Vivid memories of times we were hurt can keep us from hurting others.

Thursday, 3/1/12

For motivating ourselves to observe the “Golden Rule” it helps to remember how we felt on occasions when we were offended. I’ll give a few examples from my life.

When it comes to looking on others as strange kinds of people I recall how it was when I was the only American in the Korean town where I lived. On the whole, people were very kind, but I was hurt those days when little kids took me to be a walking zoo. Surrounding me as I made my way they were leaping up, getting their faces into mine, joyful at getting close to a real oddity.

When I make fun of the attachment some people have for their belongings I recall my feelings on the day a slicky-boy ran off with my handbag. It contained soft leather Pullman slippers that I hardly ever wore, but still loved like my own skin. Too, in that handbag I had a small book published in 1645 in St. Paul’s Churchyard - my Granduncle John who wore spats presented it to me after bidding for it at an auction. I had a genuine relationship to that book.

I must admit to being fascinated by nakedness, but I can share the feelings of the objects of such staring. What enables me to do it is my memory of being naked and exposed. Some older boys called me into their house down the block from my home. They stripped me, then pushed me out the door. I had to keep running and crouching behind one bush after another, scared to death over anyone seeing me. It seemed as though they would be taking the person I was away from me.

Additionally, I recall times when I went smiling up to someone only to be snubbed. Each of us has feelings that can be hurt, that should teach us not to hurt others.

People who inist that Jonah lived in a whale usually miss what God tells us with this story.

Wednesday, 2/29/12

The story of Jonah gives us an example of the harm done by a Fundamentalist approach to the Bible.

I remember being a Fundamentalist on the Book of Jonah. In the seminary I had a high regard for a young man five years older than me. After he was ordained a priest he was sent to Rome and Jerusalem for a graduate degree in Scripture studies. After he completed his studies he wrote an article on the Book of Jonah, and in it he wrote that Jonah could not have been swallowed by a whale.  

I was so disappointed in that young priest. It had me railing against graduate studies that taught students to ignore God’s word in the Bible. To me, the whole message of the Book of Jonah was that God can work miracles like letting a man live in a whale.

As the years went on, and as I came to understand the Church’s teaching on the Bible, I came to see not only that the Book of Jonah was written as a fable, but that by insisting on a literal meaning for the story I had altogether missed out on God’s important message in the Book of Jonah.

About 450 B.C. there was a reform movement in Jerusalem that had the Jews breaking off relations with people who worshipped idols and practiced thing like human sacrifices. The movement went too far. It had Jews not only avoiding, but detesting, foreigners. God inspired a humorous writer to compose the Book of Jonah to remind people that foreigners were also his children.

At that historical period the harshest foreigners were the Assyrians with their capitol of Nineveh. The storyteller imagined God telling a Jew to go preach repentance to the people of Nineveh to save them. Jonah, a Jew like many others, hated the people of Nineveh so much that he went to sea to get out of saving his enemy. God brought him back, and he sent him to Nineveh.

Jonah, hoping they would ignore him, told the people to repent. When they did, and when they were saved from God’s vengeance, Jonah went off onto a hilltop where he sulked over not getting to see the destruction of his enemies. He made himself comfortable sitting under a leafy plant that shaded his head. But when a worm ate the leaves exposing Jonah to the hot sun he was angry. God then spoke to him, saying that if Jonah was sorrowing over the loss of one plant, shouldn’t he, God, have felt bad about the possible loss of the hundred and twenty thousand citizens of Nineveh who might have perished along with their animals?

The graces with which God pelts the hearts of men are as pleniful as the drops of rain he sends down on the earth.

Tuesday, 2/28/12

Our first reading is from Isaiah, Chapter 55. I suppose you know this, but isaiah died around the year 700 B.C., and his prophecies end with Isaiah, Chapter 39. All the passages from Chapter 40 on are the words of an unknown prophet who came to the people in 130 B.C., 160 years after Isaiah’s death. Somehow, when ancient scrolls were bundled up, the words of this later prophet were bound together with those of Isaiah. Not knowing his real identity, we usual refer to this unknown prophet as Second Isaiah. It is a shame we don’t know that great man’s name, because his words are among the most beautiful in the Bible.

In today’s reading he spoke of God’s word. By this he meant God’s graces, his promptings to do good and void evil, along with the flashes of understanding he gives to all of us many times a day,

In teaching school I used to take out a dollar, offering it as a prize to the first student who could memorize today’s reading word for word.

The passage compares God’s word, his promptings, his graces, to the abundance of rain falling on the earth. Actually it is a super-abundance. Much of the rainfall goes into gutters and creeks without ever contributing to the growth of crops. In the same way we ignore most of the graces God showers on us; but he so abundantly pelts us with his graces that some of it takes effect.

Reading the paper and listening to the news one wonders why, with all the evil going on, the world doesn’t shrivel up and die. The reason is that the world sputters on because there is always enough of God’s graces being heeded in people’s hearts. 

The Bible gives us four things we must do to be saved.

Monday, 2/27/12

People asked Jesus, “What must we do to be saved?” We can see four parts to the answer to that question. Our readings today give us two parts of it. The first is that we must keep the Commandments. The second, as the Gospel tells us, is that we must tend to the needs of our fellow men.

What are the other two parts? They appear in Chapter Twenty Five of Matthew’s Gospel just before today’s reading.

Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter Twenty Five, verses one to thirteen, in giving us Our Lord’s parable of the ten virgins, supplies us with the third necessity. In that parable the five foolish virgins who had no oil for their lamps were locked out of the banquet. We will be like them if at the hour of our deaths we lack the oil for our lamps, which is love of God in our hearts -- the state of grace.

Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter Twenty-Five, verses fourteen to thirty gives us the fourth necessity in the parable of the talents. One servant made no use of his God-given talents. In the end the king said, “Throw this useless servant into the darkness outside.”

Sunday, 2/26/12

This is the First Sunday of Lent. Every year the Gospel for today is an account of Our Lord’s forty day fast in the desert. Last year we had Luke’s account. Next year it will be Matthew’s. This year it is Mark’s.

Matthew and Luke give us full accounts of Satan’s three attempts at tempting Jesus, but Mark gives us only a bare-bone account. Yet even Mark’s brief account is enough to reveal two mysteries embedded in the scene.

The first mystery has to do with Jesus coming from the water, then passing through forty days in the desert. By this sequence Jesus repeats, in miniature, the Israelites’ coming out of the Red Sea to spend forty years in the desert. This seemingly accidental similarity alerts us to the deep truth alluded to in Ephesians. There, Paul spoke of the great mystery of God’s plan “to sum up all things in Christ.” After here identifying himself with his people’s history, Jesus would then go on as one of them to offer his life for their salvation.

The second mystery here has to do with Jesus being tempted to the full. In Romans, Chapter Six, Paul described how by going down into, then rising up from, the water of baptism, we symbolically share in the death and resurrection of Jesus. In Romans 6:10, Paul, speaking of the death by which Christ saved us, said, “His death was a death to sin,” and our baptisms are a symbolic death and resurrection.

There is deep meaning in the statement that “His death was a death to sin.” It is saying that we are saved not so much by the death by crucifixion (which Jesus shared with two criminals) but by his conquering all temptations to sin.

His facing down Satan’s forty days of temptations was the kickoff of a long campaign against temptations. His final victory over them would come the night before his death. After sweating blood he would say, “Father, not as I will, but as you will.”

Saturday, 2/25/12

The second part of today’s reading from Isaiah Chapter Twenty-Three

Gives us three rewards God reserves for those who observe his holy days. The same would hold for people who take the trouble to attend Sunday Mass.

The three rewards are: they will delight in the Lord, they will ride on the heights, and they will be nourished with the heritage of Jacob.

Let’s take those one at a time. By making Sunday Mass regularly you will find yourself delighting in the Lord. You will feel that you have not forfeited his friendship, exchanging it for a round of golf or a Sunday morning in bed. You will feel entitled to wallow in your friendship with God.

Secondly, you will ride on the heights That puts me in mind of the Shenandoah Parkway on which we glide along looking down at smoke stacks and busy people three thousand feet below us. At Mass the world of business and endless TV commercials is far below you.

Thirdly, you will be nourished by the heritage of Jacob. You will be nourished by the Scripture readings, at times by the homily, and always by the silent friendship of good people all around you.

For people who do not share the troubles of others religious practices are a sham.

Friday, 2/24/12

Let’s consider the powerful first reading from a later chapter of Isaiah. It is scornful of people who are “religious” without being considerate of oppressed people.

Isaiah criticizes the man who bows “his head like a reed, and lies in sackcloth and ashes.” He scorns those who ask God, “Why do we fast, and you do not see it?”

Isaiah tells us that a church-goer who fasts and engages in all the devotions is a sham if he does to actively work for the happiness of other people.

Such criticisms are a delight to people who despise church-goers. They see such abuse as proof that God shares their contempt for people they call “Holier than thou’s” or “Craw-thumpers.”

But they are going too far. The word Religion has something to do with ligaments. Religion is a re-ligamenting us with God, and God with us. God. As such Religion is a most necessary part of a good life.

But Isaiah in today’s reading tells us that the opposite of that is true. A church-goer who fasts and engages in all the devotions is a sham if he does not actively work for the happiness of other people.

God is a doting father who has love for all people created in his image and likeness. Your prayers and fasts are obnoxious to him if you have no concern for those unjustly imprisoned, if you are unwilling to share your bread with the hungry, if you turn your back on your own.

It would be well for us if we could imagine ourselves suffering imprisonment with those unjustly accused, if we could imagine ourselves picking through garbage to find something to keep our children alive. We should image whatever happens to the least of our brothers and sisters as happening to us. 

In the first half of his Gospel Mark showed Jesus to be the Savior. Now he opens the second half with Jesus saying he will save us by suffering.

Thursday, 2/23/12

Mark’s Gospel is seventeen chapters long, and it breaks evenly into two halves at its spine in the middle at Chapter Eight. That’s where we are today. The first seven and a half chapters over and over show Jesus to be the Savior. They do this by describing numerous divine miracles, by quoting devils declaring him to be the Savior, by demonstrating the many ways in which he fulfilled prophesies made about the Savior.  

Coming to the halfway point in his Gospel, with all the evidence laid out before the disciples and us readers, Peter brings the first half of the Gospel to an end by declaring with finality that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior.

In the very next verse, with its now being established that Jesus is the Savior, Mark opens the second half of his Gospel, with Jesus telling us all how he would save us. He will do it by surviving all the suffering the powers of evil can throw against him.

Each of the four Gospels was written for its own specific purpose. John wrote to show the world that Jesus is the Messiah, and we have life through him. Matthew wrote to tell us that Jesus, far from departing from Jewish tradition, is actually the one who sums up all of Jewish tradition. Luke wrote to give us an orderly, convincing account .

People were saying that it was impossible that Jesus, as one suffering an execution, could be the Savior. Mark, after convincingly proving Jesus to have been the Savior; went on to show that far from being scandalous, the suffering of Jesus was actually his means of saving us.

In the first half of his Gospel Mark showed Jesus to be the Savior. In the second half he now shows Jesus saves us by suffering.

Thursday, 2/23/12

Mark’s Gospel is seventeen chapters long, and it breaks evenly into two halves at its spine in the middle at Chapter Eight. That’s where we are today. The first seven and a half chapters over and over show Jesus to be the Savior. They do this by describing numerous divine miracles, by quoting devils declaring him to be the Savior, by demonstrating the many ways in which he fulfilled prophesies made about the Savior.  

Coming to the halfway point in his Gospel, with all the evidence laid out before the disciples and us readers, Peter brings the first half of the Gospel to an end by declaring with finality that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior.

In the very next verse, with its now being established that Jesus is the Savior, Mark opens the second half of his Gospel, with Jesus telling us all how he would save us. He will do it by surviving all the suffering the powers of evil can throw against him.

Each of the four Gospels was written for its own specific purpose. John wrote to show the world that Jesus is the Messiah, and we have life through him. Matthew wrote to tell us that Jesus, far from departing from Jewish tradition, is actually the one who sums up all of Jewish tradition. Luke wrote to give us an orderly, convincing account .

People were saying that it was impossible that Jesus, as one suffering an execution, could be the Savior. Mark, after convincingly proving Jesus to have been the Savior; went on to show that far from being scandalous, the suffering of Jesus was actually his means of saving us.

In the first half of his Gospel Mark showed Jesus to be the Savior. With today's Gospel he goes on to show Jesus saves us by his suffering.

Thursday, 2/23/12

Mark’s Gospel is seventeen chapters long, and it breaks evenly into two halves at its spine in the middle at Chapter Eight. That’s where we are today. The first seven and a half chapters over and over show Jesus to be the Savior. They do this by describing numerous divine miracles, by quoting devils declaring him to be the Savior, by demonstrating the many ways in which he fulfilled prophesies made about the Savior.  

Coming to the halfway point in his Gospel, with all the evidence laid out before the disciples and us readers, Peter brings the first half of the Gospel to an end by declaring with finality that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior.

In the very next verse, with its now being established that Jesus is the Savior, Mark opens the second half of his Gospel, with Jesus telling us all how he would save us. He will do it by surviving all the suffering the powers of evil can throw against him.

Each of the four Gospels was written for its own specific purpose. John wrote to show the world that Jesus is the Messiah, and we have life through him. Matthew wrote to tell us that Jesus, far from departing from Jewish tradition, is actually the one who sums up all of Jewish tradition. Luke wrote to give us an orderly, convincing account .

People were saying that it was impossible that Jesus, as one suffering an execution, could be the Savior. Mark, after convincingly proving Jesus to have been the Savior; went on to show that far from being scandalous, the suffering of Jesus was actually his means of saving us.

Be reconiled with God by doing away with the unpleasnat things that put you at a distance.

Ash Wednesday 2/22/12

In the second reading Paul tells us to “be reconciled to God.” That word reconcile has taken on importance in the Church. What we used to call “going to confession,” or “receiving the Sacrament of Penance” is now called the “Sacrament of Reconciliation.”

The Church has changed the name because she felt the old names didn’t describe what happens. “Going to confessions” describes our part of the interaction, but it says nothing of what God does when we go into the box. Likewise, saying we “receive the Sacrament of Penance” falls short of describing what happens.

“Reconciliation” is not a word use by the kids on my block. We would need to be told that it means “making up” or “becoming friends again." It is needed after some unpleasantness has put us at a distance from one another.

Let’s put aside any discussion of the Sacrament we used to call “going to confession.” Paul didn’t have that in mind when he said, “be reconciled to God.” What he had in mind for us is that we should “make up” with God. When something unpleasant occurs between friends, and they want to make up, they just get rid of the unpleasantness so they can rekindle their close friendship.

So, what is the unpleasantness that keeps you from being intimate with God the way you once were? Have you let your health slide? Have you chose to ignore another of God’s children? Have you given up spending time alone with God?

Perhaps it will take more than a day for you to make things right with God. Well, as of today you have all of lent to build up good habits that will have you reconciled with God all the way.   

The disciples were arguing about wich one was the greatest. Can you imagine grown people arguing about such a thing?

Tuesday, 2/21/12

Isn’t that so true to life that the disciples on their long hike through the countryside should have been arguing about which of them was the greatest. The kids on our block when we were growing were always going on about that. We called one boy “All Star,” not that he was one, but because he was always insisting he was.

I somewhere heard that Jews saw the evil of homicide in that every person sees him or herself as the center of the whole world, so that by committing suicide one would be doing away with the whole world.

If you eat in restaurants the one word you hear from tables all around you is “I.” Much of the conversation is taken up with phrases like, “I just told him.” “I see it this way.” “No, I don’t like it.” “I just had to say.” There is of course a generous sprinklings of “me,” with the final word often being, “Well, if you ask me!”

We hear that there are billions of stars out there, each with a universe of its own; and it is believable, since in every school, place of business, or theater we see self-centered little universes.

Lent start tomorrow. It would help if you could adopt some program by which you convinced yourself that others are as important as you are.

The Letter of James this week tells the way of heavenly wisdom.

 Monday 2/20/12

The Old Testament has four types of literature. There are the books on the Law, the books of the prophets, the historical books, and what we bunch together as Wisdom Literature. In Wisdom Literature we have the Psalms, Proverbs, the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes. Those books give advice on how we should live.

I bring up the subject of Wisdom Literature here, because the Letter of James from which we are reading last week and this represent the sole New Testament instance of Wisdom Literature.

In today’s reading James contrasts worldly wisdom with wisdom from above, and he tells us that the big difference between them is in the  regard they exhibit for others.

The worldly wise man is a person who knows how to use others for his own advantage. He is the clever dealer, the clever athlete. He knows how to bend others to his advantage.

The person with heavenly wisdom has a concern for the welfare of others. It frees him or her from selfishly desiring things. As James says, such a person has righteousness “sown in peace.”

All our frustrations come from thwarted desires. The person who has done away with selfish desires is the person in perfect peace.

Our personalities have a potential for being God-like.

Sunday, 2/19/12

The cure of that paralytic was nowhere as marvelous as God's making us in his image.

At Gettysburg Lincoln said, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here.” He was wrong about that, but that comment has been verified over and over in regard to Catholic Church documents. For instance, how many Catholics are  aware that Vatican II issued a  “Declaration On Christian Education?” How many Catholics know that Rome has a Congregation for Catholic Education?  

People in ignorance of those entities have missed out on a beautiful aspects of our faith. They have missed the phrase in the “Declaration On Christian Education” that tells us, “True education is directed toward the formation of the human person.” They have missed a refinement of that statement issued by the Congregation for Catholic Education.

In 1988 the Congregation’s prefect, Cardinal William Baum, narrowly defined what the Church wants of her teachers. He wrote that their duty was to help each student in developing his or her personality. Then, he reminded us that Vatican II asked us to employ two aids to personality development. One has us providing opportunities for students to interact with each other. The other was urging them to set goals, and freeing them to devise their own means for reaching those goals.

We all have been taught that God made us in his own image and likeness. So, with all of being like God , shouldn’t it follow that we would be like each other, clones? That  certainly is not the case. To explain our differences we can employ the metaphor of seeing God as a many faceted jewel, with each of us mirroring a different facet of his infinitely variegated being.

Of course, we do not see facets of God’s beauty riding the bus with us. What we see are people with severely underdeveloped potentials for being God-like. Saints, by their steady practice of avoiding evil and doing good may develop a high percentage of their potential for mirroring God’s beauty. The rest of us have cloudy visages which at rare intervals may show flashes of Godliness.

If all of us could develop our God-like potentials we would be like jigsaw pieces that could be fitted together into the divine image. Short of that, as an individual you can  go with the Army’s motto:  “Be all that you can be.”

We can follow Our Lord's command to take up the cross just by accepting the ordinary trobles that come our way.

Friday, 2/ 17/1

Jesus sad, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself.” That leaves us wondering in what ways we must deny ourselves.

When I was a seventeen-year-old novice the priest told us to practice all kinds of mortification. We were to punish our boyish yearnings, putting them to death. We humorously referred to it as “doing a little morto.”

In dust-mopping the bedrooms I came on one boy’s “morto.” Dave would neatly line up his shoes under his bed, then, he would put three pebbles in each shoe to keep him from loving himself too much.

Does the Lord want us to put pebbles in our shoes? Does he want us to put salt in our coffee? Are we meant to devise little types of self- torture? Well, maybe for seventeen-year-olds it was the right way of getting across the need for “toughing it.”

The rest of us are only bound to accept the troubles that come our way. In ages past the Church went wrong in following the Greek philosophers who saw the body as the enemy of the soul. That led to heavy penances that led to poor health. We have come around to seeing that a healthy body is the ideal companion for a healthy soul.

St. James tells us to honor the lowly man. In doing so we honor God in that man.

Thursday, 2/16/12

In the first reading James tells us to esteem the lowly man as highly as we esteem the wealthy. Let’s look at what the lowliest man has going for him.

Our faith tells us that every one of us is created in God’s image. I like to think of each of us as having the potential for being like God in a unique way. I imagine God to be like a multi-facet diamond, with each of us mirroring a different one of his facets.

If that is true, we must go on to see that our unique resemblances to God is not a polished divine likeness. It is only a potential that each of us has for mirroring God in a unique way. We develop that potential by all of the acts by which we rid ourselves of sinfulness, and by all the positive acts of love by which we become more God-like.

A Vatican II document tells us that the goal of Christian Education is to aid children to develop their personalities to the full. They do that by coming more and more to resemble that facet of God that is unique to each of them.

St. James spoke of the lowly persons whom we must highly esteem. Each of them can become more than worthy of that esteem as he or she polishes his or her Godlike aspect.

In esteeming the lowly man of woman we are honoring God in them.

Thursday, 2/16/12

In the first reading James tells us to esteem the lowly man as highly as we esteem the wealthy. Let’s look at what the lowliest man has going for him.

Our faith tells us that every one of us is created in God’s image. I like to think that each of us as having the potential for being like God in a unique way. I imagine God to be like a multi-facet diamond, with each of us mirroring a different one of his facets.

If that is true, we must go on to see that our unique resemblances to God is not a polished divine likeness. It is only a potential that each of us has for mirroring God in a unique way. We develop that potential by all of the acts by which we rid ourselves of sinfulness, and by all the positive acts of love by which we become more God-like.

A Vatican II document tells us that the goal of Christian Education is to aid children to develop their personalities to the full. They do that by coming more and more to resemble that facet of God that is unique to each of them.

St. James spoke of the lowly persons whom we must highly esteem. Each of them can become more than worthy of that esteem as he or she polishes his or her Godlike aspect.

Most sentnces in the Bible contain depths of meanings.

Wednesday, 2/15/12

Today’s readings show us how simple Bible sentences have worlds to teach us. Take this one sentence in the Letter of James: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

That sentence should not be taken as criticism of people who enrich their spirits with prayer, fasting and daily Mass. However, it tells us that there is an immense other side to being religious. that side is captured by those who put their efforts and resources into aiding the needy.

In the Gospel we read of Jesus curing a blind man in two steps. First he restored his vision, but then he added to that. The second miracle gave the man a grasp of perspective which is something it takes new born children many weeks to master. The two part miracle shows us that Jesus had a modern grasp on what constitutes clear vision.

In celebrating th feast of St. Valentine we celebrate God's gift of romantic love.

Tuesday, 2/14/12

Today is the feast of Cyril and Methodius, tenth century brothers, called the Apostles of the Slavic Peoples. Not to make slight of such great men, we in the West feel it proper for us to honor St. Valentine on this day. Although we know nothing of his life, we honor him for what he stands for. He stands for romantic love. Romantic love first appeared in the second chapter of the Bible.

When God created his first man he saw that it was not good for him to be alone. So, as Chapter Two goes on, God created bears, and cats, and birds and monkeys; but none of those proved to be an acceptable mate for the man. So, God cast a deep sleep on the man. He then took a rib from the man, and he molded it into a woman.

When the man saw it he cried, “This one!”

Did he ever want her!

That was the first instance of the romantic love we celebrate today. For some people it is the best thing in the Bible.

The Pharisees set themselves up as examples to others.

Monday, 2/13/12

The Gospel introduces us to the Pharisees, who were the chief adversaries of Jesus. Let’s look at how this group of men got their start. We must first dip deep into Jewish history, to 967 B.C. That was the year King David died.

As David lay dying, an upstart son of his named Adonijah surrounded himself with henchmen, and began acting as though he was the next king. That brought Bathsheba, mother of Solomon, to David’s bedside. She asked David if he had not promised to have her son Solomon following him. David agreed. He summoned the priest Zadok, telling him to consecrate Solomon king. Zadok was sure that Adonijah would kill him if he obeyed David, but he bravely anointed Solomon as the next king. The move was so popular with the people that they were all calling, “Long live King Solomon,” and that had Adonijah running for his life.

After that, for the next eight hundred years it was a hard rule among the Jews that only a direct descendent of Zadok could be king. What put an end to that tradtion was that in 152 B.C. the only direct descendent of Zadoc was a man with a criminal mind; while the brother of Judas Maccabeus was a national hero. This brother, Jonathan, took the high priest’s crown; and a third of the people, the strong traditionalists, rejected him.

Those traditionalists themselves split in two. Half went off to the caves of the Dead Sea.  Known to us as the Essenes, they left us the Dead Sea scrolls. The other half of the traditionalists stayed on in Jerusalem. They were called Separatists, which in their language was Pharisees. 

Those friends of Jonathan who took over the temple were only nominally Jewish. They were in it for the money and political power. They played free and easy with the kosher traditions. The Pharisees, in opposition to Jonathan’s followers, made a big thing of keeping all the rules down to the letter. In setting themselves up as examples of virtue they became victims of pride. As a girl in the musical “Carousal” put it. “Stone cutters cut it in stone, woodcutters cut it in wood: there’s nothing quite so bad as a man who thinks he’s good.”

Instead of asking to be cured, the leper asked to be made clean.

Sunday, 2/12/12

Anytime this Gospel comes around I make a point of what the leper said to Jesus. It was, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” That showed strong faith. It also showed what a great impression Jesus made on people. This man, after seeing and listening to him was convinced Jesus could do what no one had ever done: which was to give an instantaneous complete cure of leprosy. What a powerful impression Jesus made on all who saw him!

What I usually point out is that for a Jew leprosy was a double whammy. It was a sickness infecting a man or woman’s fingers, toes, noses, in time making them fall off. “Nostrils without noses” would describe most faces of lepers.

In addition to its being that severe disease, for a Jew it was also an uncleanness that banished him or her from the temple and synagogue. There was no more joining others in prayer.

It is significant that the man in today’s Gospel didn’t ask to be cured. No, his disease was something he had learned to live with. He asked to be made clean, because what he missed most was coming together with others to pray to the heavenly Father.

This week I received a book describing the work of a group of Irish nuns. It told the story of the Columban Sisters in Korea, and I enjoyed the book immensely, since I knew the nuns whose work the book documented. For instance, it spoke about Sister Enda, a doctor who ran the Columban Sisters’ Hospital at Mokpo in Southwest Korea. When Sister Enda heard about thousands of lepers who were confined to a stretch or red mud flats she set aside every other Sunday for them. Arriving with an ambulance full of supplies, she treated one and all for ten hours.

One time I was visiting the nuns’ hospital, and Sister Enda had me accompany her one Sunday. I heard confessions for three hours. The lepers’ sins and trouble were so similar to those of people in America that I forgot the people were Koreans. Then, the sins of envy, disobedience, and fighting were so much like healthy people’s sins that I forgot the people were lepers. All of us children of God are pretty much the same.

Mary first appeared to Bernadette on this February 11.

Saturday, 2/11/12

It was on this day, February 11, 1858 that a 14-year-od Bernadete Soubirous saw a girl her age, dressed in white with a blue sash. She and her sisters had been sent to gather armfuls of twigs to trade for bread for dinner. The sisters had gone on when Bernadette, in poor health, rested outside the entrance to the cave at Massabielle, a place where he father dumped refuge from the town’s hospital. 

Bernadette told her sisters about the young woman in white, and she begged them to say nothing about it at home. Two days later the girls told, and all three girls received whippings.

Three days later when her parents let Bernadette out she was sprinkling holy water at Massabielle when the lady appeared, and seemed to be amused by the holy water. Something came over Bernadette, and her sisters and some followers saw her sink into an ecstasy. The lady told Bernadette she would be unhappy in this life but happy in the next.

Two weeks after her first appearance the lady told Bernadette to drink from the spring just in front of her. The girl saw no spring there, but she began scooping up the clay, as though it were water. Everyone laughed at the girl washing with dirt; but on the following day the crowd saw fresh underground water springing up from where she had dug.

A week later, when Bernadette, following the local pastor’s instruction, asked the lady to identify herself, the lady said, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

That year seven clearly miraculous cures were attributed to the water. Franz Werfel, the Jewish refugee who wrote the screen play for “The Song of Bernadette” said, “For non-believers no explanation is possible, for believers no explanation id necessary.”

God made St. Benedict find time for his twin sister Scholastica.

Friday, 2/10/12

Today is the feast of a saint in whom I have never had any interest, but perhaps we should honor St. Scholastica as the patron saint of girls whose brothers push them aside.

Scholastica was St. Benedict’s twin sister. She had stayed in the house while Benedict seemed to be sowing his wild oats. She approved of his girlfriend, but she had no taste for the wild crowd of young men he was moving with. So, she was proud of her brother when he suddenly had too much of the purposeless lives of his companions. To bring his life into a real relationship with God, Benedict fled to the cave at Subiaco east of Rome. Pleased with that, Scholastica followed her twin’s example, taking to her room to be alone with God.

When their uncle left Benedict a hilltop property at Monte Casino south of Rome, Scholastica found a nearby property for herself and for a group of ladies who had attached themselves to her for spiritual nourishment.

Much the same thing was happening with her brother on Monte Casino. He attracted other men who, seeking God, were attracted by his balanced approach to that search. He had his followers preparing themselves for praying by working off their restlessness with fieldwork. Men were finding true substance to their lives in following  Benedict. From the followers of St. Anthony in Egypt he had adopted the practice of chanting the Psalms in common.

Important aunts and uncles of Benedict and Scholastica had let them follow their unusual life plan; but they made one demand of Benedict: he would be bound to give one day a month to his twin. Through the ages there has come down the story of an afternoon visit when Benedict was saying he had to be on his way, while his sister was pleading with him to stay on for a bit. As he rose to leave, she knelt and offered a heartfelt prayer for more time. And with that, a storm came from nowhere, forcing Benedict to sit down, and continue the conversation. 

Jesus admired the Gentile woman's spunk.

Thursday, 2/9/12

Jesus admires people who can  take charge in difficult times. In today’s Gospel a Gentile woman with a sick daughter came to him, and he decided he’d test her mettle. He seemed to be dismissive in saying he was sent to help Jews, not to help foreigners who were no better than dogs. The determined woman brushed the insult aside, saying the dogs get to eat the scraps under the table. Jesus was thrilled with her spunk. So he will be with us when we stick to good work even when we are put down.

The first reading tells us how Solomon, the wisest of men became a fool by giving in to many wives. Each of those foreign wives wanted a shrine where she could practice her kind of religion, and she had Solomon joining in the odd forms of worship. It was detestable. For instance, in the dump south of Jerusalem Solomon went along with building the idol of Molech. Now, Molech was actually an oven that looked like an idol. (It was like Jabba the Hutt in “Star Wars.”) His followers believed they could only obtain a good harvest if they pleased Molech by throwing in an infant to be consumed in his fire.

We can, and we must, control our thoughts, not letting them go on to evil acts.

Wednesday. 2/8/12

In “My Fair Lady” Professor Higgins complained, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man. Straightening up their hair is all they ever do. Why can’t they straighten up the mess that’s inside?” Of course, Higgins was more of a mess than the women he criticized, but he does draw our attention to what Jesus spoke about in today’s Gospel. It isn’t so necessary for us to be well groomed, or for us to stick to our diets, or for us to speak like ladies and gentlemen. What we really need to do is to keep our minds free of bad thoughts.

In third year high school we had a half hour a day when we sat in the chapel listening to an older student reading from a book on Christian behavior. From where I sat on the end of the pew the rectangular patterns down the terrazzo aisle had the same shape as pool tables. I would sit there mentally practicing bank shots on the nearest rectangle

Then, once I happened to listen to what the boy was reading. The passage said that we need not let our minds wander all over the place. It said we could, and should, control our thinking. We could keep out hateful, jealous, lustful thoughts.

It had never occurred to me that we could police our minds. Not only can we do that, but ccording to Jesus in today’s Gospel we must do that. If we rid our minds of evil we can become the kind of good respectable men who don’t hang out around pool halls.

Jesus rejected those traditions of the elders that went aginst God's law.

Tuesday, 2/7/12

Thirty-five years ago I was pastor in a parish ninety miles south of here, and an ex-priest there loved dropping in for coffee. One day he showed up, all excited. “Tom,” he said, “I just read Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of his temple, and it was powerful. I say, powerful.” Right enough. It is. But let’s turn to the Gospel.

In the past you might have heard me speak about “the traditions of the elders” which are the subject of today’s Gospel. Forgive me for going through it again. The Babylonians enslaved the Israelites from 600 to 530 B.C.. What happened then was that the Persians defeated the Babylonians; and they not only freed the Israelites, they also helped them complete a new temple in 515 B.C..

Even with Persia’s help the Israelites did poorly for the next seventy years. In 545 B.C. the Persian Emperor deputized two Jews living in Persia to go to Jerusalem to straighten them out. The two men, Ezra and Nehemia, found the roads and walls in bad shape, and they found  the morals of the Jews in worse shape. 

Their novel recommendation to the emperor was that the Jews should take the ancient Law of Moses as their civil law. The Persian lawyers okayed the plan, but they made two conditions. They said that Ezra would have to read the full Mosaic Law to the people, and secondly the Jews needed to take amendments that would bring the law up to date. Ezra and Nehemia accepted amendments that forbade marrying foreigners and buying produce on the Sabbath, and they stipulated the paying of a tax to the temple. Those new laws were reasonable. But, then, with each year and century the priests approved of further amendments. By Our Lord’s time these new laws, known as Mishna filled a whole law of their library. A false assertion came to be made that the Mishna had come down orally from Moses.

Jesus put aside the traditions of the elders that contradicted God’s law, and he objected to there being so many of them that no one could keep them all.

If our bodies become temples of God the Shekhinah of his presence will fill us.

Monday, 2/6/12

The dedication of Solomon’s Temple has aspects that still interest us. The account makes much of the Cherubim hovering over the ark. If we go back to Exodus Twenty-five we read where God asks to be addressed at the place above the ark, between the Cherubim. That was his presence for the Israelites. So, it wasn’t what was in the ark that made it glorious, but God’s presence above the ark.

In Chapter Forty of Exodus when Moses had completed their movable sanctuary, putting the ark in place, the cloud of God’s presence from nowhere appeared, filling the holy place. The same thing happens here, three centuries later. When Solomon placed the ark in the holy of holies that cloud filled the holy of holies. Hebrews gave the name Shekhinah to the cloud of God’s presence. If all the right conditions are fulfilled the Shekhinah can rush in to fill your soul.