2/28/2016 – Third Sunday of Lent – Cycle C – Luke 13:1-9

       Jesus’ parable of the fig tree today portrays God as a patient gardener in our lives, a gardener who cares for us with love and patience.  Gardening and farming and growing things are a big part of life here in Mississippi, so this parable speaks to us today in the midst of our own reality.  Here in Tupelo and Northeast Mississippi, we’re surrounded by many trees and a lot of greenery.  In fact, this weekend Bo Mercier and our boy scout troop are planting trees on our office grounds, something we have been planning for quite a while.  We are so thankful that our boy scouts are helping out our parish in this way, the last step in our tornado recovery.  In Yazoo City, where I was pastor for two years prior to coming to Tupelo, I had a lot of parishioners who were farmers.  During the cotton harvesting season, I went out with one of the farmers one afternoon, riding around on the cotton picker, seeing the cotton gin in operation, seeing the steps they go through to harvest their crop.  I was amazed as how complicated and technological this process was. 

       God the patient gardener is contrasted to the owner of the fig tree in today’s Gospel, who is only concerned with the fruit that the tree produces.  The owner of the fig tree really does not care about the tree, its life, and its future.  The gardener sees goodness and life in the tree.  He wants to give the tree a chance to grow and develop and achieve its potential.  He wants to cultivate and fertilize the tree. 

         God the patient gardener sees the potential in us, but he also knows the reality of sin and failure in our lives.  As you all know, I see the stations of the cross as a really important Lenten devotion we have in our Catholic faith, one that I have encouraged all of you to come to again and again.  I really loved the Stations of Mercy that we prayed at 6:00 pm this past Friday at the stations of the cross, meditating on the words and thoughts of Pope Francis as we journey through the year of mercy that he declared for our Church.  Pope Francis’ meditation on the fifth station, Jesus falls the second time, connects us to our Gospel today.  Pope Francis states this: “The hallmark of the Christian life is not whether or not you will fall.  We all fall.  We’re all sinners.  The hallmark is whether, after falling, you have the humility and courage to get up again.  We get up with the grace of God.  This is our witness.  (We need to say to God): ‘Yes, I am a sinner.  I did wrong, but I go ahead because (you are) with me.’”  Pope Francis’ counsel should encourage us on our Lenten journey,  encouraging us to repent from our sins out of our faith and out of our humility.  Out of our sinfulness and brokenness and humanness, God encourages us to reach out to others our of our faith and humility and the reality of our own journey. 

       As sinners ourselves, as brothers and sisters in the faith, we are to counsel the doubtful, the first spiritual work of mercy.   As a liturgy committee, this is the work of mercy we connected to today’s Gospel.   I have known Tanya Britton ever since I have been a priest.  Even though this is the first time we have been at the same parish together, Tanya’s dad was a parishioner of mine at Holy Family parish in Jackson.   Anyone that knows Tanya knows that she is very passionate about the pro-life movement as an intrinsic part of our Catholic faith.  Tanya will now give us her thoughts today on the first spiritual work of mercy: counseling the doubtful.   

How do we view going to mass - as an obligation or as an opportunity?

Great quote I read in an article from the Catholic Exchange by Father William Saunders about how we should view our mass “obligation” and our opportunity to go to mass each week:  “With this in mind, no one should simply think of attending Mass as fulfilling an obligation. To attend Mass is a privilege, and any faithful Catholic should want to attend Mass. Our perspective should not be, “I have got to do this”; rather, we should think, ‘I get to do this.’”  Having lived on an isolate island in Africa where there was not a Catholic church, having lived in a rain forest jungle where our mission site served over 100 villages in a vast, isolated region, having ministered to prisoners in the Mississippi state correctional system where there are few opportunities to receive the Eucharist or attend mass, mass is indeed a privilege and a gift from God that we too often ignore or take for granted. 

Seven Deadly Social Sins – Gandhi

We have been discussing the seven corporal works of mercy and the seven spiritual works of mercy.  I received a poster of the seven deadly social sins proposed by Gandhi from Sojourners Magazine.  I really like them - they give us much to think about. 

1. Politics without principle

2. Wealth without work

3. Commerce without morality

4. Pleasure without conscience

5. Education without character

6. Science without humanity
7. Worship without sacrifice

2/26/2015 – Friday of second week in Lent – Genesis 37: 3-4, 12-13, 17-28

       We hear some very amazing stories in the Bible.  I am spell-bound by the story of Joseph that we hear from Genesis today, even though I have heard it time and time again and know the ending of this wonderful story.  We hear how out of jealousy and greed, Joseph’s brothers turn on him because his is the apple of their father’s eye.  God’s grace operates in the story, as Joseph’s life is miraculously spared.  The brothers sell Joseph for pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, foreshadowing how Judas will later betray Jesus for monetary gain as well.   Joseph is taken to Egypt, setting up the circumstance that will bring the people of Israel to Egypt where they will become slaves, where one of their own, Moses, will be called by God to lead his people out of slavery and into the promised land. 

        When we look into our own lives and the lives of our ancestors, we can see the ups and downs of our journeys through life.   At the same time, we can also see God’s grace there as well, even in the midst of our struggles, sufferings, and challenges.   That is what is wonderful about the stories we hear in our Sacred Scriptures.  There is always so much we can learn from God’s word.  There are so many ways the stories in the Bible make connections to our own lives.   Let us have these stories strengthen us and nurture us as we continue along our Lenten journey. 

2/24/2016 – Wednesday of the 2nd week of Lent – Jeremiah 18:18-20

       We hear from different prophets and different books of the Old Testament in the daily masses during Lent.  Today, we hear from the prophet Jeremiah who laments how the people have turned against him, how he prays to God out of fear for his own safety.  The people plot against Jeremiah.  Perhaps this brings to our mind those who plot against Jesus on his journey to the cross.  Today, in the Gospel, Jesus points out the importance of serving others rather than wanting to be served ourselves. 

       In his book City of God, St Augustine writes: “A good man, though a slave, is free; but a wicked man, though he reigns, is a slave. For he serves, not one man alone, but, what is worse, as many masters as he has vices.”  St Augustine, a bishop in North Africa in the early 5^th century, wrote at the time of the downfall of the Roman empire.  According to Augustine, a man was not a slave by nature or by law. Man’s freedom was a function of his moral state. Augustine believed that our vices become our masters, our gods.  Although Jeremiah feared for his life, through his faith and his obedience to God, he was a free man, freer than those that turned away from God and plotted against his prophets.  So, we might ask: What is enslaving us on our journey of faith?    What is keeping us from giving our total selves to God? 

Stations of the Cross

I was really proud of my parish of St James in Tupelo today.  I challenged them to come to come to the Stations of the Cross on Fridays.  As a convert, the Stations of the Cross is such a great part of our Lenten devotions in the Catholic faith.  Today, as on every Friday during Lent, we had Stations of the Cross at 12:10, at 6:00 pm and at 7:00 pm (in Spanish).  We had over 200 members attend the Stations of the Cross today.  I want to thank my wonderful parish for coming out and praying together today. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

2/21/2016 – the Second Sunday of Lent – Cycle C – The Transfiguration of Jesus – Luke 9:28B-36

       After declaring the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis wrote the following in a letter to the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization:  “I have asked the Church in this Jubilee Year to rediscover the richness encompassed by the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. The experience of mercy, indeed, becomes visible in the witness of concrete signs as Jesus himself taught us. Each time that one of the faithful personally performs one or more of these actions, he or she shall surely obtain the Jubilee Indulgence.”  The corporal works of mercy seem to be concrete and easy to pin down, and perhaps they are the works of mercy that are well-known by the faithful.   The spiritual works of mercy are perhaps a little more difficult.  Take the first spiritual work of mercy – Instruct the Ignorant.  We see Jesus doing this again and again with his own apostles.  They think that they know what Jesus is about. They think they know what they need to do as disciples, but often Jesus has to teach them about who he is and about the Kingdom of God is all about.  The apostles often have a lot of misconceptions about Jesus and his identity and his proclamation of God's kingdom.  We can see Jesus doing this in today’s Gospel, of teaching James, John, and Peter through the transfiguration that he is indeed the Son of God, that he came not to remain on the mountaintop, but to take the message of salvation and the kingdom of God to the people of the earth.
        Yes, most of the world has heard about Jesus.  Certainly, most of the people of Mississippi, at the heart of the Bible Belt in our country, have heard about him.  However, some of those who have heard about him remain ignorant of what Jesus actually taught.  This can be due to a false interpretation of the Gospels or a poorly formed conscience or misguided life of faith.  We can miss the fullness of the Gospel message that Jesus is trying to communicate to us.  Think of how in our parish we have so many collaborating in our faith formation programs.  It is in fact the priest and catechists and faith formation directors and teachers of religious education who collaborate with the Bishop in forming the faithful in our Catholic faith.  One of the messages of the New Evangelization is that we have the responsibility to participate in faith formation programs ourselves and to constantly be growing in our faith before we try to evangelize others.
        St Augustine, the great theologian and Bishop of Hippo in northern Africa in the early 5th century, was able to say this about God in his book, The Confessions:  (You, Lord, are the “most highest, most good, most potent, most omnipotent; most merciful, yet most just; most hidden, yet most present; most beautiful, yet most strong; stable, yet incomprehensible; unchangeable, yet all-changing; never new, never old; all-renewing, and bringing age upon the proud, and they know it not; ever working, ever at rest; still gathering, yet nothing lacking; supporting, filling, and overspreading; creating, nourishing, and maturing; seeking, yet having all things.” Such profound revelations about God do not come out of a vacuum or a void, they come out of a genuine search for God and a proper formation in the faith.  Lent is a good time for us to re-engage in our faith formation and in our thirst to learn more about God.  One of the prayers at the beginning of mass during Lent states this: “Father, through our observance of Lent, help us to understand the meaning of your Son’s death and resurrection and teach us to reflect it in our lives.”
        I mentioned the many collaborators in faith formation here in our parish, those involved in instructing the faithful – our children, our youth, our adults, and those who are not yet formed in the Catholic faith.  Jai Eschete is a religious education teacher here on Sunday mornings and a member of our RCIA formation team.  Jai, in fact, just went through RCIA himself the first year I arrived here at St James.  He is going to reflect today on this first spiritual work of mercy – instructing the ignorant – in the context of his service here at our parish.

Blessing for police officers and first responders

At our 10:30 am mass on February 7 at St James Catholic Church in Tupelo, Mississippi, we had a blessing for the police officers and first responders.  We are thankful for their contributions to our parish and our community.  We presented them with St Michael the Archangel prayer cards and medals.  

O Almighty God, whose great power and eternal Wisdom embraces the universe, 

Watch over all policemen and Law enforcement officers and first responders.

Protect them from harm In the performance of their duties. 

Help them keep our streets And homes safe, day and night.

We commend them to your loving care Because their duty is dangerous.

Grant them strength and courage In their daily assignments. 

Dear God, protect these brave men.

Under the prayers and intercessions of St Michael, their patron saint, grant them your almighty protection, 

Unite them safely with their families at the end of each day when their duty has ended.
AMEN.

2/19/2016 – Friday of the First week of Lent – Ezekiel 18:21-28

       We have been hearing short passages from different books in the Old Testament this first week of Lent.  We have heard from Leviticus, Isaiah, Jonah, and Esther earlier in the week.  Today, it is the prophet Ezekiel who brings forth the message of the Lord, telling us that the Lord does not delight when a wicked man stays in his wickedness and earns punishment, but rather the Lord delights when the wicked man turns his back on his evil ways and has a change of heart.  We have so many in our world today who turn their backs on the laws of God and the laws of man, who want to stay on those evil paths and who do not want to hear the voice of the Lord calling out to them.  We may say that the laws of God and the laws of man are unfair, but what about the ways that we break those laws, that we give into temptation and into our evil ways?  How fair is that?  What good does that bring into our lives?

         We hear this message during the first week of Lent, because Lent is all about changing our ways and turning back to God.  It is hard to break old habits and to reform our lives.  It is hard to break out of the chains of addictions, out of our laziness and complacency and indifference.  But that is what the Lord is calling us to do.  And he will rejoice when we are able to do so. 

2/18/2016 – Thursday of the 1st week of Lent – Esther C: 12, 14-16, 23-25, Matt 7:7-12

      "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”  We hear this famous verse today from the Gospel of Matthew. I remember that when I was talking to the Young at Heart group at St Richard parish in Jackson during a Lenten retreat, we were talking about the different names we have for God. One of the seniors remarked that she did not like the image of a door, because she was envisioning a closed door that put up a barrier in reaching God.  D. However, another senior at the retreat said that she envisioned an open door that gives us access to God.   Our image from the Gospel today tells us to knock at the door, for it will be opened for anyone who knocks.

       Queen Esther was a young Jewish woman who became a maiden at the court of the Persian king, and she eventually became Queen.  Through her wisdom and courage, Esther thwarts a plot against the people of Israel.  In our first reading, Esther prays to the Lord that she may speak his word, asking him: “Put in my mouth persuasive words in the presence of the lion.”  She wants to speak God’s word to the king of Persia, to be God’s holy message.  Esther has great fear, since she knows that her life and the lives of many Jews in hanging on what will happen next.  In the face of adversity, Esther places hear faith and trust in the Lord.

       Sometimes we are afraid to open the door.  Sometimes we fear what will happen next in our lives.  Sometimes it is difficult taking that first step or taking a risk.  The Lord tells us to knock at the door, but we have to be willing to take that chance no matter how scary it may seem.