Before there were rectories - Sunday's reading reflection

"Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you... Do not move about from one house to another."

Before there were two or three rectories for one priest, as is the case in many dioceses nowadays, there was one rectory for 3-4 priests.  Before that, long before that, there were the houses of the faithful where the traveling, healing, teaching, baptizing, anointing, exorcising, preaching ministers of the Lord Jesus would stay.  But not mulitple houses within the same town.  No, Jesus is clear to the 72 disciples before he sends them out that they are to "Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you... Do not move about from one house to another."

Why did he say that?  I don't have a degree in New or Old Testament Scripture but I'm not sure I need one.  This saying, as some of Jesus' sayings are, seems pretty down-to-earth knowing human weakness.  And that is just it, his command limits the destructive power of human beings in their weaknesses and frailties.   

Did you ever say in front of one grandmother to the other, "Grandma, you're apple pies are the best"?  Did you ever say in front of one uncle to another, "I love spending time with you guys at your house"?  If you haven't, I wouldn't suggest you try.  Jealousy, envy, competition, comparison, gossip, slander, entitlement, worldliness, passions- the list is almost endless- can one or all come out of a few imprudent decisions if moving from house to house.

On the flip side, who is to hold a minister accountable, himself beset by weakness, as the Letter to Hebrews reminds us, if he is moving about from one house to another.  Not seeing his patterns, habits, or decision making processes can be very easy when he is at one house one day and another house another day.  So too, Jesus' command seems to protect not only the laity but the ministers as well- in both cases.

St. Paul seems to understand the difficulty of worldliness that comes through human fraility.  He says, the "cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" is for him a saying grace.  Yet we know from Romans that he bitterly laments that the good he wants to do, he cannot.  And the evil he does not want to do, he does.

Knowing that we are all weak human beings who mean well is not enough.  It's a first step.  Working together, bishops, priests and laity to provide for healthy, human living situations for our priests is one step in the right direction, so it seems to me.  

...Just something to reflect on as so many priests spend their first weekends in their new rectories after their transfers this month.

Big news on two fronts!

Big news on two fronts: 

 

1) Blesseds John XXIII and John Paul II have been officially cleared for canonization!  The date is still to be determined but it looks at if it might make for a fitting end to the Year of Faith this upcoming November.  (That's where I'm putting my money anyway.)  Along with other traditions that seem to be falling to the wayside with our new pope is the tradition for a second miracle.  Blessed John XXIII has been cleared without such, something that has not happened for a very, very long time.   Click here to read more on this.

2) Pope Francis, not one who has a hard time saying all sorts of things as said much on this Friday.  Not only did he announce the canonization of the two recent popes but he also released his first encyclical.  Click here for a link to Lumen Fidei. (Just so you know, it's 88 pages in length so you may want to find more than an hour to peruse it.)

On this Independence Day - Tomorrow's reading reflection

"Jesus knew what they were thinking, and said, 'Why do you harbor evil thoughts?'"

God's grace brings us healing of mind, body, and spirit just as it did the paralytic in today's Gospel.  With that healing comes a gradual freedom from the power of sin and bondage.  I cannot help but think of John  8:36 when Jesus says, "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed."  Nor can we forget Galatians 5:1 when St. Paul says, " For freedom Christ has set us free."

On this Independence Day, take a quiet moment to ask yourself, "Do I allow anything to keep me from the healing power of God's grace?"  Maybe, like, harboring evil thoughts...?

Like the Gateway Arch, discipleship can SEEM simple - Tomorrow's reading reflection

"...with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone."

Capstones are different from keystones, a fact I recently learned.  A keystone is used at the apex of a structure to hold it together, as seen below:

A capstone is used atop a structure to decorate and/or protect it from the elements.  The difference can be seen below:

St. Paul refers to Jesus in today's reading as the capstone.  He is at the head.  He is there to protect the structure below, the "household of God," the " temple sacred in the Lord," the "dwelling place of God in the Spirit."  A problem exists, however, in Paul's use of a capstone as a metaphor.  We hear "Through him the whole structure is held together."  If the English translation is correct, that would actually be describing a keystone.  

But enough about keystones, capstones and even, as he is described elsewhere, cornerstones.  Well, humor me a little longer actually.  Below is a picture of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis in its closing weeks. Notice that a keystone would soon be needed by which the "whole structure is held together".

That day would come on October 28, 1965.  As you can see in the picture below, the keystone was gently placed between the north and south legs on a bright, sunny St. Louis fall day.  There was a problem, however.  

Bright sun on stainless steel causes expansion.  There was already going to be immense pressure on the "keystone".  In fact, according to the arch's website, "over 500 tons of pressure was used to jack the north and south legs of the Arch apart for the last four-foot piece to be placed at the top." (gatewayarch.com) It would not be such a gentle process. The thermal expansion didn't help matters.

This 4' wide section (not very long at all) would be the last of 142 sections.  And the most important one; precisely because through it, "whole structure is held together".  With the sun causing expansion, however, the two legs were not going to be perfectly aligned, which would cause serious structural problems that would prevent the arch from being completed.  Below is a description of the intricacy and simplicity of the problem and solution- quite interesting actually. 

The base of each leg at ground level had an engineering tolerance of one-64th of an inch (0.40 mm) or the two legs would not meet at the top. During construction, both legs were built simultaneously. When the time came to connect the legs at the apex, thermal expansion of the sunward-facing south leg prevented it from aligning precisely with the north leg. The St. Louis Fire Department sprayed the south leg with water from firehoses, cooling it until it aligned with the north leg. (worldhistoryproject.org)

Where am I going with this reflection?  St. Thomas, whose feast we celebrate today, is known as "doubting Thomas".  It's not a great way to go down in history.  He is chided by Jesus before all the other Apostles for his lack of faith.  (St. Peter could relate.)  And yet he is an important member of the household of God, so much so that we celebrate him with an annual feast day.  

Maybe we can relate.  St. Paul says to the Ephesians, "you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit".  He does not say, "you have been built".  He says, "you...are being built".  And not just one of us but "together" into a dwelling place of God.

Discipleship can have many unexpected and unforeseen problems, just as we saw in the building of the Arch.  These can be very complicated and intricate, delicate problems.  Yet Jesus Christ, often through the humblest means (St. Louis Fire Department, rather than the world's most learned architects) can provide simple solutions.  It may take hard work (500 tons pressure) to accomplish the simple solution, but Jesus allows for himself to be the capstone (really keystone) that absorbs the pressure so that the other parts of the structure (the legs, or we ourselves) can experience the freedom the pressure that comes by "being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit."

To watch a fantastic video on the St. Louis Gateway Arch construction, click here.

Why are you terrified? - Tomorrow's reading reflection

Lot was a holy man but he still had trouble following God's will for him in certain moments, just as we see in the first reading.  He even had angels in front of him, that eventually had to forcefully lead him out by the hand- and still he resisted.  

The disciples are holy men.  We call them saints, meaning they are legitimate witnesses to us of how to live the Christian life.  Despite their holiness, however, Jesus says to them, "Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?"  Despite their holiness they fail to following him perfectly.  As John would say later, it is "perfect love [that] drives out fear."  They weren't loving perfectly because they lacked faith.

Holiness does not mean perfection.  Nor does perfection mean holiness or none of us would be holy since none of us is perfect.

So in your imperfection, realize you can still be holy.  Cry out to the Lord in your distress and storms in life.  Better that then to think you can calm the storm yourself.  Only One can calm the storms of life.

Here are some helpful verses from the Psalms that the disciples were surely aware of when Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures in their sight:

In their distress they cried to the LORD,

who brought them out of their peril;

He hushed the storm to silence,

the waves of the sea were stilled.

They rejoiced that the sea grew calm,

that God brought them to the harbor they longed for. (Ps 107:28-30)

You still the roaring of the seas,

the roaring of their waves,

the tumult of the peoples. (Ps 65:8)

Messy Christian discipleship - Sunday's reading reflection

Each one of the readings today shows us one thing very clearly.  Discipleship is just plain messy.

Whether it be the little tiff between Elijah and Elisha in the first reading, St. Paul's warning against the Christians "biting and devouring" of each other in second reading, or the train wreck of events in the Gospel, we see that without a doubt, Christian discipleship is never black and white. 

Let's take these examples in the Gospel one-at-a-time.  First we have two of the closest disciples to Jesus, James and John, being overzealous and threatening to kill the Samaritans.  Here's the text.

When the disciples James and John saw this they asked,“Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heavento consume them?” Jesus turned and rebuked them.

Just as Christian disciples can be lukewarm, so also they can be overzealous, "rigid" as Pope Francis recently said.  In this way, the Pope said, they fail to be Christian any longer.

The next example we have are those who are quick to speak but fail to act.  They make a commitment to discipleship without even being called.  As the saying goes, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going."  But not in their case.  When discipleship becomes uncomfortable or difficult, as it inevitably does, they run away.

“I will follow you wherever you go.” 

The next group are the would-be disciples Jesus calls, but they have other things to do first.  Discipleship for them is not a top priority.

And to another he said, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.” 

The next example of how messy Christian discipleship can be comes from those who are well-intentioned, good people but who cannot make a commitment to the Lord because they allow other people and things to pull them away.  In other words, their attachment to others keeps them from attaching to the Lord.

And another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.”

All of this, remember, is in the context of the whole Gospel that is not presented in the Sunday reading for today.  If one were to pick up the Bible they would see what follows this chapter in Luke.  After the Transfiguration, Jesus comes down from the mountain and is immediately confronted with complaints about how his disciples are ineffective.  

I begged your disciples to cast it out but they could not.”  Jesus said in reply, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you and endure you?”

Not only can we disciples be ineffective at carrying out the Lord's commands, but we may not even understand them at all.  Though we may think we know God's will (a risky claim at best), we may later realize we can't even begin to understand the ways of the Lord.  See this example, following chronologically in the Gospel.  Jesus says to his disciples,

“Pay attention to what I am telling you. The Son of Man is to be handed over to men.”  But they did not understand this saying; its meaning was hidden from them so that they should not understand it, and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.

And finally, where does St. Paul find the reason to say what he says in the second reading.  From the same experience Jesus himself had of his disciples. It is awfully difficult to witness to Christianity when Christ's disciples are fighting amongst themselves.  Know that the unChristian way we Christians treat one another today is nothing new.  Following the Gospel chronologically again, we hear, 

An argument arose among the disciples about which of them was the greatest.

We Christians really are something else.  Thank God for his patience and mercy this Sunday.  The truth is clear.  But as the Gospel shows us, knowing the truth and living it are two very different realities.  Try to recognize we need God's patience and mercy because Christian discipleship has many shades of gray.  It's just plain messy.

Reminder ringtones - Tomorrow's reading reflection

Thank God for smart phones where we can set for ourselves reminders with different ringtones to grab our attention.  In the old days it used to be a string tied around the finger.  By the 1990's, "yellow-stickies" became the modus operandi, being stuck to doors, mirrors, windows, computer screens and even dashboards.  Yeah, thank God we have ways to remind ourselves of what should be priorities.  Why?  Because we so easily forget. -even those things which are so important that we take the time to create a visual reminder such as a string, sticky-note or iPhone calendar reminder.

This is what we see in the first reading.  We hear, "When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said: 'I am God the Almighty.  Walk in my presence and be blameless.'”  In today's lingo you could almost hear Abram thinking, "Really?  Again with this?  I know you're God and I must walk in your presence and be blameless.  You've told me this a thousand times."  In fact, God had been leading Abram since he began his pilgrimage out of Ur.  God promised him offspring and lands.  And then he does so again when Ishmael is conceived with Hagar and Abram is 85.  Now we see Abram at 99, fourteen years later!  Still, no son.  Still no descendents other than the wild ass of a man (Ishmael) who is currently 13 and probably a wild ass of a teenager.

God says to Abram about Sarai, yet again, "I will bless her, and I will give you a son by her."  Abram had heard this before.  But, he needed a reminder! -just like he needed a reminder that God is God and that he must walk in his presence and be blameless.  We see Abram's faith and familiarity with God, as well as his humanity, because we hear, "Abraham [he was renamed in v.5] prostrated himself and laughed as he said to himself, 'Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?  Or can Sarah give birth at ninety?'”  

As we know, the answer was yes.  Isaac was born one year later, more than twenty-five years after God first  promised Abraham descendents.  The promise was to be fulfilled, eventually.  But Abraham needed reminders along the way.  And so do we.  God is God.  We are not.  He loves us.  

Relax, and walk in his ways the best you can.