Reflecting on Ephesians 4:30-5:2

The second reading (from Ephesians) haunts me this week.  How wise the author of this letter is, and how desperately we still need those words today.

It’s hard to imagine how different the world used to be.  St. Patrick heard confessions from Christians in Ireland who rejoiced that they had murdered fewer people that year than they had the year before!  Saint Ignatius Loyola, after his conversion (!), set off to murder a man whom he fancied had insulted the Virgin Mary.  Grace and the Holy Spirit compelled him to take a different turn in the road, and that has made all the difference.

Believe it or not, the world is actually a safer place now than ever in history.  But what is the state of our souls?  Ephesians begs the earliest Christians to remove all anger and fury…reviling and malice from their hearts.  Ah.  So that’s where we can find common ground with those ancient believers, whose lives were in far more peril than ours but whose hearts bore the same burdens of rage and desires for revenge.

I wonder why these new Ephesian converts struggled with each other.  Was it bad blood between families?  Or, God forbid, were they fighting about religion? The Sikh community in Wisconsin now has to bear the terrible loss of their loved ones because one man let his racism and his ignorance of religion take over his soul.

Forgive each other as Christ has forgiven you. St. Paul knew that was the only way out of the sad webs of enmity we weave throughout our lives. It is the only truth that saves, then and now.

Are you having trouble forgiving someone?  Try to remember when someone forgave you.  That’s where God shows up, guaranteed.

Is there an area of your live where you need to learn tolerance?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Ephesians 4:17, 20-24

The Ephesians reading today exhorts us to not give any attention or energy to deceitful desires, but to create a new self in Christ.

This brings me back to the terrible events of sixteen days ago, when one person gave so much attention and energy to deceitful desires that it was only a matter of time before they became reality.

The most inspiring words of this nightmare have come from those inside that theatre, and from the faith communities that love them.  This is where I find the heart of the struggle most beautifully articulated.

Even while in shock, one of the wounded knew the scriptures well enough to paraphrase John 1:3, 4 in relaying his ordeal:  It was so dark in there, and the sounds were so loud, and no one could see because of the tear gas he set off.  But here’s the good news: the Light is greater than the darkness, and the darkness shall never overcome it.

Archbishop Aquila and Bishop Conley sent a press release that I thought was the most powerful faith statement to come out of the ordeal:  In the chaos of the moment, people poured from the movie theater into the darkness of the night—the darkness of confusion, of ambiguity, of despair. We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters cast into that darkness. They do not stand alone.

No, they don’t.  Ever.  But today I renew my baptismal promise to reject sin and refuse to be mastered by it.  That’s my little candle, but it burns amid the millions of flames of love kindled to accompany the victims on their way to the Light.

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on John 6: 1-15

We were there that day.  We saw it with our own eyes.  And we still can’t explain what happened.

It was close to Passover, so our family members had come all the way from Damascus for the feast.  A huge number of Jews—we must have been five thousand at least—had crossed the Sea to see more of Jesus, who had performed many wonderful signs while he was in Jerusalem and Galilee.

I can’t believe we forgot to bring food. We were so enraptured by Jesus that when he left to go across the Sea we just got in boats and followed him.  But by then it was too late to prepare the proper Jewish foods, since we were in the Gentile territories.

I thought we looked like the sheep in David’s psalm, the way we all rested in the green pastures.  Yes, hungry sheep waiting for the Shepherd to feed us.

There was a boy there who had five barley loaves and two fish.  The man they call Andrew asked him for them, and then gave them to Jesus.

It was just like the Passover!  Jesus took the loaves, blessed them, broke them and gave them to us.  But this I’ll never understand: unlike the matzo at Passover, this bread never ran out.  And there were enough baskets left over to feed the twelve tribes of Israel!

We were all astonished.  A number of us remembered how God had rained down bread from heaven all the years that our people sojourned in the desert.

Is Jesus another Moses?  We don’t think so.  There was just something about those loaves.

In what ways does Jesus fill you?

Every time I think about this story I bless my wonderful second-year teacher in the Biblical School, Gene Guiliano.  Most of the words of this column came straight from him.

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Mark 6:30-34

For he is our peace

The other day I heard a touching account of a young couple who spent the last seventeen years bringing the Gospel to the remote tribes of West Africa.  Unlike earlier missionaries who refused to learn from and adapt to African culture (the hapless preacher in The Poisonwood Bible comes to mind), this couple simply brought friendship to the Bini peoples. These bush-people had never seen a white person, never had any contact with anyone outside of their own region, and the enmities and hatreds of hundreds of years of strife between the tribes was always present.

These ancient Africans are mostly animists, holding that souls and spirits exist in everything.  But here’s the thing: none of these spirits offered a way out of their rage against neighboring tribes that had looted their land and murdered their families over the centuries.  War, and war, and war, and still no peace.

And then this couple, over years of friendship, told them the Good News which we hear in the second reading from Ephesians today: For he is our peace, he who made us one and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh.  He came and preached peace to those who were far off and peace to those who were near.

This astounding good news—that forgiveness and reconciliation are the only way out of the dead end of endless war—was embraced by many of the friends they made there.  This Jesus knew betrayal and the agony of the cross, and his response was pure forgiveness.  And the world is still learning how to stand in that grace.

No Jesus?  No peace.  Know Jesus? Know peace.

And now comes the news of the massacre in Aurora.  Who can speak in the face of such  horror?

Oh Jesus, our only peace, we cry out to you today.  Send your angels to hold those who grieve. Send you healing upon those who are injured. Send your Holy Spirit to convert our culture from its attraction to guns and violence.

You are our peace.  Transform us into peacemakers.  AMEN.

Is the peace that Jesus offered making a difference in your life?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Mark 6: 7-13

As I write this, Colorado is on fire.  In the past month over 32,000 people have been evacuated from their homes, some leaving so fast that they were separated from pets and possessions and photographs they would surely have gathered if there had been time.

Along with the gratitude of escaping the fires (which has taken six lives this season in Colorado) comes the discomfort of being without so many of the things that make our lives manageable.  Imagine moving into a relative’s home and being without your car, your bike, your laptop, your Kindle, your gym clothes, your prescription pills and vitamins, your daily prayer journal, etc. etc.

Imagine the kids in the guest homes, doubling and tripling up in rooms they once had to themselves.  And everybody sharing the same television set! How you’d miss that long shower in the morning.  And it would be so nice to have a set of clothes other than the ones you were wearing when you fled the fire.

That all supposes that you have a friend or relative to take you and your family in, but of course thousands have been sharing the limited resources of the shelters.

The Twelve in today’s Gospel are instructed to “take nothing for the journey”.  Of course they volunteered for that journey.  The evacuees were forced away, and many fled for their lives, leaving behind priceless mementos of their deepest loves.  We pray for all of them, that their empty hands may be filled with the grace God alone can give.

Have you ever encountered grace through being stretched out of your comfort zone?

My dear friends Barb and John Gallagher helped me with this column.  They live in Colorado Springs and personally know people who  endured the terrors of the Waldo Canyon fire. 

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Mark 6: 1-6a

Is he not…the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?  Are not his sisters here with us?

St. Jerome in his study

Huh?  How can Jesus have brothers and sisters?  Doesn’t the doctrine of the Church state that Mary was a perpetual virgin?

That’s a great question, and the answer is fascinating.  There are thirteen references to the “brothers and sisters of the Lord” in the New Testament.  St. Paul and all four Gospel writers mention these brethren as if everyone knows who they are, and that it’s common knowledge that Jesus had brothers and sisters.

This was a problem right away, at least as early as 150 A.D., because a grassroots sense that Mary had remained a perpetual virgin began to emerge (although this is never mentioned in Scripture).  How to reconcile Scripture with an emerging tradition?

Someone wrote a second century page-turner called The Protoevangelium of James.  In this wildly popular book the author (posing as James, the brother of Lord) tells us all kinds of things that the brief and elusive scripture references to Mary never do.  It’s here that we learn her parents’ names−−Joachim and Anna—and that Anna consecrated her child as a perpetual virgin while Mary (Miriam) was still in the womb.

It goes on to say that Joseph (a widower) respected her status and married her when she twelve years old, fully embracing a celibate marriage.  And then the apocryphal (never canonized) writings, especially The History of Joseph the Carpenter, go crazy with stories about Joseph and his children from his first marriage.  Whew!  Mystery solved.

Except, as St. Jerome pointed out in the fourth century, “brothers” means “cousins” in Aramaic.

How do you feel about the tradition of Mary having “step-children”?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Mark 5: 21-43

Mark’s story of the healing of two females in today’s Gospel might be my favorite of all the miracle stories.  It’s so packed with “Aha Moments” that I hardly know where to begin.

At the beginning of the story Mark says that Jesus’ original plan is to “stay by the sea” with his disciples.  But Jairus appears and begs him to come to his house because his twelve-year-old daughter is “at the point of death”.

And so his plans change on a dime.  He leaves immediately in a new direction.

And who should be living in that new direction? A woman who has had a “chronic flow of blood” for twelve (!) years.  Look at the beautiful connection here.  For the twelve years that Jairus’ daughter has been alive this woman has been bleeding.  And what is perhaps the cause of the illness of the twelve-year-old girl? Might she be beginning her own menstrual period and having extreme pain or even unconsciousness?

This older woman and this young girl, unknown to each other before this day, are mystically connected, and if Jesus hadn’t “changed his plans”—ha!—and gone in a different direction in order to heal the young girl then—yes! −− the older woman may never have had the opportunity to touch him and be healed.

We’re all connected.  On his way to the little girl the older woman is healed.  And that woman knows that this is her moment, her divine appointment, and she reaches out with all her might.

Watch out for changes in plans.  Jesus might just be coming your way.

Have you ever had a surprise encounter with Christ?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

One of the beautiful things about the liturgical year is the way the mysteries of faith are tied together, especially with  the feasts of  Mary, John the Baptist, and Jesus.  Theirs are the only births celebrated as feasts, since it’s the days of death (and hence new life) of the saints that are generally celebrated.  But so important are their births that even the dates of their conceptions are remembered!

Hence the Immaculate Conception of Mary is December 8^th, and her birth (nine months later) is September 8^th.  The ancient date of the conception of Jesus (the Annunciation) was set on March 25^th, which of course was a perfect nine months before December 25^th.

The conception of John the Baptist was once commemorated on September 24^th, which brings us to today’s (June 24^th) feast of his birth, so treasured that it actually pre-empts today’s 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time.   Think about it:  Luke (1:26,27) says that Elizabeth was six months pregnant the day that Jesus was conceived.  He goes on to tell us that Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months before John’s birth. That means Mary was three months pregnant when John was born.  So if the Nativity of Jesus is December 25^th (when the days begin to grow longer), then John’s birth was six months earlier (June 24^th) when the days begin to gradually get shorter.

That I may decrease, and He may increase, John said. Just like the days ahead, as they oh-so-gradually decrease and, like the Baptist, point the way to the birth of the Invincible Son, in whom there is no darkness at all.

What graces do you feel during these long summer days?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Mark 4: 26-34

Over the past few months I’ve had the great joy of reconnecting with some friends from high school.  As a group we drifted away from each other almost immediately all those years ago, but some one-on-one friendships have held fast through the decades.

It wouldn’t have been impossible to find each other through the years.  But in the magical, expansive time-frame of friendship we have gravitated back, forgiving each other for abandoning our teenaged promises to stay close, to help with the raising of babies and the burying of parents.

Each of us has changed in huge ways.  Illness and loss have forged not-invisible gashes across our souls. But the sweet gifts of time and grace have given us all the chance to become more and more the people we wanted to be way back then.  How?  We do not know.

We are like the farmer who sows the seed and then sleeps and rises, week after week, and is then astounded to see the wheat that has grown high and golden while no one was watching.  How? He does not know.

There are secret seeds growing in us all the time.  How blessed to encounter someone with whom we may once been estranged and realize that those wounds healed long, long ago.  Or maybe it’s bad habits that once plagued us that we one day notice haven’t tempted us in years.

Look around today.  Billions of seeds, secretly buried in the dark and cold, have burst open to create the luscious greens that surround us on the grass and on our tables. Grace abounds.  How? We do not know.  But we live in astonished gratitude.

What secret victories have you achieved through the long gift of time?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).

Reflecting on Mark 2:1-2

My friends Mary and Jim had been high school sweethearts, and they had kept their romance going through college while on opposite sides of the country.  But for a short time during the spring of their sophomore year they were a mere ninety miles away from each other.  And one night James Taylor showed up unexpectedly to give an impromptu concert to hundreds of astonished students in a little field on the Denver University campus.

That’s when the agony started, because Jim was right there and Mary was at college in Fort Collins. Jim had a front-row stump (there were no chairs in the field) watching James Taylor sing all the songs that he and Mary loved, and he spent the whole time longing for Mary to be there to share the experience with him.  That’s the thing about love.

I think about that as I relish the love that those four friends had for the paralytic in today’s Gospel.  Whatever it took, even carrying him across town and dropping him down through the roof, they were going to get their sick friend into the presence of Jesus.  The Healer was there, and they couldn’t be happy until their friend was touched by him. That’s the thing about love.

At some point in our lives, someone brought us to Jesus.  Perhaps it was our parents, who brought us to the doors of the church for baptism.  Perhaps it was a friend, who said “Come and see.”   Thanks be to God for their kindness, for now we too can say, “Oh, Jesus.  How sweet it is to be loved by you.”

Who are the friends in your life who would carry you across town to meet Jesus?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).