On New Year's Day we should be thanking God for creating out world.

Friday, 1/1/16

Today is New Years Day, and an odd thing about this feast, is that all peoples of all religions celebrate New Years. Most of those ancient peoples follow different calendars. Korea, where I spent twelve years as a young priest, celebrates its New Years five weeks from now on our February 8. China does the same.

In celebrating New Years, most ancient peoples throughout Asia and Africa are actually celebrating the creation of the world. That’s not a bad idea. We too could use this day for thanking God for giving us this wonderful world of ours.

But when those other peoples celebrate creation, they don’t commemorate God’s making everything out of nothing. Rather, they believe that there was always wild chaos here, and creation consisted in the gods bringing order out of the original chaos.

That might sound weird to us, but out Bible actually starts out in the same way. The first sentence of the Book of Genesis says, “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth the earth was a formless wasteland.” The original Hebrew for “formless wasteland” was tohu-bohu which sounds like clothes being flung around and around in a dryer.

An odd thing about the New Years celebration for all primitive peoples is that with each ancient people it consists in their acting out their own creation myth. All those people believed that heaven showered the world with blessings on the day of creation. Their myths all then follow up with a story of how the first people did something awful; the way in our creation story Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, causing God to turn away from them.

When primitive peoples dress up as animals, and then act out their creation myths, they are trying to make their gods think it is creation time again. They are trying to trick the gods into returning with the same favors they showered on mankind at creation time.

We don’t believe any of that, but it is still a good idea to make this a day when we thank God for creating out world.

Our wild New Year’s Eve parties are a holdover from those ancient legends that saw the world in chaos up to the moment the gods brought order into the world.

W must center our lives on God in whom we live and move, and have our being.

Thursday, 12/31/15

It is fitting that we end the year by reading St. John’s tribute to God. When we see John at the Last Supper, lying against the breast of Jesus, we are apt to see him as achieving heaven on  earth. However, John warns us to not stop there.

There is something more fulfilling than being the “Beloved Disciple” of Jesus. John quoted Jesus as telling us that achieving intimacy with him isn’t even getting us half way there. Jesus is not the be-all and the end-all. He is only the way there.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 

Don’t stop half way, by consecrating yourself to Mary, or by being born again in the Spirit. No, rather, center your life on God, for in him we live and move, and have our being.

The prophetess Anna recognized the Christ child.

Wednesday, 12/30/ 15

Today’s Gospel gives us a lady named Anna. St. Luke informed us that her father’s name was Phanuel, and he was of the tribe of Asher. Anna, having been married for seven years when she was young, lived on alone until she was eighty-four.

Luke tells us that she was a prophetess, and that implies that she at times spoke for God. Anyway, she came to the temple every day of her life; and when she saw the child Jesus, she immediately recognized him, and she went on to speak about him to all who would listen.

Several years ago, in speaking to the grade school children at Mass, I told them that the old people who come to Mss every day are very close to God; but some of the kids protested, saying, “Those people don’t like us.”

Whatever. Jesus said, “The first will be last, and the last will be first.” In heaven we will see whether it is the kids or the old ladies who will come in first. Are any of you putting your money on our archbishops?

Try to picture this scene for yourself.

Tuesday, 12/29/15

In our hearts we should reconstruct the Gospel scene. We should picture  Joseph carrying the forty-day-old child. We should picture Mary reaching over  to readjust the robe.

And how do you picture the baby wrapped?

I used to chuckle over this account in the Korean Bible. Over there, sixty years ago there were no plastic or paper bags for purchases. Every wife carried a big bandana for wrapping up what she bought. It was called a podeggi; and their bible said that when Jesus was born, Mary wrapped him in her podeggi. 

Stay with that scene. Picture, if you can, the pride and joy in the faces of Mary and Joseph.

What about the priest? When he took the two small doves the couple offered in buying the first-born back from God, did he know what was happening? Probably not. The things priest do every day get to be routine.

Old Simeon did recognize the child. He had been coming to the temple every day, hoping that one day he would see the fulfillment of the promises he lived for.

“Lord, now you can let your servant go in peace. My eyes have seen the salvation of your people.”

Today we should honor those of remarkable innocence.

Monday, 12/28/15

Both St. Luke and St. Matthew give us accounts of the infancy of Jesus; but unfortunately, they are so different from one another, that we must assume that at least one of them is fiction.

In St. Luke’s account, when Jesus was forty days old, Mary and Joseph presented him at the temple; and immediately after that, they returned with him to their home in Nazareth.

In Matthew’s account, they stayed on in Bethlehem until Jesus was somewhere near two years of age, after which they brought him to Egypt for maybe five years.

What are we to do with this confusion? I say that we are just holy innocents ourselves, and we would do well to leave such problems to the scholars.

You probably have known people you value for their innocence in avoiding malice. You would do well to turn your thoughts admiringly to them, making this their feast day.

My mother’s distant cousin Frances had a husband who ran off on her, leaving her with two little girls. Frances happened to live in Holy Innocents’ parish where Father Leo MaAcatee was pastor.

I always thought of Father Leo as the St. Joseph in this story. Stretching his meager means, he put Frances and her girls into an apartment; and he helped Frances get those girls good educations.

Of course, that had people making unkind guesses about Father Leo’s relationship with Frances; but he felt that the Christ child was urging him to care for them. Happy feast day, Father Leo!

This Feast of the Holy Family is mean to cheer all members of God's family.

Sunday, 12/27/15

Although we call this day the" Feast of the Holy Family," for us, all  families are holy families. We think lovingly of them all today.

The First Reading is from the Book of Sirach. It  supplies us with a grand list of benefits that come to those who are good family members. They atone for their sins. They are heard when they pray. They store up riches in heaven. They will live long lives.

Those rewards are particularly meant for the young people who are still living in the midst of their families. But if you are like me, with parents and siblings all gone; you can still be good family people. You can do it by restoring family cheer to others who are alone.

Once when someone standing nearby told Jesus that members of his family were waiting to see him, Jesus pointed to all those around him, saying that they all who attempt to live according to God’s law were brother and sister to him.

So, look around you. All the people you see are God’s children. He loves this one, that one, and that one too. They are all brothers and sisters to you.

He appreciates it no end when you become a brother or sister to any his lonely ones.

The people who stoned Stephen felt they were doing a religious thing

Saturday, 12/26/15

On the Feast of St. Stephen I always like to say a word for the men who stoned him. Sure, they did a terrible thing, but their religious convictions made them feel they were doing the right thing.

St. Luke, in his “Act of the Apostles” identified Stephen’s killers as “members of the so-called Synagogue of Freedmen.” He went on to say they were Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and people from Cilicia and Asia.

Let’s look at the way their synagogue came about. Rome had a way for preventing rebellion from the Jews scattered around all of the Mediterranean’s ports. Rome rounded up five young Jews from each place, confining them as hostage in Rome for five years. The threat of executing those boys kept the people at home from rebelling.

The boys chosen as hostages were not very religious to begin with, but after being confined for their beliefs, they usually began taking their being Jewish seriously. Many of them became so religious that when their five years were up, instead of returning to their homes, they settled in Jerusalem to take part in the temple worship. They formed their own “Synagogue of the Roman Freedmen.”

They had come to believe that being religious meant observing kosher and not eating pork. They were angered by Stephen who was telling people that observing kosher wasn’t all that important.

Of course it was wrong for them to stone Stephen, but God, knowing their good intentions, might have forgiven them.

One thing that inclines us to be understanding towards them is the fact that their was a young man watching over the coats they took off to throw better. That young man who was encouraging them was Saul, the future St. Paul.

The case of Saul and those young men should warn us against hating people for views they ling to in all honesty.

Let's put Christ's Mass back in Christmas.

Friday, 12/25/15

Good people are always campaigning to put Christ back in Christmas. Let’s go one further. Let’s put Christ’s Mass back in Christmas.

Back before there was any Santa Claus. Even back before the birth of Santa’s prototype, St. Nicolas; people celebrated the birthday of Jesus with a special Mass. The Mass was so central to the celebration that it was called “Christ’s Mass Day,” later shortened to “Christmas Day.”

I like having the opening chapter of John’s Gospel for today’s gospel. It is great in describing Christ’s pre-existence in the Trinity as the Son who was the mirror image of the Father. He was the model for the whole orderly world God created.

(Orderliness is the key to God’s creation. Dante Alighieri brought that out beautifully in his  “Divine Comedy.” In the third part of the epic, Dante, on reaching Paradise, wondered how the things of heaven that he was seeing for the first time could somehow be familiar to him. Beatrice explained that familiarity by saying, “All things among themselves possess an order, and this order is the form that makes the Universe like God.”

The Son was the model for everything that is orderly: for the musical scales, for the orderly interaction of the millions of atoms in our DNA. In all those ways he was present in the universe long before he was born in Bethlehem.)

But, getting back to putting Christ’s Mass back in Christmas, let’s fully rejoice at the moment when Christ becomes present on our altar the way he became present in Bethlehem.chridtma 

Friday, 12/25/15

Good people are always campaigning to put Christ back in Christmas. Let’s go one further. Let’s put Christ’s Mass back in Christmas.

Back before there was any Santa Claus. Even back before the birth of Santa’s prototype, St. Nicolas; people celebrated the birthday of Jesus with a special Mass. The Mass was so central to the celebration that it was called “Christ’s Mass Day,” later shortened to “Christmas Day.”

I like having the opening chapter of John’s Gospel for today’s gospel. It is great in describing Christ’s pre-existence in the Trinity as the Son who was the mirror image of the Father. He was the model for the whole orderly world God created.

(Orderliness is the key to God’s creation. Dante Alighieri brought that out beautifully in his  “Divine Comedy.” In the third part of the epic, Dante, on reaching Paradise, wondered how the things of heaven that he was seeing for the first time could somehow be familiar to him. Beatrice explained that familiarity by saying, “All things among themselves possess an order, and this order is the form that makes the Universe like God.”

The Son was the model for everything that is orderly: for the musical scales, for the orderly interaction of the millions of atoms in our DNA. In all those ways he was present in the universe long before he was born in Bethlehem.)

But, getting back to putting Christ’s Mass back in Christmas, let’s fully rejoice at the moment when Christ becomes present on our altar the way he became present in Bethlehem. 

Let's put Christ's Mass back in Christmas.

Friday, 12/25/15

Good people are always campaigning to put Christ back in Christmas. Let’s go one further. Let’s put Christ’s Mass back in Christmas.

Back before there was any Santa Claus. Even back before the birth of Santa’s prototype, St. Nicolas; people celebrated the birthday of Jesus with a special Mass. The Mass was so central to the celebration that it was called “Christ’s Mass Day,” later shortened to “Christmas Day.”

I like having the opening chapter of John’s Gospel for today’s gospel. It is great in describing Christ’s pre-existence in the Trinity as the Son who was the mirror image of the Father. He was the model for the whole orderly world God created.

(Orderliness is the key to God’s creation. Dante Alighieri brought that out beautifully in his  “Divine Comedy.” In the third part of the epic, Dante, on reaching Paradise, wondered how the things of heaven that he was seeing for the first time could somehow be familiar to him. Beatrice explained that familiarity by saying, “All things among themselves possess an order, and this order is the form that makes the Universe like God.”

The Son was the model for everything that is orderly: for the musical scales, for the orderly interaction of the millions of atoms in our DNA. In all those ways he was present in the universe long before he was born in Bethlehem.)

But, getting back to putting Christ’s Mass back in Christmas, let’s fully rejoice at the moment when Christ becomes present on our altar the way he became present in Bethlehem. 

Mary and Joseph will not stay with you tonight if your heart is given over to selfishness.

Thursday, 12/24/15

On Christmas Eve we think of Mary and Joseph arriving at Bethlehem where there was no room for them in any of the town’s inns. I had the school children put on a play about that one time. I had them  imagining that there were seven inns that turned the Holy Family away. The proprietors of those inns each represented one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

At the House of Pride, Miss Prissy Pride told them their inn was only for the better sort of people. The lady at the House of Greed said, “If you have the money, I can be a honey.” Lulu at the House of Lust took a shine to Joseph. At the House of Anger Mr. Banger Anger told them to move on. At the House of Gluttony the lady offered Mary a lick of her sweet potato that she had dropped in grease. And so on. 

It was fun for the kids, but it had its serious side. If you want Jesus and Mary and Joseph to stay with you tonight, you must make sure that your heart has not been given over to a vice that would drive them away.

On this day back then Joseph and Mary were strangers vainly searching for a plaace to lay the child.

 

Wednesday, 12/23/15

On this day back then, Joseph and Mary were searching for shelter; and with Mary near to giving birth, they were desperate over not finding a roof. Everywhere they tried, it was the same thing, “No place for you here!”

If you were interested in finding their counterparts today, you might find them in the migrants fleeing the violence and death of Syria. The one person with open arms for them seems to be Germany’s Prime Minister Merkel. She is forcing her Germany to do what it can to make up for what they did to Joseph and Mary’s fellow Jews.

Eighteen American governors have told the migrants that their states have no room for them. They say they are doing it to keep their own people safe; but in the long run, making enemies out of those homeless people could be more dangerous.

Every year Hanna would knit a slightly larger robe for Samuel.

Tuesday, 12/22/15

During Advent we are treated to a series of stories of the near-miraculous births of the Old Testament forerunners of Jesus. We have the story of the conceptions of Sampson, of John the Baptist, and today we have the story of how Hannah conceived Samuel.

The story takes place back around 1150 B.C. at Shiloh in the hill country of Ephraim. It was there that the care of the Ark of the Covenant had been entrusted to an old priest named Eli. It happened that a man named Elkanah who lived some way south of there, would once a year, accompanied by his two wives, travel to Shiloh to offer a sacrifice before the Ark.

Elkanah preferred his wife Hannah, but she was childless; and that led to his other wife, Peninnah, to constantly scoffing at Hannah.

On one of their visits to Shiloh, Hannah slipped quietly into the shrine; and she was  praying for a child when Eli, taking her murmuring to have been brought on by early morning drinking, told her that was no way to behave before the Ark. After Hanna told Eli the cause of her pleading, he assured her that by the following year’s visit, she would have a son.

Hannah brought forth a son she named Samuel, and when she had weaned him, she brought him to Shiloh, leaving him there, dedicated to the Lord. Thereafter, every year on her  visit to Shiloh with Elkanah, Hannah brought Samuel a slightly larger robe she had knitted for him that year.  

(There is a Little Robe Bayou in Arkansas. You’d wonder if Hannah had anything to do with it.)

Every birth is a mracle.

The Gospel brings us to the meeting of the freshly conceived Mary with Elizabeth who was in her sixth month. Their meeting gives us the opportunity to look anew at God’s wonderful provision for bringing babies into the world.

Sixty years ago I was vacationing with a couple who had two young daughters. The mother, Jane, was laughing over a mother-daughter chat she had with her seven-year-old. Pattie wanted to know where babies came from, but when Jane gave her a description of the process, Pattie got angry with her, saying. “Nobody could believe that!” I am with Pattie on that. It is unbelievable.

Louise Fields, was in the delivery room at St. Vincent’s for forty years. After that I asked her if when she watched the first child come into the world, she thought it was an unbelievable miracle. “Yes, Father. I thought the first child was a miracle from God. And on my last day when I watched the last of a very long line of them I saw it as the same wonderful miracle.  

The Bible says, “You knit me in the womb” and it says, “I am wonderfully made.” These are grand things to think about. They make God so real for us.

A special pleasure in offering Mass.

Sunday, 12/20/15

December 20^th, back in 1952, was the day I was ordained a priest up in Omaha. My folks had taken the train up for it; and on the way back we stopped over for a two-hour visit with cousins in Kansas City.

My four sisters and their husbands, along with my brother and his wife, were in my home parish for my first Mass the next day.  They have all passed on, after having raised great families.

As for the six priest buddies ordained with me that day, they too have passed on in line with the saying that, “The good die young.”

It’s been wonderful offering Mass almost every day. Let me tell you what has enriched it for me the last twenty years. A priest friend, Monsignor Joe James, had me read a book that pointed out how deeply the Mass is rooted in the Last Supper.

It said that Jesus at the Last Supper followed the traditional three-part table blessing that was like a mini-sacrifice. Jesus started it by thanking the Father for his many favors. He went on to asking the Father to make his presence known among them. He  concluded then by asking all present to join him in offering themselves to the Father as one pleasing gift. (Eucharist was Greek for a pleasing gift.)

It was just at that third part of the table blessing that Jesus gave his Body and Blood to the others. As they were joining him in offering their hearts as a pleasing gift to the Father, he wanted them to be even physically one with him in offering themselves as one Pleasing Gift to the Father.

Saturday, 12/19/15



The Gospel dealt with Zecharih, the future father of John the Baptist. It said he was “of the priestly division of Abijah,” and it goes on to say that “he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary.” Let me tell you what I understand by those two statements.



My understanding of his “belonging to the priestly division of Abijah” is that two thousand years earlier. Jacob assigned all the priestly duties to his son Levi. Levi went on to have twenty-four grandsons who took turns serving the temple. John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, was the direct descendent of Jacob’s grandson Abijah. He and his fellow descendents of Abijah took over all the temple duties for two weeks every year.



They drew lots to see what duties each would perform. Some would tend the fire. Others would help sacrificing the animals. It might have been the first time that Zechariah happened to have the noble task of entering the Holy Place to offer incense before the Holy of Holies.



On meeting the angel, he was startled near dying; and he could not believe it when Gabriel told him the and his elderly wife would bear a son who would prepare the way before the Savor. Finding that hard to belief, Gabriel punished Zechariah's lack of faith, by striking him dumb.



My understanding of the ground plan of the temple is at the center it had a small oblong building called the tabernacle. The tabernacle, including the Holy Place with a curtained-off third of it known as the Holy of Holies. It was only the High Priest, and he only once a year, who entered the Holy of Holies. A descendent of Levi, like Zechariah, burnt incense there once a day.



The inner courtyard for only the priests, was walled off around the tabernacle. That courtyard was enclosed by the much larger Courtyard of Israel. It contained the great barbecue-like altar; and even Jewish women could enter there. That courtyard was enclosed in the much lager Courtyard of the Gentiles where the animals were sold. That great courtyard had porticoes as meeting places along the outer walls.

When we are in a bind, not knowing what way to go, we shoulld ask St. Joseph for guidance.

Friday, 12/18/15

Some time after Mary had been solemnly betrothed to Joseph she went for a six month visit to her cousin's home in Judea. On her return all of Nazareth could see that she was well on in  her pregnancy. Betrothed couples, even before their formal wedding, were expected to sleep together a few times, so everyone in town was happy that Joseph was not impotent, and Mary was not sterile.

For her own reasons, Mary did not speak to Joseph about how she had become pregnant, and Joseph was left to feel that some man had seduced her on her trip south. It would have been easy for him to let people go on thinking he was the father, but his righteousness stood in the way. Without even knowing who the father might be, he felt it would be an unjust act to take that man's child as his own.

It would be wrong for him to take Mary to his home, but it would also be wrong for him not to take her. There is a modern word for a situation where you are damned if you do, but damned if you don't. You are in a bind.

Happily, an angel came and removed him from his perplexity. But Joseph remains a saint to whom we can pray when we are in a bind.

When we had this Bible study in a Seventh Grade class I had each kid describe a situation in which he or she was in a bind. One kid wrote, "I was in a bind when my father asked me to be best man when he was marrying someone else

When the Pharisees started saying that Jesus was not truly Jewish, Matthew showed him to be descended from Abraham and David; and you can't be more Jewish than that.

Thursday, 12/17/15

Thirty years ago I took over teaching Religion to the top grades in out parish school. In choosing the essentials to teach, I decided on having the Seventh Grade do a close reading of one of the Gospels. I had secretly decided on using Luke, but as a show of democracy I asked the kids which Gospel to take up. Unfortunately, they called for Matthew, a Gospel I knew nothing about. However, after studying it, and teaching it for twenty-four years, I came to understand Matthew’s quite different approach.

The Jewish religion had been altogether centered on worship in Jerusalem’s temple, so after the Romans destroyed the temple in 70 A.D., the Pharisees had to find the one thing that could still separate Jews from non-Jews. They decided that a true Jew was one who honored his ancestors by observing kosher and not mixing with Gentiles. So they began telling the Jews who had become Christians, and who ate with Gentiles, that they could no longer call themselves Jews. Then, they began saying Jesus was not a true Jew because he didn’t avoid Gentiles.

To prove that Jesus honored his Jewish ancestors, Matthew began his Gospel with this genealogy that showed Jesus to be the descendent of Abraham and David. You can’t be more Jewish than that.

Jewish genealogies were never expected to be accurate, and this one certainly was not. While eight hundred years elapsed between Abraham and David, just four hundred elapsed  between David and the Babylonian captivity, and six hundred  elapsed between that captivity and St. Joseph. And yet this account tells us there were fourteen generations in that eight hundred year span, in that four hundred year span, and in that six hundred year span.

Matthew knew the very tricky way Oriental minds worked.  He knew they would mentally break the three groupings of fourteen generations into six sets of seven generations.  With that, Jesus would fit in as the first of the seventh set. It sounds crazy, but For Jews back then that position marked one as God’s beloved.

Such genealogies never included the names of women, but Matthew purposely included three women in the ancestry of King David.  They were Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. They were all Gentile women. Since those Gentiles were good enough for David, they  should have been good enough for the Pharisees. 

His genealogy demonstrated that Jesus was one with Abraham and David

Thursday, 12/1/15

Thirty-two years ago I took over teaching Religion to the top grades in our parish school. In choosing the essentials to teach, I decided on having the Seventh Grade do a close reading of one of the Gospels. I had secretly decided on using Luke, but as a show of democracy, I asked the kids which Gospel to take up. Unfortunately, they called for Matthew, a Gospel I knew nothing about.

However, after studying it, and teaching it for twenty-four years, I have come to understand Matthew’s quite different approach.

The Jewish religion had been altogether centered on worship in Jerusalem’s temple, so after the Romans destroyed the temple in 70 A.D., the Pharisees had to find the one thing that could still separate Jews from non-Jews. They decided that a true Jew was one who honored his ancestors by observing kosher and not mixing with Gentiles.

That had them telling the Jews who had become Christians, and who ate with Gentiles, that they could no longer call themselves Jews. Then, they began saying Jesus was not a true Jew because he had broken away from the traditions dear to his ancestors.

To prove that Jesus honored his Jewish ancestors, Matthew began his Gospel with this genealogy that showed Jesus to be the descendent of Abraham and David. You can’t be more Jewish than that.

Jewish genealogies were never expected to be accurate, and this one certainly was not. While eight hundred years elapsed between Abraham and David, just four hundred elapsed between David and the Babylonian captivity, and six hundred elapsed between that captivity and St. Joseph. And yet this account tells us there were fourteen generations in that eight hundred year span, in that four hundred year span, and in that six hundred year span.

Matthew knew the very tricky way Oriental minds worked.  He knew they would mentally break the three groupings of fourteen generations into six sets of seven generations.  With that, Jesus would fit in as the first of the seventh set. It sounds crazy, but For Jews back then that position marked one as God’s beloved.

Such genealogies never included the names of women, but Matthew purposely included three women in the ancestry of King David.  They were Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. They were all Gentile women. Since those Gentiles were good enough for David, they should have been good enough for the Pharisees. 

We cannot tempt God by saying our little prayers while committing our big sins.

Tuesday, 12/15/15

The first reading is from the Prophet Zephaniah from the generation immediately preceding the Babylonian Captivity. The general morality of the people had sunk so low that God saw that the only remedy for them was to let them suffer at the hands of their enemies.

The prophet’s description of Jerusalem is most discouraging.

“Woe to the city, rebellious and polluted, to the tyrannical city! She hears no voice, accepts no correction. In the Lord she has not trusted, to her God she has not drawn near.”

In that same decade, Zephaniah’s contemporary, Jeremiah, gave us the sad indictment against the rich people of Jerusalem

When the common people could not pay their debts or their rents, they and their children were handed over to slavery.  It even happened that the rich brought in their own relatives as house slaves.

Once, when the city was threatened by the Babylonian forces of Nebuchadnezzar, the city leaders asked Jeremiah if there was anything they could do to secure God’s protection. And, he told them God would save them if they released their enslaved kindred. They did free them; and Nebuchadnezzar moved away to hold off th forces of the Pharaoh.

The rich then, knowing they were safe, went out and rounded up those whom they had freed. At that time, Jeremiah told the population to resign themselves to being vanquished.

We cannot fool God by going on saying our little prayers, while committing our big sins.