Category: Reflection

At a recent gathering of the separated/divorce support group at which I facilitate, instead of meeting at St. Wenceslaus, we thought it might be fun to meet instead at a local restaurant for a little social/lighter conversation. All members of the group had to do was tell me in advance they were coming so I could reserve a table or two. I would pay for the appetizers (the “horses duvers” as my children use to say), and they would pay for their drinks, with the caveat that if they were really hurting for money, I would cover their drinks. We had about 10 participants, with one of them coming late stating, “I knew this was the place, I looked for an Escape that had all the hippie causes on the back.” (see the picture above). One would think I was driving an old Volkswagen bus, with flower decals applied all over its metal surface. I found the analogy fascinating because at the times of the late 60’s early 70’s when the Hippie culture was perhaps having the greatest influence on pop culture and society, I was not necessarily a proponent. However, I have found that with the exception of “free love”, typified by Stephen Still’s catchy song, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one your with”, and, the drug culture that accompanied some of the Hippie movement, which was very destructive to all concerned, the influence of the Hippies and most of what they were promoting was in the parlance of the time, “right on!”.

There was a Sally Field/James Garner movie from the 80’s entitled “Murphy’s Romance”. It was a nice, family film about a romance between a recently divorced 30 year old woman and a man in his early 60’s. Garner, played the older romantic lead, who was the proprietor of a small town Drug Store. He drove a Model A Ford, with a variety of bumper stickers supporting certain causes. His only rule about the car was to not “cover up his causes.” I suppose his influence from that movie rubbed off on me.

If you look at the “causes” I espouse on the back of my old 2002 Escape, you will find that while some, particularly those who have made political conservatism into a profane image of God, might think them “liberal” (insert sigh), the causes are all Gospel based. The Gospel is a document of progressive faith. It is neither politically conservative not is it politically liberal. The Gospel cannot be defined by either the Republicans nor the Democrats, nor the Libertarians or the Green Party. The Gospel may influence these political movements, but cannot be influenced in return by those same political movements. Let’s take a quick helicopter tour of what is on the back of my old 2002 Escape.

 “Do small things with great love.” “Build Bridges Not Walls.” “An Ecological Peace Sign.” Mother Teresa of Calcutta authored the first, Pope Francis 1 said the second, and Pope Francis in his encyclical, “Laudato Si”, gave the theological underpinning of the third.  All of these are derived from the words of Jesus in the Gospels. The whole concept of Original Sin is about constructing walls around ourselves, making the individual person, God. In order to break down the self-centeredness and exclusivity of the self, bridges must be built between people so that true community can exist. Jesus IS the bridge between God and humanity. Jesus embodies what Pope Francis stated. One can’t get more Truth than that. Mother Teresa’s saying encapsulates the great commandment of Jesus, the life of Jesus, and what John is teaching in his first letter. Being at peace with one another and especially at peace with the environment in which we live is totally based on scripture (see the first creation story in Genesis) and the teachings of Jesus.

“We were all immigrants once.” This is true statement not only of our ancestors who came to the United States, but of the Holy Family. Jesus and his mother and father were political refugees escaping the murderous tyranny of Herod the Great when they migrated from Palestine to Egypt. Jesus was a political refugee and an immigrant, very much one with many who came to the United States from similar political repression, persecution and danger. To turn a deaf ear to the crises and desperation of refuges from Syria, from Central and South America is contrary to the teaching of the Gospel. This is very biblical.

“Everyone does better when everyone does better.” “Love Thy Enemy implies not killing them.” “Our diversity is our strength.” The first is Jesus’ golden rule, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It is also the second part of the great commandment of Jesus, “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” The second is very evident in both Matthew and Luke’s Gospels. Jesus told the crowds that Moses said “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” But Jesus then said, “I give you a new law, love your enemy, pray for those who persecute you.” Loving one’s enemy implies NOT killing them. That was the rule of the early Christian Church. It is absolutely tragic and a sign of being unfaithful to the Gospel that Christians have turned a deaf ear to this law of Jesus. As to the third sign, the strength of the Church has always been in its diversity. Scripture teaches us that we are all made in the image and the likeness of God no matter what color our skin, our culture, our language, our nation, our sex. The separateness that the Tower of Babel came to represent is the antithesis of what God intended at Creation. Diversity is a divine virtue. Racial, cultural, sexual prejudice is a sin.

“When did helping the poor become a sin?” Odd that the mantra of the Republican Party, which purports to be Christian (at least the Democrats acknowledge they are not of any religion), is to persecute the poor (by limiting assistance to the poor by strict limits on unemployment insurance, restricting food stamps, attempts to repeal healthcare, dismantling of Medicade, Medicare, and social security, the list is endless) . In Matthew’s Gospel when Jesus describes the Last Judgment of humanity and divides the sheep from the goats, those who have helped the poor by feeding them, giving them something to drink, clothing them, giving them shelter, welcoming the immigrant, visiting the sick and the imprisoned, to these Heaven is promised. To the goats who closed their ears to the cries of the poor, they are condemned to Hell. Helping the poor is a Gospel mandate. So why has one political party made it mandate to take all help, all hope from the poor? It does not bode well for them at the Last Judgment.

So is this really a Hippie mobile, or is it rather a Gospel mobile? I say everything on the back of the car (with the exception of the Irish flag … my acknowledgment to my Irish ancestry, and the “I love big mutts and I cannot lie”, a sign of affection for our Boxerdore (Lab/Boxer mix mutt), Belle E Button, is Gospel based. If that is being a Hippie, then I guess I am a Hippie. However, I think that it states better that I am a disciple of Jesus who takes what Jesus taught VERY seriously.

(picture from left to right) Me, my brother Bill, and my son, Andy.

I think that I share the sentiment of many other children in saying that my Dad was the best father of all. Yet, he didn’t want any recognition or anyone going to fuss all over him on Father’s Day. I remember asking my Dad why he never made a big deal out of Father’s Day. He basically told me that becoming a father, that is fathering a child, was something that was quite easy. If the conditions are prime, it takes all of about seven seconds. He reminded me that there are many men who never biologically fathered a child who are more “fathers” than many who are biological fathers. For my Dad, honoring one’s father was not something that was done on one Hallmark Card day a year. As in parenting, honoring one’s father is something that must be done every day of the year.

I have been a dad now for close to 41 years, and I understand why my own Dad thought this way. This past Father’s Day, Ruthie and my kids treated me with great kindness and love, yet, this is something they do daily. Like my own Dad, I didn’t want anyone to make a big fuss over me. Contrary to honoring me, it is I who wish to honor them.

I wish to honor Ruthie through whom I first became a father. In fact, I am envious of her who carried our children within her womb for 9 sometimes 9+ months (Luke liked it so much in there he stayed in her womb for 10 ½ months, and yes, we tried to induce him twice). She has an intimate connection to our children which I will never have.

I wish to honor my children, Andy, Luke, Meg, and Beth, who have taught me and continue to teach me what love means in thought and in action. I remember when Andy, our first child was born. Ruthie, after 24 hours in labor, gave birth to him in the, then, new Windom hospital (it was so new they hadn’t had time to install televisions in the rooms … the hospital has since been torn down for the new, new Windom hospital). It was around 3 in the morning, following all the phone calls to our parents, that I began the drive home to our little rented house in the farmer’s village of Jeffers (population 200 something). I was 23 years old and still one of the biggest screw-ups on earth. The frightening realization that I was now a father fell on me like a ton of bricks on that 30 miles drive north to Jeffers. I was a father. This is completely different from raising a puppy. I’m suppose to teach this baby something. What was I going to teach my son, when I was not too sure what my own values are? It was the beginning of an ever deepening introspective examination that has continued to this very day.

The long and the short of it is it is all about learning how to love. How to love as God loves me, and I, in turn, loving others in the very same way that God loves me. My kids have taught me how to love them even during those times during their teenage angst when I would metaphorically be delighted to sell them to the gypsies. Loving them as I have taken on their joys, their sorrows, their confusion, their searching, their craziness, their own love as they experience it. It wrenches my soul when they are depressed, confused, and filled with sorrow. It exhilarates me when they feel joyful, proud of their accomplishments, proud of who they themselves are. It is in all of this that I feel the most honored. They allow me to share in all of their lives and I am a better man, and a better father for it.

So to you, my beautiful Ruth, to you my wonderful children, my greatest legacy, who carry within you both the best and the worse of my genetic make-up (sorry about those defective genes), I honor you for giving me the great honor of being a father. I don’t need anything else and don’t want anything else but to be your dad. Every day for me is a “happy father’s day”.

As a rule, deacons are the ministers of the Blood of Jesus at Eucharistic liturgies. At my ordination Mass, I was given a chalice that held 16 ounces of the Blood of Christ. My communion station was close by the northwest door of the St. Paul Cathedral. As I was distributing the Blood of Christ to the priests attending the ordination, a homeless man budged in near the front of their line. The general rule in the distribution of Holy Communion is that no one in line is refused. As the homeless man stood in front of me, he said to me, “Just what do you got there?” I replied, “This is the blood of Christ.” He said, “I’ll have some of that.” I handed to him the chalice. He nearly consumed 10 ounces of the Blood of Christ. Alarmed, I reached to get the chalice back from him. Smacking his lips as he handed it back to me, he said, “Amen to Jesus!” He then turned and walked out the west door as I and the rest of the priests looked on in bewilderment. Little did I know  that 10 years later, I would be working with the homeless community at St. Stephen’s in South Minneapolis. Jesus comes to us in all sorts of disguises.

Some of us might look upon the homeless man with scorn for being sacrilegious. Some of us may merely pass this off as another one of those odd, amusing scenarios that arise within worship. I have, at times, harbored perhaps both of these feelings. However, what has become more important for me, is that the homeless man receiving the Blood of Christ has become a profound moment illustrating the need for all who receive the Body and Blood of Jesus to BE the Body and Blood of Jesus to others, especially to those who may seem, at least on the surface, to be less than worthy.

In the Gospel account of the feeding of the 5000, not all of those 5000 gathered were worthy to receive the loaves and the fishes that Jesus multiplied. Scattered among that number would have been those who would later plot Jesus’ death. Surely, his apostles, who would later betray and abandon him, were present. Yet, it mattered not to Jesus, who fed them generously, nonetheless.

As we look around us at Mass, we see that we sit in communion with those around us. Some may appear to be as we see ourselves, others overly pietistic, others eclectic, others distracted, and even others reluctant to participate. Yet the Body and Blood we receive unite us in communion with one another. In flesh, we are in “communio” as the living and breathing Body and Blood of Jesus.

In coming forward and receiving the Body and Blood of Jesus, we all share in communion a common mission. This mission is not to be merely receivers of the Body and Blood of Jesus. The grace we receive in Holy Communion is not be hoarded but rather to be shared with others. To use the story of the feeding of the 5000, we become the loaves and fishes that Jesus multiplies to be shared with others. We need the grace and the strength of Holy Communion as Jesus breaks us into his Body and Blood to be shared with those most in need in our world.

Every time we receive Holy Communion, every year when we celebrate this Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Jesus, let us remember that as we say “Amen” to the real presence of Jesus in the bread and the wine, we say “Amen” to the real presence of Jesus in our own Body and Blood. Let us take and receive so that as the Body and Blood of Jesus others may take of us and receive his presence.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. (John 14:27)

When we look upon a pastoral scene, like the one to the left, we feel an overwhelming sense of peace. Though trouble may assail us from all sides, they all seem to slip away as we look and rest in the image.

I remember visiting an elderly woman in the hospital this past year. In addition to her blindness, she was in the last stages of cancer. She had just been told that she was dying, and had arranged to go into in-home hospice.

In spite of all of the grim news, she was at peace. She expressed how incredibly grateful she was to have lived as long as she did, and to experience so much within her lifetime. She was incredibly grateful to have loved and to have received great love from her family and friends. She was grateful to be able to return once more to her apartment and to die in the loving arms of her children. And, lastly, she was so very grateful to God for all of the above.

Not all would have reacted as she. Plague with the same blindness, with life-ending cancer, many would grow in bitterness and anger, flailing out at all, especially at God. The feeling of peace that the woman felt would elude those caught up in their feelings of fear, anger, and bitterness. Rather than just  let go and allow God to fill us with peace, we are wont to dictate the terms of our peace, and, when it fails to happen, grow only more bitter, more angry, and more fearful.

In the gospel periscope above from the 14^th chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus, well aware of the torture and death that awaits him that very night and the following day, is in an utter state of peace. Knowing full well that the lives of his disciples are going to be wrenched apart in the coming violence, Jesus wishes to convey the peace that dwells within him to them. In was being in a loving relationship with God the Father, that Jesus received this overwhelming state of peace. He assures the disciples that this same peace is just as attainable to them, by remaining in relationship with him.

In this gospel today, Jesus gives to us the same offer of peace he extended to his disciples.  Though the world may come down crashing around us, if we enter into a deep, loving relationship with Jesus, we will find ourselves in a state of peace. This peace finds its origins in God the Father, the source of all creation, and passes through the person of Jesus to us. St. Paul, expresses this so well in his letter to the Romans.

“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8: 35-39)

Even though we may flail in fear, anger, and bitterness against God, Jesus does not abandon us but continues to love us. All that is required of us to find the peace that eludes us in the world is to accept the love of Jesus and enter into a relationship with him. It is then that we will know true peace.

“When Judas had left them, Jesus said,
‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.
If God is glorified in him,
God will also glorify him in himself,
and God will glorify him at once.
My children, I will be with you only a little while longer.
I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
This is how all will know that you are my disciples,
if you have love for one another.’” (John 13: 31-33a, 34-35)

At the time John’s gospel was written,  there existed within human society a dualistic way of looking at life. This dualism shows up in John’s gospel  more than the other synoptic gospels. From the opening lines of the Prologue throughout the entirety of John’s gospel, one is asked to ascertain whether one is to be either be a child of the light or a child of darkness. It is clear that only those who choose to follow Jesus become children of the light, while those who do not, dwell as progeny of darkness.

Dualism in the world of humanity has not changed greatly over the passing years. The duality or polarity of humanity continues to rear itself around us. There always seems to be an ultimatum of “either you are with us or against us!” This is played out in the polarization we find in politics, in business , and in religion, especially within the more fundamentalistic segments of  world religions.

In hearing this gospel, one might consider the great commandment to “love one another as I have loved you” as part of a dualistic ultimatum on the part of Jesus. However, it is far from it. The dualism that is in the world is not derived from love, especially the love that Jesus commands. The love of which Jesus speaks is derived from the love that flows from God who created all of humanity. Jesus’ love is all inclusive of humanity. The dualism that is in our world is derived from the exclusivity of human hatred.

When we look at all the things that we “hate”, it is generally because someone or some organization or thing is in opposition to a personally held conviction that is exclusive to us. Don’t we just hate it when someone is in disagreement with one of our positions? This is especially true of those positions we might consider “sacred cows” (Mark Twain had a saying, “sacred cows” make the best hamburger.)

Hatred is something exclusively human. It wells up from within us. When our exclusive world view is threatened or denied by others, we draw lines in the sand, daring those who oppose us to step over them.  Hate is all about us, not about those who are not in agreement with us. Whether that “hate” is mere aggravation on the mild side of the spectrum, or that spiral descent into dark rage on the extreme end of the spectrum, it is always about us and the exclusive world we have built around ourselves. It is from human created hatred that all the dualism and polarity of society is derived and in turn destroys relationships within the community.

The love about which Jesus speaks and commands his disciples to live is all about inclusivity. Jesus’ love extends beyond the love he has for his disciples. Jesus loves Judas, who at the very moment Jesus is speaking, is betraying Jesus to those who will eventually harm him and kill him. Jesus is loving those human beings who will torture him and execute him. Jesus does not love exclusively. Rather, Jesus loves inclusively.

In our society today, in which people find it far easier to reach for a revolver and shoot someone rather than engage in constructive, respectful debate and dialogue, the commandment to love one another as I have loved you, is more challenging to the disciple of Jesus than ever.

To love one another as Jesus commands us, is to live courageously one’s faith as a disciple of Jesus. To love as Jesus loved is to divest ourselves of all weapons of human construct in our arsenal, lethal or otherwise. It is not martial arts that disciples of Jesus must study. As our sensei, Jesus instructs us today as he did the disciples in this Last Supper discourse, to arm ourselves only with the all inclusive weapon of love.

As St. Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, “If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor 13: 1-12)

Are we willing as disciples of Jesus to lay down our lives in love not only for our friends but our enemies as well, or, as St. Paul writes, are we merely only noisy gongs? The gospel challenges us to make a choice today. Will we love inclusively or hate exclusively? The choice is ours.

“The Incredulity of Saint Thomas” – Hendrick ter Brugghen (artist)

“Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” Imagine for a moment how desperately the disciples of Jesus were in need of peace. Their beloved leader, who only did that which was good, was brutally arrested, tortured and then executed. They fled in fear from the time of his arrest and were petrified that the Jewish religious authorities who had engineered the death of Jesus would do the same to them. The taste of fear was on their lips and weighed heavy in their hearts. On top of this fear was the equally heavy weight of their cowardice, their own betrayal of the one they loved. Which was the heavier weight, I wonder, their fear of a reprisal from the Jewish religious authorities, or their own cowardice?

That Easter Sunday night after having heard with some incredulity of Jesus’ body missing from the tomb, first from Mary Magdalene, and then Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple, Jesus suddenly appears in their midst.  He bestows upon them his peace, not once but twice. Imbued within his peace is also his reconciliation with them. They find the weight of their betrayal lifted from their hearts. They find the burden of their cowardice removed from their spirit. Then, in one great gesture of love, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit upon them. As the air from his mouth washes over them, they receive the power to bring that same peace to others in conflict.

As we look around the church on this Sunday morning at those gathered with us, how many of us upon hearing this post-resurrection account from the Gospel of John are truly in desperate need for a state of peace in our lives? How many of us have come to Mass with a doctor’s grim diagnosis of an illness we have still ringing in our ears? How many of us have come to Mass straight from a hospital emergency room in which a loved one is being treated? How many of us have come to Mass from a domestic violent relationship? How many of us have come to Mass reeling from the news of a death of a loved one? How many of us have come to Mass after being up all night with a sick child? How many of us are present at Mass knowing that we have just been laid off from their job, or we are running out of unemployment insurance and do not know how we are to pay for food, and the other necessities of life? How many of us  are in the middle of a foreclosure on their home and do not know where we will be living? How desperate we are in need of the peace that Jesus bestows upon the apostles!

If we expect the peace of Jesus to immediately remove all the conflict and all the stressors from our lives, like the pass of a magician’s magic wand, we will be sorely disappointed. Rather, the peace of Jesus is a state of being. The peace of Jesus permeates the space around us and the space within us. The peace of Jesus permeates our minds, our hearts, the very cells within our bodies. The peace of Jesus does not remove all that conflicts us, ails us, or frightens us, but fills us with the knowledge that as we face all these in our lives we do not do so alone.  We face all these struggles with Jesus.  This is perhaps best expressed in what has come to be known as “The Serenity Prayer,” attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr.

God, give me grace to accept with serenity

the things that cannot be changed,

Courage to change the things

which should be changed,

and the Wisdom to distinguish

the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,

Enjoying one moment at a time,

Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,

Taking, as Jesus did,

This sinful world as it is,

Not as I would have it,

Trusting that You will make all things right,

If I surrender to Your will,

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,

And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

May we invite within ourselves that peace with which Jesus offers to us, and embrace it.

The Triduum, the three days, in which one liturgy is celebrated, is the most powerful liturgy of the liturgical year. Every aspect of human life is celebrated, from birth to death to resurrection, and joined to that of Jesus’ own Paschal journey. From the sharing in the Divine Covenant at the institution of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday, the triumphal death of Jesus on the cross, in which the cross no longer symbolizes defeat, but rather victory, to the resurrection, the ultimate healing and sealing of humanity’s relationship with God in Jesus Christ. This year as I celebrated these three days in the entirety of the parish of St. Wenceslaus, I experienced most profoundly the Communion of the Saints.

As I stood by the baptismal font during the singing of John Becker’s beautiful musical setting of the Litany of the Saints, I saw in my mind’s eye all my loved ones who have died, standing with me around the font. My dad was there, my sister, Mary Ruth, my Grandpa and Grandma Wojnar, Uncle Joe and Aunt Ruth Cunningham, Uncle Bob and Aunt Babe Jernstrom. My Uncle Joe Wojnar and my Uncle Ed Wojnar were there. Aunt Rose and Uncle Leo, Aunt Bell and Uncle Bill, my cousin-in-law Bob Murphy were there. Dr. Maurie Jones, Helen and Bernie Kerber, Blanche and Ivo Schutrop, Archbishop Roach and Bishop Welsh, the men and women from my diaconal class, Bill Beckfeld, By Rudolphi, Tom Semlak, Tom and Lucy Coleman, Helen Ehrmantraut, and others I knew and to whom I had served and ministered were all standing there with me as if they had never left. I felt so overwhelmed and choked up by their presence, I had trouble singing “pray for us” to the Litany, my “pray for us” reduced quite often to a whisper.

I realized in a very striking way that the presence of the saints in my life were not there just because they had been invoked by the living. The saints in my life were there with me on Holy Thursday, and Good Friday, and for that matter every day of my life from they moment they left this life and moved into the fullness of human life.

Intellectually I have known this for a long time. I remember my sister, Mary Ruth, on her death bed greeting all of our dead relatives in the room and turning to my mother and I saying, “They are playing my song, but I am not ready to hear it yet.” I remember a parishioner, comatose on the cusp of death, suddenly opening her eyes as I began the prayer for the dead, “Go forth, Christian Soul to the God who love you …”, looking directly at me, and passed me to the divine life that awaited her. Then, dying the moment the “Amen” at the end of the prayer was said by those gathered around her bed.

The power of Easter is to remind us that life does not end when our physical bodies wear out and quit working. Human life is not defined by weak hearts, aching joints, sickness, weakness, failing organs and failing minds. Rather that death is the entry into a far better life, a life yet to be experienced.  As St. Paul reminds us in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, “For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal. For we know that if our earthly dwelling, a tent, should be destroyed, we have a building from God, a dwelling not made with hands, eternal in heaven.” We recall, as we all gather around the baptismal font, with our communion of saints living and ever living, that this all began at our baptism, as the water was poured and we entered in death into the tomb with Jesus only to rise with him in the Resurrection on the third day.

This past Saturday and Sunday, I had the chameleon role in the Passion, proclaiming lines from Peter, Pilate, the unrepentant thief, the repentant thief, and the centurion. Early on in the Passion, the one line I spoke that resonated with me was Peter’s response to Jesus’ telling the disciples of his impending arrest and death. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, I am prepared to go to prison and to die with you.” We all know how well that turned out for Peter. It was to be much later in his life that Peter would fulfill the words he spoke to Jesus that night.

Many would fault Peter for being a coward and denying Jesus in order to save his own skin. The question that arose in my mind as I read Peter’s response to Jesus at the Last Supper was would I be as full of the same bravado as Peter? When it comes to being true to my faith in Jesus, do I turn and abandon Jesus when I am forced to confront the injustices around me in the world and in the Church? Am I willing to sacrifice all in order to be faithful to Jesus? To I have the fortitude of the early Church martyrs, or, for that matter, the fortitude of Archbishop Oscar Romero who not only confronted the evils of the El Salvadoran government, but faced those evils with little or no support from Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger?

In forty years of Church ministry, I have seen both the positive work that the Roman Catholic Church has done in the world as an institution. I have also seen and experienced the darkness of the institution’s underbelly. The institutional Church is not the whole and sole embodiment of Jesus Christ. The scandals and shortcomings of the Church as an institution only serves to support that the Church is as much in need of conversion as its human members, and the rest of humanity. The Church is, in itself, living proof of Jesus’ love and redemption for even the most crippled and imperfect of humanity.

What may be lacking in my faith in the Church as an institution, is not lacking in my faith in Jesus. While I might doubt the forthrightness of “holy Mother Church”, my faith in Jesus has never been in doubt. While I have experienced my share of hardships, in both health and life, my faith in Jesus has only been strengthened in those hardships.

However, if faced with imprisonment and possible death, would I back down and flee as did Peter, or would I stand my ground and face the consequences of being faithful to Jesus, to be willing, as Peter said with so much bravado, “to go to prison and to die with you (Jesus)!” I have searched my heart and reflected on this. Though the reality of such a thing occurring has not been part of my life’s journey nor may likely be a future part of my life’s journey, am I prepared to go to prison and die for Jesus? Given the current of the political situation in our nation right now, the mob rule that follows and receives tacit and vocal support from Donald Trump, would I be willing to confront the violent mob his candidacy attracts? I hope so.

I have discovered as I have aged that pain and suffering is a natural part of life. I have learned to accept the limitations that my injuries and illnesses has placed on me. There are some principles in life that are more important than comfort. There are some principles in life that are even more important than life itself. The one overarching principle has been that of the Gospel of Jesus, and doing my best to faithfully follow Jesus.

The time may come when I will hear Jesus say to me, “Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” (John 21:18) I hope and pray that if or when that day may come, my faith may not be the empty bravado of Peter from the Passion, but the resolute faith of the post-Pentecost Peter.