Onward and upward

Ten days ago nine of our seminarians graduated from Marian University and received their bachelors' degrees and will now move on to major seminary. Another seminarian who has been in an intensive English language study at IUPUI will also move forward to major seminary. The day was a poignant moment for me because I began my seminary career with most of them. So it was time for me to move on as well.

We provided formation for 46 seminarians from 10 different Midwestern dioceses this past year. Of the 10 graduates, two have decided not to continue with major seminary. Another six underclass seminarians decided to discontinue their formation. So we will have 30 returning seminarians and we won't know how many new ones will appear on our doorstep on August 14, which is move-in day.

For myself and the rest of the seminary formation staff, the break is welcome. We move on - not away from the seminary - but on to a new class and new thinking. This time is akin to recharging the battery of one's computer decices. I spent all last week vegetating. I found myself really tired and I indulged in the luxury of sleeping in late. I have been piddling around updating family history, watching back episodes of Midsomer Murders and Rumpole of the Bailey, visiting friends, getting the summer organized, disposing of clutter in my apartment and reacquainting myself with my Jesuit community who see little of me and who don't seem worse off for it. I have been avoiding people as much as possible and trying to pray but without much success.

This week there are things to do. What I cannot come to terms with is the gratitude I have been receiving from a number of seminarians thanking me for all the help I have given them. I try to convince them that whatever has changed in their lives has been their cooperation with God but somehow they still think I am a part of that. I suppose I just have to accept the pleasure of witnessing their growth.

The seminary is quiet these days save for two underclassmen who are doing manual labor for a couple of weeks. Their devotion is extraordinary and their commitment is real. We await the results of the archdiocesan restructuring of the Indianapolis deaneries. Meanwhile life goes on and the Church survives. The rector had an operation on both his knees, not knee replacements, and that has allowed him also to vegetate for a while as well. The vice rector continues to provide doughnuts on Sunday morning either from Long's bakery or Krispy Kreme.

I am grateful for another joyous year despite its turbulence and perhaps its being the hardest of the four I've spent here. It has been emotionally charged. In some way I feel like a parent watching his children struggle and move on. The faces keep changing but their lives just roll on. Life never stops surprising us. In the long run the totally self-assured freshmen seminarians are no longer so self-assured for they have come smack up against the ambiguities of growing up. It is an amazing process to witness and I cannot be thankful enough to be a part of that.

Fifth Sunday of Easter

What do we make of Scripture this Fifth Sunday of Easter? The first letter of St. Peter (2: 5) invites us to “let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”? What is Scripture asking of us when we are invited to become a spiritual house?

The reading from the Acts of the Apostles (6: 1) describes the growth of the numbers of the first Christians. The growth is so incredible that the twelve Apostles come together to tackle a practical problem. Some of the needy members of their community were being neglected because they were being missed in the daily distribution of food. The work of the Apostles was to preach the word and yet they were unable sometimes to do so. They were also the practical hands of the early Church as well. This is not unlike the expectations we can put on the pastors of our own communities today. Sometimes we expect them to do everything for us, to unlock doors and sweep floors, to meet our every need, and our every demand. We complain when our pastor does not pay enough attention to us, as if we are totally helpless in caring for our own spiritual and human needs.

The first Christians are obviously concerned about the needs of those in their community who cannot provide for themselves. At the bottom of the food chain in this first century after Christ were widows and orphans. They had no rights in this society. They had the least ability in society to take care of themselves. They had only the good will of others to keep them alive.

The work of the Apostles was twofold - prayer and the ministry of the word. The solution was to choose a number of disciples to engage in the task of caring for the daily needs of the community. When Pope Francis calls us to be a missionary church, he is calling us - among other things - to also take responsibility for the human and spiritual needs of members of our communities. We cannot simply tend to our own needs. We must care about the needs of others.

We see here the image of the two parts of the Church therefore. One is to care for the daily needs of the community, particularly those in most need of help. The other is to continue preaching the message of God’s love and forgiveness. Preaching that word may sound an easy task to some but most people are quite reluctant to believe they are good in God’s eyes. Pastors spend innumerable hours encouraging their own parishioners.

To some extent these tasks - preaching the Gospel and taking care of the community’s needs - intermingle but it was a practical problem in the early believers that required a solution that had not yet been discovered.

Is it any wonder that the disciples in the Gospel (John 14: 1-12) worry when Jesus tells them he is leaving them? What will we do? How can we survive? Jesus tries to reassure them that he has everything worked out. But he is also trying to tell them that it is time for them to step up and take responsibility, to take ownership for their own faith life, their own spiritual life. He has prepared them to live without him. He has prepared them to continue doing the works he had already begun.

The holy temple in Jerusalem, the central religious symbol and place for first century Jews, is the symbol represented in all three readings on this Sunday. The temple was the place where Jews met God. Jesus is the new temple. Things sought previously in the temple were now sought in Jesus. Jesus is the place where we meet God. Christ is the new temple. And Christ has prepared his disciples to become the Church which in the absence of Jesus is now the fulfillment of the temple. Church becomes a priestly people. What Jesus has done for us is to invite us to do his work. Father Robert Barron describes this process when he says, “The integrity of our lives are a sign of hope and a place of refuge for all around us.” Which is why our faith is not just about my own spiritual benefit. It also has a missionary benefit. My life is a sign to others of the work of God in creation.

I grow in life of Christ in order to become a place of growth for others. Jesus is the cornerstone of this temple. Jesus is rejected by the Jewish people but he is approved by God. He is the foundation for this new temple. As the letter of St. Peter recognizes, we are a holy people, a holy priesthood. We are all chosen.

Return to Jerusalem

The week after Easter Sunday rejoices as each day repeats the Resurrection in increasingly surprising ways. The Church begins its cycle of readings from the Acts of the Apostles with Peter at Pentecost proclaiming to the Jewish citizenry of Jerusalem that God raised Jesus from the dead and has begun an entirely new relationship with human beings. Fear begins to set in. The chief priests concoct stories to prevent blame or outrage from settling on themselves.

Many of the Jews are intimidated by Peter's preaching and wonder what to do. We hear the compassionate episode in which Mary Magdalen encounters Jesus thinking him to be the gardener. Peter and John heal a crippled man in the temple who leaps up, walks, jumps and praises God inside the temple. Astoundingly, two disciples encounter Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Peter has to convince many people that the crippled man's healing is not the result of the apostle's magic but is the work of Jesus who died and rose. Then Jesus appears to the disciples and begins setting a plan of action for them.

The disciples are arrested and interrogated by the chief priests. Jesus makes another appearance, this time to the disciples, as they go fishing and they are overwhelmed by his appearance. Finally, the chief priests are convinced to let well enough alone lest the people turn on them. A recapitulaion of Jesus' three appearances after the Resurrection ends the week.

What does it all mean? Those of us living in northern states can appreciate the appearance of spring after this long, harsh winter we've experienced. I can watch fresh pine cones growing on the tree outside my window. Everything seems alive and new. Students are bursting with energy and ready to finish the restraining semester's work.

The disciples on the road to Emmaus may express the change most of all. They are going away from Jerusalem. They are leaving the place at which something remarkable and different has occurred. They fear the challenge laid out before them. They are confused and disappointed for their expectations were not met. How do we make sense of these events?

Someone had to explain it to them. Someone had to show them how to see in a new way. They were thinking in old categories. Jesus himself shows up to answer them. But they don't know it is Jesus. They only know that things have changed and they are uncomfortable with the change even though they had pinned their hopes on Jesus for another kind of change. They are getting something more. When they listened to Jesus explaining the meaning of the events, their hearts burn. In fact, their hearts are on fire. When Jesus displays his hospitality to them and shares bread with them, their hearts burn. All becomes new and Jesus now occupies rheir hearts and disappears from their presence. Scripture says their eyes were opened, they recognized Jesus, and he vanishes from their sight. They return to Jerusalem and they announce to the disciples what has happened to them.

This week of readings is crucial to anyone preaching God's word. Unless we ourselves are filled with the excitement of these events, we cannot possibly understand or relate anything else that happens to Jesus in the Scripture. We cannot understand what happens to any other human being in their time spent on earth. We cannot be good pastors or preachers if we have not shared in the joy of the Resurrection. We cannot go forward into the heavenly future. We may be tempted to remain in our upper rooms and hold tight with the Jesus we've possessed since childhood. But Jesus is inviting us out of our childish prison and offering us the reward of an uncertain human future on his terms.

Thoughts on the Francis effect

Just what is the so-called Francis effect?

Those who wish Pope Francis ill proudly claim that church attendance has not increased and Catholic churches do not seem to be experiencing the same kind of enthusiasm found in St. Peter's Square on any given day.

Is church attendance the measure of the Franis effect, I wonder, and is that not a question only an American would ask? Last fall I overheard a bishop wonder what Francis had up his sleeve and then commented that he thought Francis was trying to get bishops to work. 

It has been reported that after his first six months as pope Francis had garnered more attendance in St. Peter's Square than both Popes John Paul and Benedict combined. This is not to disparage either one of those great and holy men. But it does indicate that Francis has a charisma that neither of the other two possessed. A different pope brings a different gift. John Paul and Benedict each brought great gifts and great personality to the office. The gift and personality of Francis just different.

Estimates of the crowd in St. Peter's Square on this past Easter Sunday suggested an attendance of about 150,000 people. Francis can draw big crowds. No doubt. And he seems to love nothing more than being in their midst. All of which says that Francis is carrying out a ministry of presence like never before. And when he has to preach his preaching is merciful.

There is no competition among popes. One commentator summed up John Paul's pontificate by identifying him with the words, "This is what we believe." and much of John Paul's pontificate seems to have reminded us of our identity as Catholic Christians.

The same commentator noted that Benedict's papacy could be summed up in the words, "This is why we believe it." Benedict provided our Catholic identity with a solid grounding, a very necessary rationale. The same commentator now claims Francis can be summed up with the words, "Now go out and do it."

What is different in Francis is that he can be identified much more with the sense of Catholic Christians living fully their faith. The emphasis is on action, an active verb.

The Church in my archdiocese is faced with numerous possible parish closings and consolidations. There already has been reaction from parishioners whose parishes are on the block. There are those who want things to stay the same even though there is almost no life left in their parishes at all. One parish whose parishioners are complaining has reportedly not experienced a single baptism in three years. What is the reason for keeping a parish open whose parishioners appear to be indifferent to its current future and growth?

The machine to which many are clinging is enough to keep them alive but it is not enough to get them to do what Francis wants us to do. It is not enough to get them to do what Jesus asks of us - to preach the Gospel! To tell the Good News to others! To go out on mission like the first disciples did! Instead we wait for the unbeliever to come to us. And then in some places we have to look them over to make sure they fit into our plan.

The bishops call for evangelization but this is almost a joke. What will get parishioners who want their parish to make them comfortable Sunday after Sunday energetic and enthused about preaching the Gospel to neighbors and strangers? What will move us from coffee and donuts after Mass to knocking on doors and inviting others to come join us? Few clergy want to do this.

Oh, of course it's not true of all, but the truth is there is a lot of dead weight among North American Catholics. Our German and Irish and Italian and eastern European immigrant ancestors have built us a church that is a now a haven of rest for us. And we want to keep it that way. Do not bother us with even the cry of Emma Lazarus to give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Let the government take care of them and let us remain in our shells.

The Francis effect is challenging all the moribund thinking in the American church including that of our bishops - some of whom are more concerned about their personal housing than they are about spreading the Gospel. What can we do? Not much really. Except to place ourselves into the hands of God and his mercy. Only God can draw us out of our torpor.

Almost a century

My Aunt Dorothy turned 99 years of age on March 25. She is in a nursing home now, somewhat alert though very hard of hearing. She is the last of my aunts and uncles. Her distant relatives in Louisville, Ky., told me that she has now outlived everyone of her relatives there and several of them lived into their 90s.

Aunt Dorothy is the older of my mother's two sisters. My mother died in 1998. The younger sister died in 2005. There was also a brother who died in 1970. I had been relying on Aunt Dorothy for a number of years for remembering details about their lives growing up. As in most families, there are stories that abound and some of them seem unverifiable. There were always memories of "cousins" but I hadn't been able to verify their membership in our family.

Aunt Dorothy did give me clues that I was able to track down. She used to talk, for example, about a trip she and my mother and the other two siblings made in their grandfather's Ford to New Castle to visit some cousin in the late 1920s. Their grandfather apparently drove the car off the road, overturning the car. No one was hurt apparently but their grandfather never drove again, she claimed.

She was no longer able to remember the names of these cousins. Through some genealogical sleuthing I wrote down the names of every head of household in the 1930 census in New Castle, Indiana. Aunt Dorothy said one name on that list seemed to ring a bell for her. I kept tracking the name and eventually discovered this to be the granddaughter of the husband (by his first wife) of Aunt Dorothy's great aunt (who was the second wife of the husband). The relationship is technically not close at all but there seem to have been a number of other families we would hear about from the distant past who were "cousins" to Aunt Dorothy's grandfather. And all of them seem to have originated in a small town in southwestern Germany.

What has always seemed strange to me is that neither of my aunts or uncle on that side of the family - nor my own mother - seem to have inherited any of my grandfather's talents. He was a musician as was his father. My mother played the violin as a youngster. Indeed, she and all her siblings were made to take music lessons but none of them persisted. I recall my mother's broken violin sitting on the floor of a closet in our house for many years. Aunt Dorothy's memory of music lessons is practicing the piano under her father's guidance. If she hit a wrong note, he would slam the cover on her fingers.

Aunt Dorothy has been active all her life. She spent most of her adult years in various kinds of secretarial work at a large local department store. Into her early 90s she worked part-time standing on her feet several days a week doing demos in a large supermarket. She favored wearing large oversize hats when she went out socially.

I would like to know more about her ancestors but it is almost too late. When we are young, we have no interest. Now that I am approaching my senior years, I have the interest but the individuals who could answer questions are mostly gone.

Fifth Sunday of Lent

With gratitude to Fr. Edmund Montgomery

Mary and Martha have something to teach us about Jesus. These two women and their brother Lazarus are friends of Jesus. This word ‘friend’ is key in the Gospel for the Fifth Sunday of Lent. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus are friends of Jesus. That they are friends means that the four of them loved each other, provided companionship for each other, gave support to each other, provided consolation to each other. Indeed, all four of them – Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Jesus – were really and truly human beings.

The loss that Jesus felt for Lazarus is a real loss. He is not just play acting. The Scripture tells us that “Jesus wept.” It should not surprise us. Did not Jesus already experience other members of his family having died? We do not know, for example, when Joseph died, but it appears from the Scripture that he was not around during the period of Jesus’ ministry. Would not Jesus have experienced the loss of his grandparents as well? We do not know much about the family structure of Jesus but he lived in a culture and society in which parents and grandparents would have been well revered. 

Lazarus is a friend, a real friend. For many of us, our friends can be closer than members of our family, and when Lazarus dies, it clearly affects Jesus very deeply. He was in ‘great distress,’ the Gospel tells us. He made that groan that only those who are mourning can make, a ‘sigh that came straight from the heart,’ and he began to weep openly. So moved were those around him, they said, ‘See how much he loved him!’ We like to speak of Jesus as Savior, as Redeemer, as Son of God, and he is all of these things, but we must never lose sight of the Jesus we see in today’s Gospel: ‘Jesus the Mourner’, one who knows the depths of hurt and suffering, and the cost of death. As the Bible tells us, Jesus can sympathize with us in our weaknesses because he has been tested with suffering as we are. 

A young man was murdered on 16th Street this past week. News reports have interviewed his numerous siblings and friends. There is grief in the city over this loss. There is grief among us whenever any of us lose a friend or family member. Depending on the relationship, the grief is stronger or weaker. As I reached my 50s, I wondered what it would be like when my own parents would die. They died within three years of each other and I am here. What I know now that was not uppermost in my own mind at that time is that I will follow them sometime in the future.

Martha’s faith must have been incredible. She said to Jesus, ‘If you had been here, my brother would not have died, but I know that, even now, whatever you ask of God, he will grant you.’ She is saying that Jesus could have healed Lazarus had he arrived in time, but that even now, even though Lazarus died four days previously and was buried and sealed in a tomb, Jesus can even save this situation. 

What incredible confidence Martha had in him, and what pressure this must have put on Jesus. ‘He has to act now,’ those around him must have thought. ‘This will show whether he is who we claims to be.’ Martha accepts the reality that Lazarus is dead, but still believes Jesus can do something. And something Jesus certainly does. 

What must the crowd have thought? What was the smell as the tomb was opened? Jesus raises his voice in prayer and cries aloud for Lazarus to come out. And Lazarus walks out of the tomb! Imagine the screams of shock, the emotion, people fainting, running away, falling to the ground in horror. Wrapped in his burial shroud still, Lazarus stands there before them all. Jesus asks them to ‘Unbind him,’ and ‘let him go free’. 

In this Gospel Martha teaches us to have faith in Jesus even when the situation seems impossible. The tubes and wires connected to loved ones who are dying in hospital are like the bands of cloth that shrouded Lazarus in the tomb, and, as their life slips away, it may be that the Lord is saying the same words to us as he said after raising Lazarus, ‘Unbind him, let him go free’: don’t be afraid of letting our loved ones slip away from us in death, because it is into God’s hands we pass them. 

Poor Lazarus died, was raised and lived, only to die again! But that promise Jesus made to Martha, ‘Your brother will rise again,’ is the certainty that ought to sustain us, too when we are faced with the death of a loved one, or the certainty of our own death. Jesus’ love for his friends is real, his sense of loss at Lazarus’ death is genuine, and his promise of life without end is true, too. 

The more we come to know Jesus the more we will find ourselves fascinated by his life, and by the reality of what he promised. ‘I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.’

Fourth Sunday of Lent

A fascinating video popped up last week on the blog "Whispers in the Loggia.” It shows Pope Francis going to confession. One report noted that modern popes have been seen hearing confessions but none has been seen going to confession. Until now. And that’s the joy of Pope Francis. He leads by example. He does not just talk about how we should live our Christianity. He shows us how to do so. How unlike the Pharisees who are a persistent nuisance in the Gospel reading for the Fourth Sunday of Lent.

 

Jesus heals a man born blind. This story is full of twists and turns, the kind that explain to us the nature of sin. Sin makes us feel lost. Sin is confusing. It makes us feel as if we don’t know where we are going. If we don’t know where we are going, it is very likely we don’t know where we are. And really sinful sin means we don’t know who we are.

 

According to the Pharisees, the man born blind was a sinner. And the sin was either committed by the man himself or his parents. Whatever the sin was, in the view of the Pharisees, the blind man was struck by divine punishment. How often we can be so Pharisaical! We judge others – their sin will land them in hell - or something worse. That something worse is usually our judgment of them. Who permits us to determine the status of the conscience of another? Most of us are just self-righteous enough that we claim to know the sins of each other. And many of us are arrogant enough to declare these sins to the other.

 

But none of that is of God. The Pharisees proclaim Jesus to be a sinner. He not only cured the man of his blindness. He made clay from the dust. This was servile labor and it was forbidden on the Sabbath. In the eyes of the Pharisees, this condemns Jesus. Jesus worked on the Sabbath. Remember that elsewhere Jesus says the Sabbath is made for man not man for the Sabbath.

 

Pope Francis describes what is at work in this story as both a culture of encounter and a culture of exclusion. The latter is, of course, the prejudice of the Pharisees about the blind man’s so-called sin. The former is, of course, the blind man’s healing by Jesus. That encounter leads to the blind man, now healed, becoming a follower of Jesus. So we can proclaim a culture of exclusion by pointing out each other’s sins or we can proclaim a culture of encounter by leading others to Jesus who is the only one who can forgive sins.

 

The Gospels on Sunday during Lent each reveal to us how people who encounter Jesus are led to him. Sinners they may be but they encounter something so different in their lives that they cannot lead their lives in the same way anymore. Any conversion story I’ve ever heard has been the same. The something encountered is Jesus Himself. Someone is encountered. Are any of us so full of Jesus’ Spirit that we could lead others to Jesus? When we meet others, do we present Jesus to them? Or do we speak the language of exclusion and continue to judge them?