Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

St. Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians reminds us our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. "Glorify God in your body" is Paul's admonition. "You are not your own."

In 1954 Flannery O'Connor published a short story titled "A Temple of the Holy Ghost" in which two 14-year old girls who attend a convent boarding school identify themselves as Temple One and Temple Two mocking the nun who repeatedly reminds them they are temples of the Holy Ghost. On a weekend visit with a distant cousin, the two girls attend a fair at which they see a hermaphrodite in a freak show. The hermaphrodite keeps repeating to the crowd that "God done this to me and I praise Him. He could strike you thisaway." Later it is the cousin who is most affected by this and who has a vision of the sun as "an elevated Host drenched in blood .. "

The two girls live in their own world until, for the sake of adventure, they go to see this freak show, something that is totally other than their 'teeny-bopper' selves.

The first reading for the second Sunday in Ordinary Time reveals the boy Samuel living in his own world. He is to be trained by his mentor Eli. Samuel is a boy who likes his sleep. Three times he is awakened by a voice and each time he believes it is Eli calling him. The third time Eli recognizes that God is calling the boy and he tells Samuel when he hears the voice again to reply, "Speak Lord, your servant is listening." Samuel lived in his own world and could not recognize God's call to him. He did not know he was a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Two disciples of John the Baptist in the Gospel today are told Jesus is the lamb of God. They immediately follow Jesus and one of them, Andrew, takes the news to his own brother Peter. These men all lived in their own worlds until they saw or heard Jesus calling them. What attracted them to Jesus? Scripture is never full of detail. We only receive basic information. Whatever it is, Jesus pulls them out of their own worlds and invites them into his world. He invites them to something new and different. Andrew and Peter are called in their own bodies to become temples of the Holy Spirit, to glorify God in their bodies now by following Jesus and living in a new way.

During his recent trip to the Philippines, Pope Francis identified three challenges for young people to the religious leaders of the University of Santo Tomas. One is integrity. He told them that learning to love was their greatest challenge and that in doing so they must maintain their own integrity. Learn to love and be loved. Secondly, he said, it is important to care for the environment. Thirdly, we must care for the poor.

Recent weeks have shown us so much violence in our world. Fear is corrupting each of us. As followers of Christ, we cannot allow ourselves ro be governed by fear. We are temples of the Holy Spirit and recognize that there is more to this life than what we find on any of our electronic devices, including television or the movies. Pope Francis also reminded us that we are accountable to Christ for our speech and our action.

We glorify God in our bodies and become temples of the Holy Spirit when we leave our own worlds and move out to follow Jesus, when we listen to his call to us, when we say yes to the one who calls us to live his life. Scripture readings in the liturgy this past week have shown us Jesus moving forward, moving beyond his own world, beyond his home at Nazareth. He cures and heals and he goes to pray. But then he moves on. Crowds want him to stay and get comfortable with him but Jesus must reach others. He must move on. He is not his own. Neither are we.

Saints and seminarians

Our seminarians at Bishop Brute visited the shrine of St. Mother Theodore Guerin at the end of their retreat this week. Following our four day experience at St. Meinrad, we trekked to Terre Haute and the few miles outside the city to St. Mary of the Woods College and the shrine on the grounds that now house the historical beginnings of the Sisters of Providence.

While still a priest of the archdiocese, I had frequent interaction with Sr. Ann Kathleen Brawley, who served many years as archdiocesan archivist. Sister Ann Kathleen would share much about Mother Theodore, the founding of the Woods campus and the process for canonization. She once showed me some translations of the correspondence between Mother Theodore and Bishop Hailandiere. Hailandiere became bishop of the diocese of Vincennes following the death of Bishop Brute who brought the Sisters of Providence from France to the wilderness of Indiana to establish schools and begin a mission of education. His death occurred before their arrival, however.

The relationship between the Bishop Hailandiere and Mother Theodore was contentious because Mother Theodore fought ferociously for her sisters against some of the unjust demands of the bishop. At one point he locked her in her room, removed her as superior, and began making assignments of the sisters much against the order's constitutions. He excommunicated her as well. What saved the day was the bishop's resignation and return to France where he lived another 35 years. Reconciliation did come between him and the order but not until after Mother Theodore died.

What struck me about the correspondence was the depth of emotion expressed. Both Mother Theodore and the  bishop were cultured and well-educated Frenchwoman and Frenchman living in a wilderness still untamed. They likely both understood each other very well. They both likely experienced a great deal of loneliness. Neither had others to whom they could easily relate. Their correspondence reveals this in indirect ways. Yet each was set on a course of dedication to a mutual cause expressed by very different interpretations. The correspondence is so revealing, in fact, that at the time I thought Mother Theodore will never be canonized. There is too much humanness in the correspondence. And yet it happened.

The shrine which just opened this past fall is a most impressive experience and well worth a day trip to St. Mary of the Woods. Artefacts used by Mother Theodore are present as is a lengthy timeline on the wall of one hallway revealing events in the life of Mother Theodore, the Church, and the larger history of the world. There are dioramas of life in the wilderness in 1840. Her remains have been moved to a shrine room and encased in a wooden coffin made locally from native trees. The room itself is quite prayerful. Our group was directed by Sr. Nancy Nolan, a former superior general, who was both welcoming and thorough in her presentation. A half hour film at the beginning of the tour covers the history of the American branch of the Sisters of Providence.

We ended our tour with a visit to the beautiful Blessed Sacrament chapel in the larger Church of the Immaculate Conception followed by Mass in that church. One of our students, who is from Effingham, Illinois, told me that when driving back and forth between Effingham and Indianapolis, he has often stopped at the Woods for a few minutes of prayer in that chapel.

The visit to the shrine was a fitting end to a week retreat. It is a truly exciting find in Catholic heritage in Indiana.

We've only just begun

Another year. The tenth semester of ministering to young college men aspiring to the priesthood is about to unfold. Like a book in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, I wonder what new adventures lie along the travels in Middle Earth as these men seek the answers to questions both imagined and real. Or are we beginning an episode more in the style of "Downton Abbey" in which melodrama often seems to overcome the good sense of people who otherwise move inexorably toward a future of love and sacrifice?

Working with this lot is not easy. The difficult part has less to do with the seminarians than it does with my peers. I am a priest from a generation designated by Andrew Greeley as a 'new breed.' Most young men today do not know who Andrew Greeley was and even less do they know that term - new breed. Neither can they appreciate the excitement that priests and especially laity felt at the time I was ordained for many things these young men take for granted were new or unknown to us at that time. The activity and responsibility of the laity alone are perhaps the most significant differences in the two ages. But it is difficult to explain to young men today.

Realizing that they too were a part of the Church was a concept that was totally new and unexpected for the laity. Young people today can't understand that before Vatican II the laity had only to show up to Mass on Sunday. That was basically the extent of their responsibility as a Catholic Christian. That's why the Council provoked such excitement. The laity discovered they too had a place in the Church. They were not simply receptors of what clergy offered, like feeding animals in a zoo. No wonder expectations ran high. It was like Zechariah's lips being opened on a large scale. But expectations could never be fulfilled. Clergy had spent little energy preparing the laity for acceptance of their rightful role in the Church.

Now there is frequently great disaffection between the Church and many of those Catholics who, though well-educated, counted themselves as members of a Church that had for so long kept them in the dark about so many things. These are my peers. They worry that the new crop of potential priests will withdraw the riches to which they have become accustomed like mean parents who tease their children with loss of a gift given and then taken away for reasons unexplained. They ask me, for example, how conservative the seminarians are. My peers often worry about seminarians' attachments to devotions. What my generation threw out, many of them have retrieved.

Seminarians are indeed often attached to non-essentials but they are young and inexperienced. It is only by encouraging their prayer and study that their focus begins to correct itself. The most important thing is not that there is a crucifix on the altar but that the altar is the place where the Eucharistic sacrifice occurs.

Still many of my generation have become moribund in their expectations because they keep making the same mistakes generations before them made. They presume future generations want the same thing they do. They have gotten used to thinking that the Church of 1965 should be the Church of 2015. All of us need to remain open to the work of the Spirit. God moves us forward to more challenge and not to places of rest and comfortability.

One's orenda needs care

Some friends who live in western Indiana had me visit during the Christmas holidays. Years ago they completed what had been a weekend cabin for themselves and their children and today they enjoy a beautiful and somewhat rambling retirement home somewhere in the woods.

I've previously visited them and one of the things I most enjoy about seeing them is that they have a huge library of books, all of which they've read, and continue to read. One wall of their living room is full of books as is another wall in an upstairs loft. They are both voracious readers. Cynthia worked for me at one time and she continues to regularly put forth practical wisdom in the archdiocesan newspaper. She and her husband Ed continue to travel as well given that their family is scattered from the East coast to Europe. One family member, their eldest son, a retired naval officer, was in an English comp and lit class I taught about 40 years ago.

I am always eager to catch up on Ed and Cynthia's lives and adventures and reading. They are regular participants in conferences about Ernest Hemingway and are looking forward to one in his home town Oak Park, Illinois, in the coming year.

This year I told them of discovering a new book of fiction and for me a new writer. "The Orenda" is a book I couldn't put down and yet it is a book that did not leave me with warm, fuzzy feelings. Narrated by three different people, the story relates the clash of cultures between two tribes of native Americans and the French Jesuit missionaries of New France in the 17th century. Bird is a Wendat (Huron) who has killed an Iroquois family taking the daughter as his own. The daughter, named Snow Falls, does everything she can to alienate Bird but eventually comes to accept her new life. A French Jesuit missionary priest named Christophe is abandoned by his native guides and taken prisoner by Bird. All three provide the narration, obviously from different perspectives and motives, and the novel moves relentlessly toward a tragic end.

Christophe seeks converts. Bird seeks the welfare of his tribe, dependent on agriculture, and now prepares to move them to a new place as their planting grounds have become exhausted. Snow Falls only wants to return to her people. Each wants to outdo the other.

The title is a word defined as "a supernatural force believed by the Iroquois Indians to be present, in varying degrees, in all objects or persons, and to be the spiritual force by which human accomplishment is attained or accounted for." Just what each seeks to accomplish is far more simple and ordinary than modern ambitions demand. 

I came across the book while working at the Jesuit Martyrs' Shrine in Midland, Ontario this past summer. Someone there told me about this novel by a Canadian writer that was apparently quite popular in Canada. Published in 2013 it is the third novel of Joseph Boyden and I enjoyed it such that I now want to read more of his work. When I told Ed and Cynthia about this, Cynthia commented to me that she thought it was exciting not just to find a new book one enjoys reading but to find a new author and to want to read more of that author's writing.

Though historical fiction, Boyden takes liberties with his characters and events. The story roughly follows that of the Jesuit missionaries in New France. Christophe is modeled on Jean de Brebeuf though he often exhibits much less compassion and understanding of the natives than the Jesuit relations, the letters the missionaries sent back to France, convey. Two other Jesuits who arrive later - one named Gabriel and the other named Isaac - suggest Gabriel Lalemant and Isaac Jogues. In fact, the Isaac in the novel had his fingers chewed off in torture by the natives as the real Isaac Jogues did. But the novel's Isaac also loses his mental stability toward the end and attempts to poison everyone as the Iroquois attack so they may avoid similar torture.

The book is not an easy read because of the narrative style and because it is quite graphic in its depiction of torture. What helped put the story in perspective, however, and what left me with a very slight glimmer of hope, was the book's last line as Bird invokes his native goddess's wisdom. "What's happened in the past can't stay in the past (because) the future is always just a breath away. Now is what's most important. Orenda can't be lost, just misplaced. The past and the future are present."

God's tenderness

I have a friend who cared for his brother in the last few months of the brother's illness from cancer. The brother was a successful man, single, and in need of nothing materially. The brother was not a man of faith, at least, not a man of faith who followed certain religious practices. The brother had abandoned these a long time ago and my friend stated that his brother had great difficulty understanding or accepting any notion of faith. What did make sense to him was the virtue of hope and that's where they left their discussions on faith - with the possibility of hope. The brother was heard to say before he died, "I am receptive!". Had he heard someone invite him to greater hope? To whom was the brother speaking? No one knows.

Abraham received promises from God that his descendants would be more numerous than the stars in the sky (Genesis 15). Abraham was an old man and he and his wife Sarah were childless. Yet Sarah bore a son. Abraham put his faith in the Lord. He believed God and he hoped. The Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that "by faith" Abraham obeyed and led his people from their home in the Chaldees and walked to Palestine. "By faith" Abraham obeyed and received the power to generate. Again Abraham obeyed and "by faith" offered up his son Isaac. Abraham believed that God's promises would be fulfilled. How is such faith possible?

Simeon and Anna waited in prayer in the Temple to see God's promise fulfilled. Simeon understood from the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he would see 'God's consolation' with his own eyes. Simeon trusted God with great faith and lived in the hope that God's promise would come true. Anna gave praise and thanksgiving for the fulfillment of the promise. Both lived in faith and awaited the fulfillment of God's promise in hope.

In his homily for midnight Mass, Pope Francis asked, "How do we welcome the tenderness of God? Do I allow myself to be taken up by God, to be embraced by him, or do I prevent him from drawing close? 'But I am searching for the Lord' – we could respond. Nevertheless, what is most important is not seeking him, but rather allowing him to find me and caress me with tenderness. The question put to us simply by the Infant’s presence is: do I allow God to love me?" Somehow Abraham, Simeon, and Anna all let God love them. God sought each of them and loved them. It is a challenge to admit that none sought God themselves but God sought each of them.

These figures of the Old Testament experienced the tenderness of God. This seems so despite the difficulties each experienced - Abraham uprooted his family and moved to a strange new land. Then God asked him to sacrifice his son. Simeon waited patiently for an answer to prayer. Anna endured her life as a widow. Did my friend's brother experience God's tenderness through his care?

God's tenderness often seems absent in our relationships with one another. Only by offering it to someone else can we receive it ourselves. What opportunities do I have to provide tenderness to those in need of faith and hope?

Turning hearts around

One of my spiritual directees reminded me that liturgy cannot change our lives. We were talking about the tendency of some of our seminarians to give all their attention to rubrical matters when celebrating liturgy. A few fret about the number of candles on the altar, their position on the altar, the use or non-use of bells for the consecration, the exact position of the chalices and other externals that they tend to magnify out of proportion. They can sometimes become so concerned about such non-essentials that they miss the spirit of the action in the liturgy. Our young men are idealistic and searching for certitude in an environment - our society - that offers very little. Their desire is that liturgy will change their humanness into holiness.

Holiness is sought when we participate in the liturgy but it will not lessen our humanness. If we did not bring our humanness to the liturgy, the Mass would be less meaningful. Our humanness is caught up in God's love and mercy. It is there we meet God's saving action, but we are not likely to become disembodied angels by our presence. We still live ordinary, daily lives. We may be disappointed that we remain so far from perfection. Liturgy reminds us we journey to life with God.

Some want the liturgy to remain static. Keep it on a shelf like a statue of our favorite saint. Admire it but keep it distant and do not allow it to permeate our being. Liturgy becomes that thing we go to each week, or even each day, and we keep our eyes closed and our hearts turned inward failing to notice God's presence around us. We sometimes tend to keep the liturgy locked away like a favorite photograph. We often remain frightened of it and do not always allow it to touch us and give us the momentum to bring change to our lives.

A priest recently told me that he felt judged by some of our seminarians. His parish hosted an event for which our seminarians were asked to serve the Mass. Where were the bells? they wanted to know. His parish does not use them. For these seminarians liturgy can become a theater piece and the object is to put on a good show. As a young seminarian myself, I recall meeting Msgr. Martin Hellriegel, author of the words to the hymn "To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King," who was using English in some of the sung parts of Mass at his small parish in the 1920s and 1930s. In later years he became upset with some of the experiences he saw in how some celebrated liturgy after the Council's reform. He remarked that the object of the liturgical movement was to turn hearts around, not to turn altars around. It was not that he favored the altar facing the wall. Too much emphasis, he felt, was being placed on externals and one set of expectations were being replaced by another.

When I was growing up Mass was a silent affair. Not necessarily a reverent one. Just silent. As one of a few hundred children in the pew at the daily school Mass, I recall lots of squirming and dozing and whispering (if one could get away with it). We did not participate. We observed. If you were smart, you had a St. Joseph Missal and followed the priest. But there were no parts for the laity. The priest read everything. In Latin. One hoped the priest prayed. He read everything to himself. There were no lectors. Anyone attending Mass had to be in the pew by the time the Offertory began. Otherwise one missed the beginning of the principal parts of the Mass and thus one must confess that in confession. One could not leave Mass until after communion. As soon as you received communion, you were free to leave.

It was only with the advent of the Second Vatican Council that we began to be taught about the unity of the liturgy. It was not just being present for the consecration that was important. The whole Mass was important. Christ was present in the Eucharist (we always formerly just called it communion) not only in the host and its elevation but also in the priest, the Scripture that is read, and in the people who are present. The liturgy was a whole. It was not just the elevation of the host that made the liturgy.

Two Latin terms were familiar to us. A successful Mass occurred ex opere operato. It made no difference what the priest or the people did or did not do correctly. Sacramental graces existed because the Mass was the Mass. A Mass that was offered Ex opere operantis meant the priest did his part.

Jesus once asked if the Son of Man will find faith when he returns? Sometimes we get caught up in Pharisaism and forget to live as Christians. We forget that the liturgy cannot change our lives. What we can do is seek to enrich our prayer and deepen our faith by investing ourselves completely in the liturgy rather than expecting it to be this week's top entertainment event.

Losing mentors

Today at St. Michael parish, the pastor, given today is the feast of Thanksgiving, encouraged all of us to recapture a spirit of gratitude in ourselves - not only for the big things in our lives, but especially for the small things. I am grateful for the smiles of the two small children in front of me. I am grateful for the text messages from seminarians wishing me a happy Thanksgiving. I am grateful for the decorations I am beginning to put up for Advent.

I am also grateful for big things. In particular, I am grateful for the life of Sr. Laurencia Listerman, an Oldenburg Franciscan sister who died late last week at 101 years of age. Sister Laurencia never stopped thinking. Her mind was as clear as a bell to the day she died. Recently, she asked for a list of the names of all U.S. senators and congressmen as she had a few letters she wanted to write to them about some issues that were important to her.

She also recently told one of her sisters that all her life, when she reads a book, she reads it twice. Given her age, she had decided that she was going to start reading books only once.

When I was a student at Scecina Memorial High School where Sister Laurencia was an important mentor to me, she once told us in class, "Remember that it isn't always what you know. It is who you know." Her practical nature was a close second to her idealism.

Sister Laurencia was a true wit and an excellent listener. I recall that she took any thought from her students very seriously. She might look at you incredulously and even disagree with you or sometimes even argue with you - though it was really more of a dialogue - but she always listened to you. She showed her amazement about something you might tell her by opening her mouth and rolling her eyes.

She had the look of a patrician when she wanted to and would raise her head with a glare that suggested she was ready to pose for her closeup.

Sister Laurencia's death was the second of two this week that affected me deeply. The other was John O'Connell, a Chicago native, a layman six years older than I, who, along with his wife, befriended me when I was in the seminary in St. Louis. It was in the late 1960s and the seminary offered some lectures on the Second Vatican Council to the public. John attended and, never knowing a stranger, got familiar with the seminarians. Some of us were invited to his home for dinner and to meet his wife Judy and the five children they called their own. The family eventually left St. Louis and moved to Louisville briefly before ending up In Indianapolis where they have lived for more than 30 years. John was another kind of mentor as he ultimately became someone who practiced what we call the works of mercy most generously and frequently. His faith was one of the deepest I knew.

These losses are as important to me as the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, is to the nation. They mean more to me than the terror that is in the Islamic state. My world has become much smaller.