Category Archives: Sunday Morning

Perfect Moments

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There is a picture in my office that I have had since last century. It is a picture of Jeff Pierce. You probably have never heard of Jeff. He was a professional bicycle racer. He rode for the 7-Eleven team back in the late 1980s when they were the first American team to race in Europe. In the 1987 Tour de France, Jeff was a domestique, a rider whose principle task was to be a support for the team leaders: carry water bottles, protect the top riders from the ravages of wind, and at the end of the day to struggle across the finish line well after the leaders. Against all odds Jeff won the grand finale, the last stage in Paris on the Champs Elysees. A gendarme in the background of the photograph stares in disbelief. Jeff is alone. Crossing the finish line, arms raised in unbelieving triumph. He won against the greatest riders of his day. An American in Paris.  I look at that picture and know that perfect moments are possible. Continue reading →

The Habit of Anger

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“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment” (Matthew 5:21-22).  Everyone here has experienced anger and is liable to judgment. We have experienced anger in so many times and places, with so many people, and with people we love. Maybe we think, “Well, it’s not like anyone has died,” but even as we think that, we know that real damage has occurred. And sadly the response of anger has become habitual for many of us. Continue reading →

The Beacon

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By June 1944, the United States had been embroiled in a world war for some 2.5 years. From the earliest and darkest days of the war, the tide was beginning to turn. In the Pacific the might of the US Navy and Marine Corp had been assembled to capture and liberate the Marianas Islands of Guam, Tinian and Saipan – a vital and strategic step in the Pacific War.  The US 5th Fleet’s role was to guard the massive troop and supply ships mounting the amphibious landings. Meanwhile the Japanese Mobile Fleet was assembling its Plan Z/A-go for an all out naval engagement to cripple the invasion force and stem the tide of the war. Continue reading →

The Remnant

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Today’s first reading is from the Prophet Zephaniah. It is only three chapters long and it is filled with darkness, distress, destruction, death, doom, and despair. Yet, in the midst of all that – there is a message of hope, for a remnant of the people; people described as humble and lowly. People who take refuge in the Lord. People who remain faithful to God even as all around them crumbles and falls apart. A remnant who has already seen the Assyrian empire conquer most of the promise in the promised land. A remnant that can already see the Babylonian threat on the horizon. A remnant that even as they wonder how this all plays out in God’s plan, they are the faithful …. and hanging on. They recognize that they are blessed by God. It might be hard for us to see it, but they see it. And that challenges us just as the more famous beatitudes of today’s gospel also challenges us. Continue reading →

The Sweep of History

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Recently, I read “The History of Florida” by Michael Gannon, a professor emeritus at the University of Florida. The book is a monographic sweep through Florida history from the pre-Columbian landscape, the settling by native peoples, the arrival of the first European explorers, the history of ethnicity and immigration, and to the changing landscape of life and people that forms the great state we live in. So far I have also learned an amazing amount by the early Franciscan missionaries in Florida and Georgia in the 16th and 17th centuries. It put me in a “historical mindset” when looking at this week’s readings. Continue reading →

Testify

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Your average Catholic only needs to stand next to a born-again, evangelical Christian to understand how private we are about our life in faith.  Of course, you’re thinking, “All that public praying and witnessing, that’s their thing. Our faith was more discrete, more private, more, well…… more sophisticated than asking someone in the local WalMart if they had been saved. Ours is a faith steeped in tradition, liturgy, sacraments. This is how we serve the Lord.” Continue reading →

Your light has come

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“We three kings of Orient are. Bearing gifts we traverse so far, field and fountain, moor and mountain, following yonder star.” So begins one of our familiar Christmas carols. At the end of the gospel account we are simply told that warned in a dream left by another way, not returning to Jerusalem and King Herod. They came expecting to find a newborn child within the settings of the royal court. They found a child born among the poor on the margins of life. The followed the light of a star to come before the One for whom the first reading proclaims: “Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance.” (Is 60:3) Now that the magi have encountered the Light of Christ, how will they walk into their unfolding future? What light will mark the pathway of their lives? I wonder if they no longer looked to the night sky for direction in their lives, but somehow looked to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for how to live. What did their encounter with the Christ Child reveal to them? Continue reading →

Heartbeats

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“Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Lk 2:19). I think there are times in our lives when the world comes at us relentlessly. There is a part of us that wants to understand the situations, dissect them, get to the core of it, so that we can be in control. In St. Luke’s telling of the coming of the Christ child, the events unfold at what may have been a frightening pace for Mary who was likely just a teenager. Once Mary gave her consent to God’s plan, the waves and tidal forces of salvation history swept her along at what must have been a dizzying pace.  The events of the Annunciation and Visitation – had something similar happened in my life, I don’t think I would have treasured all these things and pondered them in my heart. But she did. Continue reading →

Being Bethlehem

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I wasn’t too sure what to expect for my first Advent/Christmas in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Certainly, the slum in which I lived was devoid of any of the commercial excess.  There were no malls, no black Friday, none of the things mark the run-up to Christmas.  Occasionally, you could hear Christmas carols, traditional and tribal, float out of one of the wood sheds/tin roofed stores.  But most of the familiar western signs and markers that Christmas was coming were missing. Continue reading →

It’s complicated

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When I was younger, I didn’t mind complicated and messy – especially things that were puzzles to explore, solve, or unravel. I enjoyed things that provided creative moments in which new, imaginative solutions might emerge. But alas, I am no longer as young as I once was. I feel a part within me that longs for quiet, uncomplicated, resolved, still interesting, but not so messy and complicated as before. Continue reading →