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Consequences

I have had a great blessing these past few days to be walking in the footsteps of our Lord.  From the Church of the Nativity to the  waters of the Jordan to the wedding feast at Cana,  The young adults on pilgrimage, Bishop Caggiano, and I have had the great privilege of reflecting on Scriptures and then visiting these holy sites.

In our reflections last night, after praying at the Church of the Annunciation, the group discussed the consequences of saying yes. Yes to pilgrimage. Yes God. Yes to Jesus. Yes to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives.

Each and every day, the choice is made. Each and every moment, we find ourselves challenged to do what is right, what is holy, what is good.  There is indeed a consequence of being a follower of Jesus of Nazareth.

As Mary tells the servants in the Gospel story, “Do whatever He tells you.”

Accepting the invitation to discipleship changes everything.

What is Jesus asking of you this week?

-pjd

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Word Made Flesh

Merry Christmas.

Today is the day when people, believers and nonbelievers alike, celebrate Christmas far more widely and with far greater joy than any other holiday or holy day.

Is this simply because Christmas is about motherhood, the birth of a child, innocence, and love? After all, these are at the heart of human life. I suppose it’s true that most of us would find it hard to identify with rising from the darkness of the tomb. Maybe that is why Christmas often has broader appeal than Easter. But perhaps there is more, a lot more. Perhaps we are more deeply in touch with an abstract idea we call the Incarnation than we realize. It could be that something deep inside us knows what “the Word made Flesh” really means.

From the moment God breathed God’s life-giving spirit over the darkness of the void and brought creation to life, God spoke to people. Through giants like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Deborah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, the psalmists, God gave us the words of life.

But, on Christmas day, the living Word of God came into the world. Mary gave birth to the Son of God. In this Jesus, God communicated most eloquently with God’s people. In this Jesus, God held children. God met with skeptics and dined with outcasts. In Jesus, God talked, listened. God wept over the dead Lazarus. God touched the leper. God put mud and spittle on the blind man’s eyes and healed him. Through Jesus, God entered the cycle of human life and unswervingly walked its path to the end.

Perhaps Christmas is so touching because God skipped nothing, not the frantic eruption of birth nor the numbing moment of death. God came to be one of us. One of us.

Perhaps the gift-giving of Christmas, the outpouring of love we lavish on one another, echoes the final message this God-Made-Man spoke through human flesh: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).

Maybe this feast opens the door to some inner cell of our hearts where we imprison the Word that tells us that now we must be the arms of God surrounding the little ones; that we must be God’s voice to speak and God’s ears to listen; that we must weep God’s tears; that we must be God’s healing hands; that we must be Jesus in our times and in our culture. the power of this truth escapes and, at least for a few moments, warms up the coldness of our world.

It is indeed up to the twenty-first century Christians to give birth to Jesus in their own time, their own culture, their own families. This is the heart of faith and life. Each of us is an innkeeper. It is up to us to find room for Jesus.

Deep within us, we know it. We feel it and so we celebrate.

May that wonder and joy of that first Christmas be yours today and always.

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The Card In My Wallet

There is a card in my wallet that tells a story. It started, as all good stories do, with a teacher who made a difference.

It was my junior year in high school and Sr. Judy Eby, RSM asked us to reflect on this morning’s Gospel reading from Luke. Then, after we read it, we watched a scene of Franco Zeffirelli’s 1977 masterpiece, Jesus of Nazareth. The story unfolds just like it does in Luke’s Gospel: the crowds have gathered and there is no room for the men to bring their friend to Jesus. He cannot walk, you see, so they carry him over the wall, through the thatched roof, and place him before the Teacher.

You know what happens next. The movie takes some editorial license, but after a brief conversation, the man is told his sins are forgiven. The movie version, while riveting, fails to follow Luke’s account. Jesus forgives the man’s sins because he is moved by the actions of the friends. But more on that later.

In both versions, the crowd goes nuts. “Only God can forgive sins,” they reproach Jesus. Putting yourself on the same plane as God is only going to cause trouble. To this, we get a classic Jesus response: “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?”

Think about it. Surely forgiving sins is easier. But to show the crowd what he’s really capable of, he tells the man to get up, pick up his mat, and go home. The man obliges. The crowd goes nuts for an entirely different reason and everyone learns an important lesson.

But back to the card in my wallet.

We wrap up the reading, the watching, and the discussion about the friends who carried the stretcher, and Sr. Judy hands us all an index card. “Now,” she tells us, “write down the names of those who carry you to Christ.”

Wait. What? This just got real.

I have repeated that exercise with youth and adults alike for years. Like Sr. Judy, I challenge people to think of those who, when we are paralyzed with fear, sinfulness, and selfishness, carry us to Christ. When you cannot move, who lifts you up? When you are sick or alone or unhappy or in serious need of a friend, who do you call?

I have edited my list throughout the years. Friends come and go. People die. But my list has been there since that spring day in 1987. I have moved it from wallet to wallet. It’s a thirty-year-old ratty piece of paper that I carry with me everywhere.  On more than one occasion, the list has saved my life, my soul, my sanity.

Yes, there is a card in my wallet that tells a story. It tells a story of salvation.

Who is on your list?

~pjd

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Increase Our Faith

In this morning’s Gospel reading, we hear:

And the Apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

The consummate teachers, Jesus never really answers the question. Then again, the Apostles never really ask. No, they complain about not being able to do all the really cool things Jesus can do. (I imagine that water into wine thing turned some heads). They want faith and they do not ask, “Lord, how can we become more faithful.” They just command, “Increase our faith.”

It is not unlike what I hear at home sometimes. “When will we have dinner?” instead of “Is there anything I can do to help?” or “Why don’t I have any clean clothes?” instead of “Do you need me to switch washer and dryer?”

We have all been there. Demanding children or coworkers, chores that will not complete themselves, emails that just keep coming.

“Lord,” we cry. “Give me more time in the day. Take all these distractions from me.”

But, like Jesus, the distractions, the commands, the complaining, the whining – they are the work. Jesus answers the Apostle’s command to increase their faith by telling them that faith is not something that can be given, like a fish or a piece of bread. We do not give other’s faith. We show them our own. We teach by example. We accompany others so that they might understand that the joy we have comes from a relationship with a God who never lets go.

“Increase our faith.” Indeed.

“Watch what I do,” Jesus says. “Love like I do. Forgive like I do. Heal like I do. Speak of love and compassion and mercy and justice like I do.”

Then the trees and the bushes and the mountains and yes, even the people, will come to understand the power of your faith because that faith is not rooted in self, but in God.

~pjd

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Just Arrogant Enough

Take a look at this morning’s Gospel reading and read between the lines.

To understand the metaphor, understand the Samaritans: bastard Jews – religiously and biologically. In 581, Babylonians moved into Samaria and intermarry with Jews there. You cannot do this if you want to keep the religion and the culture pure. By marrying their captors, the Samaritans “gentiled themselves,” at least in the eyes of a “good Jew.” In 535, at the end of the exilic period, the Jews come back to Judea and seek to build a Temple. The Samaritans offer to help. Jews say, “No thanks” (not after you married your captors)…so Samaritans build there own.

Now look at this morning’s reading: the Scribe who asks the question ‘who is my neighbor’ should know the answer but asks anyway (there’s one in every class). Jesus got the Scribe to put two things together that a good Jew cannot – Samaritan and neighbor. To the Scribe, the Samaritan is beyond the pale of God’s forgiveness. For Jesus, that just isn’t possible.

To the Jews listening to Jesus tell the story, the next expected category (after priest and deacon (Levite)), would be a Jewish layperson but Jesus gives this coveted spot to a Samaritan, who is moved with compassion.

The hearer of the story discovers that God’s love is limitless. To the Jew of Jesus’ time, love is limited – not everyone is my neighbor. If God’s love is limitless, so must yours be, Jesus tells the hearer. So must ours.

No one listening is surprised that the Priest and Levite do not touch the guy in the ditch. If either had stopped to help, they would become unclean and would need to go through all sorts of rituals for getting ‘unsuspended’ – they kept the law. For those listening, the point is not to help the one in the ditch, but in keeping the law.

But in keeping man’s law, they broke God’s law, which raises the question: is the law made for us, or are we made for the law?

A priest could not raise this question. Neither could a deacon. It was up to a previously rejected; ostracized, humiliated, last resort of a character to make this clear for those struggling to believe.

God takes the weak and makes them strong.

So where is the arrogance the title suggests? It’s mine. I am just arrogant enough, I said to a friend the other day, that I edit Luke’s Gospel when I read chapter ten. You see, I think the Samaritan said something to the man in the ditch. I think he bent down and whispered something that Luke forgot to write down.

It is the same whispering that compelled people into action last week when the shooting started. It was the same message that made strangers carry strangers, cover each other, and hold a lifeless body until help arrived.

“I do not wish to be saved without you.”

That is what the Samaritan says in my head as he bends down to care for the sick, dress the wounds, and lug him to safety.

“I do not wish to be saved without you.”

You matter to God, so you matter to me. No matter what you look like, what your DNA says about you, or how you identify yourself as a child of God. You matter. You are His and therefore you matter to me.

I do not wish to be saved without you.

That. Changes. Everything.

~pjd

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Loving Others

Throughout the Bible, we are told the God loves everyone. I could quote you chapter and verse, but I know you believe me.

So if God loves everyone, then everyone is lovable. Right?

Think about that for a bit. Everyone?

Everyone.

The racist, the bigot, the idiot, the moron, the Democrat, the Republican, the guy on Fox and the guy on CNN, the criminal, the person who cuts you off in traffic, the guy – or girl – who dented your car and did not leave a note, the mean lady at the grocery store, and the person down the hall at work that everyone struggles to like.

Everyone is lovable.

God will sort out the forgiveness and God will judge the remorse.

It is our job to love others. Period.

That includes everyone.

This week, maybe I will just pick one or two from my list and start there.

~pjd

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The Rest of the Story

Originally posted four years ago, but I really like this morning’s reading, so I decided to rerun it, albeit edited to reflect my new reality.

The great radio commentator Paul Harvey has been dead since 2009 and if I had not grown up with the parents I had or with the older siblings I had (and still have) and if one of those siblings had not been in radio himself, I might not have known who Paul Harvey was. But I did and if you did too, then the title of this entry already makes sense.

I thought about those old “The Rest of the Story” radio segments and their little known or forgotten facts as I read this morning’s first reading from Numbers 11.

It is one of my favorite passages of the Old Testament and is one I invoke often. Look it up. Read it. And smile along with me.

There are times, in ministry and in life, when we are, quite frankly, overwhelmed by the ignorance around us. On the road (who taught Connecticut drivers to make a left turn in front of others when the light turns green?), in the supermarket (how hard is it to put the cart back?), perhaps even in the office (though not much anymore), we are surrounded by foolishness, incompetence, and just plain…well…you know what I mean. Like Moses in this morning’s reading, we hear the cries of those we are called to serve and, though we know the tasks we have been given, we are at our wits end, ready to surrender. Every time I read Numbers 11, I laugh because I recognize the Moses in me. “Please, Lord, if this is how you are to treat your servant, just do me the favor of killing me now.”

I don’t really mean it. I am sure Moses, a family man himself, didn’t really want to die either.

But there does come a time in our lives when we look around and wonder if we are the only ones who can accomplish a particular task, or if we are the only one with a sense of what’s possible. It’s not arrogance. Really, it isn’t. It is just frustration that those around us simply don’t move as quickly or in the same direction as we think they ought.

So, like Moses, we take it to prayer and we ask to be let off the hook.

But you have to read the rest of the story.

Since it’s not in this morning’s first reading, let me summarize. Moses says, “Kill me now, God, so I do not have to bear the burden of these people.”

And God says, “I have a better idea.”

“Go find people smarter than you and bring them with you to the meeting tent (ahh, the first parish committee). Then I will take some of my Spirit that is within you, Moses, and I will place it on them, so you do not have to do my work all by yourself.”

So, in other words: “Quit your whining and surround yourself with smart people, if you can admit they exist, which is another issue entirely. Find those who share your passion and vision and remember: the work you do is God’s, not yours.”

It isn’t your ministry. It’s God’s.

They aren’t your young people. They are God’s.

It isn’t about you. It’s about you making God present to others.

And just because an idea wasn’t yours, doesn’t mean it isn’t good. Just because you didn’t think of it, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t support it, comments don’t always equal criticism…but I digress.

God could have let Moses off the hook. He could have struck him dead.

But disciples hardly ever get off that easily.

Look around this week. Who are the smart people you should gather together so that God can share God’s Spirit with God’s people so that, together, you can do God’s work?

I love Numbers 11. But you have to read the rest of the story.

I think Paul Harvey would be pleased.

~pjd

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Nothing Else Matters

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

These lines, from Matthew 10:37-39, set up what the Biblical scholars call “the conditions for discipleship.” I have to imagine that if you were having a first person experience of Jesus, you would have come to expect such instructions. And I can’t imagine if you were hanging out with a guy who changed water to wine, resurrected the official’s servant, healed Peter’s mother-in-law, and calmed the sea, you would be bothered by putting Jesus first.

But looking at the lines with twenty first century eyes is another story. Lots of things can get in the way of putting Jesus first. Sometimes I love chocolate more than I should. Sometimes I love other foods, too, but chocolate always comes to mind. I love my children more than myself and want them to love God more than they love me, but sometimes it is hard to imagine loving anything more than I love them. A long car ride with all of us barreling down the highway in an enclosed place usually is enough to remind me that I really do love God more.

This week, I will live like nothing matters more than God. I will teach my children to do the same. Perhaps if we consciously work to put God first, speaking nicely to others will come naturally, helping around the house will come naturally, serving others in love will come naturally.

But first it requires acting as though loving God more than anything else also comes naturally. My children, like all children, I suppose, learn better by watching. How I live makes much more of a difference than what I say.

Unless I tell them I have chocolate to share. They always seem to hear that.

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Distracted

Last week was spent in Orlando at the Convocation of Catholic Leaders, but more on that another time. Needless to say, sometimes when I travel and get stuck in a hotel for days on end, I lose track of days and this trip was no different. I spent the first few days at the annual meeting of the Leadership Roundtable and the following four or five days with other delegates from the Diocese of Bridgeport at the Convocation. It was Tuesday before I realized Five Minutes on Monday never went out.

This week would have been another forgotten week, were it not for the handy reminder I put in my phone last Tuesday.

Yesterday, I drove from our home in Connecticut to La Salle University in Philadelphia. The trip is supposed to take about three hours, but was extended when some clown didn’t realize the signs along the Merritt Parkway indicating the low clearance were supposed to be taken seriously and sheered off the top of his box truck, sending someone’s belongings all along the highway. What a mess. The distraction of the traffic gave me more time to sit in silence in the car. More time to pray. More time to think. More time to sing along or listen to podcasts.

For the next few days I will continue my doctoral studies at La Salle. Four friends will wrap up their coursework and take their oral comprehensives this week. We started together and, all things being equal, I would be taking my comps too. But life gets in the way and, like with many things in my life, I am behind. Maybe next year.

As I caught up with friends last night, we chatted about the many distractions that keep our lives and our studies from staying on track. Many of us are delayed in the program because of births and deaths or new jobs and family crisis. One has cancer. Another lost a job. One classmate is a Protestant Minister and just began new ministry with a new congregation. Distractions abound.

I am reminded from this morning’s Gospel reading that sometimes there is great beauty in the distractions. Were it not for the distraction of the woman touching the hem of Jesus’ cloak, she would not have been healed and Jesus would have arrived at the house of the official before the professional mourners. The distractions are the ministry.

My goal this week is to write a 25-page paper on the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and its implications for faith formation in the United States. Between 21 hours of classroom instruction and conversation back in June and a dozen or so articles and books, my biggest hope is to write the paper in such a way that it’s not just a collection of quotes. If I work quickly, I will submit my paper Wednesday morning, go see family in Philadelphia, and head home.

Unless, of course, I get distracted.

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Risking Weakness

If society is judged on how we treat our most vulnerable, then surely our brothers and sisters in Washington have work to do. The latest movement of the House of Representatives aside, our elected officials at the local, state, and federal level should be encouraged to give some serious thought to how we care for those most in need – even if they have been sick or depressed, lonely or in crisis, in control of their faculties or struggling to remember – for some time. What some would call pre-existing conditions, others call a way of life.

So this morning, I turned, as I often do, to a book my parents gave me when I left home. Today’s reading was from Matthew 25. The sheep and the goats. How appropriate. For so many years, I thought about this as only a call to care for “the least of my brothers (and sisters).” Sure, it’s a call to help others. But maybe it’s more.

If you read the whole passage you begin to understand its context. Matthew is not just writing about the end time, when those who have helped others will go to heaven and those who ignored those in need will go to hell. It is, instead, a call to live as brothers and sisters of Jesus. Look at Matthew 12: the family of Jesus (his brothers and sisters) are those disciples gathered around him – men, women, children.

So to live like Jesus means to risk being homeless (“the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” cf Mt 8 and Luke 9). To live like Jesus is to be like Jesus, with less concern for the material things of this world and more concern for the welfare of others (cf Mt 19). We have to risk being hungry. We have to risk being ostracized. We have to risk being poor (all this is in Matthew too).

It’s not just that the rich must help the poor or those with much must offer what they have to those who have not, it’s more than that. To live like Jesus means to risk being weak so that we might receive from those whom we are called to serve. It is easy to think of Jesus as the only teacher in the crowd, but every good teacher learns from the student.

If society is judged – if any of us are judged – by how we treat those who are most in need, perhaps the judgement begins when we decide what we are willing to risk in service to others.