Christmas 1965

If you have a few minutes, please sit down and grab a tissue or two because stories about Christmas all seem to involve some tears. Close your eyes and imagine the hands of the Christmas clock rewinding until we get to Christmas Eve in 1965.

My family’s insular little world had grown a little larger during previous couple of years. My parents, Marcia and I moved to Colorado the fall of 1964 so that my father could attend graduate school. My Aunt Jo, Uncle Bill, Jill and Rusty moved to Missoula earlier in 1965. This was the first Christmas both our families returned as visitors to our home town of Anaconda to celebrate Christmas. Crammed all together into my grandparent’s tiny home on Ogden Street, Christmas seemed the same as it always did except we were going to sleep at my grandparent’s house instead of going back to our own homes at the end of the night.

My Grandparent’s grocery store closed early on Christmas Eve Day so the whole family was gathered by sunset. The outdoor lights strung along the rain gutters on the eve of the roof on the west end of the house were lit and the porch light burned brightly. A presto log fire burned welcomingly in the Franklin stove in the back family room and the Christmas tree lights were on. A miniature village was spread out on the top my grandmother’s piano depicting a perfect little town with cottage style homes and a church with a New England style steeple. My sister and younger cousins were between 5 and 8 years younger than me so they played at little kid games and I tried to hang with the adults. I was 10 years of age and considered myself one of them.

Ice clinked in highball glasses as my grandfather mixed drinks with Walker’s Bourbon for adults. There were a couple of bottles of Mogen David Wine on the back counter waiting to be opened. It seemed odd to be me that we drank kosher wine. There were two Jewish families in town, the Goodman’s and the Rosenberg’s and I doubt they drank Mogen David. I hope someday I remember to ask one of the older members of the family why we drank kosher wine on holidays. We were Methodists not Jewish.

I can’t truly remember if it snowed that Christmas Eve but to make my memory of a perfect Christmas come to life, it had to have snowed and the snow had to have fallen softly with huge Currier and Ives flakes that floated down like they only can in dreams.

A Christmas ham, studded with cloves and rubbed with brown sugar, baked in the oven and the clean smell of the cloves drifted through the house. Potatoes and green beans simmered on the stove. My aunt carefully sliced the French bread in neat, even slices so we could spread garlic butter on them and warm them in the oven. Platters of spritz cookies sparkling with crispy speckles of coarse sugar and ornately decorated sugar cookies cut out in shapes like Santa, Christmas trees and Christmas bells were scattered around the house. The Santa cookies were intricately decorated with frosting so that Santa wore a red suit with snowy socks peeking out over the top of black boots and brightly colored presents burst out of the green bag slung over his shoulder. He wore a red hat trimmed with a tasty ribbon of white frosting. The Christmas trees were frosted green, with ribbons of garland lined back and forth across the cookies, and the trunks were frosted the color of tree bark. The bells were white with festive stripes of Christmas colors. Somewhere in the pantry there was separate stash of Spritz cookies baked especially by my grandmother for my father because he loved spritz cookies above all others.

The traditional Christmas Eve started with my family gathering together to visit before dinner. Even my Uncle Bob, the most socially active person I knew, came home to spend time with the rest of the family. He had left the previous year to start college in Missoula and he returned to visit for the winter break.

Remembering brings the warmth of family close to me again. The adult women, my mother, aunt and grandmother, wore dresses they had coordinated in advance. My father, uncle, grandfather and I wore white shirts and ties. It was time when we dressed up for dinner as if we believed that the best of times required the best of dress.

So the evening continued. We gathered around my grandparent’s dining room table and a couple of card tables set up in the living room so we could all sit down to eat. My grandfather led us in a grace blessing the night, the food and our being gathered together. We passed huge plates of food around and around again until flowery patterns painted on the platter showed through food piled on them. I remember laughter and lots of joyful conversation. When I hear stories about how Christmas played out in other people’s houses that involved anger, bitterness and fighting I am saddened for storyteller. The immense and abiding love my grandparents had for our whole family left only room for more love to be shared back with them. Their love simply overwhelmed any division that might have separated us. Ours was not a perfect family but perfection showed through us and the perfection originated with Grandma and Grandpa.

Dinner ended and the men and children drifted off to the back room where my uncle Bob had started a jig saw puzzle and the rest of us played board games like marbles. More laughter and the sound of plates, pots and pans clanking together echoed out of the kitchen. A new smell drifted throughout the house, the dizzyingly sweet smell of the sugary syrup for the suet pudding. Close behind the aroma came the inviting smell of warm milk that would serve as the first step of making of another tradition, oyster stew. Christmas Eve was in full swing. Outside, huge snowflakes flurried around, gently reflecting white, green, red and blue as they floated by the outdoor Christmas lights.

The time came for us to go to church for the Christmas Eve Candlelight service. We dressed up, the men wearing suit jackets and overcoats and the women put on dress coats and fancy hats. Marcia and Jill wore matching coats over the matching dresses specially sewed for them for this night. Even Rusty had on bowtie and he was not yet two. We went out into night and made the short drive to the Methodist Church downtown. I looked out the car window as we drove through the town, some houses were dark and others brightly lit. Traffic was light and what cars there were all seem to be headed toward downtown rather coming back toward us.

The painted red brick of the church reflected the brightness of the outdoor light over the foyer leading inside the church. Inside evergreen garlands lined the walls and windows of the church and a tall tree stood off to the side near the front of the church beside the minister’s lectern. We stamped our feet on the mats to knock the snow off our shoes after we entered through doors of the church. Ushers’ passed out small finger long candles for us to use later in the service. We sat together as a family in the congregation while my grandparents went back behind altar to sing in the choir.

The service began. My grandfather wearing his choir robe stood at smaller lectern on the right side of the altar and read the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke. The choir sang “Joy to the World” with enthusiasm. Ruth Gustafson’s back was to us while she waved her arms up and down furiously directing the little choir to sing their epic best. Reverend Huff, in a flowing black robe and Roman collar, preached a fine sermon that focused the importance of families, of giving and the saving Grace that would come to us in the fullness of time, salvation that would be brought to us in the form of the tiny baby whose birth we celebrated that night.

It was then I heard the voice of an Angel. A dear friend of my Uncle Bob’s, Kay Jean Huber, a Catholic girl who, in the spirit of ecumenism that flowed out of second Vatican Council, was allowed to come to church to sing for us. She began to sing “O Holy Night” while my grandmother accompanied her on the piano. Her voice filled up our little church so completely and fully that the sound of her voice still echoes in the sweetness of memories that can only come from the best of Christmases. 40 years later I not only can still hear it when she reaches the climax of the chorus but I can feel it as if it were real. At times I wonder whatever happened to Kay Jean and if she knows that for one special night she sang a song so perfectly it is still a part of Christmas for every one of us today with a memory of the event.

Finally it was time for my favorite part of the service. Ushers went up and down the aisle with candle lighters and lit the candle of those who were sitting at the ends of the pews. Once the first candle was lighted, each person, in turn, lit the candle of the person sitting next to them until all candles were burning. The ceiling lights were turned down so the church was illuminated only by candlelight. We started to sing Silent Night. By the time we reached the last verse, every candle was being raised and lowered in unison. The faces of the people around me slowly brightened and then faded into shadows as the candles were raised and lowered. I did not want the song to end. The church lights came on and the magic of the moment erupted into small talk and Merry Christmas wishes shared amongst all in the sanctuary. After a time we left the church and went back out into dark and snowy night.

Back at the house I have always called home there was more to come. Each of the children, me included was allowed to open one gift. Mysteriously, we opened packages that contained new pajamas intended to be worn that Christmas Eve night. There were no more little boy pajamas for me with cartoon characters on the front or feet on the bottom. They were simply blue plaid and made from flannel like the ones I wear today. We laughed and talked more, sharing bowls of oyster stew. We passed plates of cookies and the younger people drank hot chocolate with little marsh mellows floating in the cup. It was finally time for Suet pudding, a Christmas tradition handed down through generations of my family until my grandmother was no longer around to make the pudding and the rest of us lost our taste for things so overwhelming sweet.

At the ripe old age of ten, I had reached a point of near disbelief in the tradition of Santa Claus. I was pretty sure Santa was imaginary and the gifts actually came from our parents. I was not completely convinced. While I desperately wanted to be an adult I was equally concerned I might miss out on the glory of Christmas morning by breaking faith from a belief in Santa.

I sucked up my strength and announced to the adults around me that I knew who Santa REALLY was and then pointed to my grandfather, uncle and father. That started a rousing discussion between us and I gained courage, challenging the “evidence” they presented that there really was a Santa. Finally the plate of cookies and a glass of milk was put out by the tree and I went to bed. I lay in my sleeping bag for what seemed to be an eternity imaging what the morning would bring. I knew I was right about the Santa thing but I hoped beyond hope that I was wrong. Finally after about 873 years I went to sleep.

When I finally woke up most everyone else was up and moving around. When there are 11 people sleeping under one roof in two bedroom house, everyone is committed to getting up and going to sleep at the same time. It was still early dawn and snow had stopped falling. Sunlight was just starting to filter through the windows. We gathered in the family room. The smell of coffee was strong and I heard the pot perking with fury as I passed by the kitchen on my way through the dining room headed to the back room.

The entire room seemed to have been filled with presents. They were stacked around the Christmas tree past my waist high. Ribbons, bows and shiny paper glittered as if they were animated by an unseen energy within them. My sister and cousin Jill chattered with excitement as they looked at all tags, looking for presents with their names on them. Rusty just jumped and down and pointed at the gifts.

At first I was stunned by the sight but then I started to feel all grown up and cockily thanked my parents for all the gifts.

“Santa brought them,” my father assured me.

“You are Santa,” I responded.

“No I am not,” he answered back. “Look,” he said, “The cookies and milk are gone.”

I was not impressed by that. “You ate them,” I said.

With a big smile he pointed outside door to the patio. “If you don’t believe me, look out there.”

I went over the door and looked out the window. I did not see anything unusual. “I don’t see anything out there,” I said.

“Look at the tracks in the snow,” he said back. I looked down at the floor of the patio. There were dozens of hoof prints in the snow with one set of boot prints leading up the door set in amongst all of the hoof prints.

My uncle’s voice came from behind. “Those are reindeer tracks. Santa’s reindeer.”

I flung open the door and there were hoof prints all up and down the sidewalk and driveway beside and in front of the little house. The unmistakable proof that Santa existed lay stamped in the snow beside my Grandparent’s house. There was one last Christmas where magic happened and I could hang in the narrow space painted in memory where reality gives way to belief in things that should be real.

I still believed in the miracle later that day as we drove away from my grandparent’s house and I saw that there was only one house on the block where the reindeer hoof prints could be seen. I believed, not because I really believed, or that I had to believe but I believed because I wanted to believe.

………………..

Time is not a friend of children. Memories of things that delighted us can come to haunt us if we view events of the past as things we have lost. The hauntings can become so tightly woven into the tapestry of life that we lose the ability to feel the warmth of the fabric so we shy away from what we should wrap around us. Sometimes memories are hung over windows and they block the light that shines on the paths we are meant to walk on as we travel through life and we lose our way in the darkness. Time carries us forward into an unbidden future where uncertainties become certain but never in ways that we expect. It was a reality of time that the Christmas when I found the reindeer tracks was the last Christmas of my childhood even though I was far from being a grownup for several years thereafter.

In October the following year my father died suddenly. The first Christmas after that came to a family forever shattered by loss. I don’t remember much about that Christmas but I do remember this.

I was loved as much as I always been and I have come to appreciate that I still completely loved.

It is a miracle of life when memories that once haunted us can once again bring us delight. I have already been given the best gift I will receive this year for Christmas. I have been given the gift of remembering all Christmas’s past without regret. I am able to walk down the corridors of my memory and look into each room where the treasures and hurts of our family are stored to and to embrace them.

As I stand in doorway of room where the memories of the last Christmas when I believed in Santa are stored, the power of the real message of Christmas washes over me.

The message is not about presents or snow falling softly on a gentle night. It is about the sermon Reverend Huff delivered all those year ago. Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of hope in this world, hope that comes in a message of love carried on the wings of grace that transcends time and place. Miracles happen again every time we remember them because they bring with them the ability heal a soul that is in pain. Miracles, like memories, are timeless.

Living now in the afternoon looking back at a moment in the morning of life, I suppose I could have been angry that the adults’ worked together to encourage me to continue belief in a fairytale. I could have been disappointed they did not accept my understanding of things that belong to grownups and having been denied the right to be grownup and to have been treated as a child. I am none of those things. I can smile and remember the morning I still believed.

I want to tell the story of the Christmas of 1965 to honor every member of my family because they are such an important part of my life. I also tell the story not just for them but also for their families so they will hear about a special Christmas when the circles of time and space that bound us together were small and we could grab them and hang on. Our children should know they come from a heritage of love. I also tell the story because the telling makes it real again and I cling to things are real. We all do.

It is good we take time to remember the love my grandparents had for each other, the love they had for their children and for their grandchildren. We also need to tell the story of that love to a fourth generation, our children. God created us in His image so that we might know His love and to love Him in return. Families are called to make the love of God real in this world through our love for each other even though we lack full understanding of how to love. All we can do is to remember we love each other and let God take care of the rest.

Miracles happen when we have the faith to believe. I believe in Santa. This story is a gift to you from him.

Merry Christmas.

A husband looks at 1 Corinthian 13

For my wife Lori, a clumsy effort to understand appreciate the depth of her love for us: my children and I.

If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. My wife speaks only with love so when I listen carefully, I only hear sweetness that echoes the songs of angels. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. She has love so she is given insight into the gifts of prophecy, all mysteries and all knowledge that she shares with me that I can see beyond my limitations. She has love – that makes her my everything.

If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. She has love and gains everything from all that she gives of herself. Her love is patient, her love is kind. Her love is not jealous and is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Her love always rejoices with the truth regardless where knowledge of the truth comes from.

Her love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Her love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. These things will never come to pass because she has love, has always loved and always will love.

For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. She leads me to perfection with her love for me. When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish thing. I struggle with this but I am guided toward fullness through her love, assistance, example and encouragement. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. I trust that what she sees now and shares with me gives me clearer understanding. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. She leads me towards that knowing. So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love. Her love for me and for our children is abiding and supported by faith with a depth that is beyond reason and by hope that knows no limits.

She is love and I am blessed to be her husband.

God Cannot Tell a Lie....

Going back again to the letter from St. Clement, he wrote that the one thing God cannot do is tell a lie. We are taught from childhood that God is all powerful, all knowing and always present. One of the arguments that a so called agnostic peer used to raise was to question if God could create a rock so big he could not lift it. I always found the question pointless. It offers nothing with respect to understanding the essence of his omnipotence. The understanding that the one thing that God cannot do is to deny himself does not limit his power because surely he could tell a whopper if he wanted but would never choose to break his covenant with us: he is our God and we are his people and it is love that binds us together. The unmuted nature of that love brings solace, comfort and joy to the depths of our soul.

Where will I hide from your face

From St. Clement:

Where will I go, where will I hide from your face? If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go to the limits of the earth, your right hand is there; if I lie down in the deep, your spirit is there.

Usually I find myself attracted to spiritual imagery that leads us to a closer union with God but these words from the second to last paragraph have been running through my mind all day. They are, I believe, paraphrased from Psalm 139. Instead of being frustrated at the futility of trying to hide from the Lord, I am instead comforted by the fact that there is no where I could chose to go where I would not find him waiting for me. There is, therefore, no reason to resist his love for us and that we should always remember that we are the portion he has chosen for himself.

Every one of my days was decreed.

From Psalm 139:
Your eyes saw all my actions
they were all of them written in your book;
every one of my days was decreed
before one of them came into being.

And yet we still struggle to be in control and fail to consider God’s will for us. These words written several centuries before the time of Christ and I, like many others, still have not gotten the message that our days belong to the Lord not ourselves.

Psalm 12 - Protect of from this generation

From Psalm 12:


It is you, O Lord, who will take us in your care
and protect us forever from this generation.
See how the wicked prowl on every side,
while the worthless are prized highly by the sons of men.

It occurs to me that the difficulties we face in the present age are nothing new in human history. Our faith and our church are under attack both from without and within and they always have been. In our time, however, society has increasingly moved away from a culture of life. Instead personal convenience and the concept that actions should not have consequences are increasingly accepted as a reflection of an enlightened society. We reward those who achieve personal wealth and fame regardless of the moral center of the person. The concept of someone like Lady Gaga being so widely known and admired while those who give up themselves for the benefit of others go unnoticed is not something unique to our time but the advent of instant media causes us to be surrounded by it, willing or not. Every generation has challenges to overcome but regardless of the challenge the answer is always the same. It is the Lord who will protect us if we chose to remember we are His people and seek his protection.

We find no rest except in Him

I find it curious that since I have started the sharing process with you wonderful people that I frequently trip over a rock in one of the readings and I end up rolling the rock around for a while to understand why it tripped me. The rock this week comes from the second reading last Saturday. St. Thomas Aquinas who considers why it is there is no complete satisfaction of desire in this life. He quotes St. Augustine, “You (God) have made us for yourself, Lord, and our heart can find no rest until it rests in you.”


I have long wondered why we can’t achieve a lasting fulfillment. We can have periods of time, both long and short, where we are completely satisfied. Then one day – and often times for no apparent reason- we wake up to discover that our head has been screwed on crooked and we are back to square one. God created us with a built in fail safe device to keep us from getting complacent or comfortable. The restlessness we feel stirs us to action, it drives us search and question and that same restlessness keeps us focused on moving forward toward our more complete union with him after death.

The notion that we will not know rest until we rest in him is not a downer. Instead it reduces my fear of death because the promise of resting him after death is far more attractive to me than being complacent in ignorance in this world.

What did the 99 do?

Matthew 18:12-14

Jesus said to his disciples:I have often wondered about what 99 sheep did when the shepherd went looking for the one who was lost. I remembered the image of the Basque shepherds who used to work for my great grandfather on the sheep ranch my family owned. If the shepherd started to walk from one place to another, the sheep followed him wherever he went. I believe that the 99 who were not lost went with the Shepherd when he went to look for the one who was lost. I also believe we are the 99 and every time we give of ourselves in service of others in his name, we are helping the great shepherd rescue the one who is in most need of Him.

“What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray?  And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.”

Never Despair of God's Mercy

From the Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 4, verse 74:
And never despair of God’s mercy.


When I am in a good place, God’s mercy seems obvious. It washes over me and carries me with it, seemingly without any effort by me. When I am not in a good place that same mercy that was as endless as the ocean becomes as empty as a frozen desert. That is the nature of our spiritual wanderings. Sometimes we are lost, sometimes we are found. The instruction to never despair is a reminder that mercy is always available and it will come if we pray for it. It seems that we never find our own way back to his mercy. It always requires a word from another to bring us back to where we know we need to be in order to be comforted.

My Grace is Sufficient

I have the past several weeks been pondering this verse from 2nd Corinthians 12:6


"My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

I stumbled across the scripture reference in a second reading authored by St. Augustine. As we go through life puzzling how and in what manner our prayers are answered, this simple reference is such a powerful reminder that a prayer for grace will always be answered but prayers for results remain something that God will answer in his own way and we must always remain humble.

Taking pride in prasie given to others.

From a letter from St. Cyprian to St. Cornelius:


“Why then should a priest not take pride in the praise given to a fellow priest as thought it were given to him? What brotherhood fails to rejoice in the happiness of its brothers wherever they are?”

Ah, if it were only so simple. Who would not agree that happiness found by another is shared by all who know of it? Shared joy is part of the Christian ideal. For many who struggle with egos run amuck, recognition of praise given to another can bring with it a vague sense of deprivation that could best be called jealousy. There is some irrational concept things like praise and happiness come in limited amounts and whatever is given to another reduces what is available. We KNOW this to be untrue. We read virtually every day whatever is done in the Lord’s name to betterment of another is also done to all of us. Happiness shared is happiness multiplied. We know this is true for we have witnessed it. When the senseless fear that God’s grace could in any way be diminished is pushed back into the darkest recesses to wither away, we can fully celebrate the beauty of shared praise. I recall from last week keeping turn our will over to the care of Lord will lead us to as much joy as can be conceived. Let us all join hands and hearts to see how much joy we can conceive of together.

From the Rule of St. Benedict

Chapter 4 – versus 22-28: “Not to gratify anger: not to harbor a desire of revenge…. Once again I reminded that resentments are poison for me. I can’t indulge in self righteous anger even if it might seem justified. The reflection on the rule fully illuminates the problem if we do give into anger. “At times of stress, I find myself enmeshed in a complex pattern of self denunciation, guilt, frustration and weariness that effectively blocks me from being aware of what is going on.” Anger blocks me from being able to communicate, to understand another’s perspective or from even being able to pray. It is not until I can focus on Christ again does the blockage give way to freedom.

Chose this day who you will serve

 Thoughts on the letter of the apostle Paul to Timothy concerning ministers.


Paul lays out a very precise description of the characteristics of bishops and deacons. I suspect that if Paul were talking to us from across the room instead of through the long tunnel of time, he would call for us to measure ourselves by the same values he set forth for the ordained. The challenge to keep our children under control without losing dignity is something to consider further. All of can think of examples of children who were being poorly managed and those who were well managed. There comes a time though when to attempt to control our children becomes a different kind of problem. At this stage, I really can’t even try to control them. At best, I can influence them but at the end of the day they will choose for themselves the path they will take. In the early days of our marriage we found a beautiful painting of flock of ducks rising into the air from a pond surrounded by cattails. The inscription inset in the border is from Joshua: “Choose this day whom you will serve but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Those of who us are parents of children seeking their own way in world should join together with a prayer that our children will chose this day to serve the Lord.

As a deer longs for streams of water

A morning or two ago, I looked out my window just after first light to find my backyard filled with deer, all of them fairly large bucks. We keep a birdbath filled with water near the deck and one of the bucks cautiously approached the birdbath and finally determined it was safe to drink. As I watched, the words of Psalm 42 that we read frequently in the Psalter came to mind. “As a deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God.”

My thought was that even though I have only been reading Liturgy of Hours for a few months, I have begun to see the prayers animated all around me. The Psalms were written hundreds of years before Christ walked the earth and yet if I let the imagery evoked by the words loose from the bondage of the written word, those images truly come to life.

A lantern always burning at night in the temple of my Lord

St. Columban touched in spot deep in my heart in this reading. He wrote:

“How I wish I might deserve to have my lantern always burning at night in the temple of my Lord, to give light to all who enter the house of my God.”

The imagery of light being from God has long appealed to me but the good Saint, an Irish monk born the year that St. Benedict died, has given me a new understanding of light from God. St. Columban’s prayer was to light the way of others – to help them find their way to God. Not in a literal way but in a spiritual way. When I turn on the lights in the Cathedral before morning mass, it is not to allow those who enter to see God or even to see their faith in God. The lights that respond to a flick of switch are real but have no real meaning of their own. It is what they shine on that is important. The lights illuminate the temple so that people who come to worship can see the holy images assembled there and be moved to consider the nature of God and His love for us. The lights enable us to see each other that we might share our faith or so our can read sacred text and so move closer to God. The light that St. Columban is talking about does not light up buildings. His lantern does not bring light to anything that is real but what is spiritual. Columban’s lantern does not allow us to see him. Any source of real light can do that. What we see is not just Columban but the Holy Spirit that has been sent forth to guide our way into the way of peace. What is it that the Holy Spirit brings us to see and know? It is the Love of God.

He concludes:

“So may your love pervade our whole being, possess us completely, and fill all our senses, that we may know no other love but love for you who are everlasting.”

This is what it is all about. Love from God so vast it is beyond our measure, understanding or imagination.

I will make you fishers of men.

Matthew 4:18-22

As Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting a net into the sea; they were fishermen. He said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” At once they left their nets and followed him. He walked along from there and saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him.

In this gospel reading, Jesus asked Peter and Andrew to follow him and he would make them fishers of men. He spoke to them in a language they would understand and they understood him and followed him immediately. I know Jesus is speaking to me now as he speaks to all of us but I usually don’t understand the language He is speaking to me. That is because I speak in a language of my own when I am not open to His will. My language is an “I” language because I can’t use it to do anything but define my own wants and desires or to express my own will. When I speak in that language it is impossible to hear Him much less understand Him. He understands me when I speak in the “I”, of course he understands me but it fills him with sadness because I have chosen to separate myself from him. My hope is to forget the “I” and focus on the “we” so that I can count myself as one of His people. So I can I count myself as one of you who know you are His people and that He is our God.

In him do our hearts find joy.

From Psalm 33


Our soul is waiting for the Lord.
The Lord is our help and our shield.
In him do our hearts find joy.
We trust in his holy name.

During the course of my reflection on the nature of piety, the words love and joy seem to keep turning up over and over again. A life of piety is intended to reveal the joy that comes as a consequence of a loving relationship with God. I have pondered how often we encounter the word “joy” when we consider the reward and result of our love for God and his perfect love for us. Consider how seldom we find any of the synonyms for love in sacred text. Happy pops up from time to time but pleasure almost never. There is, I don’t think, much difference between the dictionary meaning allocated to each word but to me there seems to be great difference things that bring me a pleasure and those that bring joy. It occurs to me that difference lies not only in the intensity or magnitude implied by each word but also differences in origin. For instance fishing or walking through a field brings me pleasure. A good book or a fine meal brings me pleasure. For years I chased things that brought me pleasure but then felt empty and unfilled by them. Turning a life dedicated to piety, even though I do so poorly, is where I have begun to experience joy. Reading the Canticle of Zechariah as day breaks brings me joy. An embrace from a brother or sister in Christ brings me joy. Sharing communion brings me joy.

Things that bring pleasure to me are derived from things of this world. Things that bring me joy are sent to me by the Holy Spirit through the grace of God. Such joy is not for me alone but must be shared. It has taken me a lifetime to understand which I prefer. Today I chose to take a path with all of you that will bring us to know and experience that in him our hearts do find joy.

Cornucopia

The days are marching toward Advent, a progression I am eagerly awaiting that I might see the mysteries of the season through the new set of glasses that have been shared with me. Cornucopia is one of the words we use during the Thanksgiving season and it word I would use to describe the bounty of the reading of this passage from St. Ambrose:

The law of our fallen nature is at war with the law of our reason and subjects the law of reason to the law of error. What is the remedy?
It is counterintuitive to think the solution to death is to die to ourselves and to live in Christ. The fact that we are sinners drives us to doubt the gift of the resurrection. Our insecurities whisper in our ears that we should abhor death. Reason tells us that death is the end and there is nothing we can see that will prove to the unfaithful that life exists beyond death. When we listen to reason, we risk true death because reason would lead us away from the path to our personal salvation. The remedy? We did not need to read into the next paragraph of the passage to find the answer to that question, the answer is written in our hearts and souls. The remedy is the Grace of Christ who, beyond our ability to reason, gave himself up to death to save us from true death.

Sparrows, celery and onions and Grandma's Love

The aroma filled up my awareness as I tried to blink awake in the dim light of a snowy dawn. The smell was strong and fresh, pungent but sweet as it rolled out of the nearby kitchen where my grandmother sautéed celery and onions as a first step toward making the dressing for the Thanksgiving turkey. My parents, sister, aunt and uncle and cousins lay around me scattered around the family on cots and air mattresses still sleeping. The only sounds I could hear at first were the sizzling vegetables and the soft breathing noises of my family. Then as I woke up more I could hear the raucous twitter of small birds outside the door that opened to the patio.


I tiptoed over and around my sleeping family to peer out the window to see what the fuss was about. The window in the door was edged with hoar frost and fogged over from the warm moist air. I pulled my pajama sleeve over my fist and rubbed a spot in the window so I could look out. I saw a dozen or maybe even two dozen sparrows flittering about pecking at dark dots on the snow that had fallen during the night. My grandmother had tossed out the remnants of the bread crusts too crumbled and tiny to mix in with the dressing. The tiny birds would have a little feast of their own to celebrate the holiday. I watched the birds for a while trying to track the flight of just one bird at a time but the movement was too quick and too erratic to follow. It only took a few minutes for them to clean up all of the crumbs and then, as though they were all connected by a string, they vanished into the falling snow. I wondered how they had found the crumbs so quickly after my grandmother tossed them out on the patio.

I worked my way back across the room toward the door to the kitchen being careful not to step on my sleeping family. The footsy of my faded superman pajamas was worn and slippery so my foot slipped a little against the vinyl floor as I step over my sleeping sister. I finally reached the sliding door that separated the family room from the kitchen. I slid the door between open enough to step through and the first thing I saw was our yellow Labrador Gypsy standing by the table looking into the kitchen. I was then blasted by the full force of the aroma of the cooking celery and onions in almost the same instant I saw my grandmother standing beside the stove with a potato in one and a shiny peeler in the other.

She was wearing a house coat and pink step –in slippers and over the coat was a full length red and white gingham apron that tied in the back. For my grandmother, a smile was a normal expression and this morning was no exception. Her countenance was soft and her eyes twinkled with delight at the sight of me. I flooded with warmth from the toes my footsy pajamas to my ears.

“Good morning, honey,” she said. “Gypsy is always such a big help for me in the kitchen in case I drop something on the floor.” It is little wonder that she and the dog worshipped each other every day of Gypsy’s life.

If I responded, I can’t remember what I said. It does not matter because what I did next was much more important than anything I could have said. I padded around the dog into the kitchen and into the soft arms of grandmother and she hugged me close to her. I wanted the moment to last forever but of, course, it couldn’t. Unexpectedly, though, as I write these words the hug comes back to me in rush of memories. Nearly a half century of time has been erased in a blink. The moment is now suspended in time, a little boy in the arms of his grandmother.

My grandmother could love like no one else I have ever met. Now in this moment of warmth I can understand what we mean when we express belief in the communion of the saints. Through time and space and from world to the next I feel loved. I feel her love. The gift I have been given is to no longer mourn the past, to regret what has been lost but rather to bring those moments back to life and let them live again. I celebrate her life and her love and I now understand that her love has always been a constant in my life.

From that snowy Thanksgiving morning in my grandparent’s tiny house in Anaconda to this day, the smell of frying celery and onions takes me back to that day. It does not matter who is at the stove, even if it is gift I give myself, when I smell that aroma, I feel love. Right now there is a supply of celery and onions in the refrigerator ready to peeled, chopped and fried for the dressing for the turkey we will share with family for dinner. I can hardly wait.

It is time for me sign off now. I am suddenly motivated to go find someone to hug and a yellow dog to pet. Wonder where that came from.

Cornucopia

As we move from Halloween to Thanksgiving and on into Advent, a progression I am eagerly awaiting that I might see the mysteries of the seasons through the new set of glasses that have been shared with me, we begin to use words that are peculiar to this time of the year. Cornucopia is one of the words and it is word I would use to describe today’s readings. There is so much nourishment to absorb and share that it is hard to focus on just one thought or two.

I have spent time contemplating this passage from St. Ambrose:

The law of our fallen nature is at war with the law of our reason and subjects the law of reason to the law of error. What is the remedy?

It is counterintuitive to think the solution to death is to die to ourselves and to live in Christ. The fact that we are sinners drives us to doubt the gift of the resurrection. Our insecurities whisper in our ears that we should abhor death. Reason tells us that death is the end and there is nothing we can see that will prove to the unfaithful that life exists beyond death. When we listen to reason, we risk true death because reason would lead us away from the path to our personal salvation. The remedy? We did not need to read into the next paragraph of the passage to find the answer to that question, the answer is written in our hearts and souls. The remedy is the Grace of Christ who, beyond our ability to reason, gave himself up to death to save us from true death.

This is, of course, All Soul’s Day and since early this morning I have been able to almost physically feel the power of the prayers offered up by the church all over the world for souls of those who have passed before us. It is as if we are all speaking with one voice. The message of Paul is that without the resurrection we would have nothing. All those who have died would truly be dead. We know this is not true. We believe it absolutely.

From the second reading taken from the first letter to the Corinthians:

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is void of content and your faith is empty too.

Many years ago, when I was struggling to make sense of the struggle to live as a Christian in a world where moral values were being painted with the whitewash of secular humanism, I elected to enter a Methodist Seminary. What happened toward the end of my first year was that a New Testament professor stood before the class and warned us that once we were out in our summer assignments we needed to consider that many people in the congregation still believed in the antiquated notion of a physical resurrection of Christ and that we need to be careful in how approached the subject. I was instantly horrified because I knew without a doubt he was not speaking in jest or in a manner some teachers use to provoke us to think. He was, in fact, and ordained minister of the church as well as having several degrees in history and theology and he truly believed the resurrection was a metaphor. It was at that moment that I realized I was no longer a Methodist and could never be a Methodist. A few weeks later I left the seminary and rejoined Catholic Church as fast I could.

It is not my intent to defend the reality of the death and resurrection of Christ. Scholars and theologians with training and experience with far more eloquence than me have defended the faith countless times over the past two thousand years. Instead I wish to state that in almost one instant I came to realize that if I believed in the physical death and resurrection, examination of that truth would lead to more truths. If Christ truly died and truly rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, than the body and blood of Christ was present in the Eucharist. If Christ is truly present in the Eucharist than when eat His body and drink his blood, he becomes truly present in us. He becomes truly present in me and my soul; all of our souls are nourished as we journey toward our final rest in Him.

Cornucopia – the horn of plenty- is a symbol of abundant food. There is an older meaning. Cornucopia refers to food of worship and holiness. This means we can use the word to refer to not only the bounty of the Thanksgiving feast but also to the bounty of Holy Communion. The Eucharist is the ultimate example of cornucopia.

Cursillo Talk

Jesus said, “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy …” Luke 15:4-5


This was the verse that was shared today at the last 2010 Helena Cursillo team meeting. We are the men who are going to assist God in conducting the Cursillo beginning on November 11. The message offered by the parable is clear. God will never abandon any one of us and if we are lost or separated from the flock, he will search for us for as long as it takes to find us. As we shared our reflections with each other, some other messages became equally clear. While the Bible does not tell us about the other 99 sheep, we believe we know how they reacted when the Shepherd went to search for the missing sheep. They went looking for the missing sheep with Him and then when the missing sheep was found, they rejoiced with the Lord.

That is what the Cursillo is all about. We are the 99 searching for our missing brothers. We do so because each of has been blessed with knowing the joy of being in the presence of the great Shepherd. Who are we? We are doctors, lawyers, dentists, surgeons, auto mechanics, real estate agents, insurance guys, bankers, mayors, salesmen, judges, accountants and so on. We are your neighbors, your friends, and the people you see at football games or sitting beside you at church. We are all Christians and we are mostly, but not all, Catholic. We are you. We were you. We want you to know us.

We are regular guys who have heard the word of the Lord, been moved by it and we are driven to offer our experience to others. We have experienced the love of God and we want to share the good news: Gods’ love is there for us all of us. We just have to open our eyes, our ears, our minds and our hearts will come to know that we are loved and we are capable of love.

The Cursillo offers us the opportunity to reflect to one another that is possible to have a change of heart and to make a commitment to live our lives in accordance with God’s will for us. Having participated in Cursillo has energized me to be a better husband, father, son, brother, and friend. When I was called to orient my whole life toward God, I found that God dropped me into a community of men and women who believe our greatest calling is to know, love and serve God.

If you have come to this page because of an inquiry from me, please be assured of this one thing, the purpose of the Cursillo is to bring us closer to God. It is a retreat but it is more than that. Virtually everyone I know who has made a Cursillo came to the weekend looking for something and virtually everyone I know who has made the Cursillo has found something they wanted and needed.

One of the important focuses of the weekend is that each candidate is allowed to see themselves as others see them. Few of us really know how much we are loved by others and how important we are to them. When a candidate is encouraged to understand the depth of God’s love, they are suddenly able to appreciate their ability to love and be loved by others. Consider this a very simple way of making a major impact on someone you love’s life.

For more information:
http://www.helenacursillo.org/
http://www.natl-cursillo.org/whatis.html

Lone Peak, Shared.

Ordinarily I try to find a quiet, out-of-the-way place to read Liturgy of the Hours but the Adirondack chair with the full on view of Lone Peak was just too inviting of a place to sit and read morning prayer. The first speaker of the day finished a half hour early so I took advantage of the long break and the flawless weather to grab the Breviary and head out doors. I found the set of 4 chairs after looking around for a quiet place with a view of the mountain and comfortable place to sit. Just as I was getting ready to sit, another lady came up and sat down in one of the other chairs. Rather than find a more secluded place, I proceeded to read the prayer. When I finished, I closed my eyes to continue with private personal prayer. When I opened my eyes again, the lady spoke to me  with a very deep southern accent asking why I was visiting the resort. We chatted back and forth for several minutes before she asked what I was reading. I explained the concept of Liturgy of the Hours to her. She then showed me her book which was a Christian meditation book written, I believe, by Rick Warren.

The conversation immediately took a very different turn. She talked about her decision to continue to live in Nashville even though her son moved to Charlotte with his family because she felt she called by God to remain in Nashville. She wanted to move to be near her son and grandchildren but that it was God's will that she not join them yet. I talked about how I wished that I had learned to turn my life over to God much earlier in life so that I could have avoided all the years of pounding my head against the wall. She reached over and grabbed my hand and locked her eyes on mine . She then reminded me that I should never second guess the choices I made in the past but only to remain open to what is asked of me of today and tomorrow.

I continued to chat with this beautiful woman for another 20 minutes about matters of ultimate concern to us. There was, on part on my part, no hestitation or reluctance to talk about my faith. It did not feel odd or forced or strange. It just flowed. I do not know if she was Baptist or Fundemental Evangelical. There was no thought of the things that might separate us. I did not think to even introduce myself or ask her name. While it would be nice to call her by name as I give thanks to Lord for putting us together today, her name is something that belongs to this world and I know that when she and meet again, we will know each other. Her soul and mine will know each other perfectly.

Lord today I give thanks that for the briefiest of moments today I became one in the Spirit and one in the Lord with another human and found myself loved by someone that before this morning I did not know existed. Bless my firied and guide her safely home.  Amen.

Thought for the day: giving advice with humility

From Chapter 3 of the Rule of St. Benedict we read that when the monks called upon to provide comment to the abbot, Benedict warns the brethren “to give advice with all restraint of humility …”

That is great advice for all of us today. The nature of job means that I am often sought out by others to give counsel in a wide variety of capacities. Unless the matter being discussed is actually an issue requiring action or decision by me, I would be well advised to remember that advice given does not carry with it any sense of obligation that the received should honor the advice. My first inclination used to often be to think or say, “If you weren’t going to listen to what I had to say, why ask for my opinion in the first place?” That is a sure way to stifle future communication. While I am clearly a work in progress, I am learning to keep quiet a let others draw what ever conclusions they want from the way things turned out for them.

It is no secret that it is impossible for anyone to give good counsel unless they fully understand what is being asked of them. The only to learn what is being asked to carefully listen to what is being shared with them. Perhaps the greatest gift I have been given in the past 3 years is a growing ability to just listen to people who have a need to talk. It amazes me how often others kind find answers by just explaining a problem out loud to another human being. To be able to seem wise without needing to open my mouth and risk disproving the wisdom is a blessing....

Thought for the day: avoiding envy

A random thought from St. Gregory, Pope:

“It is impossible to envy worldly success when he has no worldly desires.”

What a concept  – if we keep love in our hearts and heaven on our mind, we won’t have room to engage in coveting our neighbor’s new boat.

As much happiness as can be concieved....

St. Bruno in a discourse on the Psalms offered perspective on the nature of blessings. He wrote that even if we have faith, hope and love, no one can become blessed for eternity except through the grace of God. We can’t reach a state of blessedness without Christ’s intervention. That is nothing new to us – we know well we can‘t find eternal life without being blessed by God.  He also wrote being blessed by the Lord means that we can enjoy as much happiness as can be conceived. Clearly it is not possible to achieve that much happiness in this world. Perfect happiness, complete happiness, total happiness simply can't happen in a world where evil operates. In this life the decision to follow the Lord and to seek his grace is a daily one. We have to constantly renew our committment to live life in accordance with his will and not our own. To be blessed by God brings happiness and peace. Be blessed through the grace of God completely fills in our inner being yet it inspires to ask for more and to share the blessing we have been granted with others. Sharing does not diminsh the blessings we have been granted, it increases them.

From the ancient prayer from Numbers, bless us lord and keep us in your grace.

Thought for the day...

Steven Hawking has written a new book in which he attempts to debunk the notion that there had to be a God in order for the universe to be created. He is quoted as writing,

“The universe can and will create itself out of nothing.”

One of his fellow scientists, however, provides the thought of day in response. Denis Alexander wrote:

“Science may provide us with a wonderful narrative as to how existence may happen but theology addresses the meaning of the narrative.”

As Catholics and Christians we understand the meaning. We were created by loving God in his own image that he might love us and we might love Him in return. It occurs to me that debate over creation is not an important exercise. A relationship with God the father is much more important than a relationship with God the Creator. My older son is adopted. My younger son was born to my wife and I. I was involved in the creation of one but not the other yet both call me father and I love each without regard to my role in their creation. I love them because they exist for me to love and they love me for the same reason. That has meaning. Mr. Hawking missed the point. We don't need a relationship with our Creator. We need a relationship with our Father

From St. Leo the Great

From the daily office second reading today by St. Leo the Great:

“Because human ignorance is slow to believe what it does not see, and equally slow to hope for what it does not know, those who were to be instructed in the divine teaching had first to be aroused by bodily benefits and visible miracles so that, once they had experienced his gracious power, they would no longer doubt the wholesome effect of his doctrine.”

Up until the time of Christ, no human had ever seen face of God and survived the experience. Our history had been more focused on things of the temporal realm: Kingdoms, temples, physical health, wealth, personal safety and laws. In order to transition from outward and physical world that is the realm of the former times to the inner and spiritual world of the new times, we needed to be led from one reality to other. St. Leo suggests that God started our voyage from our old existence to the new one by first by getting our attention through miracles. Things that we could see and believe because we saw them allowed us to believe in the goodness of the incarnate God. Next, The Sermon on the Mount introduced us to a new concept: God loves each and everyone human as an individual and He wants our relationship to be based upon love. While I (as do we all) conform to laws and rules in order to live in our society, living by the rule of law leaves us bereft of the passion that makes life worth living. The law is faceless and cold; love is warm and inviting and leads to joy. Until today I did not understand that the new order was founded with the pronouncement of the Sermon on the Mount. Typically I read the second reading with an eye toward to what moves my heart. Today I found insight that deepens my understanding of the foundation of our faith. That is just fine with me.

Thought for the day...

Last night was the first night spent in our new home. This morning I sat outside as the sun was coming up and I was rewarded with a beautiful dawn that broke softly over the east valley and the mountains beyond.

Recitation of the Canticle of Zechariah took special meaning in the half light of daybreak:

In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

What a wonderful place we find ourselves in when we allow the Lord to guide our feet into the way of peace.

From St. Colm Cille

Here is the thought that has stayed with me today:

“Such a soul seeks the fountain of eternal life and drinks from it, although it continues to thirst and its thirst grows ever greater even as it drinks. Therefore, the more the soul loves, the more it desires to love…”

After years of trying to quench a thirst that could not be quenched, pursuing a relationship with a loving God has proven to be where hope is found.

Mary....

The first and second readings from the Divine Office today are strongly linked together. The first reading from Isaiah 11 is the famous scripture foretelling the birth of Jesus. I can remember pretty vividly when as a young man first studying theology how excited I became when I realized how tightly Old Testament prophecy and the revelation of the New Testament are woven together. The second reading shone a whole new light on the prophecy of Isaiah. Typical of many converts to Catholicism, I was slow to come to a full appreciation of role of Mary in our faith. Even now I still don’t feel completely in step with the depth of most Catholic's devotion to Mary but I have developed enormous love for her and when I am really frazzled, saying a rosary is the quickest way back to some degree of calmness. Mary was flower from Jesse’s root that bore the fruit that became the Son of Man. She was the mother of God and her role was fortold in scripture. When we pray to Mary, it is to ask for her intercession for us with her Son. She is not God or like God and we don't worship her but through her we workship the fruit ofher womb.

Thought for the day...

A thought stolen from the homily of Father Sean Raftis today:

"Forgiveness is an act not a feeling."


This means that often times we are asked to forgive while we still hurt. This requires courage and faith that in the act of forgiveness, true healing can begin. Foregiveness purifies pain and turns it into an offering to God.

Peace and Light

St. Gregory of Nyssa in a treatise on Christian Perfection wrote about two topics that have been much in my mind recently, peace and light. He remarks that if we are to think of Christ as being our peace, our lives must express Christ by our own peace. Similarly, he states that if Christ is our true light, our lives must also shine with the rays of the true light. Our call is not to just speak of being at peace and being of God’s disciple, but to demonstrate it. Profession is just the first step. The words of St. Francis comes mind: “Go forth and speak the gospel and, if necessary, use words.”

The spoken word can convince or convict, inspire or frighten, illuminate or disseminate the truths that define a divine relationship between God and his people. The essence of ourselves that is revealed to our brothers and sisters through our displayed countenance is what will change hearts and bring others to conversion. We should not just speak of peace but to be at peace with ourselves, each other and God. That peace will be seen by the world as a reflection of the true light that falls on us from the face of God looking down upon us as he grants us peace.

Seeking humility

From St. Cyril’s homily on Mary: “Of course no one could be prevented from living in the house he built himself , yet who would invite mockery by asking his own servant to become his mother?”

The answer, to our great benefit, is, of course, God. How can we struggle with humility when the master of the universe, motivated only be us love for us, gave himself up to mortal form born of a virgin destined to die the most humiliating of deaths? The reality is that we still struggle with our egos or at least I struggle mightily with mine. Look also to the example of Mary herself. She also willing accepted the role of mother when doing so subjected her to public shame. All of this is a strict reminder to me that my ego is not my friend. We all need to remind each other with the greatest of love but with equal urgency to put our egos aside and seek to be humble before the face of God and all of his people so that His will, not ours, be done.

Peace be with you.

"A need in the world meets a deep joy in me.”

"A need in the world meets a deep joy in me.” St. John Vianney
It has been ages since such a simple nine word sentence has had such a profound impact on my thought process.

As Christians we are constantly made aware of the need for good works. We understand the divine nature of charity and social justice. We are called to argue for the right of the unborn to live as fully formed human lives. We are asked to feed the poor and to educate the illiterate. Our calling is to make a postive difference in the world around us. God created us in his image so that we could love him to fullfil his commandment to love one another. And so we all do those things to some degree or another. We are adept at recognizing needs in the world that need to be addressed.

For most of us, however, doing good works is thought of as a sacrifice, to give of ourselves to others means that we have to give up something whether it ir our time, our talent or our wealth.

St. John Vianney, however, turns the whole concept of meeting needs as being an active sacrifice on its head. Serving the needs of the world is not obligation but an opportunity. We are not asked to give with regret and sorrow but to accept the opportunity to serve as a gift.

To love and serve the Lord is not a burden but a treasure. The Lord will accept all that we have to offer in His service but it is not his will that we do with grudging reluctance. It is His will that we greet the world with same joy that He greet us.

The reflection that accompanied the quote that leads this posting called it a discription of a call to vocation. In broader terms it not just a call for ordained vocations but also a call to the priesthood of the laity.

I see this call expressed all around me. Stopped at a stopped light this morning, I listened as a mother in the car next to me sang joyfully to her her children in the backseat. Her voice was not angelic or sweet but it was filled with harmony of love. I saw it again when a junior high aged boy stopped in the store parking lot to help an elderly lady pick up a sack of groceries she had dropped. My friend has long hungered to be able to go back to Indonesia to do mission work under the cloak of other work and she was able to accomplish the goal this summer. She found great joy in being blessed with the opportunity to meet a need in the world. The children in the car had a need to be loved and the older lady needed assistance in gathering her groceries before a passing car flattened them. The needs of both young and the old were met by others who were clearly happy to be of service.

I have to asky myself why is it difficult to be joyful when I consider the needs of the world that are made known to me? In my case it is because I worry that I will be asked give up something I need or want. Being self centered makes it difficult to meet the needs of the world with joy. I have learned, however, that happiness is a choice we make. Each day I have the ability to chose whether or not I am happy. If I make the choice to be happy then ability to serve with joy follows with ease.

Lord, we pray that we can focus on chosing joy so that needs in world we encounter become gifts not obligations.

Peace be with you.

The Love of Families

The love of a family is a gift from God. He made us in his image that we might love and be loved and then he organized us in families that we might have way to learn to love and be loved. It is love that is shared with us by God that brings family together. That same love binds together families who keep a covenant with God because God’s love sustains and nurtures our love for each other. When we die, we go forth with the love of our families as the wings that carry us from this world into God’s presence and, finally, it is that same love made perfect by our transcendence that brings families together again in His Heavenly Kingdom.

I recently read a sermon by St. Augustine on St. Martha. After I read through it the first time, nothing in particular jumped out at me but I felt a very slight sense of unease about some aspect of the reading but I could not discern the sourece of my discomfort. Experience has recently taught me that if something makes me uncomforable, I best not ignore it. In my world, spiritual growth from being challenged. So I read the sermon again and then again for the third time. Finally the source of my unease jumped out at me.

Here is what St. Augustine wrote that caused my discomfort: “Do not grieve or complain that you were born in a time when you can no longer see God in the flesh. He did not in fact take this privilege from you. As he says: Whatever you have done to the least of my brothers, you did to me.”

And there it was. The challenge to step out myself and look an aspect of my life that I have not much thought about: hospitality. Martha was a gracious and grateful hostess but her guest was the most important invididual in history. While Jesus has never knocked at my door, many other people have done so in the past. What kind of host was I? Would Benedict feel that we have lived up the spirit of the rule by welcoming visitors? The answer, I fear, would be no. So now it is up to me to rise to the challenge to be a welcoming, gracious and generous host and not just when it is convenient for me. Can I learn to see the face of God in all who call at my door?

Pray that we can all learn to welcome the least of our brothers as if they were Son of God.

Peace be with you.

Mary Magdalene - The Perserverance of Love

Think for a moment of the image of Mary Magdalene lingering behind at the empty tomb of the risen Christ after the disciples had left in bewilderment and dismay. Her faith obligated her to stay and her perseverance was rewarded by Lord who came into her presence and reassured her that the promise of the resurrection was true. She was the first witness of the proof of God’s fulfillment of this covenant man: If we believe in what we cannot see, we shall never die but will live forever.

Are there other women living today who can call to mind the faith of Mary? What would that faith look like? I think of my own wife who continued to have faith that God would empower my younger son to overcome huge physical obstacles that defined his early years. Long after I had despaired of every being able to understand his speech or to be able to see him to be comfortable doing anything physical, she continued to fight for him, pray for him, encourage him, support him and to demand that the the rest of us to join her efforts to encourage him. Now he speaks with delightful eloquence, humor, and startling insight and always with a precise articulateness that is a true gift from God.

When the day came he wanted to become a fireman, this young man who struggled so hard to just be able to crawl and walk without pain as a child became a fireman. While I have been so proud of him it was not until today as I reflected on the reading that I gained a new understanding of my wife’s role in my son’s life. She, like many others, reminds us that the gospel proclaims a living word that is as vital today as it was 2 thousand years ago. At this very moment she is continuing to live that example as Brian struggles with a new set of challenges to overcome. Tonight I will offer an extra prayer of thanks to Mary Magdalene for blessing us with her example and for my wife’s willingness to bring the gospel to life for her family. Pray for her and for Brian with me.

Peace be with you.

A son named John

In November of 2008 I made my Cursillo journey. After a year of fumbling toward establishing a new relationship with God after beginning recovery from years of best lost in the fog of alcoholism, the Cursillo provided me with an opportunity to begin again. In the days that followed the Cursillo I realized the small voice that whispered things that echoed in my heart was the voice of God calling me back to His presence, reminding me of His love for me.

As the days turned into weeks, I felt the intensity of relationship beginning to slip and I began to fear that the changes I had only recently embraced would fade away and I would return to my former self and again be lost in world created by my will that I did not want to acknowledge.

I attended mass with my wife on the second Sunday of Advent. Kneeling down after entering the pew at the Cathedral for mass, I began to pray,
“Dear God, please help me find a way to reconnect with you. I feel that I have lost some of the fire I had coming out of the Cursillo and I want to rekindle the fire. Thank you for keeping me sober yesterday and help me to stay sober for today. Please help my brothers and sisters who suffer from addiction find that it is Your Will that they walk down the road of recovery. Amen” My heart began to pound so loudly I was certain that those around me could hear it as clearly as the bells of the Cathedral. I was unable to focus what else to say so I just spent a few more minutes trying to quiet my heart and focus my thoughts.

I sat back on the pew and looked up at stained glass windows and watched as they were lit up or shadowed as fast moving clouds passed by the sun. The day was December 7, Pearl Harbor day, a day with significance to all Americans and many more people around the world. It is day that invokes memories of sadness and changed destinies. For me, December 7, Pearl Harbor Day is also a day of ultimate significance I was born 10 years after the war. The memories of events that occurred on December 7 have nothing to do war and are intensely personal to me, and are shared only my wife. Or so I thought.

The memories of the December 7 that have shadowed my life began when I was sitting in my recliner sipping an after work cocktail of whiskey on the rocks waiting for my pregnant wife to come home from a routine visit to her doctor. When she came through the door it became instantly, sickeningly clear disaster had struck. The baby, our first, was gone from us before we both could know him. We had tried so long and so hard to conceive that hopes were ebbing away when we suddenly found she become pregnant. The moment the presence of a new life growing within her was the greatest moment of joy I had experienced up that point in my life. When the time was right, I had felt the baby quicken in the womb but then as the days progressed along, the novelty of feeling his movement passed. I took for granted that there would be no end to the days in this world when I could engage him in some way. Had it been one day, two days, or a week? I could not remember then nor can I remember now. I thought that because God knew all that we had to endure to get the spark of life started would mean that the spark would ignite and burn forever. Surely this baby was the answer to our prayers, a real manifestation of God’s will for us.

Before the evening of that December 7 passed, I took poured another drink and probably poured even more after that. Those drinks may have been the first drinks taken not for enjoyment or fun but to numb scorched emotions. I don’t know that I drank much over the next days as we went through the horror of having to wait out the delivery of a dead baby but instead of engaging with God and my wife to come to understanding of the depth of grief and the beauty of healing, I pushed the hurt deep inside and tried to wall it off.

When the time came for the baby to be delivered, I was not in the room but came back shortly afterwards. I took the still, dark, little form, wrapped in a receiving blanket into my arms. Trying to find some solace in a moment that I did not think could be endured, I thought of John the Baptist. I said, “As your father, I name you John in honor of John the Baptist. He came to prepare the way for another.” I wet my thumb in the tears of both his mother and myself and said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

In time, we gave his body over to the staff of the hospital and left that dark place to walk into a future we could not predict. There is no answer to the question why babies die even if there is answer as to what happened to them. For us, for John, there was never an answer as to what happened that could be communicated to me within the realm of human understanding.

Our time is visible to us and we can see each day pass into the next but suddenly the passage of time from that day so many years ago until that day in the cathedral collapsed into one single image that was no longer colored by sadness but was filled of chaotic impressions of welcoming hope.

Still struggling to focus my thoughts, I opened the liturgy guide and found that the gospel was about John the Baptist. I was immediately transported back to that moment so many years ago when we held, loved and blessed a child lost to us before he could know life. I did the math in my head and realized that 25 years had passed from the day my wife came into the house with news that changed us forever.

I asked to be reconnected and He chose to take me back to the day when I took the burden of grief into myself instead of asking Him to share it with me. I came to know, to really understand that it was not his will that my son die in the womb but it was His will that I share my loss with him that he might console me, console us and help us find healing.

Unbidden and unexpected, the tears began to flow. To be able to give oneself over the grief and tears is the gift I could accept only now after years of literally drowning sorrows. I listened to the story of the man who promised a fine chalice to the Lord if he could be blessed with a child but later changed his mind and tried to pass off a simple chalice, a gift that was rejected. When the son and the chalice were later lost at sea, the man prayed at the church of St. Nicholas. The chalice and the son were restored to him. Even though I loved to hear of the miracle delivered by St. Nicholas, I came to consider that reality that for me, for us, there was no miracle of restored life. In the emptiness of the moment, I began to sense another spirit around me, one that filled up the church. I came to recognize the spirit and I gave myself over to it. It was my son John. There were no words, no sounds, only a profound understanding that even if there was never to be a breath of life in this world there was soul that lives forever in fullness in God’s presence.

I wanted to live in that moment forever, to feel his presence forever but as the Mass ended, I felt the presence fade away. While the tears and the sadness still well up and haunt me, there is also a deeper feeling of peace.

Recently my cousin brought me a copy of a letter I wrote to my family after the death of my grandfather. It became the eulogy at his funeral. As I read through the letter again I was struck by the sincerity of what I said, I truly believed that the people in our life that we lose to death are not truly lost but they are waiting for us to join him in the next life, a life that has no end. I wondered how it came to be that I lost my faith. I still said the words I always had. I never let on to the world that where there was once was light and hope, darkness and pessimism came to reign. The descent was steady and relentless until I found a way to claim a daily reprieve based upon my spiritual condition from the insanity of disowned feelings, anger and resentment.
The spirit that filled the Cathedral was immense, deep, abiding and felt as real as the stones that walls are built from. I could only sense what little we have from the perspective of our limited understanding. The Spirit reached inside me and touched my soul and it has been marked with the gift of healing.

I prayed to be reconnected to God. It was his will that we reconnect through the soul of my son John. I have given the burden of grief over to him and asked him to take it from me. It is burden I can no longer carry. I expect that sadness and longing will continue. That we care is the gift given to humans. To be able to mourn our losses is part of our condition. To know, to really know that my son, my daughter and all who have departed from me will be restored to me is my salvation.

The challenge that has been given to me is to use this knowledge to reconnect with my living sons, my wife and family and to open my heart to let them in completely.

“We give thanks to the Lord. It is right to give Him thanks and praise.”

Peace be with you.

St. Cyrl, in his commentary on the Gospel of John, writes:

"After Christ had completed his mission on earth, it still remained necessary for us to become sharers in the divine nature of the Word. We had to give up our own life and be so transformed that we would begin to live an entirely new kind of life that would be pleasing to God."

Those words leap forward through the tunnel of time to speak things I need to hear, things that cause me to pause and reflect on where I am in life's journey and where I want to be today and tomorrow.
What does he mean by to give our own life? The intent is clear. We are top acting like we are navigators of our ships of life. Our job is to sail the boat straight and true. His is to set our course and guide our way through the shoals to the distant promised shores.

So what does this transformation look like? In my own life, I have seen a young woman widowed with two children turn toward God with an open heart and then to be able build a new life. She became empowered to raise up both children through daily sacrifice and a total gift of herself. Her devotion ensure we would have everything we needed both in terms of worldly possessions but also in abiding love that continues to this day. I have seen a man who had become an alcoholic finally give up the struggle to beat the unbeatable only to have compulsion to drink relieved on the very day he invited God back into his life and began to empty out those things that left no room in him for the Holy Spirit to enter and bring God’s loving face back into his sight. I have seen in the strength of an exhausted mother who could call upon the strength of the Holy Spirit through a simple three word prayer, “God, help me,” to be able get of bed yet one more to time pace the floor speaking in the loving speech of comfort as if her capacity were unlimited.

I have not yet been transformed because that would imply that the work of the Holy Spirit has been completed. It has not. I am being transformed and I am living a new life where forgiveness and reconciliation lie before me and a new way of living in which I will be granted the wisdom to recognize God’s will for me. It is in the process of transforming that I will find joy and peace.