THE POPE AND THE CHAUFFEUR

After getting all of Pope Benedict's luggage loaded into the limo, (and he doesn't travel light), the driver notices that the Pope is still standing on the curb.

'Excuse me, Your Holiness,' says the driver,' Would you please take your seat so we can leave?'

'Well, to tell you the truth,' says the Pope, 'they never let me drive at the Vatican when I was a cardinal, and I'd really like to drive today.'

'I'm sorry, Your Holiness, but I cannot let you do that. I'd lose my job! And what if something should happen?' protests the driver, wishing he'd never gone to work that morning.

'Who's going to tell? Besides, there might be something extra in it for you,' says the Pope with a smile.

Reluctantly, the driver gets in the back as the Pope climbs in behind the wheel. The driver quickly regrets his decision when, after exiting the airport, the Pontiff floors it, accelerating the limo to 105 mph.
(Remember, he's a German Pope.)

'Please slow down, Your Holiness!' pleads the worried driver, but the Pope keeps the pedal to the metal until they hear sirens. 'Oh, dear God, I'm gonna lose my license -- and my job!' moans the driver.

The Pope pulls over and rolls down the window as the cop approaches, but the cop takes one look at him, goes back to his motorcycle, and gets on the radio.

'I need to talk to the Chief,' he says to the dispatcher.. The Chief gets on the radio and the cop tells him that he's stopped a limo going a hundred and five. 'So bust him,' says the Chief.

'I don't think we want to do that, he's really important,' said the cop.

The Chief exclaimed, ' All the more reason!'

'No, I mean really important,' said the cop with a bit of persistence.

The Chief then asked, 'Who ya got there, the Mayor?'

Cop: 'Bigger.'

Chief: ' The Governor?'

Cop: 'Bigger.'

Chief: 'The President?'

Cop: 'Bigger.'

'Well,' said the Chief, 'Who is it?'

Cop: 'I think it's God!'

The Chief is even more puzzled and curious, 'What makes you think it's God?'

Cop: 'He's got the Pope as a chauffeur.'

St. Francis de Sales

Francis was destined by his father to be a lawyer so that the young man could eventually take his elder’s place as a senator from the province of Savoy in France. For this reason Francis was sent to Padua to study law. After receiving his doctorate, he returned home and, in due time, told his parents he wished to enter the priesthood. His father strongly opposed Francis in this, and only after much patient persuasiveness on the part of the gentle Francis did his father finally consent. Francis was ordained and elected provost of the Diocese of Geneva, then a center for the Calvinists. Francis set out to convert them, especially in the district of Chablais. By preaching and distributing the little pamphlets he wrote to explain true Catholic doctrine, he had remarkable success.
At 35 he became bishop of Geneva. While administering his diocese he continued to preach, hear confessions and catechize the children. His gentle character was a great asset in winning souls. He practiced his own axiom, “A spoonful of honey attracts more flies than a barrelful of vinegar.”

Besides his two well-known books, the Introduction to the Devout Life and A Treatise on the Love of God, he wrote many pamphlets and carried on a vast correspondence. For his writings, he has been named patron of the Catholic Press. His writings, filled with his characteristic gentle spirit, are addressed to lay people. He wants to make them understand that they too are called to be saints. As he wrote in The Introduction to the Devout Life: “It is an error, or rather a heresy, to say devotion is incompatible with the life of a soldier, a tradesman, a prince, or a married woman.... It has happened that many have lost perfection in the desert who had preserved it in the world. ”

In spite of his busy and comparatively short life, he had time to collaborate with another saint, Jane Frances de Chantal (August 12), in the work of establishing the Sisters of the Visitation. These women were to practice the virtues exemplified in Mary’s visit to Elizabeth: humility, piety and mutual charity. They at first engaged to a limited degree in works of mercy for the poor and the sick. Today, while some communities conduct schools, others live a strictly contemplative life.

Sunday 2 Ordinary Time

John 2:1-11

January, 20, 2013

How serious am I in suggesting that the mother of Jesus should be the model for us sophisticated Christians of the 80s?

How serious am I? Dead serious.

Simply because the pith and marrow of your Christian existence and mine is summed up in the single sentence of Mary to the servants at Cana:

"Do whatever he tells you"

This, we have seen, was the secret, the driving force, of Mary's existence, from Nazareth to Calvary and beyond.

She listened to God's word and did it.

You see, Mary is not our model because she tells us how to bring a child into the world without obstetrician or midwife.

She does not show us how to escape from tyrannical kings and terrorists.

She does not instruct you in "the joy of cooking," does not replace Dr. Spock,

has no word for you on domestic dialogue, neat hints on teen-age drug abuse.

In fact, if you carry that sort of detailed, minute modeling far enough, Mary will end up the perfect model only for the mother of a single child, and that without benefit of husband!

When I say that what Mary is, the Church and every Christian should be, I am reflecting a rich tradition:

By God's providence and with God's grace, the mother of Jesus lived to human perfection what God intends for each of us and for the whole Christian community-

what God demands of each and all, under peril of being unchristian.

And what is that?

Simply, that when we hear the word of the Lord, we say yes; that we listen with ears aquiver to Jesus' every whisper-listen and then "do whatever he tells" us.

A simple set of monosyllables, right?

Hear the word of God and do it.

Simple in sound, terribly difficult in brute reality.

Oh, it's easy enough when God's word is our word, when you hear what you hoped to hear, when what God wants is what you would have chosen anyway.

It's relatively easy when things are going your way,  the Michelob is flowing freely;

 when there is sap in our veins and a spring in our step;

 when our love life is sheer romance and our Honda is purring;

 when our job is joy, wife or husband a daily miracle, our children

shaped by angels, and money grows on trees; when death has taken a holiday.

The problem is, no human life remains quite that idyllic.

And so, Christian existence calls for the faith of Mary, her trust, her love.

What complicates matters, what makes faith crucial early on, is that, with  as with the mother of Jesus, God does not greet us with a curriculum vitae, with a life script, at birth, or when we turn into a teen, or when we shake the dust of Duke from your feet.

Let me turn a little personal.

When God called me to be a priest (at least I think I can blame it on God), He did not unfold a full scenario for my century, did not detail the bittersweet of priestly existence.

 that, as the world around me grew and changed, I would experience confusion and uncertainty, surprises and crosses, anger and fear and resentment.

No angel announced to me in advance that basic presuppositions of my youth would have to be agonizingly reappraised on authority in the Church,

on contraception and natural law,

on loyalty to Rome and the freedom of the Christian conscience,

on "one true Church."

When He called, God told me only enough for me to say yes, only enough for me to put my hand in His and murmur with the mother of His Son "Let it be with me as you say."

And so must it be with all of us- if our living is to be genuinely Christian.

For some of you, what the Lord would like from your life is reasonably clear;

for others, His word is still to be spoken.

either case you need the loving faith of 'a teen-age virgin of ancient Nazareth.

For, wherever the years take you, whithersoever God calls you, you had better begin with the one indispensable Christian response,

the response that transcends denominations, links Catholic and Protestant in a unique unity: "Let it be with me, Lord, as you say."

With those giant monosyllables on your lips and in your heart, you will have built your house on the Gospel rock.

The rains will fall and the floods come, the winds will blow and beat upon your house, but it will not fall.

Building on the rock that is Christ, you will always, by his gracious giving, "do whatever he tells you."

Do that and I can promise you one thing without the slightest Roman reservation. "Do whatever he tells you" and you will experience the joy which, Jesus promised, "no one will take from you".

In the midst of sin and war, of disease and death, you will echo and reecho the infectious invitation of Eugene O'Neill's Lazarus summoned from the grave:

Laugh with me!

Death is dead!

Fear is no more!

There is only life!

There is only laughter!

The Gospel according to the Hobbit

I was looking through some Catholic blogs and found this interesting article. Check it out!

There's Nothing "Ordinary" about Ordinary Time

The Monday after the first Sunday after January 6 (the Feast of the Epiphany) marks the first day of "Ordinary Time" in the Catholic liturgical calendar (unless the Baptism of the Lord is celebrated on that day, in which case the first day of Ordinary Time is Tuesday). Ordinary Time is a feature of the liturgical calendar for the Novus Ordo Mass; before the start of the 1970 liturgical year, what is now known as Ordinary Time was referred to as the Sundays after Epiphany and the Sundays after Pentecost.

Ordinary Time encompasses all of those parts of the Church year that aren't included in the major seasons (Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter). Because of this, and because of the connotations of the term ordinary in English, many people have the impression that the Church finds these weeks unimportant. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Ordinary Time is called "ordinary" because the weeks are numbered. The Latin word ordinalis, which refers to numbers in a series, stems from the Latin word ordo, from which we get the English word order. Thus, Ordinary Time is in fact the ordered life of the Church. It's appropriate, therefore, that the Gospel for the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (which is actually the first Sunday celebrated in Ordinary Time) always features either John the Baptist's acknowledgment of Christ as the Lamb of God or Christ's first miracle--the transformation of water into wine at the wedding at Cana.

This is the new order of the Christian year, one in which Christ, the Lamb of God, walks among us and transforms our lives. In the end, there's nothing "ordinary" about that.

Baptism of the Lord C

Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

January 13, 2013

(This is the homily I didn't give!)

Years ago, there was a conference in England to discuss the question, “What makes Christianity different from all the other religions of the world?”

At the conference, some suggested that Christianity is unique in its teaching that God became a human being.

It was pointed out that the Hindu religion has many instances of God coming to earth as human.

 Others suggested that it is the belief in the resurrection.

Again it was pointed out that other faiths believe that the dead rise again.

The debate grew loud and heated until C. S. Lewis, the great defender of Christianity, came in.

“What’s the rumpus about?” he asked.

When he was told that it was a question of the uniqueness of Christianity, he said, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”

On this feast day of the Baptism of the Lord, the second reading from the Letter to Titus focuses not on Jesus but on us as people who have been saved through the grace of baptism.

“For when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:4-5).

Here we see the meaning of grace.

G-R-A-C-E spells God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense.

The salvation we have received is not in payment for any good works we might have done but a free and unconditional gift of God.

In baptism God wipes away all our sins and no longer holds us accountable for them.

C.S. Lewis is right when he says that the doctrine of grace makes the Christian faith unique among all other faiths.

Other religions hold that God rewards the just and punished the wicked.

We have all heard about the Hindu law of karma that holds that we must pay for every sinful thought, word, and deed that we do,

and that if we do not pay for them satisfactorily in this life, then we shall reincarnate and come back to life on earth to continue paying for them.

The Christian faith also believes in the justice of God.

But we also believe that God forgives us our trespasses and treats us much better than we deserve.

This is grace.

This is unmerited favor.

Baptism which makes us God’s children in a special way is a good example of grace.

There are no preconditions for receiving God’s grace.

That is why even babies can receive baptism.

There are no requirements, but there are consequences.

This is brought out in today’s second reading:

“The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly.

 God’s grace brings us salvation, but it also requires us from then on to renounce worldliness and embrace godliness.

To receive God’s grace is free and unconditional.

But to remain in God’s grace demands a response from us.

This response is, on the one hand, that we say no the devil and to the temptation to run our own lives according to our selfish and worldly inclinations,

 and, on the other hand, that we submit to God and lead our lives in submission to God’s holy will.

In other words, we who have received the grace of baptism must endeavor to live up to our baptismal promises.

As we celebrate today the baptism of our lord Jesus in the Jordan, let us thank God for the free gift of salvation through the grace of baptism.

Let us also earnestly ask him for the grace to keep us faithful to our baptismal promises to say no to evil and to say yes to God even unto death.

The Epiphany of the Lord C

Matthew 2:1-12

January 6, 2013

Mark Twain used to tell a joke that he put a dog and a cat in a cage together as an experiment, to see if they could get along.

They did.

So he put in a bird, pig and goat.

They, too, got along fine after a few adjustments. Then he put in a Baptist, a Presbyterian, and a Catholic, and hell broke loose.

Mark Twain did not even bother putting together a Christian, a Muslim, and a Hindu.

That was unthinkable in his days.

 In today’s world, however, it has become obvious that Christians live in the same cage, in the same city, in the same world, with people of other religions.

Today, the feast of Epiphany, we remember the Magi who came from faraway lands to worship the baby Jesus.

They came guided by a star.

Being nature worshippers who had no scriptures, God revealed Himself to them through the means available to them in their own religion.

Through the stars they were able to learn of the birth of Jesus and find their way to him.

They came as pagans, they worshipped Jesus as pagans, and they went back home as pagans.

They did not convert either to Judaism or to Christianity.

Their worship was acceptable to God and God directed them in their journey home through a dream.

This shows that God does have a relationship with people of other religions who are neither Jews nor Christians.

There is only one God, and all who seek God with a sincere heart are led to Him, though they call Him by different names.

One thing Christians have in common with members of other religions is that we all worship the same God.

We all are children of the same Father.

This truth is hard for religious people to appreciate because religious people all over the world tend to claim that they have exclusive access to God and the truth.

In the Old Testament, the Jewish people believed that they were the exclusive people of God.

They divided the whole world into two: Jews who were the people of God, and Gentiles who were not.

Some of their prophets and wise men tried to correct this belief by reminding them of the universal love of God for all humankind.

But it was not until Jesus came that this idea began to sink in.

Christ made both groups, Jews and Gentiles, into one people and broke down the dividing wall of hostility separating them 

This is the message of the gospel that God commissioned Paul to preach: “that is, the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel”

In the past, Christians tended to make the same mistake as the Jews of old by claiming that there is no salvation outside the church.

Then Vatican II came along, the church opened the windows to the Spirit of God, and came to recognize that God’s truth is available to people of other religions,.

But we should always remember that even though we may believe we are on the better way, others who are on the not-so-better way could arrive at the goal before us.

Let us reflect on this mystery today as we celebrate the Magi coming from pagan lands to worship the new-born Jesus while God’s “chosen people” in Jerusalem sleep unaware that the kingdom of God has come.

The Nativity of the Lord

John 1:1-18

December 25, 2012

In the beginning was God.

Out of the infinite silence, God spoke       himself

and the Son became Word.

Their intense relationship generated the Spirit of love.

And, since love by its nature is effervescent, this trinitarian love reached a critical mass and exploded in creation.

Planets were flung like fireworks into the black abyss.

Eons later, one of the smaller stars cooled and congealed into a state that supported life.

Myriad varieties of life teemed and progressed in complexity and perfection until human life finally happened.

God had created a creature that could love God back. 

So the Hound of Heaven chased her beloved down the centuries and across continents, in good times and bad.

Each human infidelity increased God's determination to have and to hold humankindCuntil, one day, God's fervor for us reached a critical mass and  gave birth to Jesus.

God's own Word became our flesh.

They named him Jesus.

Like him, each of us is born into the same stream of history.

Why do some of us drown while others get in the swim of things?

Is it genetics or environment or the will to live?

The late psychologist Ernest Becker thought that, in humans, repression replaces the animal instinct to live.

Becker believed that we are constantly bombarded by so many aspects of reality and our consciousness is so delicate that we become frightened.

The only way to prevent acute anxiety is to repress whole slices of reality, of experience.

Thus, by the time we are adolescents, most of us have denied our original sense of a miraculous creation and settled for a safe set of ordinary things called normalcy.

Do you remember the day you traded miracles for normalcy?

Baby Jesus never did that.

He was born with Jewish Chutzpa and grew up in a small town where everyone was famous and everyone was necessary.

CSo he never had to repress his sense of the miraculous.

CHe trusted his instinct that to be fully human was to be engaged with realityC

Clike a baby with its thumb

CSo he drank in wine and hope, and exuded courage and compassion.

But even Jesus had to bow to the human law that only our childhood is ours

the rest of our lives belongs to strangers.

Besides personal fulfillment, we are charged with a public role.

Jesus knew the hopes of his people and made them his own.

He went at life with a broad ax and ran around the country crying, "If someday the blind will see and the lame leap, then why not now? 

Let God's reign begin!"

It was an intriguing possibility.

But the people had long since opted for secure, normal lives.

They had to repress this outburst of the miraculous in their mundane world.

So they pulled and stretched his body and tacked him to a crossbeam.

That is when it fell on Jesus that, if goodness does not prevail and love does not persuade and God does not rule,

the life on that level does not work.

He had to find a higher plane , so he exploded in the miracle of resurrection.

Like Jesus, all of us have to integrate evil.

Christmas is a good time to regain our lost innocence.

The miraculous mood of the feast helps us enter into a second naivete in which childish trust is laced with adult reality.

That is why the one who ended as a suffering savior began as a cuddly babe:

because God wanted to lure us to herself.

She knew that people are more moved by a crying baby than by a crucified redeemer,

that people are more attracted by human touch than by divine presence.

And, on Christmas, who's to say that we the people are wrong?

Advent 4C

Matthew 1:18-24

December 23, 2012

The intermittent relationship between John and Jesus began very early in life.

Before they could know each other, understand each other or even see each other, from the darkness of his womb we are told that John sensed the vibrant presence of Jesus and jumped for joy.

In later years, did Mary and Elizabeth talk in hushed voices over their mutual miraculous births?

Did they compare the growth progress of their little boys?

Since Elizabeth bore John in her old age she probably died before he could leave her for the wilderness.

But probably not before she told John of his amazing birth and his even more amazing cousin.

But how much would John understand of this old wives' tale?

Did Jesus and John play together as children at clan gatherings?

Then, grown wiser in adolescence, did they discuss the nature of girls and the meaning of life?

They must have drifted apart in mind before they were separated physically-

John to the desolate desert and Jesus to the carpenter shop.

John chose isolation and hardship while Jesus chose social community and ordinary existence.

Their different experiences no doubt helped form their different images of the same God.

For John, God was an uncompromising judge, saving good people and condemning bad people.

For Jesus, God was a Father bent on saving all his children.

When Jesus asked John for baptism, did John recall any of their previous relationship?

Or even if they had forgotten each other over 30 years, did Elizabeth's strange words about a Messiah in the family come back to him?

Jesus and John , then, return to their separate ways of following the same God's will for them.

John continues to rail against evil and pronounce God=s judgment, while Jesus, announced God's kingdom of forgiveness.

John fasts while Jesus feasts,

John condemns while Jesus blesses.

It is perhaps symbolic that John is beheaded for accusing an adulterer, and Jesus is condemned for forgiving an adulteress.

Strange how experience with people paints a different picture of God;

and that picture of God affects how people are experienced.

It must have been difficult for John to play straight man to a Messiah.

So, before John is executed for proclaiming God's justice, he makes one last attempt at clarifying his relationship with Jesus.

As is his simple custom, he asks a simple question of Jesus: "Are you the Messiah?"

But Jesus' experience has taught him that few things in life are that simple.

He could have asked: "What do you mean by messiah ... which kind of messiah will people accept ... what sort of messiah will survive long enough to preach God's kingdom?"

But Jesus merely asks John to view his actions in the light of John's famous predecessor, the prophet Isaiah.

We can only hope that John made the proper connections and died content that he and his cousin had worked well together.

Jesus outlived john by only a year or so, then was also executed.

Not for this or that specific deed, but in general, for the kind of person he was and the kind of God he preached.

Like John, he was surprisingly successful at first, then lost his crowd appeal when religious rubber hit secular road.

It is one thing to be cured and forgiven and blessed;

it is another thing to cure and forgive and bless.

But that's another story.

Today, we simply see two pregnant women exchanging motherly concerns in a peasant village.

From such simple beginnings and such ordinary people does God work his magic among us.