Resurrection: A Poem by Jennifer

Our parish is blessed to have many people who want to deepen their lives of faith through the study of God’s Word revealed in Sacred Scripture. We now have over 130 parishioners participating in our parish’s Bible Study. To accommodate so many people we offer three weekly sessions. As the usual facilitator, I occasionally cannot attend a particular session and must call on one of our parishioners to fill in for me. Most often I turn to Jennifer Smart, who kindly and ably takes the reins and actually does a far better job than yours truly. A lifelong student of the Bible and ancient history, Jennifer has also spent a considerable amount of time in both Egypt and Israel and brings to our sessions valuable first-hand knowledge of the Middle East and its people.

Jennifer is also a poet who some years ago wrote the following poem, Resurrection, which she recently shared with our Bible Study participants. It seems fitting to include it here as we begin Holy Week. I trust you will enjoy reading and meditating on these verses:

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                    Resurrection 

 “He is not here, but know that He is risen,”

The gathered mourners heard the angel say;

We marvel how this deathless gift was given

To those who witnessed that first Easter Day.

The rock that sealed Christ’s chamber seemed a portal

To darkness shrouding hopelessness and strife;

Instead it was a door to God Immortal

And passageway to everlasting life.

We join in Easter fellowship with others

To share the angel’s words the world has known;

Whenever we reach out to one another,

We link our hands and roll away the stone. 

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Thank you, Jennifer; and a blessed and fruitful Holy Week to all.

Homily: 5th Sunday of Lent (Year B)

Readings: Jer 31:31-34; Ps 51; Heb 5:7-9; Jn 12: 20-33

When I was a kid in suburban New York, during the spring and summer months, my mom would sometimes ask me to help her weed her gardens. I always grumbled because she usually called me away from really important stuff, like playing stickball…but I obeyed. If you don’t know what stickball is, just ask someone who grew up in New York.

Anyway, Mom had two gardens, a small vegetable garden in the backyard and a rose garden out front. I’d usually end up in the rose garden, getting attacked by the thorns. I refused to wear the gloves she’d given me because they were pink girly gloves with flowers all over them. Out in the front yard, I couldn’t risk being seen. Some things are more important than pain and suffering.

Mom had names for her two gardens: Eden and Gethsemane. One day I asked, “Why those names?”

“The Garden of Eden,” she said, “far more than our little vegetable garden, was filled with wonderful things to eat, all kinds of fruit and vegetables that God provided for Adam and Eve. It was a very nice place. 

"But our beautiful rose garden, as you’ve discovered, can also be a painful place. I’m sure the Garden of Gethsemane was beautiful with its ancient olive trees, but for Jesus it became a place of deep suffering.”

“Perhaps tonight,” she said, “after supper, we can read about these two gardens in the Bible” – Mom’s way of opening the Scriptures to us.

Thorns Protect the Rose

This memory of long ago came to mind as I read the readings with which the Church blessed us today.

First, we heard the prophet Jeremiah, as he revealed the purpose of all that had come before, the fulfillment of the promises, the covenants God made with Abraham, Moses, and David. All will be fulfilled, Jeremiah tells God’s People, through a New eternal Covenant, very different from the Old. The Holy Spirit revealed to the prophet that God will pour His Law into His People and write it on their hearts. “All will know me,” says the Lord, ”from the least to the greatest.” This is the New Covenant fulfilled by Jesus, the eternal High Priest, the Son of God who offers Himself in sacrifice for the salvation of all, the salvation of everyone, from the least to the greatest.

Moments from now, Father will take the chalice in his hands and proclaim the words of consecration, Jesus’ words at the Last Supper:

“For this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the New and Eternal Covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

Did you catch all that? The New Covenant is sealed in the Blood of the Son, the Blood of the Lamb of God, Blood poured out for us. Why?

“I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.” We are redeemed.

As Mom explained to me, “It began in Eden, in that garden filled with good things. But sin brought it all to an end, which led to more sin, to illness and pain and suffering, and to death itself.”

Those weren’t very happy words to throw at a ten-year-old kid, but Mom always spoke the truth to us. Then, pointing to the crucifix, she said: “God made a promise. Jesus, who is God Himself, died for us on that Cross, so we might be forgiven of all of sins, and live forever with Him in heaven.”

Well, pretty good catechesis. It hit the high points and heaven sounded better than suffering and death. So, I asked, “What about the rose garden?” Her answer?

“Jesus spent the night before He died in the Garden of Gethsemane to prepare Himself for the Cross. He saw all the bad things people had done…so hard for Him that His sweat became like drops of blood. And those band-aids on your hands are just a tiny sign of what Jesus suffered for you and me.” Then like every Catholic mother in those days said to her kids when they companied, “Offer it up!”

Olive Tree in Gethsemane

In John’s Gospel, speaking to Andrew and Philip, Jesus looks to His Passion, and His humanity is there in His words:

“I am troubled now. Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”

…and again, we’re reminded of this in today’s 2^nd reading from Hebrews:

“…He offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save Him from death.”

Yes, Jesus knew He would have to suffer. But it’s also in Hebrews where our unknown author makes an astounding theological claim:

“God made His Son perfect through suffering”

We ask ourselves, “How could God’s Son need to be made perfect? And why through suffering?” But that’s not all. Hebrews goes on to tell us, “He learned obedience from what He suffered.”

What does it all mean? For Jesus to be made perfect doesn’t mean He was ever morally flawed. No, He freely chose to take on human nature in its fallen state, with its weaknesses, pain, and death; and through His suffering to perfect His human nature in holiness. In the Garden and during His Passion, Jesus allowed the evil of the world to pour over Him, and out of this to create the most perfect act of love, trust, and obedience to God that could ever come from a human heart. It was in this furnace of suffering that His human nature was refined to perfection, transformed for His entrance into divine glory through His Resurrection.

To make us holy, Jesus had to become one with us. As St. Paul reminds us, our salvation comes from God, Who lowered Himself to share our very being, in all but sin. Jesus, then, Son of God and Son of Man, is not ashamed to call us His sisters and brothers. Indeed, He’s overjoyed, for He became one of us in the most radical way: He became our blood relative.

All of this sets a pretty high standard for you and me. How did He put it in the Sermon on the Mount?

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” [Mt 5:48]

Again, what does it all mean for us? Let’s look first at ourselves, then turn again to the Gospel.

Here we are, most of us retired, living comfortable lives in central Florida. From a global perspective, materially, we’re probably in the top 10%. And for those of you still working, thank you. Thank you for funding our social security.

Yes, indeed, we have lives worth living, don’t we? But are they lives worth loving? 

Jesus speaks:

“Those who love their life lose it, those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

For Jesus, loving earthly life means placing it above all else. To hate our life in this world just means it must never outweigh our striving for eternal life. Yes, unless the grain of wheat dies, it cannot bear fruit. Can we die to this life? Can we, too, accept our suffering, the thorns in our lives, that lead to the perfection God desires of us.

How many today make the pleasures, comforts, wealth of their earthly lives ends in themselves? Indeed, we live in a world that preaches the denial of mortality, that offers a thousand ways to ease physical or mental pain, that promises youth even to the oldest among us, yet leaves us spiritually dead.

Some weeks ago, while visiting a parishioner in the hospital, I had a brief chat with the patient who shared his room. His first words to me: “My wife died years ago, but now because of my heart, I can’t play golf anymore. It’s made my Ife no longer worth living.”

How very sad that nothing in his life was more important. Yes, “those who love their life lose it.”

What, then, is more important than our life in this world? Jesus provides the answer:

Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

Yes, our confession of faith is necessary, but also insufficient. We must live our faith. We must serve.

Perhaps this should be our focus during these final days of Lent.

I can’t tell you how God is calling each of you to serve. His call, what He expects of us, is the fruit of our own prayer life, our willingness to listen to God’s Word as He speaks to us. God calls some, like the rich young man in the Gospel, to sell everything, and give it all to the poor. And yet, He doesn’t ask that of everyone. But to all of us, God commands: “Follow me and serve!” Get you hands dirty, brothers and sisters…

Feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, visit the sick and imprisoned…and inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

All of us aren’t called to be global missionaries, but how many lonely, despairing people in your neighborhood live forgotten lives? Do you know?

How many, like the Greeks who came to Philip, would like to see Jesus, to see Jesus in their lives, to hear His Word, to taste His goodness?

How many are waiting…waiting for you or for me or for someone else to share God’s love with them?

How many?

 

Life in The Villages

Here in The Villages Diane and I live in a neighborhood brought into being 20 years ago. We and many of our neighbors have lived here from the start. Some of our original neighbors have died, or moved away, or entered some form of assisted living. Other slightly younger folks have bought their homes and changed the neighborhood demographics somewhat. But time marches on, so the change is hardly noticeable. Just do the math and you'll realize we're an aged bunch. 

Because we’ve lived in this neighborhood for so many years, most of us tend to watch out for each other. After all, as Dear Diane and I often remind ourselves, “We’re just a bunch of geezers and geezettes, who sometimes need a little help.” Too often the help we provide, or try to provide, progresses in strange and circuitous ways. In many respects I’m probably the least helpful neighbor. My excuse? I’m just not at home very much. Ministries in our parish keep me on the move and too often away from home. Perhaps I should learn to focus more on that which is near to me. I’m trying to work on that, as I come to the understanding that others can do all that I do, and likely do it better. But enough self-analysis. Let me offer an example of neighbors helping neighbors by relating a series of events that took place a not long ago. 

One Saturday evening I had returned home from the 4 pm vigil Mass when I received a detailed text from a neighbor. She informed me an ambulance had arrived at another neighbor’s home, and soon after the EMTs placed someone in the ambulance and left, presumably headed for the hospital. She couldn’t identify whether the “patient” was a man or a woman. I had some questions, so she suggested I call the couple’s immediate neighbor who had been directly involved. So I called the other neighbor, who provided more detail. Apparently, unknown to me, the wife, suffering from pneumonia, had been admitted to the hospital the day before. On Saturday afternoon she’d tried to call her husband to ask if he would bring a few needed items to the hospital, but he hadn’t answered the phone. Understandably concerned, she called her immediate neighbor. That couple went next door and found the husband disoriented and unable to walk even a few steps. They called for an ambulance which ultimately took him to the hospital. 

Two problems arose. First, when she called the hospital, the immediate neighbor could get no information on the man’s condition — standard hospital protocol. They were told only that he was in the ER. Second, the hospitalized couple have a dog. The immediate neighbors fed the dog, took him out for a few minutes, then returned him to his own home. Later, at about 9 p.m., they discover the husband had definitely been admitted. So they called me and asked the big question: What to do with the dog? They were in the process of training their own new puppy, so really couldn’t introduce another dog into their home. No problem. Because Diane and I love dogs, we volunteered to take temporary custody of Scout, a little Shih Tzu. Scout knew and trusted us, had been a pal of our dear, late Maddie, and had been in our house several times. So I went to Scout’s home, let myself in, gathered some dogfood and a few other items, then took the little critter back to our home.

As it turned out, Scout’s owners each spent about a week in the hospital, then several more weeks at a local rehab facility. Throughout it all Scout adjusted well, slept on our bed, and accompanied me on my daily walks. He and I established a routine that worked well for both of us. It seems, however, he got rather attached to me. According to Diane, whenever I left the house, Scout would sit by the door until I returned. She, of course, was the one who fed him, so perhaps his loyalty was more than a little displaced. I just think he’s one of those “guy dogs.” I tell you all this so you won’t think Diane and I were inconvenienced. We weren’t, not the slightest. It was a joy. We had recently lost our little Maddie, and Scout’s “parents” were friends, so we were the logical candidates to care for Scout. All went well. Many other neighbors contributed in a variety of helpful and far more meaningful ways. Scout is now back home with his “mom and dad,” who are recovering well.

Since these events, just a month or so ago, several similar situations have arisen in the neighborhood. In each instance different neighbors have stepped in and cared for those in need. Some even took ill neighbors into their homes and provided temporary care. Christians and Jews, these good people live their faith and instinctively help others whenever needed. 

And yet, the neighborhood isn’t perfect, because all of us who live here are imperfect as well. Sadly, you and I are too often ready to focus of others’ imperfections or criticize them over petty issues. Perhaps we should look in the mirror and remove the beam from our own eye. Yes, we know our neighbors, or think we do. We hear the stories (the neighborhood gossip) and too often spread it around a bit. But at some point we must accept that no one, at that includes you and me, is perfect. We’re all sinners. But most of these imperfections we carry around with us are not horrible things; they’re just human things. And as we see in the Gospel, Jesus is remarkably tolerant toward them. He forgives, he loves, just as we must forgive and love.

God likes to keep things simple, while we’re the ones who complicate everything. God told us to do two things, and if we do them, all else just falls in line: Love the Lord, your God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself. If we all did that, just imagine the kind of world we’d have. And even though we live in a sinful world, we are blessed with an occasional glimpse of God’s love right here in our neighborhoods as we witness neighbor helping neighbor. 

Love your neighbor, sisters and brothers — love your neighbor as you love yourself. Perhaps that’s the problem today. Too many people don’t love themselves, so they can hardly love another. And if you don’t love yourself, just remember, God knows everything about you, and yet He loves you more deeply than you could ever imagine. Once you understand and accept this, and learn to love yourself, loving others becomes much easier. 

Homily: Tuesday, 3rd Week of Lent (Cycle II)

Readings: Dan 3:25,34-43; Ps 25; Mt 18:21-35

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Years ago, when I was working at Providence College, an aged Dominican – he must have been at least 70 – gave me a copy of a prayer written by Venerable Charles de Foucauld. At the time, he had not yet been beatified, and I had never heard of him. Today, years later, Charles is a canonized Saint, having been beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 and canonized by Pope Francis in 2022.

St. Charles de Foucauld

This remarkable man lived an even more remarkable life. Charles had been a playboy, an Army officer, an explorer, and a Trappist monk. But for the last 10 years of his life, he lived as a hermit among the Tauregs, a Muslim tribe in North Africa. He made no converts, and in 1916, in the midst of World War One, he was shot dead, assassinated in his hermitage by a fierce group of marauders who were also fighting the British and French. His life didn't really bear fruit until after his death. As Jesus told Philip and Andrew, "...unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit." [Jn 12:24]

The prayer I was given by that kind Dominican is a prayer of abandonment. It’s rather brief, something I guess you’d expect of such a prayer. Here's the complete text:

Father, I abandon myself into Your hands. Do with me what You will. Whatever You may do, I thank You. I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only Your will be done in me and in all Your creatures. I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into Your hands I commend my soul; I offer it to You with all the love of my heart; for, I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into Your hands without reserve and with boundless confidence. 

For You are my Father. Amen.

For years now, I’ve tried to pray these words every morning, except when I'm in too great a hurry, or simply a bit lazy. When I first read it, I realized this kind of selfless faith was, and remains, very difficult for me.

Interestingly, that Dominican gave it to me on Tuesday of the 3^rd week of Lent. I know this because at Mass in the college chapel that day I heard the same reading from Daniel that Patrick just proclaimed here today.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego -- don't you just love those wonderful names? You know, after we were married, I suggested to Diane, "You now, if we had triplets..." Well, that went nowhere.

Anyway, all three were willing to die very painful deaths rather than worship the false gods of King Nebuchadnezzar. But before they were tossed into that blazing furnace, Azariah, as Abednego was called in Hebrew, led them in prayer. This, too, was a prayer of sheer abandonment. He then repeated its essence in a statement to the king himself.

Although speaking to the king, Azariah and his companions reveal their decision to abandon themselves to God’s will. They accept life or death, whatever fulfills God’s plan.

If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.

King Nebuchadnezzar, like so many who wield worldly power, disliked being challenged, and had all three tossed into the furnace. But unlike St. Charles, God granted them life.

Perhaps such total abandonment, the offering of our lives in the face of imminent death, isn’t something you or I will ever be called to do. And yet, when we consider the direction our world is headed today, who knows? But real abandonment to God isn't reserved for martyrs. It's something we must all strive for, something that involves much of our everyday lives. 

We see an example in today’s Gospel passage, when Peter questions Our Lord about forgiveness. At this point in his own formation as a disciple, Peter is not concerned about abandonment to God’s will. No, he’s looking for a formula: “How much do I have to forgive? How long must I do things God’s way, before I can do it my way?"

Jesus’ parable provides the perfect answer, doesn’t it? He tells Peter and us that we must forgive as God forgives. Salvation is God’s business, but forgiveness, in imitation of God, is something we are called to do always.

Just consider how we commit ourselves to this In the Lord’s Prayer: 

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

What a courageous thing to ask of God! Do we really mean it? Every time we pray those words, do we actually think about all that unforgiveness in our lives, just waiting for us?

Forgiveness, of course, is more than words; it also strives to restore that which separates us from each other. Our concerns, our hopes, should not be focused solely on ourselves, but on the good of the other person. Forgiveness is really the most human, the most intimate form of evangelization, a way we can help God lead others to Himself.

Yes, it can be frustrating on that human level when the others remain unrepentant. But you and I don’t save people. We are simply God’s instruments who are sometimes called to open the door so He can step in.

Once again, salvation is God’s business. And the actual healing often takes place long after you and I have done our little bit, have opened the window just a crack, so God’s Holy Spirit can rush in and do His work in the hearts and minds of those He places in our lives.