WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY?

“Faith does absolutely nothing for me.”

This was a pronouncement by a person who came to the rectory to let me know this.

“It seems to me,” by way of my response, “that among the many, many things that faith does do for you, right now it is providing you with a place to go and discuss your displeasure.”

But underneath that question is an underlying question and it is this:  “I want my faith to do something for me in spite of me.”

The return question might be, “What have you done for your faith recently?”

Faith is primarily a relationship.  It is first and foremost a relationship with God.  If you had a friend who was to you exactly like the friend you are to God, would you want to be your friend?  How often do you talking for how long?  How loving are you to God?  How often do you take up His causes?  How closely do you listen to Him and take His advice?  How often do you give thanks and praise?  He was willing to die for you, are you willing to die for Him?  Or be willing to face a repercussion for love of Him?  Or be embarrassed on behalf of Him?  Or at least be somewhat inconvenienced on behalf of Him?  

Faith is also a relationship with the faith community.  The person that says that the faith community is doing nothing for them is quite often the person who does nothing for the faith community or only does them on their own terms. 

It is like letters (snail mail ones) when I was a kid.  I was sad that I never got mail.  My Mom said, “If you want mail, you must also write letters.”  So I did.  And I started getting letters back.  Imagine that.

If you are able to read this, God has already done so much for you that you cannot even begin to fathom the depth and height and width of the indebtedness that we have.  Even that feeling that you are not receiving what you think you need or want is itself God working in you, through longing, to bring you to the next level of faith, hope, and love.

MAY I HAVE THE ENVELOPE REVEALING GOD'S PLAN PLEASE.

So a lady calls me who had been trying to get into a religious order out of state.  “I was accepted!” she exclaimed and wanted to come in to see me the next day to talk about it.  To tell the truth, I was excited also.

The next day she comes in and starts balling tears.  Waterfalls.  Like someone accidentally punctured a water tank.  I was mildly confused.  “I thought we were happy and excited about this,” I said.  As it turns out, the gentlemen with whom she was spending time decided that he was serious about loving her and wanted to spend a lot more guaranteed time with her.  So out of the blue he proposed and now she was conflicted.  

“What does God want me to do?  Does He want me to be married or does He want me to be in a religious order?”

“Well, first let’s look on the bright side,” I responded, “It is not as though you are looking at the difference between death row and a life sentence.  This is a choice between two goods!”  (That didn’t help.)

Unlike St. Francis, most people don’t have a dream or hear a voice from God saying, ‘HERE IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO.”  Be glad.  If that happened, you would HAVE to fulfill it or be in serious sin since you would know the will of God and then ignore it!  Most of us are granted MUCH more leeway.

So most of us go through a period of discernment.  Or we should instead of just plowing through life doing the next thing that pops up.  If you want a plan of discernment, there are all kinds of books, tubes and retreats on the matter.  Many times it comes down to making a decision.  Your discernment may leave you with two goods and nights of roiling over “What does God want me to do?”  Here’s the answer (and you may not like it if you are in the roiling process right now.)  Sometimes God wants you to choose and then be faithful to that choice.  Marriage and religious life are two goods.  They were placed before the woman mentioned above like two puppies.  She had to choose one and only one, and then make the decision to give that one puppy all her care.

Sometimes that alone is God’s will.

LOSS OF FAITH - LOSS OF LIFE

I remember the first time I had the courage to eat at a restaurant alone.  It was a Taco Bell.  I was in junior high school.  I went in, ordered, ate, and then went home.  This was a huge breakthrough for me.  Telling my parents excitedly about it one could see in their faces a mild mixture of amusement and befuddlement.  But being a lone in public was difficult for me (other than bike rides and hikes and the like) and a taco changed my world.

To varying degrees each of us needs alone time and people time.  Difficulties in life begin when we get too much of either.  Too much community can lead to depression just as much as too much alone time.  As an introvert, I often get “peopled out.”  But as a nation, there is a trend to be alone in a crowd.  We are becoming disconnected, fragmented, and largely left alone behind the walls of self.

In a recent article entitled, “Dying of Despair” in “First Things,” Aaron Kheriaty writes about the growing suicide epidemic in the United States.  “Depression is now the most common serious medical or mental health disorder in the United States,” he reports.  And it isn’t just the dispossessed, the addicts, the “failers" and the victims.  It is skyrocketing among those we think as privileged, successful and should have every worldly reason to live.  (We don’t hear about that much though.)  If you want more on this you can read the article in the August/September 2017 issue.

Kheriaty attributes this culture of death to the increasing isolation of the individual from a cohesive and supportive social structure.  (Read family and religion)  The continuing fractioning of marriage and family and the growing number of “nones” religiously set people adrift where they have to create their own world of meaning, of dignity, of self worth, of purpose and of love.  The problem is that when you have this idea alone on an island, it is difficult to maintain it with any sense of belief or joy.

From Freud to Jung, there seems to be a recognition that there are aspects of Catholic culture (particularly confession of all things) that are very beneficial for the human person.  Emile Durkheim (1897) suggests that, “Catholic societies helped reduce suicide while greater individual autonomy and social isolation in Protestant societies tended to increase it.”  (See above article.)

I see this as an example in my own life.  I was enveloped and supported in the life of my home parish growing up.  I was encouraged in a faith life that gave meaning and hope to my existence from a source far bigger than mere human concepts.  I was brought together in a community of believers at least once a week.  We volunteered together.  This was encouraging even in life’s more common moments.  I remember when I was quite young and the men of the parish were together working on some project, and they told one an older boy to flex his arm.  The men laughed an patted him on the back.  Next was me.  I was a scrawny kid but they supported me just the same.  It was an introduction to Christian acceptance and manhood from a source far greater than just what I came up with as an individual. 

That is Christianity at its best: forming community and family - that we may all be one.  It is possible to enter into our churches and still be alone and we need to work at that.  And it is not as though if we put prayer in schools and everybody went to church that all of our problems would be solved.  It’s more complicated than that.  But there is no denying that the death of faith runs tangentially with the increasing death of individuals by their own hands.

GUEST BLOGGER - A SPECIAL INVITATION

Today's blog is written by Mr. David Stavarz, seminarian for the Diocese of Cleveland.

We, as human beings, oftentimes make things more complicated than they need to be. I would actually say that, in general, we tend to make the whole of life more complicated and busy than it needs to be. A good portion of our younger years is filled with schooling - of studying, test taking, and paper writing. After graduation, our lives are filled with schedules, meetings, and long work hours. Careers in business, marketing, politics, the medical field, engineering, and the like require refined skills and immense learning and seem very complex to those not within those particular fields. In today’s technological age, our heads are filled with news of events that happen all around the globe and to be a good citizen we can sometimes think we need to constantly know what is going on in the world. Sometimes, doesn’t it seem like life should be more simple?

When it comes to religion, Catholicism is a faith that can seem especially complicated. In Catholicism there are loads to teachings, doctrines, documents, heresies, councils, popes, saints and so on that can seem to make living the Faith a very involved and complicated reality. But does living a good Catholic life really mean knowing all the little Catholic details?

It is certainly important that we know the Faith and know the Faith as best we can. Growing in our understanding of Catholicism can truly transform our lives. But the standard of living a good Catholic life isn’t just knowing every theological detail and being able to articulate the complexity of the Faith at any time. Living the Catholic faith, in today’s world especially, is and can be much simpler than we sometimes make it.

So what is essential to living a good and simple Catholic life? What can simply ground our faith to make it not just a complicated list of things to do and know? 

What makes our faith powerful and simple is a living relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s it. When we truly realize this relationship in our lives it breathes life into our every action and becomes the reason for our existence. Relationship is what helps us to live a good Catholic life. St. Therese of Lisieux knew this good life lived in relationship as “The Little Way”. She knew that a simple faith was best lived out in love, mercy, and devotion to Jesus in small ways everyday.

One of the greatest and generally lesser known ways we can come into a closer relationship with Jesus is by strengthening our relationship with Mary, His mother. In the Scriptures we do not hear much from Mary, but what we do hear from her is profound and forms the core of what our faith life should look like - namely, trust, self-gift, and mercy. Mary is one of the single most important persons in the Church behind Jesus not because of how she made faith more complicated, but through her example of how to live a powerfully, simple faith.

Fr. Michael Gaitley is a nationally recognized Catholic priest and writer who knows very well the importance of having Mary guide us to leading a simple life devoted to Christ. Fr. Gaitley also believes that having a relationship with Mary will lead us to encounter Jesus especially as He is the source of Divine Mercy. Mercy is what living a simple, yet powerful, faith looks like.

From June 23-25th Fr. Gaitley will be leading a retreat at Walsh University on Mary and Mercy. Throughout this weekend retreat, Father will help show just what a simple and devoted relationship of faith and mercy looks like, particularly through the example and intercession of Mary and other saints such as Therese of Lisieux, Maximillian Kolbe, and John Paul II. 

Fr. Gaitley wants you to see that the time is now for you to live a simple and real faith that is full of love and mercy. Maybe it’s time to strengthen your faith by making it a little less complicated and more about a simple and living relationship with Jesus, the Divine Mercy. If you want to grow closer to Jesus and Mary in your faith life please consider this retreat. This retreat could change your life forever. It could lead you to a life of faith that is simple, powerful, and renewed. 

YOU ARE A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES TOO

Recently on the news someone pleaded with our newly elected president not to reverse the progress that has been made in our nation against global warming.  (Don’t worry, this is NOT a post about the president nor is it about global warming.)  In support of his position he said that it would be a moral failure not to do so.

Interesting position in our politically correct atmosphere and further points out that it is impossible to have a morally neutral position even in national politics.

In the name of tolerance, could we not say that if I don’t “believe in” global warming, (or if I am looking forward to it) then I should be able to live my life as I wish as long as I allow you to live life as one who believes in it?  Or could I say as a politician I personally believe in global warming but I don’t believe I can force my view on the world on others and so reject passing bills outlawing open trash burning?

“Of course not,” many would respond, “because this is something that effects all of us and science has proven it.”  And so there is a perceived moral imperative that overrides individual’s strong desires and beliefs.  

Or suppose I am all about being able to drown kittens if I have too many of them.  “They are mine and my property.”  The moral outrage would be great.  Laws would be enforced - cruelty to animals.  My idea (not really mine - but you get it) belief that animals are here to serve us and I should be able to do with them as I want is suppressed.

We make moral laws all of the time: This is right and protected.  This is wrong and punishable.  On many such topics, there CANNOT be a morally neutral position and moral positions are imposed or lifted by law all of the time.  

Often Catholics are harried into leaving their faith at home when it comes to involvement in politics as if it is an unfair thing to bring to the table or that it would be the same as forcing faith down someone’s throat.  This is unfair.  It instantly negates anything oppositional to popular culture which is making moral imperatives all of the time.  It forbids the idea that a topic of faith may actually offer a moral truth.  If this idea is fully realized it makes Christians in general and Catholics in particular second class citizens.  This epitomized Pope Emeritus Benedict’s comment that we are experiencing the tyranny of tolerance.  It is as inequitable as it is unAmerican.

HOW IS AN HONEST CATHOLIC TO VOTE?

It seems almost ever conversation these days ends with, “Father I want to ask you about the election.”  People are genuinely concerned more than I ever remember before.  It is the dirge constantly playing behind every conversation waiting to come to full volume.

Among many Catholics, there is a profound sadness.  Nobody is, and nobody has for quite some time fully represent us.  Like King David angering God by numbering his people and having to face one of three punishments, we always seems to be asking, not who will best lead us, but who will do the least amount of damage.

The Pope was asked about this conundrum and according to a CNS article he simply said that Catholics facing difficult political choices must study the issues, pray about the election and then vote according to their consciences.  He would never comment on a specific electoral campaign.  "The people are sovereign," he said. "Study the proposals well, pray and choose in conscience.”

So what is one to do?  The first is to be well formed.  It is not about what I may feel, what seems fair, or what I like.  We are a people of the Creed and that is something that we receive through faith in God in the Church.  We are formed by it, we do not form it. It informs and forms us and makes us one in faith.

The Catholic who has studied his faith at all knows that there are some things that far outweigh the other.  Issues about the economy are extremely important but it is dust on the scales when compared to the taking of the lives of the most vulnerable and innocent among us.  If the economy tanks, we may lose every penny we have a suffer terribly for it.  If we blindly allow the taking of innocent life as a right paid for by our taxes in order to have a better economy, then we have lost our very souls.  That has eternal consequences.  (See yesterday's post for resources.)

After being formed, we must be INformed.  “Study the proposals well,” says Pope Francis.  That does not mean turning up the volume when a political add is on T.V.  

Then pray whether you have made up your mind or not.  Someone else may need the prayer.  Do it seriously.  Make a holy hour.  Consider doing a fast of some kind.  The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has a novena for the election.  Pray first and then vote.

If you have done all of these things, then rest assured that you have done all that you can do at this point.  Stay informed and look for the next opportunity to be involved.

PETER WALKED ON WATER TOO

What the Church needs is more people who are willing to risk failure.  Say what you will about St. Peter, before he sank he did walk on the water, for at least a moment.  Nobody else even got out of the boat.

But Peter’s flaw was focusing on himself.  As long as he focused on Christ he was just fine.  The moment he started to worry and focus on himself, he began to sink.  I see this all the time.  I am guilty of this all of the time.

Here are some modern day examples:

The Spirit prompts to tell a young person that they have the traits of a good Church vocation, but then the self jumps in and say, “Oh, they’ll think I’m odd.  They don’t want to be bothered.  I don’t want to face their reaction.”

The Spirit prompts to ask someone, “Do you want to pray about it?”  But then the self jumps in and says, “Only weirdos do that.  What if they go spreading stories about me?”

The Spirit prompts you to say to someone, “Do you want to come to Mass with me?”  But the self jumps in and says, “You know they don’t want to.  They may laugh.  You do their private thing and they will do theirs.”

If more of us took the risk of trusting and stepping out of the boat, what a different seascape we would have.  If none of us do, this whole enterprise will stall.  But even if you fail, you were the one to step out of the boat.  You walked on the water for at least a moment!  Let the other person bring the act of faith to an end - not you.  God did not create us to guard our comfort.  He made us to walk on water.

IN HONOR OF ST. PATRICK, HERE IS POST ON ST. JOSEPH AND A COMPLETELY UNRELATED ST. PATRICK DAY MEME

If you want to get Fr. Orndorff going (and it really doesn’t take much,) show him a picture of St. Joseph as an elderly man with grizzly beard and wrinkled face.  “That is not St. Joseph!” he is wont to declare in precise and slightly elevated tones.  Being the pastor of St. Joseph Parish I am inclined to give him some deference in the matter.  

Father does have some backing for his claim that St. Joseph was not an old man.  The earliest depictions of St. Joseph show him to be a strong, young man of about 25 years of age, what you might picture if you thought of a man in his youthful prime, ready for marriage, and who worked at a very physical job.  In fact, the first three centuries of the life of the Church depicted him this way.  Then, all of a sudden, in the fourth century, he became an octogenarian.  (The painting to the right hangs at this parish and was a very generous donation.)

Did he enter a time machine and seem only gone for a moment but returned having lived a full and happy life in another time?  No.  There was a heresy afoot at the time that attacked the perpetual virginity of Mary, which made the claim that Joseph was the physical father of Jesus.  Having tamped down that heresy, artists (blessed artists! - thank you for all that you do for the Church) started depicting St. Joseph as an 80 year old man suggesting that man of such advanced years would not become a Dad.

There are two problems with this.  The first that I hear confessions and I know that being 80 does not necessarily have anything to do with a decreased desire or ability to do certain things that one did when he was twenty-five.  Secondly, it is a greater story, a more touching story, a more extraordinary inspiration, a more fitting idea (especially to this celibate) that St. Joseph was a man like any other man, in his prime, and having the same strong desires that any other man in that position would have.  Why?  Because it is a far greater thing to overcome your temptations that to have them simply taken away.  And now more than ever, that is the example we need with this great saint.

After all, what makes us great men and women is not that God would take away our free will and therefor out temptations.  What merit is there in that?  Would be becoming comatose for the rest of our lives be more virtuous than moving about and possibly sinning?  No.  What makes us great is, like St. Joseph, we become stronger than our temptations.

GOD, JUST SO YOU KNOW THAT I KNOW: THIS WORLD HAS PROBLEMS

Here is something that I love about Scripture.  You can study it, pray it, go to lectures on it over and over and over, and STILL somebody can point out something that you never saw before.  The passages are compact but the are powerhouses of meaning for the attentive and persistent.  

So I had one of those moments with a passage that I thought I knew cold this last Tuesday and one of my priestly friends pointed out something I had never noticed.  Here is the passage from Matthew 8:5-10.

When he entered Capernaum,^* a centurion approached him and appealed to him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.” 

He said to him, “I will come and cure him.” 

The centurion said in reply,^* “Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a person subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come here,’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”  

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel^* have I found such faith.

Here is the New to Me thing:  Notice (what is essentially) the prayer (ore request) of the centurion.  He presents the problem to Jesus:  “My servant is paralyzed, suffering greatly.”  He doesn’t say anything else.  Jesus is the One Who seems to gather Himself up to go do what seems to be expected of Him.  It is like someone coming to the rectory and saying, “My (insert relationship here) is sick.,” to which I would reply, “Hold on, let me get my oils and I’ll be with you.”

But the guy never says that he wants Jesus to go with Him.  He never says that he wants the guy to be healed.  In fact, he makes no blatant request of Jesus at all.  He simply presents Jesus with the problem and lets Him handle it the way He wants to.  It is of the centurion that Jesus says, “Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.”

I have written before about the dangers of using the word “that” in the petitions at Mass.  As soon as you put the word “that” in, God must jump through a hoop.  For example, “We pray for our political leaders THAT they may lead us in security and peace.”  What if the best thing in the world to happen is that they get thrown out by the collar of their Armani suits and replaced with better leaders?  Did God then not listen to our prayers?  Can we say that God isn’t acting among us?  While we were busy watching the hoop we expected Him to jump through, He may have been working miracles.

May I suggest the centurion’s prayer for your petition prayer.  Present the need or worry to God and let Him work is magic - er - miracle (you know what I mean.)  Don’t create a hoop through which He must jump.  Be open to surprise.  Maybe what you think needs to change doesn’t or doesn’t in the fashion you think that it should.  Maybe it is you that needs changed.  Who knows?  

So present the problem to the Lord.  Let Him deal with it.  He’s the expert after all.  That’s why He’s God.  It’s His job.  Perhaps just further ask for the wisdom and understanding to realize the outcome of the prayer.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: I HAVE FAITH IN YOU

You are standing at the edge of the pool.  Crazily enough you are at the deep end!  You've never even thought about going in the deep end before but here you are and Dad is in the water facing you with his arms out and he says, "Come on, I'll catch you.  You'll be Okay.  Be brave."

But when you jump - that's it!  There is no turning around, nothing to grab on to, it's pure trust that Dad is going to save you or you drown.  So you hesitate.  Then Dad says, "Do you trust me?"

"Uh huh."  It comes out softly.

That was a profession of faith and you gave it just before you jumped.  As a matter of fact, it allowed you to jump.  Saying it out loud reminded you that you believe that this mythic creature known as Dad will keep you from being obliterated.  You simply need to listen, trust, jump, and maybe for a moment you will be under, for a moment that seems a lifetime there is nothing touching your body but air and then cool water, and then two firm hands raise you up eyes twinkling with pride.

So think of this:  There are two parts of the Mass.  There is Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  In the first part we are instructed about the life of faith.  In the second we jump into the void: heaven and earth collide, the visible and invisible meet, (if this were Star Trek, matter and anti-matter would be touching) time is warped, worlds collide, events slide into each other.  It is absolutely ridiculous that we come to Mass and sit behaving in our pews in our Sunday finest.  We should lashed into our pews in riot gear, ushers should come down the aisles with life preservers, and warning sirens should be going off.  If we really understood what was going on we should be scared witless.  We are entering the deep end!  

BUT, before we do, while we are still standing on the edge getting ready to jump in, we tell God, "I trust you - I believe in you."  "I believe in one God, the Father the Almighty . . . "  It is this profession of faith that allows us to jump.  Saying it out loud reminds us that we believe in this wonderful God known as the Father Who will keep us from being obliterated.  We listened, trusted, and are preparing to jump in hopefully with our heart and mind fully understanding what it is that we are doing.

This profession of faith is said on Sundays and more solemn celebrations.  It is preferred that it be sung (when was the last time you heard THAT outside of an extraordinary form Mass?) and is to be intoned by the priest UNLESS it seems more appropriate for it to be intoned by a cantor or choir such as a case where a priest cannot carry a tune a bucket.

It is to be sung or recited by all, or alternated between choir and people, or done by two choruses meaning, for example, the left side of the church says a stanza then the right side of the church says a stanza.  

FAILING TO MAKE THE LEFT TURN AT ALBUQUERQUE

This quote has been a comfort to me:

“The man who knocks on the door of a brothel is knocking for God.”

It is attributed to a couple of people one of whom is G. K. Chesterton.

To get to the intended idea of this I think of a Youtube of Christopher West (where is he by the way?  I haven’t heard of him lately) and he was talking about sin.  Sin cannot stand on its own.  It’s always a perversion of good.  Evil is a state of “unbecoming.”  Like a disease, it needs a host of sorts.  So, he says, every sin, at its heart, is a good desire.  But it has been crumpled up, disfigured, mangled, and distorted like a clean sheet of paper that has been crunched in a fist.  But carefully smooth out that paper, get rid of the disfiguring and distortions and you will find the good intent.

Think of your deepest longing.  Boil it all down and we desire to be fulfilled.  We want joy and happiness.  We want to be loved.  Some people search for it in food.  Food is a good thing.  We need it to survive.  it also taste good (most of the time.)  But when we have a hole in our heart, we take this good thing like food and try to fill that hole.  But it is the wrong filler and no matter how much we throw in it, it will never completely satisfy.

The guy who watches computer porn is seeking something.  Un-crumple that paper and you will find a man who does not want to be rejected, who wants a person to accept him and be cooperative, who is always there, always willing, always beautiful.  But ultimately it will fail to satisfy because it is not what he really needs or wants.

The danger in using these substitutes is that they are often jealous mistresses.  They demand more and more attention and offer promises of redemption and fulfillment.  They form habits and addictions that are difficult to kick.  And in some cases we forget that we were looking for love, hope, acceptance, peace, fulfillment, peace, all the good things.

Then we try to go back to the good things, but the jealous mistress is not easily put off.  Even computer games can be difficult to turn aside.  “The worst thing about sin is that the body remembers.”  “Board are you?” asks the body, “I remember something that made you feel better the last time you felt this way.”

“Yeah, but I felt miserable afterwords for all of the wasted time.”

“It will be different this time.  We’ll only play for a little bit.  You can handle it.  I HATE being bored.”

So how is the man who is knocking on the door of the brothel knocking for God?  There is something missing in his life.  There is a hole.  If he were loved as well as able to love well, if he were not addicted, if there were not a hole, the thought of an anonymous night, in a dangerous place, spending money, risking disease, risking being found out, treating another human as an object, would never enter his mind.

Ultimately, when we smooth out that piece of paper, even he wants heaven.

MOVE ONE SPACE, MOVE ONE SPACE

Has humankind advanced?

 

It depends upon that which you are measuring.

 

Scientifically are we advanced?  By leaps and bounds.  Morally, ethically, civilly have we improved?  There is much to debate.

 

The 19^th and 20^th century are often considered the bloodiest ever.  I remember hearing in grade school the evil Romans used to toss their deformed babies over a cliff.  Today we regularly end the life of our perfectly healthy children in the womb.  But that we still have a strong call for abortions in the first place is a sign that things are terribly wrong. 

 

I used to chuckle superiorly about the silly pioneers who used to throw their trash right out of their windows surrounding themselves in filth.  But we pollute ourselves no less and in fact much more.  Genocide still occurs. One third of the world is dying from hunger while another third dies from over eating.  The Christian Church (a place of unity in Christ) is fractured and we can no longer enter Canada, our friendly neighbor to the north, without a passport and a purpose.  (I went recently just to pop over and see the falls and MAYBE spend the night.  Wrong answer.  I was detained at the boarder for an hour.  Our friendly neighbor is now the grumpy guy with the cane who wants you to stay off of his lawn.)

 

This is not to depress but to point out something important.  Our progress as a species should not be based upon the tricks that we can do.  It should be about where our minds and hearts as a people are.  Until we advance in love, peace, and unity, we haven’t really advanced at all.  We have simply learned new tricks and made ourselves feel better.

 

That is the importance of our faith.  Every week we remind ourselves of this and strive to be better, to fess up when we mess up, and do our best to make amends.  To remind ourselves that it is not enough to be able to do new tricks but to stop and think if the new trick is worth doing.  Medical advances don’t mean much if it is not accompanied by compassion.  We can’t save someone we think “worth it” while tossing those we don’t want over a cliff.  There is no advancement there. 

 

Even more basically: it reminds us that there IS something toward which we may progress.  If this is all an accident of moving particles, then there is no real goal to reach.  But we say that there is an ideal on which to keep our eye.  This is our hope for a better more advanced world.

DID YOU THINK THAT THIS MEANT YOU WERE DONE?

Graduations abound at the moment.  Tonight is our 8^th grade graduation.  It is the culmination of the all of the years that the students have spent within the walls of St. Sebastian Parish School.  We write it all down on a piece of paper and hand it to them.  Basically it says that we have given them all we’ve got, they completed it satisfactorily, and now they don’t need this educational institution anymore.  It’s time for them to move on.

 

Graduation does not exist in the religious realm though sometimes it seems as though it does.  For example, a student will spend eight or more years in our programs learning about the faith at the end of which there is a grand ceremony at which they are confirmed and there is a party.  It kinda feels as though you are graduating from that program and now you are done with the course of studies.

 

But to think that way would be a tragedy.  It would be a tragedy in this way:  Two people fall in love.  They learn about each other.  They woo each other.  (Is that really the way woo is spelled?)  There is a proposal, a marriage ceremony, and a grand party.  Are they done?  Now that the couple has achieved marriage does that mean that the leaning, wooing, and growing love are now over?  Absolutely not.  Neither is it that when one is baptized, eucharized, or confirmarized (I made that up) is one done learning about, growing in, praying to, or being in the service of God.  It is not a completed course of studies from which you move on, it is a way of life into which you enter and are trusted to keep growing more deeply in love. 

 

You can graduate from a collected body of knowledge, you cannot graduate from a relationship with God.

 

Go forth in Christ.