Holy Space

Lateran Basilica, Rome 

Deacon Tom writes ©

"Holy Space"

Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, Year A

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. It is dedicated to St. John the Baptist, St. John the Evangelist, and to Jesus Christ, our Savior. It became the Mother Church of Christendom around 313 AD when the Emperor Constantine gave it to the Bishop of Rome. Many Councils, referred to as Lateran Councils, were held within its walls in the early days of the church. It was there that much of the dogma of our faith that we profess today was formulated.

I have seen this beautiful church and indeed it has a lovely edifice. The architecture, the decorations, the adornments are beyond description. This is true for many of our basilicas and cathedrals. Many of our churches are a sight to behold. Yet, what gives them their real beauty is not the adornments. It’s not the gold and silver decorations, nor the renaissance paintings, nor the jeweled sacred vessels. What makes these grand structures so magnificent is the One in whose name and memory these houses of worship were built - the Lord, God Almighty.  

We know from our Old Testament history that David desired to build a house for the Lord and that his son, Solomon, is credited with building the magnificent Temple in Jerusalem. But buildings come and go. The temple that God wanted to establish among His people was made of human flesh. It was Christ, the God-Man. Salvation History is the story of God visiting His people and creating within them “holy space” that would be the living, breathing temples of His Holy Spirit.

Whenever we enter into this “holy space”, we come into a communal celebration to share in the banquet Christ has prepared for us through His sacrifice on Calvary. We enter into a mystery that is beyond us and that summons within us a faith that rises above our understanding. Within this “holy space” we are joined by other believers to be nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ and enlivened by the Words of Sacred Scripture. Then, reenergized by God’s love for us, we are commissioned to take our gifts out into the world and share them eagerly with everyone we meet. The gifts we receive inside our “holy spaces” will atrophy and die if we do not bring them to each and every person we encounter; if we do not used them in every situation we find ourselves, if they are not a part of all our decisions and judgments we make in the course of the day. We are the church, the living, breathing, holy spaces God desires to dwell within.

Enjoy the Day!

Deacon Tom 

All Souls are Called to be All Saints

300px-All Saints painting by Fra Angelico

Deacon Tom writes ©

"All Souls Are Called to be Saints"

The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls)

Celebration of the Feast of All Souls had its origin in the Benedictine Monastery in Cluny, France. In 998 A.D. Odilo, the Abbot, instructed his men to pray for the souls of the dead on the day after All Saints Day when the Church honored its Saints. This practice was quickly embraced by the faithful and by the 13^th century had spread to Rome. By the 14 century it was a universal feast of the church. Today we celebrate what is officially known as, “The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed”, commonly known as “All Souls” day.

The arranging of All Saints Day and All Souls Day back to back gives us a great opportunity to reflect on our lives in light of our Christian vocation and our individual mortality. As we recall the lives of those who have gone before us, we can’t help but know that one day we will follow in their footsteps. What kind of life do we want to live? What spiritual legacy and witness do we want to leave? What did we learn from the lives of the Saints and the holy people have gone before us?  Do you see the wisdom of connecting the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls?  To make the relationship between these two feasts practical, we have to overcome a general misperception that the Feast of All Saints is only about paying homage to the great saints, the likes of St. Francis, St Augustine, St. Thomas or St. Peter. The Feast of All Saints encompasses a much wider vision.

 

Just after converting to Catholicism, Thomas Merton was asked by a friend what he wanted to be, now that he was Catholic. “I don’t know, I suppose I just want to be a good Catholic”, Merton replied. His friend came back with, “What you should say is that you want to be a saint!” Merton was dumbfounded. “How do you expect me to become a saint?” Merton asked him. To which his friend said: “All that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be one. Don’t you trust that God can make you what He created you to be, Thomas”?  Merton was silent.

These words must have taken root in Merton’s heart. For he would go on to become one of the great spiritual thinkers and writers of the last century, and, in the eyes of many, he was indeed a saint.

It’s good to recall these words of wisdom imparted to Merton by his friend because they speak so simply and profoundly to our calling as Catholic Christians. We should want to be saints. And to be a saint, all we need is to want to be a saint.

The Church elevates the lives of the Saints to give us a good example of ordinary people who have attainted extraordinary holiness.  These men and women have dedicated their lives to being witnesses of the faith through sacrifice, service, and prayer. Often they suffered great pain, rejection, torture, and, all too often, even death in professing their love and devotion to God. It is right that they be honored and their intercessions sought by the faithful throughout the ages.

At the same time, our church also recognizes the ordinary acts of courage and dedication on the part of those living the faith day in and day out… that is, the “All Souls”. We believe in the “Communion of Saints”, that body of believers who, in addition to those “major” Saints, have professed their faith in God by their daily perseverance and their constant prayers. Included in this group are our family, loved ones, and friends, all those people who got up every day, took care of their families, and lived a good life, struggled to do the right thing…one day at a time. When things were good, they were faithful…When things were bad…they were faithful. In remaining faithful in good times and in bad, they handed on to us the legacy of our faith, our Catholic “Tradition”.

As we remember our loved ones and those who have gone before us and their sacrifice, their witness encourages us to imitate the good example they gave us. We call them to mind now as they share their reward for hearing and responding to their call to be saints.  We turn to them that they may ask God to help us answer our call to holiness so we may join them when our pilgrimage on earth comes to an end.  

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom  

The Triumph of the Cross

                                          

Deacon Tom writes ©

"The Triumph of the Cross"

Feast of the Exultation of the Cross, Year A

Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Somalia, and the Ukraine… are just a few of the places where violence rages on such an enormous scale. How are people who have seen and suffered such extreme suffering able to forgive those who have brought such pain and suffering into their lives?  How can man, women, and children whose memories are forever scarred by such violence able to put their lives back together and not follow the ancient paths of revenge and retaliation? Is it possible for such victims to forgive their oppressors in order to end the violence and not pass it on like a virus to future generations?  

The people of South Africa and Ireland seemed to have met with some success in ending the violence that destroys people and villages. In the case of South Africa ending apartheid, the legalized segregation of the population into black and white, was crucial in stopping the brutality. In the case of Ireland, years of economic domination gave way in the late 1980’s to a period of economic growth and stability that has been a significant factor helping build a bridge to a new error of peace and cooperation between former adversaries.

I don’t think we will ever understand the mystery of suffering, the suffering inherent in our humanity such as sickness and disease or the suffering that is the product of our human desires that causes and imposes suffering on others through war, poverty, physical / sexual / mental / substance abuse.  But I do think that we Christians have a unique way to view suffering, our own or the suffering of others… and that is through the prism of the Cross. If you look at Christ as the victim who represents all the victims who have ever suffered throughout time, before Him and after Him, then we can see in His death that there is no need for further victims. The message of the cross is this:  NO MORE VICTIMS.

This message has been slow to take root, but as fragile as that root may be, it is showing signs of life. For we could not experience the reconciliations that have happened in Ireland or in South Africa and in other places where former adversaries now live side by side, unless you have people living the message we hear today in our gospel, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.” We are called to love others as God loves us. This is the only way we will have a future. If we are not able to get beyond the violence, the violence WILL consume us. For Christians, violence stops at the cross.

This is the real Triumph of the Cross: that we are learning how to forgive others as Jesus did. May God give us the courage, strength, and wisdom to be quick to forgive those who injure us.

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom   

Seeing How the World Turns©

Deacon Tom writes ©

   "Seeing How the World Turns"

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

My daughter, Mary, has a globe of the world that is about 8 inches around. It sits on a small tripod and magically rotates somehow. I wasn’t able to see what powered it, although I look for some energy source. As I watched the world spinning there on its own, I noticed the continents as they passed by… then I began to see the countries…Egypt Spain, Chile, the USA, Australia, Indonesia, China, Russia. It was then that I began to think of all the people in those far away places…

I wonder what God sees when He looks down at the world. Does He see all of those man-made borders sketched out by that dark line on that fascinating globe I described above? Does He see us as Chileans, Jamaicans, Americans, Swiss, or Kenyans? No, I doubt that very much. From whatever vantage point God observes the earth, I believe all He sees is His children, and not as a group but individually. That is the mysterious, profound, unimaginable power of God and indeed, that is a wonder to behold.    

Once we grasp the spiritual reality that we are Children of God, we, like God, in whose very being we live and move and have our being, must see one another as our brothers and sisters and not as citizens of different nation states. We Catholics, especially, as Eucharistic people, must see the world as God sees the world and recognize that in Him we are one people, one Body of Christ.   

The question I ask myself today and ask you to consider is this: Is it possible to see the different peoples of the world as our brothers and sisters in Christ? Is it possible for us to “Love our neighbor” in the broadest sense of the word as Jesus taught us? When we look at or read what is happening in Syria, Iraq, the Sudan and the Ukraine can we honestly be faithful to Jesus’ command to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us? These are some of the most difficult of Jesus’ teachings and I don’t think there is any way we can follow them UNLESS...unless we are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

As summer is drawing to a close in these next several weeks, we will notice the beauty of nature around us begin to change. This provides us a chance to reflect on how we see the world around us and consider how God, the author of all that is, sees it. May He grant us the grace to see with eyes filled with a deep and profound love for all His Children.

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom 

God’s Fools

Rembrandt "Jeremiah"

Deacon Tom writes ©

"God's Fools"

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Complaining one day on how she was treated, the Lord told St. Teresa of Avila, this is how I treat all my friends. St. Teresa responded… “Lord, it’s no wonder you have so few of them.” I suspect the Prophet Jeremiah experienced this same feeling. He complains to God, “You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped.” Jeremiah feels that God seduced him into being His pawn and given him a mission that makes him “an object of laughter;” brings him “derision and reproach all the day.” Jeremiah doesn’t see himself as God’s chosen one but rather as God’s fool. He wants to walk away from the work God has given him to do, but he can’t. God’s Word “becomes like fire burning in his heart…imprisoned in his bones” and he just can’t stop being God’s mouthpiece. So he continues to speak God’s word, even though it leads him to a life of personal sacrifice, a life of being a “fool for God.”

Jeremiah is one of many who knows the tension there is between responding to God’s call and seeking to follow the ways of the world. St. Paul continues this theme by teaching “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” Do you notice how there is no reference to “easy” or any mention of a “yellow brick road” here?

Jesus tells us that it is through Him that we come to know God’s Will and the way to do this is to “… deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow Him.” We must embrace the folly of the Cross; we must be, in a real sense, “Fools for Christ” in order to see clearly the path God has in store for us. In other words, we must distinguish ourselves from the world… by what we do, by what we say, by how we view the world around us, by how we treat those we meet along the way, and by applying God’s wisdom to all that we do. This, of course, is foolishness in the eyes of the world.   

If we have been striving to live as Jesus’ disciples, we probably will get some bumps and bruises along the way. That’s a good thing. That’s how Jesus will recognize us when we come into His kingdom. He will see our scars and know that we are one of His fools who tried our best to love our enemies, forgive those who have hurt us, and seek to serve all our brothers and sisters in Christ. By our scars He will know we have been “His good and faithful servants.”

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom 

The Way of the Lord

Jacob Wrestles with the Angel

Deacon Tom writes ©

"The Way of the Lord"

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Hello everyone. I am writing from Harrisonburg, VA where Rachel and I are having a wonderful time visiting our son and daughter-in-law and our three grandsons. As I promised many of you, here is a brief reflection on this Sunday’s readings.

We don’t have to be scripture scholars to realize one of the predominant topics for our Sunday readings is how often we turn our backs on God and do things “our way.” The reason for this is that we have failed to overcome our primary enemy… not the devil, but his closest ally…ourselves…“We have met the enemy, and he is us” as Pogo put it so aptly.

Isn’t it strange that we have to overcome ourselves in order to find our way back to God? … that we have to “die to self” as Jesus taught His disciples? In a small book entitled “My Daily Bread", Jesuit Fr. Anthony Paone names some of the challenges we face by contrasting what it is that pulls us away from God… our very nature, and what draws us closer to Him…grace. Here are some of those differences:

• Nature is selfish;  we have three concerns in life – me, myself and I. We are focused inward and that is a difficult condition to overcome. Grace, on the other hand, causes us to look outside our narrow self-interest and enables us to be concerned about others and seek to do God’s will, even when doing so will be an inconvenience or cause us to make sacrifices we wouldn't otherwise consider making.

• Nature hates all restraint… “anything goes” is the order of the day…a “Don’t tell me what to do!” attitude. Grace seeks self-control, self-conquest, obedience. Grace seeks to please God in all that we do.

• Nature loves honor and respect as a symbol of our importance and status. We desire these things for one important reason: to satisfy our insatiable egos. Grace accepts honor and respect but only to offer them to God, who, as St. Paul says is the one, “ from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be glory forever.”

May we increase in grace so that our true nature as God’s children may shine in our lives and the lives of our loved ones.

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

“What Would Jesus Do?”

                                       Deacon Tom writes ©

                                            "What Would Jesus Do?"

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

“Observe what is right, do what is just.” Sounds sooooo simple, doesn’t it? But somehow, as we go about our daily affairs, there are times when knowing the “right” thing to do, or knowing the “just” thing to do is not easy. Some people use the acronym “WWJD” to guide them in making a tough decision. You may have seen their formula for success written on a bumper sticker or two as you drove along the highway. Yes, when we have a difficult decision to make, it is wise, even critical perhaps, to ask ourselves this question, “What Would Jesus Do?”

Jesus is always teaching the disciples how to live and act in ways that are pleasing to God. Today we encounter Jesus teaching us about breaking down barriers that separate and divide us from one another, barriers that stand in the way of our becoming one with each other as we are called to do at each Eucharistic Banquet.  

In today’s gospel Jesus and the disciples encounter a woman whose daughter was tormented by a demon. The disciples can’t be bothered with her and they advise Jesus to “Send her away.” Pretty harsh response from the Apostles, isn’t it? But what else could they possibly do with her?  Isn’t that how we deal with the difficult people in our lives; those individuals who we wish would just “go away;” those people who are always making demands on us or “who keep calling out to us” for something?

Fortunately, Jesus has a better grasp on what’s the right thing to do. He listens to the Canaanite woman and sees what strong faith she has. He is moved by her faith and He grants her favor. Her faith was all that Jesus needed to work a miracle in her life.  The very presence of Jesus in this woman’s life, even for this brief moment, was life altering for her and for her daughter who was healed.

Jesus told us that we would be able to do greater deeds than He did if we but have a little faith. It shouldn’t surprise us then what remarkable power our presence has in the life of others. This is because God abides in each and every one of us. We have His power to reconcile ourselves with one another; the power to cast away loneliness and fear, the power to bring the presence of Christ everywhere we go, even to those who “keep calling out to us” and who refuse to “go away.” We have the power to do any of the things Jesus asks us to do. All we need to get started is to ask ourselves in any given situation, “What Would Jesus Do?”

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom