Catholic schools in America. From a Black perspective, the supreme value for education drew many to the faith to secure that value for their children. The evolution of suburbs and the segmenting of populations meant the poor of whatever ethnicity would be left to the cities and suburban wealth would determine the expansion of schools. Only where there is a conscious effort and intention to do so are there structures and economies put in place to provide education to poor people. Better theologically formed laity who provide affordable labor and conscious Catholic formation will secure Catholic School survival.

Remember when taking care of the poor meant collecting canned goods and distributing charitable contributions to agencies especially Catholic Social Services to make sure we did our part? Now we recognize that the roots of poverty are the product of institutional and social structures. By involving the poor in their own rescue, we can make more effective use of talent, time, and treasure. We can make them the agents of their own rescue. Thus we keep St. Vincent DePaul, and Catholic Charities in place but we also work on institutional poverty with the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Thus in this modern time we have come to realize that there are two dimensions to our attention to poverty, immediate relief, and institutional change.

My point is this. Things Catholic are Catholic because of Catholic consciousness. Catholic institutions are Catholic because their administrators and service personnel consciously carry out the intellectual, theological, and social teaching traditions which created them in the beginning. Our brothers and sisters in the faith are finding out in the Archdiocese of Washington that Charter Schools in Catholic parish buildings do not a Catholic school make. Prayer is not permitted in them, crosses are not permitted on the walls, Mass cannot be attended as part of the curricular exercise. Catholic values and moral suppositions may not be pressed but so far. They are after all public schools. Providing quality education for poor children was never the only reason for the Catholic school.

When institutions no longer serve the purposes for which they were created, they morph into something else. The institutions don’t die. The buildings still look the same, but their souls change. We who are invested in the faith that our institutions represent must ask ourselves how well we keep ourselves conscious of their history and purpose, and how willing we are to make great sacrifices to pass the information and the spirit on to those in our circles of influence. Our voices are not enough. We must add our money, our time, and our talent to the enterprise, especially while we are young.

"Assault In the Barbershop"

2009-10-02T15:17:00.000-04:00

I just came from the barber shop this evening. It is usually a happy time for me. It is a much different social group I enjoy there than forms my usual social and ministerial pattern. There is usually quite a cross section of the AU Center community intertwined with a larger public. It is a unisex shop and so there is a certain deference that is shown in the conversation, I think, because women are there. Some traditions have not died in the Black community.

As I said, it is usually a happy time for me. This evening, however, I was distressed. One gentleman, who is a self proclaimed minister of the gospel. decided he would pick on a young fellow who was, like himself, waiting for a fresh cut. Our boisterous interloper discovered that the young man, whose name still is not known to either of us elders, was a Morehouse graduate of some years ago. Our "prophetic" ministerial friend, was not please that this young man was not engaged in the same charismatic social action for which ML King and Benjamin Mays and other giants of Black history were noted. I noted that he did not catalog for us a list of his involvements. Our guru of the forties generation, violated an otherwise happy black male moment by cataloging an endless list of what is wrong with young people today and what Morehouse college is not doing right about the "wrongs" of gay behavior and other abominations on campus be the academic or moral. Ranting as if gay behavior was a novelty of the present age and endemic to Morehouse College, he cataloged his less than studied scriptural condemnations of these people asking for but not receiving "Amen Corner" approbation.

I felt sorry for this young guy, clearly an earnest employee of State Farm Insurance, as we all found out during the "interrogation". I felt sorry that he had to take the hit for every sinful or unwise deed done in the name of blackness simply because he graduated from Morehouse. He did not wish to offer for public consumption, the charitable and justice focused work he engaged in for the service of the Kingdom of God on earth. While I am peeved by this gentleman who chose to do verbal violence while decrying the physical violence in our streets, I am more peeved that I did not even the odds and verbalize my disquiet by coming to the young man's aid. The adage, "silence is consent" comes swiftly to mind.

I am peeved that I did not voice my perception that while Martin L. King Jr. and others are our heroes for mine and his generation, they are but figures of history to twenty-somethings today. They are admired, perhaps, but not experienced. I am peeved with myself that I did not open my mouth and gainsay this gentleman's denigration of young people today who have to deal with a far more diverse and complicated social fabric than he or I did. I am peeved that I did not out shout this self styled minister's proclamation that Martin and WEB and the others would have taken to the streets in droves to protest the violent death of our sister on CAU's campus. He was clearly not there in the sixties to experience the fact that what we see as snapshots of the March on Washington and The Edmond Pettis Bridge, were a point in time framed by many many attempts to do the same that amounted to a trickle. Would that he had been there to experience the fact that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s trips to the barbershop did not include anything like his stentorian harangue.

How much more effective and thought provoking it would have been, had my "colleague" in the work of the gospel simply engaged the young man in civil conversation beginning with a personal introduction: my name is, what's yours?. How much more effective had he been more about the young man's best benefit and the instruction of all the young men present. A conversation leading to a relationship would undoubtedly open the door for an unimaginable number of future encounters which might lead to mutual transformation. I am embarrassed that I still do not know the young man’s name. How unfortunate that he chose to act out of an erroneous reading of the scriptural snapshot of both Jesus and John the Baptist or, for that matter Martin and Malcolm.

We cannot assume that these men, confronted with today’s realities, would have responded with the strategies of the sixties. Then, they had no personal computers, Internet, no cell phones, no blogs, no Facebook, no Skype, no Twitter. There was no CNN or Fox News. There were no fax machines or copiers. Cars were not common among students so everyone was living in the neighborhood. The agenda was common. Achieve public accommodations. There was not much thought about what to do after we got them. Television was relatively new and watching it was not yet a bad habit. Pastors then were not confronted by the gospel of success as charismatic grassroots religious community leaders are today. I am ashamed of my milquetoast failure to confront this gentleman's verbal assault on this young man who's only "sin" was that he admitted graduating from Morehouse. Would that I had smothered this zealot with the gentle reproach that one should not throw stones if he lives in a glass house. While decrying the violence in our streets and the silence in the face of abuse, he brought the violence and verbal abuse into the barbershop, the black male's safe place where he can hear and, if he wishes, contest untested theory and personal perspective...or not.

We cannot assume that Martin, and Malcolm, and WEB, and for that matter, Jesus would have responded with the same strategies were they alive today. We cannot demand or expect that institutional imperatives are to be embodied in those who are enrolled in a given institution. We cannot assume that because one is silent or unable to express his truth amid a barrage of abuse that he is not in fact on the case or that his life is not a tribute. But above all, let us not allow our friends and brothers and sisters to verbally abuse those around us simply because they feel helpless to bring about the social transformation we all agree is necessary. No one institution can do it all. No one person can perfectly carry the institutions mission and mandate be she president or faculty, be he alumnus or freshman.

"The Freshpeople are coming!": Something to Think About...

2009-08-21T19:04:00.000-04:00

I was reading The Economist earlier this week. One journalist wrote a blog entitled, The Obama Cult. The subtitle read, “If Obama disappoints his supporters, they have only themselves to blame”. The writers point is that too many of us, so some feel, are intoxicated by his historical import and are not ready to be critical of his policies and points of view. This brings me to the point of this blog. The arrival of the freshmen like the arrival of Obama has us excited and jumping for joy. They themselves are happy to be away from home and tasting the liberty (not necessarily freedom) which will show them who they are and what they really value. The sophomores are happy not to be lowest on the totem pole anymore. The juniors are awakening to a new limbo in which there is space to simply be while they jettison all in academic life which is excess and settle down with a major. The seniors having seen it all in the village are now ready to head for hills and dales of future hope.

Just as we are being called upon to investigate what is essential to making the country and the world move in sync so we all in the academic arena are being asked to reflect on why we are here. Our blogger friend has a long list of critical questions for The President. We who are in the HBCU arena are here to develop and articulate our questions for him. There are questions which are to be born of our learning experience here. That is why you are here, to learn how to think and to pose the hard questions that take us beyond the euphoria of the historic moment . There are significant questions to be advanced about fundamental starting points. Are middle class people to be protected to the detriment of the poor? What is each of our philosophy of life? Is one’s moral orientation individualist or communal? What is the extent to which federal powers should control energy and health care? Is there a way to see to the public health without excessive public debt? While he is clearly more intelligent than most, does that mean our President is more right and less accountable to our scrutiny simply because he is ours? It is possible that he has promised too much. Is it possible that he has bitten off more than the nation can chew in four years?

We are here in the academy to analyze and pose these questions. We are here in the HBCU academy to ask the questions from a particular vantage point in the continuum of history. There are questions that Black people can and should ask a Black president that no one else can because no one else has them. This brings us back to the initiating premise of the opening blog reference. If Obama disappoints, it will be because we have traded liberty to be and do whatever creates personal comfort for the knowledge and perspective to ask critical questions that will assure freedom for all. The President is asking us all to take part in the national debate. We need to be busy about equipping ourselves for the discussion. It is not enough that he be Black to garner our support. It is more important that we be Black enough to insure that he deserves and honors that support.

A Dark Secret Standing In the Light of Day

2009-05-05T12:48:00.000-04:00

Not too long ago I gave a homily at one of the parishes here in the Archdiocese of Atlanta. The readings were on the theme of forgiveness. The Gospel recalled Jesus’ mandate to forgive “seventy times seven times”. This is so hard for us in a culture in which retribution rather than restoration is the order of the day. Every day CNN reporters have microphones stuck under the nose of some murder victim’s family member wanting to know how they feel about the verdict. Wanting to know if they feel satisfied that the perpetrator has “gotten what he deserved”. It can’t be an accident that Jesus impressed upon his disciples the necessity to “forgive one’s enemies, be good to those who persecute you, love those who hate you”. It cannot be an accident that all of the evangelists remember that Jesus first instructed those he encountered with the good news that “your sins are forgiven”.

I called that congregation’s attention to the issue of how we treat pedophiles in our country and for that matter anyone guilty of capital crimes. As a case and point, one case among several cited, I asked the congregation to consider how we treat, just the mention of Cardinal Law’s name. How so many want revenge and retribution, rather than reconciliation and restoration. Pope Benedict during his visit to America reminded us that our long standing Christian tradition has always sought reconciling the sinner with the whole community he or she has offended and then engaging the offender in a process of helping to restore the health and fractures of the community he or she has broken. My call to the congregation was not well received in all corners. To be fair, it was not universally rejected either. One woman accosted me in the sacristy afterward and began berating me for even suggesting the Cardinal Law should “get off Scott free” That there were still priests abusing children in Boston and getting away with it and “nobody was doing anything about them”. She didn’t consciously include herself in that number of nobodies who knew but did not speak. She informed me that as soon as I mentioned he should be forgiven, she stopped listening.

Christian forgiveness is so hard for mainstream Americans, and yet it is the “darker brothers and sisters” in America and in South Africa who give the evidence that forgiveness and reconciliation works. It is a Christian thing. Ironically those who have been abused for the sake of “bringing the gospel to the heathens” are the very ones lifting the gospel principle of ubuntu out of that same Christian conviction. Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called us all to the three stage process by which South Africa has been saved from a blood bath. A three stage process by which we can be saved from our own worst demons: “See compassionately, interrupt the cycle, and forgive.”

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa enabled victims and perpetrators of violence together to tell their stories, to interrupt the cycles of violence by standing and praying peacefully in the midst of confronting groups of victims and perpetrators, and in the end enabling each to ask for forgiveness and to forgive. It is still at work and working today. Why can we not look and see and believe? Is it perhaps that we have not been able to be committed to conversation with the God who made us long enough to understand how we really are made? Praying beyond saying prayers is a hard thing. It sometimes demands that when we don’t feel like praying we pray anyway. It requires that we realize that our prayer is carried by those who can pray better and more faithfully than ourselves. It shows us that the prayer of faith communities is not validated by the priest, but by the faith of those praying. Even our private prayer is common in that sense. In this it seems to me lies the answer to our American dilemma. It must become a common truth that our wealth in not in what we own but how close we arrive at our divine destiny. The creation that we are is much more than the goods and social grades we attain.

Make Miracles, Not Magic

2009-04-23T13:27:00.000-04:00

The composer, Grayson Warren Brown was with us here in Atlanta for a revival he conducted over the last three nights. We have known each other for forty years. We get together at least once every year at Thanksgiving (it is closer to go to Jacksonville than to Washington) It strikes me that this time as all others over the last several years our conversation has turned to our experience of lower numbers in the pews for these mission events. We engage in rounds of lament and then move on to other topics of moment.

It strikes me that that these moments of lament are, among other things, a product of our Americanization. We quantify everything. We do it in ways that Jesus would never have entertained. As an African person, Jesus was relational. We never see in the scriptures that he lamented the lack of numbers in crowds. Nor, for that matter, did he make a commodity of his ministry. We deal so much in goods and services that we have projected our proclivity for the same onto God and the “God business”. We ask such questions as how many people were there, how long will the mass last, how much was the collection. We assume that success is the large crowd, the right faces in it. Did I get the Spirit? Did we “have church”?

Jesus had 12 apostles around him (most of the time when they weren’t running away or thinking about running). His ministering was never more than five miles from his home. He was clear about the difference between miracles and magic. Grayson shared the story of the priest who promised a magic trick of making clean water out of murky, dark, dyed water at the pulpit. The change did not take place. What we look for in Church and in Christianity and hopefully in our lives is a miracle-a manifestation of the presence of God’s saving power within us. Magic sells (sometimes); miracles don’t because they require relationship. Jesus got mad and turned over the tables in the temple because the House of God was being turned from a place of God encounter to a place of magic-making for the sake of profit at the expense of poor people. Are we about miracles or are we about magic?

This time as on all the other occasions, my encounter with Grayson reconfirmed my experience of the revelation that God is not a capitalist. He is not about magic, commodities, and numbers. He acts most powerfully when believers in whatever numbers are in the room and in the world doing the work that makes miracles happen. God acts when we are doing the work that manifests the presence of God in others and in the world. Money is never made on miracles because there are too few people around to witness them. Magic, on the other hand, can be boxed and sold.

So much of our lives is effected by turning miracles into magic. Failed love relationships are so often the result of making commodities, or sexual objects of the other. Friendships fail because the one or the other would not be made a commodity. Sacramental life becomes magic and covered over with trinkets, because someone has turned the miracle moment of divine relationship into capital gain from stuff, or artificially satisfying some relatives need for personal fulfillment; or some couples’ need to “get grandma off my back” by dragging their infant in for baptism though they have no intention of showing up again in life.

Maybe the numbers are low because God has made us for miracle and not for magic, as relational and not as commodities for sale. Our culture is calling us away from our true selves. I hope the relatively small numbers we see at the worship hour are because there are relationships developing with God and the magic has been found wanting.

Two Good Men

2009-03-31T13:39:00.000-04:00

Question: What do you call 1000 lawyers chained to the bottom of the ocean?
Answer: A good start

Make that 998 lawyers.

There are at least two good ones we need to keep. One is Professor Vincent Rougeau, an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame. He has just published a book entitled, Christianity in the American Empire: Faith and Citizenship in the New World Order. At last a well educated Black Catholic steps forward with the fruit of the education and career the Church has provided him to call us all to accountability in a new kind of society in which the United States trumpeting of its protection of “our American way of life” is called into question not on political grounds, but on the basis of scripture and the social justice teaching of the Church. I can’t say it better that he has said it himself:

“Christians in the American Empire challenges American Christians and others of goodwill to resist becoming apologists for political agendas that serve the powerful and to develop more complex notions of religious engagement in American political life. This means bringing Christian values like human dignity, economic responsibility, solidarity, and meaningful participation for the poor into decisions about law and policy, not only in the United States, but also worldwide. Indeed, Christians need to recognize the international implications of their values and see themselves as important voices in discussions about the global common good.”

Catholics are not the only Christians with a social teaching based on the gospels, but we have had a longer tradition and have been more vocal about it. We who are Black and Catholic need to know and emphasize the fact that Dr. Rougeau is the latest in a long line of lay people in America calling the Church, and for that matter anyone who would listen, to think critically about “the American way of life,” and the damage it is doing to people’s right to life, including the unborn. Dr. Rougeau is standing in the tradition of Daniel Rudd, Henry Wyatt Turner, Dr. Lena Edwards, Elizabeth Lange, and many others who headed Christ’s call to put the poor first and attend to the common good. “Unless the grain of wheat falls to earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies it springs forth and bears much fruit.” Dr. Rougeau challenges the popular and publicized notion that the Republican right is the only Catholic way. As a matter of fact he exposes the very un-Catholic position touted by so many, even some bishops, that the republican agenda is the only one which will deliver the imperiled unborn.

“…my book is a critique of the uncritical association of conservative Christians--the Religious Right--with the aggressive militarism and neo-liberal, free market economic policies of the Republican party despite obvious conflicts with traditional Christian teaching”

What I really want to say is that Dr. Rougeau has read up, studied up, and written up enough in his career to help us all think more critically about what it means to be Christian and that being the gung-ho American might not always be consistent with that commitment, especially where issues of the common good are at question. He is showing us how to be Christians in the American Empire. The first principle of that Christianity is to be responsible for putting that world out there.

This is not different from what my second good lawyer, President Obama, is asking us all to do relative to the stem cell and partial birth abortion debate. He is bringing the Freedom of Choice Act to the forefront not because he believes all those things should occur - he does not - but because he is firmly convinced that citizens need to speak up and Christians need to act up to create a consciousness among the American people which will create an acceptable environment for the unborn and all those whose lives are at risk. He is calling for all Americans to take responsibility to know and to vote knowledgeably about right to life amendments. These should be in place, our president feels, not by his personal and individual action but by the vote of the people and the legislation of their representatives.

Political machinations behind closed doors while still a fact of life are no longer the way of choice to do business in America. In this new world order the Catholic Christian has got to be equipped and willing to carry the message and publicly debate the issues. Each of us must become conversant and converted enough to engage our friends and associates in the conversation. The baptized are now, for the most part, literate enough and educated enough to be equipped to do their part in the marketplace as the leadership does its part in the Church. It is not appropriate to continue the efforts to shut up the perceived opposition as some of those who would disinvite our President from speaking at Notre Dame’s commencement. We should hear what he has to say in dialogue with our Catholic tradition before ideologically muzzling him.

Obama’s call to the nation is not all that different from the Church’s call to the baptized and confirmed. The message is clear: we are all responsible for knowing and pressing the message. It can’t be just the priest or the president anymore.

I’m so glad we haven’t chained these two good men to the bottom of the ocean.

"Ridiculous Is In the Eye (and Heart) of the Beholder"

2009-03-24T17:52:00.000-04:00

Something happened this week that we need to reflect upon. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Recife, Brazil announced the excommunication of a doctor who performed an abortion of twins on a minor, and of her mother who paid him to do it, but not the uncle who raped the girl.

The TV news reporter, dressed in credible blue with hues of orange behind him, recounted the “details” inferring that this bishop must be crazy. The perpetrator, he implied, should be excommunicated not the doctor or the poor girl’s mother. Why would the Church be punishing the victims? The rapist uncle, after all, is the one who owes retribution. Shouldn’t he suffer for his crime, we feel? Once again, we see that those Catholics are out of touch, right?

The problem from the Church’s point of view is that excommunication is not a punishment but rather a statement of a public condition. The Bishop only announced what the mother and the doctor publicly proclaimed with their actions “we don’t hold or believe what the Catholic Church believes and teaches”. One believes with one’s mind and body. One witnesses with one’s mind and body. Because American law (2oo years in monocultural development) permits it does not mean that divine law (2000 years in multicultural development), manifested in the longstanding teaching of scripture and tradition does as well. Now: does God love all four people unconditionally? Yes. So why the excommunication of the mother and the doctor and not the uncle?

Excommunication is condition people place themselves in because they have shown themselves or announced themselves to be contrary to the faith of the believing community in an irreconcilable way. The effect of the sin committed is so infectious that remaining within the community without public contrition would multiply the evil. It will invite duplication. Excommunication is not an act of the Church but an announcement it makes.

The uncle, on the other hand, though acting sinfully (assuming he is not crazy, which we can’t assume) does not intend in his action to publicly reject the values and teaching of the believing community. The Church prays for his forgiveness, restoration to mental health, and submission to the requirements of civil law. Will others look at him and say, "He did it, therefore it’s ok if I do it?" Not likely. Because of the ethic of Jesus, the Church is concerned that it reflects His emphasis on forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration. The Jesus ethic does not assume no punishment or isolation from the general public. If his condition is such, as in the case of the serial capital murderer, that he cannot be rehabilitated, then he must be isolated. In any case, the ideology of retribution is to be avoided at all cost. It is as Jesus intimated and Martin Luther King, jr said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth will leave us all blind and toothless.”

The Catholic Church is a community of believers in Jesus and strives to hear and reflect God’s will for the human family. When someone publicly decides that they cannot follow what scripture and the longstanding moral conviction of the community reveals, they place themselves outside of it. There are some aspects of our tradition that are not open to democratic process. Forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration, for Catholic Christians, are non-negotiables. The seamless garment that is the right to life ethic - be it the unborn, or the feable elderly, or the uninsured sick, or the unemployed wage earner - is a non-negotiable.

Leander Perez and three of his cohorts were excommunicated in 1962 by Archbishop Rummel for being a public and unrepentant proponent of racism in New Orleans. They separated themselves from the moral witness of the believers. This mother and doctor have separated themselves from the moral witness of the believers in Recife. This Bishop could make no other call until they show themselves changed. This doesn’t make sense to the American who wants retribution and revenge (not ever Jesus' approach). It only makes sense to a global community of Christians standing in the footsteps of Jesus who sought only restitution and conversion.

"Pragmatic Spirituality: Questionable Christianity"

2009-01-30T12:53:00.000-05:00

Someone called me last week to celebrate the Obama event and their experience while being a face in the place, as it were, in our National Capital. She was quite animated as she recounted taking her son with her so that he could experience this historic event. She told of the press of the crowds, the drama at the subway stations, and the press of the multitude into the Third Street tunnel under the Mall. Of particular note to me was the miracle moment. She and her son were the last to enter into the reserve section by the reflecting pool where they could have an eyeshot of the inaugural moment. God had made it possible for them to be at the gate at just the right time for the policeman to shuffle them through.

While I didn't want to rain on her parade and certainly not steal her joy, I could not help but think to myself, "Do you mean all those other people who had tickets but got shut out by the crowd controller’s count, were not objects of God's favor? God cared so much about you and your son that the disappointment of others was worth the price?

Gayraud Wilmore in his wonderful overview of Black Religious experience entitled, Pragmatic Spirituality, makes the point that it was common for early African communities to change gods based on weather their god was "working for them" or not. If some other tribe's god was apparently affecting good fortune for them, then that would become their god as well. I really believe that this pragmatic spirituality is constantly at work among us. It is indeed a false god that is really nothing else but our own self interest.

Too often we Christians confuse devotional, personal, faith with salvation history. As strange as it may sound, God has shown little preference in the scriptures for the outcome of any political event or personal agenda. While God listened to the many prayers thrown in the divine direction on inauguration morning, I doubt that the beatific eye was cast on the event- bright sunshine or no; the cries of the blind, the lame, and the poor throughout the 2/3 the world, so little spoken of at the Mall proceedings, certainly monopolized the Holy Ears that morning.

We need to be careful, us Christians, of trumping God's agenda with our personal concerns. Uncritical accounting of our personal perks to God's activity risks the heresy of assuming that our personal and individual wishes and concerns are indeed God's will or part of the diving plan for human good.

Too often we hear some of our brothers and sisters proclaim that "God put it on my heart to do this" Too often the stated action is much too self serving to be included in the Divine plan for our salvation. To often the statement of devotional faith (as opposed to Biblical faith) confirms the speaker's selfish wish for a personal experience of Divine prerogative.

I am always reminded of that moment in the Gospel of John when John the Baptist had sent two envoys to inquire of Jesus if he was the messiah. Jesus (the enfleshed expression of God's will) told the envoys to go back to John and tell him that the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, "the blind see, the lame walk, and the poor have the good news preached to them."

The call to follow Jesus, Christianity, is the call to judge the presence and will of God by that acid test. Will the blind see, the lame walk, or the poor have the gospel preached to them? If not, we ought to thank God that we had this stroke of good luck. Beyond that, as commendable as one's faith focus may be, God "ain't in it"

"Listening and Learning"

2008-12-18T09:38:00.000-05:00

Archbishop Gregory religiously posts his weekly article in the Gerogia Bulletin, What I Have Seen and Heard. It is a commentary on his experience of the Risen Christ as he goes about the archdiocese in a Pauline spirit of evangelization. I, on the other hand, am a proponent of the Deuteronomic approach, listening and learning.

"Assemble the people--men, women and children, and the aliens living in your towns--so they can listen and learn to fear the LORD your God and follow carefully all the words of this law." Deuteronomy 31:12

Listening and learning were to be for Moses and the Hebrews the way to knowledge of God's will for them. They were to assemble to listen and to learn. There are three movements in Moses directive. The first is to assemble. The more our culture becomes secularized the less people want to gather for worship. So many these days call themselves spiritual but not believers, that is, not Christians, people who follow the ethic of Jesus, church goers, gatherers. Simply being spiritual adapts well to Western indidualistic culture. To be spiritual, I don't really have to be bothered with anyone else. I only have to monitor my inner feelings and disposition. I am required to be committed to nothing. If on the other hand if I am a Christian and particularly a Catholic Christian, it is encumbent upon me to assemble with the others. I must be bothered with the others and they must be bothered with and sometimes by me. When Jesus tells us that "wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst," He is telling us that His presence requires being bothered with each other. Our culture has convinced us that a private spirituality that isn't bothered is alright.

Because we are gathered with others, listening becomes imperative. Just the act of gathering means must engage others and be sensitive to what may not be part of our experience. I remember asking a congregation of suburbanites, almost all non-minority, to pray the Our Father as it is done by our brothers and sisters in East Africa. The rumblings got back to me that some were undone because they didn't understand what the people in Africa had to do with them. What are we missing in this tradition called Catholic? The oldest Christian traditions in the world are found on that continent and so many are placing themselves in no position to be deaf to them.

No wonder then that most American Catholics, regardless of whether bishops, priests, deacons, or laity, had no idea of the depth of the crisis in Rwanda and Burundi, countries whose population is 90% Catholic. No wonder we were in shock when all those Catholics were killing their Catholic brothers and sisters; since we were not listening we could not hear. No wonder so many of our brothers and sisters in the faith in this country are in shock that the numbers of African Americans of long history in the Church are now leaving it. Gathering I can listen. Listening I can hear. Hearing, I can respond with the voice and heart of Jesus.

Fr. B

"Creating Heaven On Earth"

2008-12-09T16:02:00.000-05:00

Originally written on Nov. 16, 2008

Someone wrote to me suggesting that I and other "partisan, liberal, Catholics" should "slow our roll," celebrating President-elect Obama's victory in the presidential campaign. My communicator is convinced that Barak has "something up his sleeve." He is not to be trusted, he feels.

His comments sent me back to the text of Cardinal George's address to the body of bishops gathered in assembly in Baltimore to reflect on the wisdom of one of the Catholic Church's most able politicians who clearly had something up his sleeve. His "sleeve" point, in my view, was to free the bishops to talk out loud to each other about the election and the pastoral issues implied in this electoral experience.

Politicians,ecclesiastical and secular, always have something up their sleeves. That is why they are called politicians. There is indeed something to celebrate in this electoral moment. The fact that skin tone finally got a pass-though not 100%- is in itself worth celebrating. We have less to wring our hands over with "that one," as McCain dubbed him, than we did when "W" was running or even McCain. Our Catholic concerns were nodded at, pandered to, promised upon, but all but programatically ignored (other than by lip service) after the Republican victories of 2000 and 2004. The present election is not unlike the King Birthday victory. It was worth celebrating but not to be overplayed. There was and is serious work to do.

It seems to me we need to be more concerned about minds and hearts for life at every level rather than legislation for life at only one level. Even if Rowe v Wade were overturned tomorrow, we would still need to wring our hands - perhaps even more. Changing laws does not change hearts and minds. What this election has shown the critical eye, is that not all pro-choicers are pro-abortionists and not all anti-abortionists are pro-life. It has demonstrated once again how much work, intellectual and manual, each citizen is required to do in order to vote with wisdom. It has domonstrated to serious Catholics that forming one's conscience is more than a matter of tapping into our emotional dispositions on an issue. We have 2000 years of reflection on these issues to help us. However you slice it we still have much work to do. On earth as it is in heaven, is a work in progress.

Fr. B

"No Cheap Grace, No Cheap Witness"

2008-12-08T16:54:00.000-05:00

It seems some think that simply by changing laws we will make our society more Christian. Such is the fate of those who either forget or never learned history. There was a time when Christianity was the law of the Empire in Rome. In the earliest centuries in Ethiopian Christianity even until today, crosses and Christian cultural practice is normative but justice is not guaranteed. In the Orthodoxy of Eastern European countries, Christian symbol and practice ties all value references together. The atrocities of genocide and religious prejudice endure. Why can none of these cultural expressions can guarantee conversion of heart? As a matter of fact, the expectation that culture or legal prescriptions could do so has led to just the opposite condition. If we were to outlaw abortion tomorrow in this country, it would still be as common a practice as it is now, because value for human life must be enshrined in every heart as a matter of emotional and intellectual conviction. Such conviction may or may not be reflected in law.

None of us should forget as we enter into this advent season, hijacked as it is by consumerist western morket forces, that the season's real meaning will only be known and truly enshrined if Christians themselves keep its true meaning in the public eye by their personal practices and commitments seen and practiced publicly. The notion, for example, that Christmas is for children, only aggravates the malady. That we would feel satisfied and happy is we have provided playthings for children and nothing for those whom Jesus cared about most, the poor, is problematic.

God's entry into human time means that only by living the values to which Christian symbols point can we expect them to be noticed or celebrated by those who do not really know them. Only by keeping Christ in Christmas ourselves by our worship, our gathering together to remember Christ's life among us, and by giving service first and foremost to God's poor, can we expect that the values we would wish laws would ensure, will indeed become the law of the land, because they are written in our hearts. This is going to cost each of us something more than our money. As our foreparents used to say, "Nothing worth anything is had without a price."

Fr. B