Category Archives: Musings

Father, forgive them…

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Giotto_Lower_Church_Assisi_Crucifixion_01“Father forgive them, they know not what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) This is the first of the traditional “last seven words” of Jesus. Jesus has just endured the long night of scouring and is abandoned, mocked, and spat upon. He has been stripped of all human dignity and now hangs humiliated upon the cross: “so marred were his features, beyond that of mortals; his appearance, beyond that of human beings” (Isaiah 52:14). Yet his first of his last words are of forgiveness. Continue reading →

The Long Way Home

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Wiz-of-OzIn a recent issue of America Magazine, William J. O’Malley wrote about “taking the long way home.” It was a wonderful “musing” on the classic movie, “The Wizard of Oz.” We are reminded about the archetypal scene when Dorothy’s house lands on the Wicked Witch and then Glinda, the good witch, shows up and magically transfers the ruby slippers to Dorothy. As the ending of the movie makes clear, all Dorothy had to do was to click her heel and proclaim, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” Why didn’t Glinda tell Dorothy that at the very beginning? Of course, if Glinda did there would be no story, no journey – and the journey is the very point of the story. At the beginning of the story Dorothy is not ready to move into the next stage of her life until she has discovered that she already has the virtues her three companions on the journey seem to lack: courage, intelligence, and love. The journey becomes the venue to reveal to herself that she is ready for what lays ahead. It is only possible because she took the long way home. Continue reading →

The Annunciation

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TheAnnunciationAt first blush it does seem odd that the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord falls in the midst of Lent. It is an event in the life of Christ that we associate with Advent. That scene in which the Angel Gabriele comes to Mary to announce she will be the mother of Emmanuel, “God with us.”

My friend, Fr. Bill McConville OFM, notes that part of the church’s art tradition is that the scene of the Annunciation often portrays Mary, not empty-handed, but holding a book or a scroll, her reading and reflecting on Scripture being interrupted by the angel’s pronouncement. The tradition is that she is meditating on Isaiah 7 (today’s first reading) in which there is the promise that a virgin will bear a child. Continue reading →

How Will You Belong? The Stranger at Our Doors

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Welcome-StrangersLast week in this column I mused about the connections of being a welcoming community and hospitality. As part of that musing, I wondered about the distinction between entertaining and hospitality, surmising that it perhaps depends on your role model and the source of your ideas about hospitality. If the model is from Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray, and Southern Living Magazine – then perhaps “entertaining” is a better description. As a church of believing Christians, it would be best to look to Jesus for models of hospitality. Continue reading →

How Will You Belong? Hospitality

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TheAnnunciationI most often hear our parish described as a “welcoming community – you all are so hospitable.” Certainly that is a good thing, but it does get me musing about things. Do we all mean the same thing when we speak about hospitality? “Hospitality” for several of our parishioners is a specialty branch of civil law. Hospitality law covers topics such as the impact of federal and state civil rights laws on the hospitality industry, contract law, including discussions of remedies for overbooking and a guest’s breach of the contract regarding a reservation, negligence, risk management, innkeeper rights, guest rights, and employment practices – and that is just dipping a big toe in the waters of hospitality law. Continue reading →

Belonging Renewed

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Belonging_crI want to renew and continue the conversation we began about belonging in this column space from the beginning of this year. There has been lots of feedback about it — it seems to have struck a deep cord with people. In a previous column I wrote, “The creation of that good soil church begins when each one here begins a conversation with, ‘Hello, my name is….’ and continues each week as the conversation grows, bearing fruit, when someone suggests, ‘You know what we should do?’ Then in the doing, faith grows, purpose becomes clearer, prayer comes more naturally, forgiveness more easily.” Since then, it seems to me, that people are a bit more engaging with people around them, there are some new “pew communities” forming, and people are beginning to ask about the welfare of folks when they are missing from Mass. All signs of the beginning of a deeper belonging. Continue reading →

Willing to hear

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repent-n-believeOne of the things that challenge scripture scholars is where to put the punctuation. The Greek and Hebrew manuscripts don’t include such things. Consider a part of the first reading for Tuesday, March 3rd.

Though your sins be like scarlet,
they may become white as snow;
Though they be crimson red,
they may become white as wool.
If you are willing, and obey,
you shall eat the good things of the land (Is 1:18-19) Continue reading →

Transfiguration and Glory

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The-Theory-of-Everything-c2Every year the Gospel for the Second Sunday in Lent is always one of the accounts of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Be it written by Matthew, Mark, or Luke, each account speaks of Jesus transfigured so that the Glory of God, the Shekhinah, is revealed to the disciples in the person of Jesus. Today, you will hear Mark’s version (9:2-10). The meaning of the Transfiguration is complex and varied, but among its meanings, is that it points to the glory that awaits us as co-heirs of eternal life, and that Christ “has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature.” (2 Peter 1:4) It’s a lot to ponder, pray, and reflect upon: are we somehow to share in the Glory revealed on that mountain top? It is mystery, indeed. Continue reading →

Pope Francis’ Lenten Message

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Pope-FrancisMESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS FOR LENT 2015
“Make your hearts firm” (Jas 5:8)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Lent is a time of renewal for the whole Church, for each communities and every believer. Above all it is a “time of grace” (2 Cor 6:2). God does not ask of us anything that he himself has not first given us. “We love because he first has loved us” (1 Jn 4:19). He is not aloof from us. Each one of us has a place in his heart. He knows us by name, he cares for us and he seeks us out whenever we turn away from him. He is interested in each of us; his love does not allow him to be indifferent to what happens to us. Usually, when we are healthy and comfortable, we forget about others (something God the Father never does): we are unconcerned with their problems, their sufferings and the injustices they endure… Our heart grows cold. As long as I am relatively healthy and comfortable, I don’t think about those less well off. Today, this selfish attitude of indifference has taken on global proportions, to the extent that we can speak of a globalization of indifference. It is a problem which we, as Christians, need to confront. Continue reading →

Shrove Tuesday

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Shrove TuesdayShrove Tuesday is the day preceding Ash Wednesday. The day is observed by many Christians, including Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists and Roman Catholics, who are called to make a special point of self-examination, of considering what wrongs they need to repent, and what amendments of life or areas of spiritual growth they especially need to ask God’s help in dealing with – and then carry those reflections into the season of Lent.

The idiom “short shrift”means brief and unsympathetic treatment.Shrift comes from the archaic verb shrive, meaning to obtain absolution for one’s sins by way of Confession and doing penance. Shrove Tuesday shares that linguistic origin. In its original form short shrift referred to a brief period of penance granted to a person condemned to death so he or she could be cured of immorality before execution.This original meaning has little relation to the modern sense of short shrift, which usually bears negative connotations. One usually does not want to be given short shrift.

May we priests not give “short shrift” to penitents seeking to draw closer to God. May all of God’s faithful not give “short shrift” to our reflections and on-going conversion in this Lenten season.