Bulletin reflection - 11 August 2019

    It is a busy time of the year, isn’t it?  Our students have gone back to school.  We are winding down the summer here in Mississippi and getting ready for all of our fall activities.  Our ALPHA evangelization programs and faith formation programs are getting ready to start up again.  I am back from my retreat in Spain and settling down in my life of working in the chancery office of our Diocese.  

     In the midst of our busy lives, in our readings this weekend, we hear about our necessity of not only placing our trust in our faith, but also of the importance of being vigilant and prepared.  There is a quote from the comedian Woody Allen that I have always loved: “80% of life is just showing up.”  Yes, showing up is a big part of life, isn’t it?  We have to show up.  We have to engage.  Nothing can happen if we don’t show up.

      A lot of people have assumed that I was in Spain hiking the Camino trail again, but this time I was there for the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola.  Ignatius wrote these spiritual exercise to describe the discernment and prayer process he went through when he had his profound conversion experience and was trying to decide what he would do with his life.  This was in the early part of the 16th century after Ignatius had spent his young adult years as a knight.  During the spiritual exercises, I met one-on-one with a spiritual director each morning.  He would assign me 4 to 5 hours of directed prayer exercises for the day.  At the end of the day, I would take a walk in one of the neighboring villages and reflect upon how God was speaking to me during my prayer time.  You can imagine, spending such a concentrated time in prayer each day was a very intense experience.  And talking with my spiritual director on the retreat each morning was like bearing my soul to him each day, sometimes a painful and uncomfortable process.  But, it was such a wonderful experience to be able to devote myself to prayer each day of the retreat. I look back on the 5 weeks I spent in Spain in the spiritual exercises with immense gratitude and thankfulness.             

       Our reading from the letter to the Hebrews today tells us that “faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”  Wherever the Lord is calling us on our journey, it often takes a great leap of hope and trust to follow the Lord.  But, that does not mean that we just throw caution to the wind.  Prayer, discernment, study, and discipline are a part of being vigilant and being prepared.  We do not place our hope and trust in a void of nothingness.  We place our hope and trust in the faith that we have discerned and followed.  Just as the early Christians could look back on the history of the people of Israel to see how God was working in their lives and the lives of their ancestors, we can see how God has been at work in our lives in the past and in the present.  That brings us hope and trust for the future.  

11 de agosto de 2019 – decimonoveno domingo del tiempo ordinario – Lucas 12, 32-48; Hebreos 11:1-2, 8-19

      Tenga confianza en el Señor.  Sea preparado.  Este es el mensaje que recibimos de Dios esta tarde.  El actor norte americano Woody Allen dijo: “asistir es 80% de la vida.”  Se puede imaginar, por algunos cristianos es difícil para asistir a veces.  Es difícil para levantarnos para ir a la misa los domingos por la mañana.   Es difícil a veces para tener el deseo y la motivación para ir a la iglesia.  Podemos tener días secos en nuestro camino de fe. Podemos buscar a Dios en nuestro camino de fe, pero tal vez no nos sentimos su presencia en nuestra vida. Podemos tener una oración en nuestros corazones y queremos una respuesta de Dios, tal vez una respuesta especifica, y no escuchamos nada de Dios.  Sin embargo, es tan importante para nosotros para poner un pie delante del otro en nuestra vida de fe, no importa donde estamos en nuestro camino. Aun cuando es difícil y doloroso para hacerlo, tenemos que seguir en nuestro camino, para caminar con nuestra comunidad de fe.  Y como este actor norte americano Woody Allen implica en sus palabras, nada puede suceder si no estamos presentes, si no asistimos.

      Tener la confianza y la fe en nuestro Señor es el objeto de nuestra lectura de la carta a los Hebreos hoy.  Esta lectura nos da una de las definiciones más claras de la fe en el Nuevo Testamento: “La fe es la forma de poseer, ya desde ahora, lo que se espera y de conocer las realidades que no se ven.”  El autor de esta Carta trataba de fortalecer la fe de los cristianos judíos en su invocación del ejemplo de sus antepasados ​​que habían creído en las promesas de Dios, incluso cuando todavía no se habían cumplido esas promesas.  Abraham fue el gran patriarca de la fe judía. Dios llamó a Abraham para salir de su patria a una nueva tierra que Dios prometió a Abraham y a sus descendientes.  En su fe en Dios, Abraham caminaba en la luz de estas promesas de Dios, inclusivo él estaba dispuesto para sacrificar a su hijo por orden de Dios.  El camino de fe de Abraham no siempre fue sencillo, pero él puso su confianza en las promesas de Dios y en su santa alianza con él.  Los cristianos judíos que escucharon este mensaje en la carta a los hebreos ya no estaban bienvenidos en sus instituciones judías en su tierra, pero ellos tenían confianza en las promesas que Cristo se ofreció, que estas promesas estaban mas completo de lo que Dios se ofrecía a sus antepasados ​​judíos.

       En nuestra vida y en nuestro camino de fe, a veces no estamos muy preparados.  A veces, cuando hay la hora para empezar la misa en el sacramento de matrimonio o en una quinceañera, la familia no ha llegado todavía, y no podemos empezar.  Pero, en el Evangelio, Cristo dice que necesitamos estar preparados siempre, listos con nuestras lámparas en la esperanza de la llegada del maestro.  La primera generación de cristianos en la iglesia primitiva estaban seguros de que Cristo volvería pronto.  Pero cuando ese momento no llegó, ellos necesitaban tener esperanza en su llegada, para estar listos y preparados para la segunda venida de Cristo.  En caso de que Jesús volverá pronto y nos encontrarnos bien preparado, el Evangelio nos asegura que estaremos bendecidos por nuestra vigilancia y nuestra preparación.  Jesús nos asegura en el Evangelio que necesitamos preparar y fortalecer nuestra relación con Dios, nuestro Padre. ¿Y como podemos hacerlo?  Debemos crecer constantemente en nuestra fe a través de nuestra vida de oración, a través de nuestra participación en los sacramentos de la Iglesia, a través de la lectura y el estudio de la Sagrada Escritura, y a través de actos del servicio cristiano y de la caridad.  Dios siempre nos da la gracia y el valor para permanecer fieles, que nos recuerda que siempre recompensará nuestra fidelidad.

11 August 2019 - 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Cycle C - Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19, Luke 12: 32-48

     Trust in the Lord.  Be prepared.  This is the message we receive in our Scripture readings on this 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time.  There is a wonderful quote from the comedian Woody Allen that a friend of his told an interviewer: “As my friend Woody Allen said, ‘80% of life is showing up.’ Sometimes it is easier to just stay in bed….I’ve done both.” Yes, sometimes it is hard just to show up. Sometimes, it is hard to get up to go to mass on a Sunday morning with all that is going on in our lives. We may be having a dry period in their journey of faith.  We may be seeking God and searching for him, but don’t feel his presence at all.  We may cray out to God in our prayers, but he doesn’t seem to be answering.  Yet, we are called to put one foot in front of the other in our lives of faith, no matter how difficult that may be some days. Even when it’s difficult and painful to do so, we’re called to reach out to God, to continue to go to mass and to pray with our community of faith.  As Woody Allen implies, nothing can happen if we don’t show up.

      Having trust and faith in the Lord is the subject of our reading from the letter to the Hebrews.  The passage we hear today gives one of the most explicit definitions of faith in the New Testament: “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”  The author of the Letter to the Hebrews was trying to strengthen the faith of Jewish Christians by invoking the example of their ancestors who had believed in the promises of God even when those promises had not yet been fulfilled.   Abraham was the great patriarch of the Jewish faith; he was called out of his native land to a new land God promised to him.  What a leap of faith for Abraham!  Out of his faith in God, Abraham follows God’s promises, even being willing to sacrifice his son at God’s command.  Abraham’s road of faith was not always straight forward, but he trusted God’s promises. The Jewish Christians who heard this message in the letter to the Hebrews were no longer welcome in the traditional Jewish institutions, but they were assured that the promises that Christ offered them in his new covenant were far beyond what was offered to their Jewish ancestors. 

       We’re called to trust in the promises that Christ makes to us, but in response, we’re called to be vigilant and to be prepared.  As our students go back to school, there’s the promise and hope of a new year.  Back when I was in seminary studying to be a priest, I knew that I had two master’s degrees to complete in my four years there; with my many activities there and my part-time job at the seminary library, I needed to be very organized.  When I was taking a class in the synoptic Gospels, I had a large research paper to write that also included a 15-minute oral presentation of the research.  That semester, I stayed on campus during spring break, getting a lot of the paper written.  I worked very hard on it; I was confident that I had done a good job.  In fact, I even finished it about a week ahead of the deadline and turned it in early.  Late in the afternoon the day before the paper was due, I saw one of my classmates in the library checking out a big pile of books.  I asked if he was relieved that that big research paper was behind us and that all we had to do was turn it in tomorrow.  He had a puzzled look on his face as he responded, saying, yeah, I’m going to get started on that paper tonight, that he just about decided on his topic for the paper. He told me that he was going to be up all night writing it.  You can imagine the look of horror I gave him at that moment – I was never someone who waited until the very last minute to do my school work. It was even more interesting in the morning right before class when this same student, who was habitually late, was waiting for the professor frantically 15 minutes before class started.  I knew what had happened – he had not finished his paper and he was going to request an extension.  And that is exactly what he did.  

       That seminarian did not heed Jesus’ command to be prepared always, to keep lamps ready with the wicks trimmed and the oil full, so that when the master returns, we’ll be ready to greet him. That first generation of Christians in the Early Church were confident that Christ would come back soon.  But when that moment didn’t come, they needed encouragement and assurances that they still needed to be prepared for Christ’s second coming. Should Jesus come back suddenly and find us well prepared, the Gospel assures us that we will be blessed for being vigilant and prepared. Jesus assures us that to be prepared and to strengthen our relationship with God our Father, we must constantly grow in our faith through our prayer life, through our participation in the sacraments in the Church, through the reading and studying of Holy Scripture, and through acts of Christian service and charity.  God always gives us the grace and the courage to remain faithful, reminding us that he will always reward our faithfulness.

9 August 2019 - Friday of the 18th week of Ordinary Time - Deuteronomy 4:32-40

       Moses calls the people to return to the Lord, for they had abandoned their faith in many ways.  He asks them to remember what God did for them in liberating them from slavery in Egypt and in guiding them through the desert to the promised land.

        Sometimes we have a hard time remembering, don’t we?  Sometimes we remember in a selective way.  Sometimes what we remember changes over time.  This week marks the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombs that were dropped on cities in Japan, which led to the end of World War Two.  Today, August 9, is the anniversary of the day the bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. August 5 is the anniversary of the day the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.   

         As you can imagine, the use of atomic weapons has been viewed very differently in the United States and Japan.  In 1945, after the bombings, a poll found that 85% of Americans approved of using the new atomic weapons to destroy those two Japanese cities.  In a 2015 Pew Research Center survey, 56% of Americans believed the use of nuclear weapons was justified during the Second World War, still more than 50%, but only 14% of Japanese people surveyed saw the bombing as justified. The Lord calls us to be peacemakers and mediators in the world, the Lord calls us to justice and righteousness, yet when we are in the middle of a violent war fighting for our lives, we may see things differently.  And in our modern world today, when we just saw two terrible mass shootings in our country over the past weekend, when we see so much violence and crime in many of our own communities today, we know that working for the ideals of faith of peace and justice is not an easy task.  We are called to remember the works of the Lord in our lives.  We are called to remember our history and our journey of faith.  And we pray that the Lord continue to lead us and guide us on our journey.  

7 August 2019 - Wednesday of the 18th week of Ordinary Time - Numbers 13:1-2, 25–14:1, 26A-29A, 34-35

    I remember that I was at a meeting when one of the participants there was complaining about just about everything imaginable.  The person sitting next to me turned to me and said:  “He complains more than the Israelites did when they were wandering through the desert.”  Yes, it certainly seems like the people of Israel complained a lot in their journey through the desert.  They always seem to see the glass half empty rather than half full.  They seem to see negativity in just about everything.  For that reason, that generation was not allowed to enter into the promised land.  After I spent time overseas as a missionary, that was one of the things that struck me most when I returned to the United States:  We American can sometimes grumble and complain about a lot of things, even when we have it better off than many others in the world.  It is not good to be labeled as a complainer, is it?  Are we that way in our lives of faith, too? Do we complain to God about just about everything?  Are we never content with what we have, always complaining that things need to be better?   Does the grass always seem so much greener in someone else’s backyard?  For the last week of the Ignatian spiritual exercises that I prayed in Spain, the theme is joy - the joy of the resurrection of Christ.  Christ wants us to be joyful in our lives of faith.  In our joy, let us sing praises to God.  Let us be thankful for the blessings that we have.  It is so easy to complain.  But, God calls us to find joy in our lives.  

6 August 2019 - The Transfiguration of the Lord - Luke 9:28B-36

      Unfortunately, sometimes we can just get stuck in our own perspective - in our own little world - without even knowing it.  We can sometimes just see what is going on around us without seeing the big picture.  Sometimes it is difficult to go beyond what we ourselves see.  

      I thought about this today on the feast of the Transfiguration as we hear about Jesus separating himself from the crowds to go up the mountain to pray with some of his disciples, where an amazing transformation takes place. Jesus is changed and transfigured as his clothes become white as light.  His disciples are overjoyed to be there with him.  In the midst of this experience, the disciples hear the voice of God crying out to them.  In our world today, we are bombarded with so much news and information.  With our smart phones, tablets, computers, & televisions: we are overloaded with news, information, and messages 24 hours a day.  But the message that God give us thru his son is not just an ordinary message, like those that bombard us all day long - it brings us life in a transformative way, in a way that nothing else can transform us: “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”  Jesus interacts in our lives to nourish us, to sustain us, to change us, and to guide us. Jesus brings us the message of eternal life. He leads us out of our own perspective, our own little corner of the world. 

        In the transfiguration, we glimpse the glory of Christ that is to come. The transfiguration was meant to encourage Jesus and the disciples in midst of their difficult journey: the transfiguration is meant to encourage us too.  We can have so much that fills up our daily lives, that we need to be reminded that there is more than our daily existence here on earth.  As disciples of Christ, we have the promise of the fulness of God’s kingdom in eternal life.  Christ and his disciples did not stay on the mountain, glorying in that moment; they came down in order to enter back into their journey thru life as that journey was not finished yet, as they still had work to do. The transfiguration was a wondrous moment for Christ and his disciples. But every day, sometimes in seemingly small ways, God makes himself present to us.  In moments of peace, reconciliation, forgiveness, and healing, we experience the wondrous presence of God, a presence that can transform us and transfigure us.  As we open our hearts to the message of the Transfiguration today, may we look for those small but important moments that God is present to us in our ordinary lives.  

4 de agosto de 2018 - 18 Domingo del tiempo ordinario - Eclesiastés 1: 2; 2: 21-23

      Escuchamos palabras muy fuertes de nuestra primera lectura esta tarde.  Esta lectura empieza: “Todas las cosas, absolutamente todas, son vana ilusión.”  En la superficie de estas palabras, tal vez es pesimista.  Pero, en realidad, ¿que significa estas palabras? En nuestra translación, la palabra “habel” en hebreo es la frase en español “vana ilusión.” Pero, esta palabra en hebreo significa “la respiración.” o mas específicamente, el vapor de una respiración. Entonces, dice que la vida es como la respiración en el aire - llena del vacío y de la futilidad. Pensamos que si tenemos muchas posesiones materiales in nuestra vida, podemos tener mas seguridad y podemos satisfacer nuestros deseos. Pero, muchas veces, con nuestras posesiones materiales, queremos mas y mas. Pero, cuando termina nuestra vida aquí en la tierra, estas posesiones materiales no significa nada.  Debemos tener nuestras riquezas y nuestras prioridades en el reino de Dios, no en nuestra existencia terrenal. En verdad, tenemos un desafío muy fuerte en nuestras lecturas esta tarde. 

        Yo estaba en España por cinco semanas en oración con los ejercicios espirituales de San Ignacio de Loyola.  San Ignacio, el autor de estos ejercicios espirituales ha nacido en el año 1491.  El joven Ignacio era caballero y soldado - él tenía su importancia en las mujeres, en las batallas con los otros caballeros, en las posesiones materials.  El no estaba un hombre de oración.  El no estaba muy pegado a la Iglesia. Pero, en la batalla de Pamplona, él tenía una herida muy grave en su pierna.  Casi murió.  Pero, regresó al castillo de su familia, donde recuperó durante 6 meses.  No tenía mucho para leer - solo los libros sobre las vidas de los santos y sobre la vida de Cristo. Ignacio tenía una conversión de fe en su recuperación. El dejó su vida como caballero y entró una vida de fe como sacerdote.  Ignacio y sus amigos en el seminario estaban los fundadores de los jesuitas - una nueva congregación de sacerdotes en la Iglesia Católica.  En su conversión, Ignacio se daba cuenta que los tesoros mas importante del mundo no existen en las posesiones materiales del mundo, que no existen en la placer de su vida como caballero.  El se daba cuenta que los tesoros mas importante existen en el reino de Dios. Si, podemos poner toda nuestra confianza en los tesoros del mundo.  O podemos poner nuestra confianza en los valores del reino de Dios. 

       Es importante para seguir el camino de fe. Por muchas razones, hay adultos en nuestra comunidad que no tienen todos los sacramentos. Es importante para siempre aprender y crecer en nuestro camino de fe. Vamos a tener clases de doctrina por los adultos este año escolar.  Y hay las clases para los jóvenes y los adultos también.  Hay muchos jóvenes quienes no tienen una fundación muy fuerte en la doctrina de la Iglesia.  Por los jóvenes del colegio, tenemos tres opciones: 

• el grupo de jóvenes los miércoles 
• El programa de ALPHA los domingos por la noche 
• las clases de la doctrina - los domingos por la mañana.  

Ojalá, podemos tener mucha participación en estas oportunidades para crecer and aprender en nuestro camino de fe.