Cartoon in the Kansas City Star, 5/24/08
To the best of my knowledge the pope does not yet have a blog, but he does plan to text message young folks during World Youth Day this summer in Australia.
-ConcordPastor
Saturday, May 24, 2008
It could happen!
Handing on the faith: generation to generation...
Texas Catholic photo by Jenna Teter
In light of my recent post, I wonder what depths of faith and love are being embraced as Bishop Michael Duca of Shreveport hugs his father, Lewis Duca, during the sign of the peace at his ordination and installation mass at the Shreveport Convention Center on Monday, May 19.
-Concord Pastor
Friday, May 23, 2008
We are what we eat!
Image by The Gazz
The image above is a play on the tag line from the movie, Sixth Sense, but it plays well here as we approach the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ this weekend. Saint Augustine in his sermons (below) spoke clearly that in the Eucharist we become, indeed we are, what we receive. At the Lord's table, then, we become and we are bread people.
Sermons, [227] A.D. 391-430:
... That Bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the Blood of Christ. Through that bread and wine the Lord Christ willed to commend his Body and Blood, which he poured out for us for the forgiveness of sins. If you receive worthily, you are what you have received.
|
Spend some time now with the readings and background material for Corpus Christi Sunday this weekend. Got kids ? You can help them prepare for this Sunday with these notes.
-ConcordPastor
Do we know (him in) the breaking of bread?
Photo by Terry
At the heart of the Eucharist is the breaking of bread which is, in fact, another name for the celebration of the Lord's Supper.
In Jesus' time and in the ancient world the breaking and sharing of bread was, in itself, a ritual act rich and deeply layered with meaning and social implications. How Jesus identifies himself with the bread and the cup of the Jewish ritual meal amplifies those layers and implications exponentially!
I fear that our unfamiliarity with such an action in our day to day lives may diminish our appreciation of the same action in the Eucharist. The image above is a Kouloura. This traditional Macedonian Wedding Bread was made throughout the Macedonia and in some regions, this tradition continues. On the wedding day, the bride breaks this round bread in two parts. She leaves one half at her family home, signifying her appreciation for her upbringing. The second half of the bread is presented to her new home, signifying expected prosperity and abundance in her life with her husband.
Below is the joy in breaking the Kouloura!
Photo by John Kapaniris
As we approach the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, I can't help but think that our understanding of Eucharist as the Breaking of the Bread would be enhanced if breaking bread were part of our daily lives and the special events in our lives. Of course, it might help, too, if the bread we used for Eucharist could be closer in its substance to what we ordinarily understand as bread in our culture.
Perhaps just once in a while (or more often!) we might think of buying a large beautiful, unsliced bread to share at the dinner table and special meals. Nothing can ever nourish us more deeply than the Eucharist and no breaking of bread can surpass the fractio in the Eucharist, but simply learning to break bread at our own tables might deepen our understanding of the sign Jesus chose to leave us to remember him and find him present at the Table of the Sacrament.
-ConcordPastor
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Panis Angelicus
As we approach the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ this weekend, here's a beautifiul rendition of Cesar Franck's Panis Angelicus. Below the screen you'll find the lyrics in both Latin and English.
The choral group is St. Philips Boys' Choir of Norbury, UK, featuring soloists Jaymi Bandtock and Sam Harper.
Panis angelicus
The Bread of Angels
fit panis hominum;
becomes the bread of humankind;
Dat panis coelicus
The Bread of heaven
figuris terminum:
ends all prefigurations:
O res mirabilis!
What wonder!
Manducat Dominum
The Lord is consumed
Pauper, servus et humilis
by a poor and humble servant.
Te trina Deitas
You, triune God
unaque poscimus:
we beg of you
Sic nos tu visita,
that you visit us,
sicut te colimus;
as we worship you;
Per tuas semitas
By your ways
duc nos quo tendimus,
lead us who seek
Ad lucem quam inhabitas.
the light in which you dwell.
Amen.
Who's at the door?
This video appears to have been shot almost accidentally in an apartment where some college students are studying. Their study is interrupted by an old woman comes to the door offering bread for sale. I think you'll agree that she brings more than bread! The video is by a 21 year old MySpacer named Patrick who titles the piece Breaking Bread.
There's something delightful in the woman's simple graciousness, her words and her spirit - something that might open our hearts just a little more to the Lord who comes to us with the Bread of Life. We too quickly picture the Lord as a first century Jew with a beard and long hair. What a shame if we miss him when he knocks on our door as an old German lady, full of smiles and blessings - and a basket of bread!
This coming Sunday is the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ...
-ConcordPastor
Breaking bread
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
In the cracking and the tearing of the crust...
About 38 years ago when I was in the seminary, a good friend asked me if I believed in the Eucharist and what it meant to me. I knew he wasn't looking for text book answers but simply for my own belief. I wrote the following in response to his question. I know that writing this helped me understand my own belief and I believe it helped my friend, too.
As we prepare to celebrate the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ this coming weekend, I thought you might find these words (in their most recent redaction) worth a read.
And let me ask you...
Do you believe in the Eucharist - and what does it mean to you - in your own words...
Perhaps you'll share your response in the combox.
Bread Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat,
but if it dies, it bears much fruit...
You have to listen with all of you
to hear the white-green shoot
pushing, rubbing, scraping up through
cool, moist earth: wheat being born.
It's a comforting sound when, finally,
you hear it and you know the growing sound
isn't in the field
but in your fragile frailty,
in you...
Then fear comes over you:
you will be torn inside, again, until it hurts
and this may be the time
when growing means leaving behind
who you think you are
and harvesting whom you're made to be...
Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat,
but if it dies, it bears much fruit...
You don't have to listen so closely
to hear the wind shuffle its way
through fields of wheat
so you have to look very carefully
to see it's not the wind after all, but simply
wheat brushing against wheat,
wheat supporting wheat,
wheat enjoying wheat,
wheat embracing wheat.
The rustling becomes a symphony
of meeting, knowing, touching, growing:
wheat reaching out to wheat
not with fear, not with flushed face,
but only with the need to touch
and the sound of reaching
is strong, enveloping, alive! Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,Grinding grains of wheat: harsh,
it remains just a grain of wheat,
but if it dies, it bears much fruit...
breaking, crushing sounds,
a not soft noise - hard.
And now you don't want to hear
wheat being crushed:
it just doesn't look like wheat anymore
and maybe the explosion in you
wasn't a mater of life but...
water is cool
and now it is all around you:
bubbling and swirling
in flour ground of wheat
and now you're not surprised to know
you're listening to blood filling your veins,
flowing all through you: life.
And just before the fire consumed us, too,
we found bread: one beautiful brown loaf
of wheat, wind, water
all burgeoning to life in bread...
Then came one
who broke himself like a loaf
and we heard
in the cracking and tearing of the crust
the word of life grown, ground, given
for those who share
in the breaking of the bread.Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat,
but if it dies, it bears much fruit...
-ConcordPastor
A little background music...
I've added Gift of Finest Wheat in an instrumental version at the top of the sidebar. You might want to play it as you read and ponder the scriptures for this coming weekend's Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. And, if you're in a singing mood, here are the lyrics:
Gift of Finest Wheat
Refrain:
You satisfy the hungry heart with gift of finest wheat,
come give to us o saving Lord, the bread of life to eat.
1) As when the shepherd calls his sheep, they know and heed his voice;
so when you call your family Lord, we follow and rejoice.
2) With joyful lips we sing to you, our praise and gratitude,
that you should count us worthy Lord, to share this heavenly food.
3) The mystery of your presence Lord, no mortal tongue can tell;
whom all the world cannot contain comes in our hearts to dwell.
4) You give yourself to us o Lord, then selfless let us be,
to serve each other in your name in truth and charity.
- Robert E. Kreutz
Word for the Weekend
Image by Claire Joy
Let's do a little review of the liturgical calendar. The seven weeks of the Easter season end with Pentecost Sunday and the season of Ordinary Time resumes, but... The first Sunday after Pentecost is always the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity or popularly, "Trinity Sunday," while the second Sunday after Pentecost is always the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ or popularly and in the Latin, "Corpus Christi."
Spend some time now with the readings and background material on them for this Sunday's scriptures and be better prepared to celebrate the liturgy this weekend.
Got kids (who tell you they're bored at Mass)? You can help them prepare for this Sunday with these notes: the family that prepares together and prays together, grows in faith together!
-ConcordPastor
Monday, May 19, 2008
As the 36th year begins...
The cake was delicious - carrot cake in case you were wondering!
Thanks for your comments, emails and all your kind words and good wishes. Several folks today have wished me well in the "next 35 years..." Well, I would be 96 years old on the 70th anniversary of my ordination: a not altogether impossible but still unlikely event. One year at a time!
But let me take this opportunity at the beginning of year 36 to muse a bit about a wonderful moment in ministry from just a few weeks ago.
We celebrate first Reconciliation in small groups in our parish, on Saturday afternoons. One of our second graders had missed his group so his dad called a few weeks ago to schedule a time for his son's first penance. We scheduled 4:00 on a Saturday afternoon. Once the shriving was done, the boy and his parents decided to wait to go to the 5:00 Mass. I was busy about things in the sacristy but at one point I walked back into the sanctuary and saw the dad walking around the church, stopping at and explaining each of the Stations of the Cross to his son.
It was a beautiful scene and I was deeply moved by it, for a couple of reasons.
Although I'm not sure that it was my father who taught me the Stations, I know that it might have been him because he and my mother were certainly my "first teachers in the ways of faith" - just as the rite of baptism of infants instructs. I went to Sunday school for religious education (catechism instruction) but I believe that the faith schooling that really formed and shaped me was what I learned at home through the words and example of my parents.
- I can remember my father showing me the different parts of the Mass in the small Sunday missal he had received and used when in the Navy.
- I remember him showing me a chart in that missal indicating where, at every minute of the day, Mass was being celebrated somewhere in the world.
Image by Willow Tree
- I remember him quizzing me my return from Sunday Mass to make sure that I had listened to the sermon.
- I remember him teaching me about Peter's threefold denial of Christ and about the two thieves crucified with Jesus.
- I remember him watching to make sure that I blessed myself with holy water on entering the church - and making sure I did it reverently.
- I remember him teaching me how to genuflect before entering a pew in church.
- I remember him taking me to "make a visit" at church and helping me light a votive candle near the altar.
- I remember him taking me to church on Holy Thursday night to pray at the decorated altar in the chapel where the Blessed Sacrament was being reserved.
- I remember that although my father didn't often wear a suit and tie, he never failed to don a suit and tie for Sunday Mass.
- I remember him kneeling with his face in his hands at my grandmother's funeral Mass and wondering if he was praying or crying. I think he was doing both...
Watching the dad with his son in my church a few weeks ago flooded me with these memories which were and are a blessing.
I've been thinking since that Saturday afternoon of the important link my parents provided in my faith formation. They were my first teachers in the ways of faith and were, by their good example and instruction, the best of teachers. If that sounds extraordinary, please note that this is nothing more than what the church asks of all parents - and what all parents promise before God at their baby's baptism.
What the church expects of parents is a kind of "home schooling" in the faith. I don't refer here to home schooling as it's now understood but something much simpler. I envision here a home in which the parents' faith is alive and articulate enough to be something to pass on to their children.
A problem here is that too many parents have not been sufficiently formed in their own faith and so find themselves unable to pass it on to their offspring. I think the reason many parents might not walk the Stations and explain them to their children is that mom and dad themselves have not been instructed in the story of Christ's suffering and death as popularly depicted in the Stations' 14 scenes.
I don't say this to cast aspersions on any parents nor to criticize any era or brand of religious education. I say this simply to assess the reality.
What's the answer? The answer is obvious: adult faith formation. If parents are meant to be their children's primary and best teachers in the ways of faith, they need to be formed in faith themselves. Placing the responsibility nearly entirely on the parish and catechists asks too much of the parish and expects too little of parents. Parents and parish are meant to collaborate in the faith formation of their young people. Any other "lesson plan" fails to honor the roles that the domestic church and the parish church are meant to play.
There are many ways for fathers and sons to bond and in some significant ways my own dad and I didn't make the best connections. But the father and son I saw in church a few weeks ago reminded me of a bond with my father that has never failed me, even 35 years into ministry as a priest.
My prayer is that mothers and fathers will make every effort to bond with their children in the ways of faith, just as they promised at their sons' and daughters' baptism. For many parents, this will mean taking their faith more seriously than they have in some time, perhaps since their own Confirmation. Our parish offers many opportunities for adults to grow in faith and will continue to do so. If the father-son scene I described for you moves you, or if my memories of my own father touch your heart, I pray that you will be do what you need to do to grow in your own faith to be better prepared to pass on this great gift to your children.
-ConcordPastor
Time flies when you're preaching the gospel!
Rejoice with me!
Thirty-five years ago today I lay face-down on the floor of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston while hundreds of people sang the Litany of the Saints over me and my classmates who were being ordained to the presbyterate of the Archdiocese of Boston.
Little did any of us know that morning what joys and sorrows lay ahead for us as priests and for the whole Church...
It strikes me this morning that I have spent more than half my life in ministry - and ministry is certainly where I intend to spend the rest of my life. I'm grateful to God and God's people (that's you!) that ministry continues to comfort me, challenge me and, I hope, change me. It's also my hope that the Lord, through my ministry, comforts, challenges and changes you!
These 35 years have been happy years for me: happier, richer and fuller than I could have dreamed of on May 19, 1973. These years have also been marked by sadness: deeper and more wrenching than I could have imagined on my ordination morning. But it is a crucified Lord we follow through death to life and we Christians should never be surprised that our path is shadowed by the Cross as we seek Christ's peace.
It's amazing how many mistakes one can make in 35 years, but even more amazing is the mercy of God and the forgiving kindness of his people. I praise God and thank you for pardoning me my failings.
When I was ordained I never dreamed I'd ever own a computer or even know how to use one. At that time I was pretty impressed that my Brother Electric Typewriter featured two whole lines of erasable memory! I certainly had no idea that one day my ministry would extend through this medium but I am certainly glad that it has!
Please pray for me and my ordination classmates - we need it!
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
-ConcordPastor
Word for the Week of May 18
(See the Word for the Week at the top of the side bar)
What do you feel like when you have a stiff neck?
Immobilized?
In pain?
Unable to relax?
Focused in one direction?
Unable to see other sides?
Impatient?
"Stiff-necked" is how Moses describes God's chosen people. They are stubborn, stuck, impatient and unable to see things from another point of view.
Could be that sometimes we are like this with the Lord, or with family or friends or neighbors or co-workers.
Could be we need the Lord who is merciful, gracious, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity to massage the stiffness from our necks, our hearts, our minds and our will...
Could be we need the Lord to make our stiffness soft and supple in his hands that we might be formed again as the people he made us to be.
Could be...
-ConcordPastor
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Mystery: the Lover, the Beloved and the Love... Homily for Trinity Sunday
Image by Trinity Fellowship Church
Homily for Trinity Sunday
Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
John 3:16-18
Trinity Sunday:
three persons in one God:
not three Gods, just one,
but all three persons (Father, Son and Spirit)
equally the one God.
How does that work?
What does it mean?
I don’t know!
So on Trinity Sunday I can’t explain the Trinity for you.
And that may be a good thing…
One of the beautiful realities of our humanity
is our capacity to live in mystery,
to live with mystery:
to trust what we don’t understand, what we cannot see,
what is yet to be.
The Trinity is a mystery – and that’s not to beg the question:
that’s simply to say something that is true.
Can we, will we consider the mystery of the Trinity?
Our culture and the knowledge explosion in which we live
tug us way from such a consideration.
We tend to want to analyze everything
and it’s possible that our desire to have everything explained
may drain the wonder and mystery out of our lives.
Technology, of its nature, is suspect of mystery,
understanding it as a puzzle to be figured out,
a problem to be solved, a proposition to be defined.
But there is something about the human heart and experience
that resists and defies solution,
and that something -- mystery -- is honest, real, true and beautiful.
Anyone who has ever loved, has ever been in loved,
or wanted to be in love, knows this is true.
Some of the most satisfying experiences in life are mysterious
and it is precisely their mystery that we treasure.
Would faith in another human being be faith
if everything to be known about the other was known?
Faith in others, faith in God, includes the mystery of believing
not only in what is known but also in what is not know.
Last week’s scripture reminded us that we do not hope for what we see,
but rather we hope for what we do not yet see,
we hope in the mystery of what is promised, what is yet to come.
Would love be love if it could be reduced to some logic?
Is it not the mystery of how lover and beloved
meet, become one, grow and sustain each other
that makes love the ultimate experience that it is?
Yes, I deepen my intimacy with my beloved
by growing in my understanding
but even more so by surrendering, losing myself to the mystery
of what I do not know in the other or in our relationship.
If we embrace mystery
we have access to the divine;
embrace mystery
and the possibility of union with the beloved is ours;
embrace mystery
and faith becomes substance,
hope becomes reality,
and trust becomes a way of life.
Take mystery away - and we are little more than robots.
Mystery is the romance of human experience;
it is the hoped for joy that lifts us out of our grief;
it is the longed for healing that helps us survive our pain;
it is the desired reconciliation that leads us to forgive
the one who offends us.
Mystery is the heart of friendship and the soul of marriage;
it is the path to the divine and the doorway to eternity.
Mystery is God, our triune God, alive:
in our bodies, our arms’ embrace, our desires, our minds,
our hearts, our imagination and our relationships.
If we discount mystery in our lives,
accepting only what quantifiable knowledge explains for us,
we reject the heart of what it means to be human.
And if we reject what is truly human in us and in our experience,
we reject God in whose divine image we are created.
On Trinity Sunday, rather than try to solve the Three-In-One puzzle,
we might simply ask how open we are to mystery:
the mystery of who God is;
the mystery of why God created us to begin with;
the mystery of God loving us, desiring to be part of our lives,
to live in our hearts; to be one with us;
the mystery of God inviting us to share in the life
of the Trinity: Father, Son and Spirit;
the mystery of a God who cares for us like a loving parent,
who lays down his life for us like a best friend,
who fills our hearts like a lover who will not be refused.
We are about to approach the table of mystery
where the three persons in our one God invite us to sup with them.
Here we offer praise and thanks to the Father,
in the power of the Holy Spirit
through Christ, the Lord.
Here the very life of God becomes our food,
the bread and cup of God’s presence among us.
I cannot explain the mystery of the Eucharist
any more than I can explain the mystery of the Trinity.
I can only invite you to welcome the mystery, to lose yourselves in it,
and allow the mystery to envelop and embrace you.
-ConcordPastor
Catch anything?
Photo by Joanne Rathe, Boston Globe
I've read Kevin Dupont's very fine piece from the sports pages in last Sunday's Boston Globe four or five times. If you haven't seen it, treat yourself!
You don't have to love fishing to understand this story but it helps if you had a childhood and still hold some memories from back in the day...
CARLISLE - The fish weren't biting Wednesday, but that was OK. Had I returned here to the side of the Concord River Thursday or Friday, or even this morning, I suspect the outcome would have been the same. I learned long ago that fishing is rarely about the catch, even before I learned - after a great deal more angst and too many drowned balls to count - that golf is rarely about the score.
For the record, I am not an angler, which is no big deal, one way or another, except maybe to all the fish in the deep blue sea, or those that inhabit all of New England's lakes, kettles, and streams. Once was the time, as a kid in the early 1960s, when fishing held a real fascination for me, a time when I fantasized about having a tackle box stocked with tantalizing lures and fancy, vibrant flies.
One day, I dreamed, I would own a boat with a little motor hanging off the back, and zip up and down the river, hauling in live, weighty treasures from all the secret, teeming spots.
Where were the secret spots? I had no idea, but I knew they had to be there, because I read about them, over and over, in outdoor magazines. These were the same pages that carried advertisements for the most incredible fishing paraphernalia, such as sonar equipment, flashlights, "professional" lures, night-vision glasses, and magical bait and hooks.
Buy this bit of bait, and prepare yourself, because there isn't a 10-pound bass IN THE WORLD THAT CAN RESIST IT! Or so the ad said. Something like that.
So there I was on Wednesday morning, the nicest day of 2008 thus far, standing in a rear aisle of the Kmart in Acton, wondering how to get back in the fishing game. What rod to buy? What reel? What thickness of line? And service in America being what it is, whom to ask? A stockboy flashed by, but he disappeared before I could react, which, as things turned out, became a metaphor for my entire day of fishing.
"Ugly Stik." There it was, just for me, hanging amid the many columns of fishing rods soldiered up along the display gondola. If there was any doubt, the "Ugly Stik" is marketed by Shakespeare (ah, for who knew The Bard held a sportsman's soul so near his writer's heart?). What writer could resist? The Kmart receipt referred to it as a "spin combo."
The Shakespeare "Ugly Stik" spin combo has everything a beginner - or aging Boomer outdoors returnee - could want. A 5-foot rod. A spinning reel. A whole bunch of hooks, lures, bobbers, and metal line weights. All right there, a fishing kit, to go.
Tax included, I was out the door for $22.67. Well, almost out the door. The cashier, a young woman who must really like fishing - how else to explain that tiny ball that looked like a line weight pierced directly under her lower lip? - called me back. So intent on getting to the river, I had left my "Ugly Stik" at the register.
"Nice catch, thanks," I said, uncertain whether she understood the pun.
The visit to Concord Town Hall, to purchase a fishing license, went much quicker and was only slightly more expensive at $28.50. The clerk wrote me up in a little more than five minutes, after I provided my driver's license, place of birth, and height and weight.
"Are you a US citizen?" she asked.
After saying yes, I asked if that mattered.
"No," she said, placing her "x" through "YES" next to "US Citizen" on the license application. "But we have to ask."
And if I had said no?
"You'd still get the license," she said. "It's just part of applying."
Homeland Security must not be overly concerned with what's going on down by the river.
Once at the river, I returned to the exact spot where I fished as a kid in the early 1960s, to a well-trodden bank on the Carlisle side, directly across the water from the Bedford boat launch. The river was higher than I remembered, because of recent rains that thankfully have lifted the water table throughout Middlesex County and much of the Northeast.
But beyond having to stand slightly higher on the bank, it looked and felt and smelled precisely as I remembered it from decades before, when, as a grade schooler, I would while away the afternoon, casting and hoping, only occasionally reeling in a sunfish or catfish.
In those days, it was about the catch, even if the catch was never more than modest. It was about the tugs on the line, the big catch that almost was, the endless changing of hooks and lures and bait. It was also about the confounding snags, the voracious mosquitoes, and the annoying powerboats that would speed north or south, their drivers delighting in the size of the wake they could send shore's way.
My river redux, under blue sky and temperatures in the low 70s, had much of that. But not all. Be it the water too cold, the feeding times not right, or the spot simply "fished out," I did not get so much as a nibble.
I fished on the Carlisle side. Shut out. I walked over to the nearby bridge, which connects Bedford to Carlisle, and fished off there. Nothing doing. I wandered over to the Bedford boat launch, where boaters during the day set off in canoes, kayaks, and outboards. A few dozen more casts brought nothing home.
A few steps from the boat launch, a few of Henry David Thoreau's words were inscribed on an information board.
"The river is an enchanter's wand," wrote Thoreau, "ready to surprise you with life."
The river on my day brought a gangly blue heron, a pair of vibrant cardinals, a bunch of geese, a pair of frolicking and quacking ducks, blue jays, robins, sparrows, and one small snapping turtle. It brought a light breeze, redolent and sweet with spring air, barely strong enough to bother my endless casts, only one of which got so tangled up that I had to cut it off and repeat the entire dressing process.
But, ah, progress. What took me 20 minutes the first time around, in part because I had trouble threading line through hook, took me less than half that the second time.
Most of all, the river brought me back, to a time when my cares were few and easy to fulfill, catch or no catch. Today is Mother's Day, and when I was a kid, it was my mother who would drive me here to the side of the river, and then wait patiently, usually with a book in hand, until I unloaded my fishing gear and got set up for a day. It was my little piece of heaven, and I returned on Wednesday.
"You could do that then, leave an 8-, 10-, or 12-year-old there for the day and think nothing of it . . . you'd be perfectly fine," she reminded me last week when I told her I was going back to the river. "Not in today's world . . . sad, that."
My son is in that age group now, and his life is full of far more things than I ever dreamed of at that age, in part the reason he never has fished.
He is playing both lacrosse and baseball this spring. He plays guitar and altar serves. He just finished a school play and has a special field trip planned to perform with the school's treble chorus. He'll play some golf and tennis this summer (provided the lacrosse equipment hasn't drained the family sports fund).
Wherever he goes, he will have adult supervision, and call me a helicopter parent, but I wouldn't think for a second to take him down to the river, even in this sleepy rural suburb, and leave him there for the day. It may all look the same, but I know it's really not.
I will be back to fish at the river, soon, and my boy is coming, too.
"Catch anything?" he asked immediately when I came home Wednesday night.
"Not a thing," I told him. "But you know, it didn't matter."
If nothing else, I hope someday he catches that.
- Kevin Paul Dupont in The Sunday Boston Globe
May 11, 2008 (dupont@globe.com)
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Claimed, branded, marked!
Image by bmeink.com
This Sunday we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. The Trinity may seem something remote, "out there" or "up there" -- somewhere over the rainbow!
But the truth for Christians is that each of us is baptized "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." In baptism we are claimed for Christ by the Church: we are branded, marked, indelibly tattooed with the triune life of God which we know in the persons of Father, Son and Spirit (in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti).
Baptism marks us daughters and sons of God, sisters and brothers of Christ, drawn by the Spirit to worship the Father of us all.
On this Trinity Sunday may God bless us all: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!
Want to take a look at this Sunday's scriptures? Be my guest!
-ConcordPastor
Friday, May 16, 2008
Trinity Sunday just ahead!
There are many symbols of the trinity in Christianity. The Triquetra is a three-part interlocking fish symbol that symbolizes the Christian trinity. The word "trinity" comes from the Latin noun "trinitas" meaning "three are one." The trinity represents the belief that God is one Being made up of three distinct Persons who exist in co-equal, co-eternal communion as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Here's some verse from a Catholic poet known for his strong orthodoxy. While not a theological exposition, there's a simple, homely theology at work here. Delight in this and enjoy!
A Trinity
Of three in One and One in three
My narrow mind would doubting be
Till Beauty, Grace and Kindness met
And all at once were Juliet.
- Hilaire Belloc
-ConcordPastor
That stain, again!
On a rotating basis, the clergy of Concord contribute articles to the town's weekly, The Concord Journal. As my entry this week I revised a post from my blog which appeared here in September 2007. Since this is a revision and many readers have joined us long since last September, I offer it again.
My SiteMeter reports tell me when readers are referred here from Google searches and the reports also indicate the search words. One of the most frequent ways that new readers land here is when their searches include the words "ink, spot, shirt." I know they're looking for helpful hints on getting those pesky spots out of their pockets. What they find here, however, is acceptance of the stain and a reflection on that...
Out, damned spot! Out, I say!
So, this is the point I've reached in my life.
Getting ready to go out to eat, I put on a fresh shirt and as I buttoned it I noticed an ink stain in the corner of the pocket. It was smaller than the size of a dime - but there it was. The shirt was fresh from the cleaners so I knew this stain had staying power. It might eventually fade some but its shadow world likely survive.
I immediately unbuttoned the shirt and took it off but as I did I realized how much of that shirt was in good shape: both arms, the starched collar, cuffs, most of the front and all of the back - and there wasn’t a button missing on this button-down shirt. In fact, 99.5% of this garment was in great shape. There was just that little stain...
I’d heard once that when wearing such a shirt it’s best to keep a pen in your pocket because folks like to be helpful and point out that you have a leaky pen. It seems that a leaky pen is a forgivable offense and more acceptable than the resulting stained pocket.
After a few moments of deliberation and after wishing that the ink blotch could have been in the shirt’s armpit, I decided the shirt was worthy of wear and put it back on.
And I went out to eat. And I had a nice meal. And I came home without ever having given a second thought to that stain. Nor did any of my dinner companions mention it.
There was a time when I would have thrown that shirt away on the spot, without a second thought. So, this is the point I have reached in my life: I can wear a shirt with an ink-stained pocket and not worry about it.
It's a good thing to have arrived in this place. I’m glad to be here.
I might even wear that shirt with the black pants I had on when I slipped in church and slid on my knee across the hardwood floor, "burning" a quarter size sheen into the material. I've been wearing those pants for a while so I guess advancing to the level of the stained shirt pocket was inevitable.
Why is it that we think of a small stain on an otherwise fine piece of clothing as a reason not to wear that garment anymore - even as a reason to discard it? Why are we so impatient with such a small imperfection in an otherwise fine shirt or pair of pants, a dress or blouse, a skirt or tie?
Then again, we're sometimes like that with each other, aren't we? The smallest imperfections in others may blind us to the worth of the whole person, our eye constantly drawn to the stain, the fault, the quirk - as if that's all there was to be known. In the worst of situations, we may even discard a person from our social wardrobe as if throwing away a stained blouse.
It was Thoreau who wrote, “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” Truth be told, we often buy new clothes because the old ones have a stain or a small tear that might be sewn. We are part of a culture whose castoff clothing would be haute couture for most of the world’s people. While folding my laundry a few days ago I wondered if it might be sinful to be so careful about folding my T-shirts when the morning paper was reporting on Myanmar. Thoreau’s words deserve more than a cursory glance.
Still, I’m pleased to have come to a point where I can wear my shirt with the stained pocket and my pants with the shiny spot. Perhaps I'll find myself worrying less about what’s on the outside and more about what’s on the inside. I hope so. Perhaps I’ll focus less on the imperfections of others. I hope so. Perhaps I’ll find a way to help clothe the survivors of the disaster in Burma. I hope so.
Perhaps these old clothes will make more of a man of me. Then, in my imperfect shirt and floor-burned pants, I might find myself dressed for real success.
I hope so.
- The Concord Journal, May 15, 2008
-ConcordPastor
Thursday, May 15, 2008
A prayer...
Just a few weeks ago a number of children from our town went on a trip to China through a school program - a wonderful opportunity!
One the moms whose child took the trip has been praying for the families and children whose lives have been ended or thrown into chaos by the earthquake there. And of course a mother wonders and worries about how close her own child came to disaster's doorstep. This mom asked me about how she might pray at this time and so I wrote this for her.
I hope others will find it helpful as well: perhaps you will pray these words with your family at dinner tonight...
Dear God,
Our lives are your gift to us,
as fragile and they are strong.
From day to day, with all our care and vigilance,
we still do not know what might befall us.
We pray for those around the world
whose daily lives are so much more tenuous than our own -
especially for the poor and the homeless.
We pray that you will send your Holy Spirit
to draw us, the strong and stable in the global village,
to offer and use everything at our disposal
to reach out and serve those in need, in dire need,
in daily, dire need.
We thank you for the prosperity and safety that are ours
and ask you to never let us take these for granted.
Give us generous hearts:
we have so much more than we need.
Help us to remember that all good gifts come from you
and are "on loan" to us to share with others.
Make us as watchful for the needs of those far away
as we are for those who live under our own roofs,
in our parish and town and in our nation.
Make us grateful for all we have,
especially for our families and friends.
May our thanksgiving never cease to flow from our hearts.
May our praise become the deeds of caring for others.
We pray in the name of Jesus
who is Lord for ever and ever.
Amen.
-ConcordPastor
Commencement: a beginning, not an end...
Graduation at Concord-Carlisle High School
It's the season for high school and college graduations: rites of passage for our young people. There have been articles in the press recently noting how fewer and fewer politicians are being invited to give commencement talks because of tension between Catholic institutions and policies in law that some Catholic office holders support. Here and there a Catholic bishop has announced that legislators in his diocese who support pro-choice policies are not welcome to receive Communion.
While the Church teaches that to receive Communion we should be in communion with gospel values, it rarely draws the line in the sand as clearly as these bishops have. Most bishops work to persuade their people and individual politicians of the critical importance of such teachings but do not issue ultimatums.
Many people, for any number of reasons, experience the Church as an institution whose doors have been closed shut on them. I believe that leaving the doors ajar so all are free to come and go will best serve the teaching Church, the gospel's values and God's people - especially in times as difficult and complicated as our own.
Graduation can be a difficult and complicated time for young people - in spite of its being a day to celebrate accomplishment with great joy. This coming weekend we'll take a few moments at one of our Sunday liturgies to pray over the high school students who are graduating in a few weeks. We'll give them a copy of Thomas Merton's beautiful prayer, My Lord God, I have no idea of where I'm going... which I adapted in a homily a few weeks ago.
Perhaps you have high school or college graduates you're praying for. A few days ago I came across this poem by William Stafford. I offer it here for you to read as you pray for graduates in your families and parishes.
For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid
There is a country to cross you will
find in the corner of your eye, in
the quick slip of your foot -- air far
down, a snap that might have caught.
And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing
voice that finds its way by being
afraid. That country is there, for us,
carried as it is crossed. What you fear
will not go a way; it will take you into
yourself and bless you and keep you.
That's the world, and we all live there.
-William Stafford in The Way It Is
-ConcordPastor
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Word for the Weekend
In some places, Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day but in this corner of the blogosophere Wednesday is Word for the Weekend Day!
As I noted in a post below, the Sunday after Penecost each year is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. The St. Louis University liturgy site offers you the scripture texts and background materials.
Got kids? Check this site to help your children prepare for Mass this weekend.
So, after your spaghetti dinner this evening, I hope you'll sit down and begin to prepare for the Supper we'll be sharing this weekend at the Lord's table.
-ConcordPastor
Of bites, a banner, bugles and beauty
Yesterday morning I got my first mosquito bite of the year. May 13 is MUCH too early for mosquito bites but I'm not sure where one registers such a complaint. (Well, actually, I do know - but I've been complaining to the Creator about mosquitoes for years with no results!) I was at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery here in Concord as I presided at a committal service following a funeral Mass. It's unnerving, while you're praying aloud with 50 mourners watching you, to spot a mosquito biting your right hand which is holding the funeral ritual book. Decorum on my part meant lunch for Ms. Mosquito (only female mosquitoes bite).
But that's not the most important part of what I wanted to share with you about yesterday morning's cemetery service.
I was praying at the grave of a man who for years had served the Catholic community in Concord as a lector, a minister of the Eucharist, a choir member and a cantor for hundreds of funerals. Bernie served his nation, too, and was a veteran of WWII. For this retired Army reserves major two soldiers were present to play Taps and to fold and present the flag to the family.
Not for the first time was I struck by the solemn care and dignified gestures with which representatives of the military handle the star spangled banner. This ritual, carried out in silence, included the two soldiers approaching the casket, removing the flag, straightening and carefully folding it to a compact triangle and then bearing it to the family and presenting it to them, breaking the silence with the words: On behalf of the President of the United States and the people of a grateful nation, may I present this flag as a token of appreciation for the honorable and faithful service your loved one rendered this nation.
This ceremony never fails to rivet the attention of those present. This is due in part to whatever level of patriotism rests in our hearts but what holds our attention is how the ritual gestures embody and speak with such depth. It is eminently clear that these soldiers hold the flag as sacred and dear - indeed, a symbol for which they have pledged to give their lives. The ritual here does not fail to engage us.
Unfortunately, the hour of liturgical ritual which generally precedes this patriotic rite often pales in comparison. The military men and women assigned to cemetery duties perform this rite at least as often, if not more, than the typical parish priest celebrates funerals. Sadly, our funeral rites often fail to engage their participants as solidly as the flag folding at the cemetery.
The military rite is solemn, paced, deliberate, sensitive, evocative and compelling. By contrast, the funeral liturgy is, too often, casual, alternately hurried and drawn out, off the cuff, inattentive to those present, dull and and stifling. We priests would do well to study the military moment at the grave -and its impact on those present- and look at our own work in light of that.
I can't end this commentary, however, without noting something disappointing in the way the armed services now honor their dead. If you have been to such funerals and have thought that buglers are improving their performance skills, I have sad news to break for you...
For some years, when a bugler was not available, the military reps were bringing portable boom boxes which they would place ahead of time at a distance from the grave and mourners, often behind another headstone, and on which Taps would be played at the appropriate moment (just before the folding and presentation of the flag). The ruse worked unless mourners looked around