The First Disciple

With this month of September, as if taking a clue from the glorious Feast of the Assumption, the Marian Feasts appear. September 8th, the Birthday of Mary; the 12^th, the Holy Name of Mary; the 15^th, the Sorrows of Mary; the 24^th, the ancient feast of Our Lady of Ransom. The Marian tribute flows into October with the Feast of the Rosary on October 7. Why does the Church do this? Ask this of the readings…

Nestled in this Green Formation-in-DiscipleshipTime, what role does the Mother of Jesus play in the fostering of our own discipleship? In our own formation? In our own spirituality? In the life of the Church? Fear not that she will replace her Son in our lives. But don’t miss the fact that she is given to us as the model of our own formation in discipleship. We look to our mother to see what we shall be. We look to her to see how one becomes a true disciple.

Yes, she was conceived without the sin of Adam. The blood her Son would shed would intercept it…the blood she gave Him, because with God there is no time. And we? We will have an immaculate completion…freed at last from all sin by that same blood. Then there was the Virgin Birth…His body formed in her by the Spirit’s power in her DNA. And how else will you also give Christ to the world? How else does the Church give Christ to the world if not by a virgin birth? Mediatrix of all graces? The Sacred Humanity came from her, and that humanity was the sacrament of our saving. Is not your humble humanness, and that of the Church, the means of reaching out to others? And finally, in her Assumption, that humble God-bearing body becomes transformed by the very love that burned in her from Him. And you? What will your transfigured humanness look like, fed by His Risen Life in the Eucharist? Our mother shows us what discipleship looks like, and what it does to our humanness. She shows us what the Church will look like when the struggle is over, when there are no more tears.

 

Lovely Lady, dressed in blue, 

teach us how to pray…

God was just your little Boy, 

and you know the way.

 

 

This is my Body…

We’ve just celebrated a significant Revival in honor of the presence of the risen Jesus in the Eucharist. The reason for this effort is a survey that revealed many Catholics are no longer believing that the consecrated host holds the real presence of the risen Jesus. They learned it when they studied their catechism, but now, as science has taken center stage on TV, how are they to explain it in conversation? What might we say to our families and friends when they ask us about this? How might this month’s readings help us with this?

We might begin by saying that the mystery of the incarnation really has three steps…down. First, our wild loving God in the person of the Word, stepped down into the Virgin’s womb. The Word fused itself with our DNA…our double helix. If that is not amazing enough, he took a second step…down. The Word in the humanness of Christ Jesus chose to enter the worst level of human suffering, death by execution by your very own kin. But there is a third step. The transformed human that is the risen Jesus took a third step…down. He figured out how to feed us with his own risen life by becoming a ‘thing,’ bread to be kept in a bread-box we call the tabernacle.

Catherine of Siena says it well: “Oh mad lover! It was not enough for you to take on our humanity: you had to die as well! Nor was death enough…I see your mercy pressing you to give us even more when you leave yourself to us as food to strengthen our weakness, so that we forgetful fools should be forever reminded of your goodness.” (Dial. 30, p. 72) Yes, three steps…down.

It would be wise too, for us to mention that we are dealing with an alternate physics here. We have no idea what a transformed humanness is like. We just know that this time-space body gets pretty exhausted by the end of the day. Jesus has a transformed human metabolism. Its limits are gone. It has been transformed by love…as ours will be, and he can be anywhere he pleases. In fact, he is the one presence that holds all the tabernacles that hold him. Our faith in the Eucharist holds the promise of our very own future. The Revival prayer by Bishop Andrew Cozzens says it well:

Jesus living in the Eucharist, come and live in me.

Jesus healing in the Eucharist, come and heal me.

Jesus sacrificing yourself in the Eucharist, come and suffer in me.

Jesus rising in the Eucharist come and rise to new life in me.

Jesus loving in the Eucharist, come and love in me.

 

Updating Our View of God

This beautiful time in glow of Easter brings us some of the greatest feasts of the Liturgical Year: the Ascension, Pentecost, and near the end of the month, The Trinity. We have learned that the Ascension is not just ‘Yay, Jesus!’ but the realization that our own humanness, our very DNA is now located in the very Heart of God. We have understood better that the coming of the Spirit into our lives can come in doses of small, medium, or large. But the Trinity? 

 Years ago, we learned it well: There are Three Persons in God, but there is only one God. That was it. We may have learned it, but why is it that when we are asked to explain it to a Jewish or Muslim friend, to our family, we are tongue-tied. We really don’t know what to say. Maybe it’s time for an update, for moving this most profound of Feasts from the language of doctrine to the language of meaning.

 Why do we, of all the world religions, believe that there are three ‘somethings’ in God? Because Jesus told us so. He told us so because it is basic to our understanding of the transformation of the entire world. He had to open our minds. He had to widen our narrow, sin-bound understanding. We think that difference means competition: you-against-me. No, Jesus taught. Difference can unify. Now this is a strange thought…for the races, for the nations, for human culture, for the human ego.

If you have a Singer, you know that because there is a Song. If there is a Song, it is because you heard the Singing. If you have a Speaker, you know that, if there is a Word. If you hear a Word, it is because you heard the Speaking of it. If you have a Lover, you need a Beloved, and you know both because of the Loving between them. Remove one difference and the unity collapses. Hmm…that simple? Grammar? Yes, and that profound.

That is what Jesus taught us, and that is what we have to learn as humans to heal human relationships. Difference is meant to create the beauty of unity. Is that why all creation is Trinitarian? Is that why we are Trinitarian as humans: physical, emotional, spiritual, yet one entity? Is that why all of human culture is Trinitarian, for it is in our differences that we will find our oneness? We will finally be healed…because truly we are in the image and likeness of God?

 Holy One,

What am I to say?

Are you Love simply Expressed in Expressing?

Are you God-Mystery who has a God-Word through a Spirit-begetting?

Hmmm…I have to think about that…

Amen.

 

Tips from the USA Dominicans Preaching Contacts

On November 17, 2023, the Preaching Contact Persons from the USA Dominican Communities shared pointers they suggest make preaching events memorable…! We thought you would like to know what they said:

•      ·       Connect with history as appropriate; help us understand whatever is being celebrated (i.e. Translation of remains of Dominic, Triumph of the Cross).
• ·       Share just enough appropriate historical background.
• ·       Know your audience and remember that holidays are times of joy and sorrow; speak to both realities…!  
• ·       Know context: What is happening in the world?
• ·       Use a line from Scripture and repeat it appropriately for emphsis.
• ·       Just the right length - not too long and not too short…!
• ·       Never ramble…!
• ·       Challenge your audience (Avoid serving ‘Let us…’)
• ·       Draw people into a personal encounter with Christ Jesus.

Keep tuned…! We’ll be sharing more on the final point soon…!

The Preaching Committee, Kathy, Lisa, Lois, Clarice, and Carla Mae

Let Your Light Shine?

 We have experienced the shortest day of the year, and the light is growing stronger each day. Liturgically, we have just celebrated the season of lights. But as we listen to the evening news, we often feel anything but lightsome. What are we to make of this contrast? Often we sense that the Church lives in its own faith-world, while I live in the real world. But after a bit of thought, maybe what we really all live in, is the tension between light and darkness. There is a tug-of-war, and I have to decide daily what side I’m on…!

 Interestingly, this is exactly what the Dominican shield captures. Whether viewed from the bottom up or the top down, the light is piercing the darkness. Maybe that is just the point: we live in the tension between light and darkness, between truth and lies, between peace and war, between the now and the not-yet.

 The scriptures for this time right after Christmas assure us of one thing: the Light has come, and the darkness is not going to overcome it. So, on our part we need to focus. Being wishy-washy will bring us only confusion. We need to make a decision to keep our eyes on the prize. But there is more. The Light has made its home in our DNA…our ‘stuff’…in our very flesh. There is nowhere to run when we look in the mirror. The deed is done. There is light behind our eyes…in fact, we are told we are the light of the world, because the One who has taken our flesh is the Light of the world. The darkness might try to snuff it out, but it doesn’t have a chance against that Love-light. We didn’t put it there, and even if we cover it with a bushel, we are not going to kill it. This is to be our focus. This is our constant gratitude, no matter how the darkness tries to smother it. Yes, do let your light shine for me and all to see…

 Little One,

Veiled in my flesh,

Expression of the Father’s Glory

wrapped in swaddling clothes,

my light is hidden too.

My skin hides my light from me.

But you see what I cannot see.

You have given Yourself to me.

Help me to remember

when the darkness closes in…

to let your light shine.

 

While Waiting in the Dark

Advent is a time of immense waiting. We wait for what we cannot yet see. It is growing…coming to be, but we wait in the darkness of unknowing. The liturgy gives us a woman during this season to teach us how to trust that something is going to emerge from the darkness. The darkness is going to give way to the light. We can learn much from Mary during this Advent time, especially because the present darkness around us is so intense.

The woman is aware that her very being is shaping something, yet the design is being woven by an unseen hand. Her humanness is providing the ‘stuff,’ the DNA, the cells, the tissue, the bone, but she does not see what it is becoming. But SomeOne else has the plan. She assists the plan. She eats, sleeps, speaks, and waits.

It sounds like us, the Church, doesn’t it. We so long for all the bickering to stop. We long for the corruption to end. We want the immigrants to find a home. We want the wars to cease for lack of interest. Yet all the while our longing is weaving something. Our desires strain to be realized and like the woman, we sense that SomeOne has a plan for what shall be. Advent is our time of longing for what grows in us, among us, from us. Advent is our time to assist…it is the time of active waiting. We too will eat, sleep, and wait. We will listen to the news…watching for signs of hope, signs of what is coming to be in the dark.

And just as sure as that newness will emerge from Mary’s longing, so will the reign of God emerge from the darkness of our Advent longing. We do not know what it shall look like…we only know that its coming is as sure as that birth. We assist. We do the ordinary things with extraordinary active love, and in due time, it comes. It comes from the time of our active waiting in the fertile dark of our faith.

Come, Lord Jesus…Do not delay.

From our longing and our tears,

Weave the flesh of our peace.

Build the blocks of unity from our differences.

Shape us into a people after your own heart.

Teach us, Weaver of plans, how to assist you.

Be it done unto us according to your Word

As we wait in the dark.

When All is Said and Done…

November brings us into the close of the liturgical year and the end of Ordinary Time. The Church, in her wisdom, has been instructing us on how to be a disciple in light of the Paschal Mystery. Jesus’ dying and rising is ever before her eyes, and ours too.

The rhythm of our lives flows from struggle and pain to joy and celebration. No one is excepted, be they believer or non-believer. The difference is that believers and disciples have a clue as to why life is that way. It was that way for the One who came to be with us and who loves us so. Our faith in him shows us how to ‘hang on.’ The ‘seat belt’ that keeps us secure in this roller coaster of life is his gift of Easter peace. He has us tight and safe…we need not fear, though the storm rages around us and in us.

The readings explore this wild ride coming to an end. They reveal the final victory of his Kingship. He is the king who suffers with us and brings us through the storm.

 Servant King,

Your arms are stretched out wide…

No one is excluded from your wide embrace.

 There is room for the most wretched,

the most abandoned, the most hopeless.

Is there room for me?

+

Your heart is open,

like a window without shutters,

Catherine says…

Where I can climb in and hide safely anytime.

+

Your hands are wounded…so are mine.

I’ve used them to grasp, to hold with tightened fists.

Gently pry open my clenched fists

and kiss them…

So I grasp and hold on to nothing but yourself.

+

Your feet are wounded…so are mine.

They’ve taken me to places you would not go.

They’ve taken me far from you,

Until I felt lost and alone.

+

Your head so wounded, pierced and aching,

has plans for me…and in your will is my peace.