Monthly Archives: September 2024

Reflecting on James 5: 1-6

One of the hardest things to do in this ridiculous political climate is to actually listen to the opposing party with as open a mind as you can muster. I admit there have been a few moments in the debates when I thought the other side made a good point. I don’t dare say that out loud, though, for fear I’ll be torn to pieces by those who know better, who don’t tolerate fools, who hold the key to my acceptance into the cool club.

Isn’t that terrible, that even at this stage in my life, I can’t say out loud that I think the Spirit might be working in someone other than The Good Guys? But Eldad and Medad offer the Old Testament example—and there are many, come to think of it—of the Spirit flowing from two who weren’t at the Tent of Meeting, weren’t at the designated “holy place” at the designated time, just didn’t fit with the way we’ve told God to behave. And God behaved anyway!

That leads us to our last exposure to James’s letter for the next three years. WHEW. For five weeks, we’ve once again heard those powerful cries of the poor from James. We won’t hear from him again for three years. What will be different in our approach to how we live these next three years? Will it be business as usual, with our successful accumulation of wealth, being unwilling to hear the Spirit calling from the broken parts of our economy that exclude those who are poor?

Give us ears, oh God, to hear your Spirit, even where we least want it.

Who are the people in your life who unwittingly speak for the Spirit?

Kathy McGovern ©2024

Reflecting on James 3:16-4:3

Ah, desire. We know what that feels like. And it’s captured beautifully in the third chapter of the letter to James. Jealousy, selfish ambition, covetousness, envy…who hasn’t suffered these disordered desires? Envy, the book of Genesis makes clear, is the Original Sin. Cain was so envious of his brother Abel’s favorable offering to God that he murdered him! We get no explanation for WHY Abel’s sacrifice was found acceptable. Still, we can certainly hear today’s Wisdom passage in Cain’s murderous act: The wicked say: Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us.

Our first parents suffered envy so terribly that they willingly ate the forbidden fruit—probably imagined as a pomegranate, by the way, not the apple we often see in religious art—because they believed the Tempter’s Lie that it would make them like gods. They didn’t realize that they already lived like gods. Now, (the author of Genesis believed), we can all thank them as we wrestle with those relentless weeds in our gardens.

But here’s the good news, for you younger readers. It gets SO MUCH BETTER with age. As we get older, many of the envies that tormented us when we were young are long gone.  Life has sorted itself out, and, at least in my observance, elderly people are not still pining for their teenage heartthrob. At least I HOPE not!

But here’s where it gets really good. The Jewish faith believes that the heart is where we make our choices. We can CHOOSE against envy by CHOOSING not to want what the advertisers so passionately NEED us to want. This is a good thing to remember as we enter these pre-Christmas months.

How has desire made you unwise? How has wisdom calmed the desire for more?

(Thank you, Alice Camille, for these great questions from God’s Word is Alive) Kathy McGovern ©2024

We had another class reunion last week. We’re all so close we can’t stop getting together. In attendance were our brilliant and humble valedictorian, our beautiful cheerleader-school principal-grandma, and a heartbroken mother whose son had just died from cancer. He was going to give her his kidney, to save her from three days a week of dialysis.

Each of us sat with her, holding her hand, listening as she described the many terrible deaths in her family in recent years. And then we moved on. There were so many people to see, so many photos to pull up on our phones. But one classmate, who has never been attracted to religious observance, said to our grieving friend, “You will never go to one more dialysis appointment by yourself. I will pick you up at 5:30 am and stay with you through every appointment. Don’t even think about going through this alone.” Works without faith is such a powerful witness.

And I always preface this next story by saying, “That’s who I went to high school with.” One bitterly cold January afternoon I was attempting to navigate the icy ramp out of the grocery store, my cart slipping to the left and right. A beautiful young lady, maybe fourteen years old, was just coming out of the store. “Can I help you?” Relief flooded through me. “Yes! I’m in trouble here. Please help me.” She immediately and easily took my cart down the ramp and to my car. While unloading the groceries, her grandma looked at me in surprise and said, “Oh, hi, Kathy.” We hadn’t seen each other since our last reunion.

Don’t you love seeing “works” at work in the world?

What good works are you extending these days?

Kathy McGovern ©2024

Reflecting on Is. 35: 4-7a

Two weeks ago, I had an unforgettable experience. August 23^rd, the feast day of St. Rose of Lima,  set off a weekend of joyful reunions at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Denver. The parish celebrated its one-hundredth-year anniversary. The little church with the big heart, sitting snugly in the Platte River Valley, has been home to various ethnic groups—-from its German founders to its present, vibrant Hispanic community—and hundreds of “legacy families” that filled the pews for generations.

The word “grace” means “undeserved kindness.” During the 1980s, I had the grace to serve on the staff at this uniquely loving parish. Coming back after several decades, I was nearly lifted into the air by the stunning congregational singing at the joyous anniversary Mass. But why was I crying so uncontrollably, that evening and well into the next day? It was because the scales fell off my eyes, and my deaf ears were opened. I saw and heard all the loving family and friends, many deceased, many still alive, who had been so present to me during those years.

I saw every dear choir member who gave up so many precious evenings in order to learn music for the beautiful Sundays we shared at St. Rose. I saw those gorgeous “sock hops” we had in the gym, colors swirling through the room, the live band keeping hundreds of dancers going ‘til the late hours.

I saw the beloved bishop of our Archdiocese, coming home from the chancery and checking in with each of the housekeeper’s kids. I saw a great cloud of witnesses to those one hundred years. I hear their voices even now.

Close your eyes and see the ancestors who built your parish. Say, thank you.

Kathy McGovern ©2024