Sixth Sunday Easter – B, May 17, 2009 Church of Saint Ann, Lawrenceville, NJ

20. May 2009 by cbarranco.

Our gospel reading today comes from the great priestly prayer of Jesus at the last supper, on the night before he died. In John’s account of the Last supper we have no account of Jesus taking bread and blessing it and doing the same with the wine. John omits the institution narrative and gives us the powerful account of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. John also gives us this rich prayer of Jesus for us that is packed with meaning.
It speaks of: being Chosen, being Gods friend, being sent, being joyful. Now for a word or two on each.
Today we heard something very startling. Jesus says you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.
If you remember way back in Advent, we spoke about Biblical election. That for some unknown reason, God chose a group of people, Israel to be the agent of salvation for all, then within Israel he chose certain people, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Mary all protested because of their unworthiness, but God ignores their protests, God chose them anyway to be part of God’s great salvation story.- Gods great plan for us.
Today Jesus tells us that God has chosen us. That’s you and me. We have not chosen God, but God has chosen us.
Just think about what that means.
We like to think we work hard at our plan for salvation, we work hard on our spiritual life, on pleasing God, on trying to do what Jesus wants, climb our own spiritual mountain, trying to conform our life to the Gospel, trying to become holy. All of that is good and helpful, but in the end it is not any of our efforts that do the trick. It is God who for some strange reason chooses us.
We are chosen to be God’s friend. Nothing can be better than that. Imagine getting a phone call from Pope Benedict, or President Obama, or our favorite movie star or sports figure asking us to be their friend. There is nothing we can do that is better than that. We know how important and how wonderful friendship is because of what our relationship with our friend’s means to us.
What does it mean to be a friend? It means to open yourself in love. That is what friendship is all about opening yourself to another. God first loves us and we in turn open ourselves in love to God which is another way of saying that we love all that is a part of God. We love one another.
We don’t earn God’s friendship. It is a gift. Freely given.
God chooses us, searches us out. All we need to do is to allow ourselves to be chosen by God. To open ourselves to God.
We become part of God’s great story. We know that whenever God chooses someone. He chooses them for a mission. He chooses them to do something. Go and bear fruit. Look throughout Bible, every time God chooses someone, they are sent top do something. Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Mary. That mission is to play a part in God’s great dream, God’s great drama. We have made the cuts, be chosen for the cast, we have made the team. What an exciting adventure, to be a part of this great Theo Drama.
And although we may not be real clear yet on the part we have been chosen to play, we know for sure that it has something to do with love. Any mission from God has to do with love.- God is love.
That comes through so strongly throughout the scripture and most especially in this high priestly prayer of Jesus that we read today.
As the father has loved me so I love you
Remain in my love.
This is my commandment love one another as I have loved you.
Jesus loves us totally, unconditionally. To the extent of laying down his life for us.
Friends this is not rocket science- it’s simple, straightforward, crystal clear. God has chosen you and me and given us a mission and that mission is to love. Look at the Saints, they all differ so much- Thomas Aquinas, the scholar, Isidore the farmer, Mother Cabrini great missionary, John Newman, immigrant bishop of Philadelphia, Teresa the little flower, Juan Diego the peasant, Ignatius, the founder, they all differ so much, but the mission that united them is there love. How we love may not be perfectly clear yet. We may need to work that out a bit, but we know the direction in which we are to move. We know the standard by which we must judge all our deeds- is this the more loving thing. Is this adding to the love in our life and in our world? This is the measuring stick we use as we go about discovering the specifics of our mission.
The other measuring stick of how we are doing in our mission that comes through so strongly, yet is often so neglected is joy. Friends sometimes we miss this extremely important sign of God’s
love. Sometimes we think that being a Christian means bearing the cross, suffering great hardship, great depravation, carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders and making sure that everyone knows it by the faces we make, the complaints we utter, the tales of woe we spin so readily.
It is clear that one of the strongest signs of God’s love and God’s presence and God’s kingdom is joy.
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be complete.
We are chosen by God to be God’s friend; we are given a mission to love and told that that love will express itself in joy. If we are not joyful people, then we haven’t gotten our mission right yet.
Joy is one of those things that we Christians are not too good at. Somehow we think that we are called, not only to bear one another’s burdens, but to let everyone know that and how hard it is. If there is no joy then something is wrong. Our mission is not of God. Now joy is not that soupy, glad handed stuff. Joy is a deep down realization that we have God as our friend and that we don’t need much more, that we don’t need to earn God’s love; we don’t have to exhaust ourselves in working for it. All we need to do is open ourselves and surrender to God’s love. A clear sign of that love is joy.
Last week at daily Mass I said perhaps the Vatican needs a curial department of joy—you know in our church we have a bunch of departments to make sure the Church is on track. The Commission for - defense of the faith, departments to make sure we are doing liturgy correctly, that priests and religious are living up to their charism, that universities are teaching the right things, but we have no curial department for joy—to make sure that bishops and priests, religious and lay people are increasing happiness and joy in our world. What a great move for the Pope to establish a Curial Department for Joy in the world. Imagine, The Pontifical Commission on Joy and Happiness in the Church.
Now loving is not always easy. Ask any parent, anyone who is sick or suffering, anyone who has lost someone, anyone dealing with broken relationships. But we are called to be joyful in the midst of our suffering, our hurting, and our longing. We can be joyful because we playing a part not in our own story, but in the great Theo drama, the great story of God.
God has chosen us, God has loved us, God has sent us on a mission to love one another and a clear sign that we are doing what we are sent to do is our joy. It is pretty simple, pretty basic.
We better all get working on this during the week. We don’t want the Pontifical commission on Joy and Happiness to give us a sneak visit and say we can no longer be called Catholic because we aren’t spreading around enough joy and happiness

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20. May 2009 by cbarranco.

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Reflection on the Gospel-Week #4. Sr. Beth Dempsey

3. April 2009 by cbarranco.

Much more than giving sight to the man born blind, this gospel story is about a journey of  faith.

The blind man’s story is our story.

Often when I have read this gospel, I am left with a question…

What was wrong with the neighbors, and the pharisees, and even the parents of this man that they didn’t rejoice with him? The neighbors knew who he was – they saw him begging. His parents could have said, “yes, our son was born blind and we are so happy that now he sees.” The Pharisees even try to talk the man out his own reality. What was wrong with them?

They suffer from what we all have and that is blind spots. We all have blind spots.

 Even Samuel in our first reading has a blind spot – he is ready to anoint the obvious person, Jesse’s eldest son. I think the difference between Samuel and the pharisees, parents and neighbors in the gospel is that Samuel was able to be open to possibilities, to seeing the event and the anointing differently. Samuel was listening to the One who sent him and not just what Samuel thought and saw was right. Blind spots prevent us from seeing the truth about ourselves and our world. Blind spots are a protection for us so that we don’t need to change.

 

The neighbors were more interested in trying to be the first to have the real scoop. They don’t even recognize the miracle of sight that had taken place. Gossip is the blind spot for the neighbors.

The pharisees are more interested in the law. How and from whom did he gain sight? It’s the Sabbath you know. The law is the law. Keeping the law is the blind spot for the pharisees.

The parents are afraid and fear paralyzed them. What would they do if they were put out of the synagogue?  They wouldn’t even get involved in a conversation about him. They can’t celebrate with their son who now has the hope of a new life. Being afraid was their blind spot.

Personal blind spots can be serious impediments to our spiritual growth. Blind spots can keep us mired in our own dark world. Narrow-mindedness, biases of perception, fear, our need to control, doubt. We have blind spots because we don’t like to risk our comfort and security.We like being in our comfort zones. It takes a risk to change and change is sometimes costly to us. (Not monetarily costly.) We have blind spots because we prefer the darkness rather than the light. And you can surely name your own blind spots.

 

To get rid of blind spots - We need to be honest, primarily about ourselves. We have to lay down our defenses, our rationalizations, our side of the story. We need to tell the truth about who we are. To get rid of blind spots - We have to admit that we don’t always make good choices. self-serving. We have to be willing to love our enemies or to forgive those who have injuried us.

 

Remember blind spots are whatever is preventing you from seeing the wonders of our God on our journey of faith.  

 

 

 

The blind man’s story is our story. What can the man born blind teach us?  

He had lived in darkness all his life. Without being asked Jesus sends him to the pool to wash.  That alone was a big risk for the blind man.  He took a chance. He received his sight.

The outward gift of sight was coupled with an inner transformation.

He now has new found courage. He reacts with unprecedented boldness when he is questioned

by his neighbors and the pharisees. The man is free to be completely loyal to the reality that he has experienced. He is free to respond to the new things that God is doing and revealing to him.

The man had gone from being blind, to having physical sight and then to an even deeper sight - he sees with his own eyes who the healer was - the Son of Man, Jesus the Christ.

Today’s gospel is deliberately used when preparing people to be received into the church,  because it spells out what it means to be baptized and a disciple. The man who use to sit and beg became a disciple of Jesus not because he was given sight. No, he becomes a disciple because he came face to face with Jesus.  Our elect and candidates - Zach, Beth, Ray, Melinda, Kelly, Tim, and Curt, have been invited to the pool. Jesus has invited all of us to the pool. That’s why we have Lent every year. So that we can all go to the pool and then be ready to renew our commitment to the Light of the World on Easter.  Those waters will wash away our blind spots so that we can see the marvelous things that our God does every single day.

And like the man who once was blind, we can say: Lord, I do believe.

 

 

 

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This is Your Time-First Sunday of Lent-Homily-Deacon Tom

10. March 2009 by cbarranco.

 Michael W. Smith, a popular Christian musician, wrote a song called This Is Your Time.  In the song, dedicated to Cassie, a young girl who was tragically killed in the Columbine shootings, he sings about life changing situations.  In the song he sings, “This is your time”.  At any moment in your life, at any age, at any situation, the moment is your time.

 

Now is our time, yours and mine.  It doesn’t matter how old you are or how young you are.  It doesn’t matter if you are male or female, if you are married or single, in school or retired.  It doesn’t matter if you are a priest, religious sister or member of the community.  It doesn’t matter if you have just entered the Catholic Church, been a member for 10 or 80 years or like our Candidates and Catechumens ( Zech, Melinda, Ray, Bethany, Robert, Tim, Kelly, Beth and Curt) about to enter the Church this Easter.  Now is our time.

 

In our gospel reading from Mark we see Christ coming out of the desert, beginning His ministry and His journey towards Jerusalem.  His first words after coming out of the desert are, “This is the time of fulfillment…”.  This is the time!  It was His time, it was John the Baptist’s time, it was the Israel’s time…  It is our time.  In Mark’s gospel we see everything immediately and this passage, this theme, this statement is no different.  Christ doesn’t want us to sit and think about what will happen, He doesn’t want us to take His statement home and see if it fits our lives.  No He wants us to immediately follow Him.  To repent and believe in the gospel.  That the gospel, that the good news that the fulfillment is Christ Himself.

 

I’ve been doing a lot of cycling lately.  Mostly indoors and mostly in what’s called a “Spin Class”.  A group of people are all on stationary bikes and are lead by an instructor who takes us through different exercises.  One of the instructors is constantly trying to motivate us by telling us that we have already spent money on the gym membership, we have taken time out of our day and are in class and spent money on gas to get to class.  What are we going to do with this hour on the bike?  Are we just going to sit and coast or are we going to work?  What are we going to do now?  And believe me, some times I just want to choke him because I’m about to pass out.  But I don’t and I continue to work.

 

 

We began our 2009 Lenten journey a few days ago with an ashen cross placed on our foreheads and told by the minister to turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel.  We sit here in this church and begin the first formal week of Lent.  We have made the time in our lives to come here, we have taken a break from our very busy schedules to put an effort into making a difference and change for the better in our lives.  How are we going to do that?  Are we going to just coast through another Lent, maybe our first one or 70^th one?  Each and every one of us are being told that this is our time.  Now!  Not tomorrow, not next week and not next Lent.  Now!

 

And know that through this journey of Lent we may come across some difficult experiences.  Maybe it just might be a feeling that comes over us that says we don’t need to pray today.  Maybe it might be a greater test that says, why am I even doing this?  What good is it doing?  Throughout our Lent, throughout our lives, we have the example of Christ.  In the desert we see Christ being tempted and tested and at the same time being ministered to by the angels.  That is our consolation that even in our deepest darkest moments we can know that God is with us and ministering to us in our moments of trial.

 

Try to transition slightly into this

 

We have so many activities in our parish that can make this Lent fulfilling.  Many different prayer services, Faith enrichment opportunities, Lenten readings and reflection resources and the many different ways we pray.  Commit to one of these activities to make your lent successful or choose a different one that takes you closer to God.  Because we could do all these activities and if they don’t bring you to the end that we all long for, that deeper relationship with God, they are just that, activities. 

 

We begin our 2009 Lenten journey now.  We begin it with hope and faith.  We begin it to make our lives better now, to make the lives of those around us better.  Will you choose to make Feb. 28^th your time?

 

 

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SUNDAY WORSHIP: ESSENTIAL FOR HEALTH AND WHOLENESS

4. March 2009 by cbarranco.

6th Sunday of Ordinary Time B – Church of Saint Ann February 15, 2009 – R. Vincent Gartland, Pastor

A traditional homily for this Gospel story of Jesus healing the leper goes something like this: There was a man who had leprosy and he cries out to Jesus to heal him. Jesus does so. Now, today, there are not many people with leprosy on the streets so it is better to see the man as a social outcast. We have a lot of social outcasts, people we just plain avoid all around us. Jesus reached out to these people and so should we. There is nothing wrong with that interpretation. Certainly, we should be thoughtful and loving to those who society shuns. It is a very Christian thing to do. But today, I would like to suggest that we look at this story in a little different way; perhaps the way that a first century Jewish-Christian might see the story. Leprosy was a terrible disease and there were a lot of lepers around in Jesus’ time. Leprosy makes a person not only sick, but, according to the Jewish law, unclean. Lepers had to warn you they were coming and keep out of people’s way. They were also cut off from worship. They could not go near the temple, for they were thought of as unclean. When the man comes to Jesus and asks for his help, he was asking for more than a physical healing; he was asking to be restored to the temple worship. That is the story in many of Jesus miracles. Remember the woman with the hemorrhage. She had spent years going to doctors, and no one was able to do anything. Because she was hemorrhaging, she was unclean and not permitted to worship; the same with the man with the withered hand. Any kind of physical deformity made a person unclean and not fit to worship. Remember the lady who was bent over. She was not able to stand up straight, which is the position of worship; she, too, was considered unclean. Jesus heals them all and not only restores their physical health, but he restores them to the community - to right worship. When Jesus heals the leper in today’s Gospel, where does he send him? Directly to the temple where he had not been allowed to go, and Jesus tells him to show himself to the priests. The book of Leviticus that we heard from in the first reading, lays out many different rituals for a priest to determine if one is clean or unclean. They would declare who was fit for worship. They are the ones who determine who has the right to public worship. So there is more to the story than just the physical healing. The man is also restored to the community worship. Community worship is an essential part of life. The story gives us an opportunity to reflect upon the centrality and necessity of worship for our healh and well being. That is really what the Fathers of Vatican Council II had in mind when they called for a reform of the liturgy. They called the liturgy the summit and source of our life. They realized how important worship was to our lives. There was a sense that we had become passive during worship and the Fathers of the Council wanted to revive our active participation in liturgical worship. What seemed to have happen in the wake of the Vatican Council was exactly the opposite. In the past fifty years, we have seen a mass exodus from the Mass. Statistics tell us that today only 25% of American Catholics and 10 % of European Catholics attend worship regularly. Here at Saint Ann’s we are slightly higher at 30 %, but that still is not good. This certainly is a sad commentary on the state of the church and the world after the council. We could give all kinds of reasons for this decrease in Mass attendance: sociological, cultural, a greater sense of freedom, lack of a fear of hell or God. Whatever the reason, it might be good for us to look at the importance of worship and why it was so important to Jesus that it played so strongly in many of his miracles. He seemed to be constantly restoring people to health and to community worship. First, we need to admit that God does not need our praise. God has all God needs. Our worship adds nothing to God. So what does it do? Why is it prescribed by law? Why are Catholics expected to participate in worship each week? Because it does something very important to us and to the community. Worship helps us to know who we are – people of worth and dignity, sons and daughters of God, heirs with one another to God’s kingdom. It helps us to set priorities in our life. Just by coming to Mass, even when we are not conscious of it, says that God is 1st in my life. Our common worship brings us together and helps us to support one another. It gives power and purpose to our lives. Let’s go back to Jesus, the Messiah. We spoke about Jesus fulfilling the Messianic role a number of Sundays ago. What is the role of the Messiah? He is to bring together all the tribes of Israel in worship of the one true God. He is to unite Israel, and once God’s people are united, their worship will act as a magnet to pull the whole world toward worship of the one true God, toward this New Jerusalem. Not by force or coercion, but by the power of example and love. This is the dream of God. This is how the Messiah figures in the establishment of God’s kingdom. He is to gather all in worship of the one true God, and that worship will pull all others to the one true God. That is why we, people who follow Jesus, are called to worship weekly. Our participating in worship should be a beacon to others. It should help to order the world. We don’t have to look too far to see that the world is in need of ordering. For the past few months, we have seen how the economic condition of the world has become severally disordered through greed. Greed is simply another form of false worship. Instead of worshiping the one true God, people are brought to worship money; they accumulate more than they could possible use. It is interesting that in the past few months we have seen that those who have worshiped the god of money have certainly pulled us all into their worship of this false god. And today, we are seeing exactly how false god money is. The violence that plagues our cities is a powerful indictor of people who have begun to worship false gods, whose lives have twisted and turned and are severely out of order. Friday evening we saw the senseless killing of another Philadelphia police officer. A very clear sign of a city in great disorder, worshiping it seems the god of drugs. You can be sure that the man who killed Officer Palanski was not at Sunday worship last week. I could go on, but it is clear we need to get our world, our cities, and our own lives back in order. We need to get back to worship of the one true God. That is what Sunday Mass is all about. It helps us to order our lives. Oh, I have heard the cry, “The Mass is boring” (not in this parish of course), or “I don’t get anything out of the Mass”, or “It is just too tedious,” or “I have too many other things to do” (to many other gods to worship – work, sports, shopping, cleaning, friends, sleep.) Who ever said the purpose of worship was to entertain? The purpose of worship is to order our lives, and through that process, order our society; to restore proper order to the world, and, as we do that to move us all closer to the kingdom of God. That’s why we are here. Not to feel good or to get something out of this Mass, but to get our life in order; to set our priorities straight. If we put God first in our lives, all other things will fall into place - our economy, our health, our relationships, our families. Maybe not right away, not tomorrow or the next day, but eventually with a tremendous amount of effort; and the power of that order will act as a magnet to pull all toward this proper worship of the one true God. God’s kingdom will come “in our time.” If we want to get our society in order, we need to get ourselves in order; and if we want to get ourselves in order, we need to start by ordering our lives properly, putting God first. That’s what you do when you come to worship. You make a clear statement that in your life God is first. And once God is first everything else will fall into place. Here is a good example of how it works. I remember during high school my best year was my junior year. I was, for the most part, simply an average student. But junior year, I shined. I even surprised myself. I never even planned to get straight A’s. They just happened. What happened in my junior year? I got a job at the Parkside Theater working as an usher, two nights a week and weekend, and the job forced me to put many other things in order. In a certain sense that is what regular Sunday worship does for us. It gives us a still point in a rapidly moving world. It is a way of prioritizing. It is the same principal of why busy people seem to be able to do more. They have a set of priorities; they line up these priorities and everything seems to fall into place. The Season of Lent is ahead of us. Shortly, you will be receiving in the mail your Lenten Menu. The most important thing you can do for Lent, and for all of us, is to get your worship right. Sunday worship is essential and integral to our life. It is a concrete way of putting God first; and once we do that, everything else will follow. Like the leper in today’s Gospel, when we ask for healing, we are asking to be restored to proper worship. Sunday Mass has the potential to put order in our lives and, eventually, in the world. All people will be drawn to our worship of the one true God, and all that God has dreamed of for us will be restored.

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Welcome New Users

4. March 2009 by cbarranco.

Welcome to the Church of Saint Ann Blog. We invite your comments and dialogue about the Sunday homily, worship or any other facet of church life. We ask that comments be respectful and to the point.

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