Category: Opinion

We are gifted in our nation with the right to vote. It has become all the more apparent that the mid-term elections coming up in one week are very important for us and for our nation. I personally believe that this election is a fight for the soul of our nation. Throughout the past 18 months, the ideals and the principles upon which our nation was founded has been under a deadly assault. The time has come for the citizens of our nation to push back and defeat the racism, the greed, the misogyny, and hatred that has infected our government. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have a beautiful prayer for us to pray as we discern for whom we are voting. I invite all to pray this prayer everyday in anticipation of November 6^th.

Prayer Before an Election

Lord God, as the election approaches,
we seek to better understand the issues and concerns that confront our city/state/country,
and how the Gospel compels us to respond as faithful citizens in our community.
We ask for eyes that are free from blindness
so that we might see each other as brothers and sisters,
one and equal in dignity,
especially those who are victims of abuse and violence, deceit and poverty.
We ask for ears that will hear the cries of children unborn and those abandoned,
Men and women oppressed because of race or creed, religion or gender.
We ask for minds and hearts that are open to hearing the voice of leaders who will bring us closer to your Kingdom.

We pray for discernment
so that we may choose leaders who hear your Word,
live your love,
and keep in the ways of your truth
as they follow in the steps of Jesus and his Apostles
and guide us to your Kingdom of justice and peace.

We ask this in the name of your Son Jesus Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

I guess this can be called the sequel to the bulletin reflection/homily that was published on the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

I have had the great experience of having a strong, intelligent and loving mother. I have the great experience of being married to a strong, intelligent and loving woman. I am proud that both of my daughters are equally strong, intelligent, and loving women.

The following is not meant to be a visceral response to the horrible treatment of Dr. Ford by the Republican senators of the Senate Judicial Committee and the subsequent public ridicule from the present occupant of the oval office. The following article is the result of a lifetime of wonderful, healthy relationships I have had not only with the females of my family, but with those with whom I have ministered in the Church.

Years ago, I was introduced to Jane Austen’s wonderful novel, Pride and Prejudice. The two protagonists of the novel, Elizabeth Bennett, and Mr. Darcy, are equal in spirit, in intelligence, and in tenacity. Mr. Darcy, possessing an inordinate amount of pride, has the freedom that males had at that time to make his fortune in the world. Miss Bennett is frustrated knowing that her future is dependent on being married to a man of wealth. It matters not that her future husband may be a completely unsuitable dotard. Darcy and Elizabeth, after much confrontation, find that they are the perfect match for each other, complete each other, and happily marry at the novel’s conclusion.

In the reading from Genesis, a couple of weeks ago, it was proclaimed that male and female are equally made in the image of God. One does not dominate the other. Both are equal. How does this impact our Church?

Prayer, whether it is prayed by male or female is equal in its power. Aside from the ministering of the sacraments, the ministry of both male and female in the Church is equal in its power to touch, to teach, and to heal the lives of others. Observe the number of women on our parish staff and the marvelous ways they enrich our parish. Observe the number of females who serve in our liturgical ministries at Mass. Within our Archdiocese, women are occupying positions of power and authority within the Chancery.

As Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett needed each other to be complete in Pride and Prejudice, so the evangelization and vitalization of the Church has always needed the Mary Magdalenes, Catherine of Siennas, and Teresa of Avilas. Speaking for myself, this is not the sole responsibility of a tired, old, male hierarchy. All who are baptized have been anointed priest, prophet and king. The Church needs the entirety of the baptized (male and female alike) to fulfill the mission entrusted to it by Christ! Mary Higgins, Laura Schoenecker, and others are offering wonderful opportunities for women to grow in their image of God. Our CCWs do vital and important ministry within our greater parish and need vitalized women of all ages to carry on the ministry begun so many years ago. I encourage all women to examine how they reflect the image of God, and how this reflection can be put to use in this very important mission of the Church.

INTRODUCTION: I began this reflection briefly this morning on Facebook and decided to fully flesh it out. Obeying the commandment to keep holy the Lord’s Day is one of the hardest commandments to keep for someone in church ministry. To truly keep holy the Lord’s Day requires more than just to be present in church. This is especially true for those who are ordained and “doing” the services on the Lord’s Day. I acknowledge that all who are ordained may not see honoring this commandment through the same lens that I have. Nonetheless, I believe that keeping holy the Lord’s Day is an ongoing challenge for all in church ministry.

While my work week really begins on Saturday, Monday still feels like the beginning of the week. One of the topics for the next Archdiocesan clergy day is how the ordained can keep holy the Sabbath. When you are working the Sabbath, you don’t celebrate it. Working in the Church can often make one weary of religion. After a load of weekend Masses, baptisms, & pastoral visits the last thing I seek is more religion.

Being essentially an introvert, it takes a great deal of energy to be present and celebrate Mass well. Unlike extroverts who are energized by large groups of people, I find that large groups of people suck the energy from me. So when I am done with Sunday rituals & visits, I need time to just be away to replenish my energy. Sabbath is synonymous with rest. How does one keep holy the Sabbath when in celebrating it, one is exhausted by it? When the Sabbath is anything but a day of rest?

Rabbi Harold Kushner addresses the important need for the Sabbath as a time to rest one’s soul in his book, “The Lord Is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-third Psalm.” He writes: “I read once of a group of tourists on safari in Africa. They had hired several native porters to carry their supplies while they trekked. After three days, the porters told them that they would have to stop and rest for a day. They were not tired, they explained, but “we have walked too far too fast and now we must wait for our souls to catch up to us.” We too can be so busy taking care of things that we neglect our souls. What shall we say about the men and women who invest so much time and energy in their jobs that they have neither time nor energy left for their families when they arrive home? Do they need to pause to let their souls catch up to them?

” … The world asks so much of us. We give ourselves so totally to our work, to the task of raising our family and running a home, to our volunteer commitments that we often forget to take time to nourish our souls, forgetting that we need to rely on the wisdom of the soul to guide our working and our living hours. Our bodies are more active when we are awake than when we are sleeping, sometimes frantically so. But our souls may be as absent during the day as they are at night. We lack the wisdom of those native porters, the wisdom to know that we have left our souls behind and we need to stop and let our souls catch up to us. The psalmist would remind us that God has given us ways to reclaim our humanity when pressures of time and obligation have caused us to misplace it, and that part of God’s role as faithful guardian of the flock is to urge us to remember to be human. Our task is to stop long enough to hear that message.

” … When our souls are on the verge of giving in to compassion fatigue, when we know what the right thing to do is but we are tired of being charitable and helpful, that is when we need God to restore our souls, to replenish our ability to act like human beings, to understand that what is asked of us is not to make the world perfect but to make one person’s life better. When events challenge our faith so that we find it hard to believe that this world is God’s world, that is when we need God to restore our souls, to reinforce our ability to believe in ourselves and in our ability to do good things. Even as a faithful shepherd gives his flock the food and water they need to be sheep, God, our faithful shepherd, gives us the strength of soul we need to be human.”*

Now beginning my 41st year of ministry, in being busy about “doing” the Sabbath for 40 years, I have realized that I have been cheating the Sabbath. It has taken its toll on me. While I have not lost my soul, it takes quite a while for my soul  to “catch up with me.”  And I confess, that some weeks and even some months, particularly the high holy seasons of Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter,  my soul may never catch up with me.

I find it ironic that the one thing that those of us in ministry “doing religion” share with those that never darken the door of any church, synagogue, mosque or temple, is distraction from God. Many who do not go to church, synagogue, mosque or temple are distracted from God by all the things of life. Many of us in ministry may be distracted from God by being busy “doing religious things.” Having been busy about “doing religion” for over 40 years, I have come to see that “doing religion” is not being faithful. “Doing religion” is about being busy. It is about work obligations. Rather than building faith, “doing religion” is distracting me from faith, preventing me from being fully faithful.

While many people get excited about Relevant Radio, EWTN, and other religious programming and media, I eschew it all. In ministry, one is immersed in religion, rest does not come from drowning in the glut of religious radio, television, and print media, much of it painfully trite, self-righteous,  filled with religious schmaltz and sentimentality, and, a near occasion of sin (EWTN especially so for me).

I love the Bible, however, I do not find rest in the Bible. Why? Reading the Bible is more about doing than resting for me. Having been thoroughly schooled in Biblical Exegesis in graduate school and the seminary, the Bible has a task oriented focus. It is hard to pray the Bible when one’s mindset has been focused on “studying” the Bible. The Liturgy of the Hours, or breviary, as church neo-cons call it, is pretty much the same. I do faithfully pray it every day. However, its focus is again task oriented. In praying the Liturgy of the Hours, we join our prayer with that of Christ to the Father, praying for the whole world. Noble? Yes! Necessary? Absolutely! Restful? No!

So, how can someone stay in ministry, keep holy the Sabbath, and truly rest in the Sabbath? This question has become my major focus for my 41^st year of ministry. With only one day off a week, and that day often spent in doing the necessary things about the house and being present to my family, the day is too task oriented to truly keep holy the Sabbath, to rest as God has commanded us to rest.

I am convinced that the only way for me, as a church minister, to keep holy the Sabbath is to escape doing religion. To clarify, this does not mean to divest myself of Catholicism, to skip Sunday Masses, or to escape God. Rather, by escaping doing religion the quest is to find God.  It is basically doing that which Jesus did during his ministry among us on earth. He went away, literally escaped from the religious demands placed upon him, in order to be faithful to his heavenly Father. Jesus went away by himself to some lonely place so that he could replenish his energy by being in communion with the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. This is especially true for myself, an introvert.

If the demands of ministry prevent me from escaping and resting a whole day of Sabbath, I have found that I need to insert a small time of the Sabbath into every day. This small time of Sabbath excludes those “holy things” I am obligated to do as an ordained deacon. To keep holy the tiniest piece of Sabbath every day is to escape doing of religion and fully resting in silence in the presence of God that is all around me. It means finding a quiet place, most often not a church, but a place where I can rest, free from all distraction, and sit in quiet before God.

While it is helpful that this place of respite is a quiet place far from noise, truth be told, the place of respite for which I long is more interior.  Rabbi Martin Buber’s “third threshold” (See Buber’s epic book, I and Thou, for a full examination of the three thresholds in which God and humanity meet) is the place where upon our souls meet face to face with the Divine Presence of our loving God. The journey to that third threshold is an ongoing pilgrimage for me, one in which I have experienced only very briefly. It is the place, the ultimate place of Sabbath, where my soul finally catches up with me, and as one, I rest with the God who created me and loves me.

*Kushner, Harold S.. The Lord Is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the Twenty-third Psalm (pp. 60-62, 72). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

 

Ah, by the title of this post, one might think, “Oh, he is referring to praying to God through Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, in the Holy Spirit,” as we state in the Doxology in Mass just prior to the Great Amen. Or, again, one might not be thinking that or even considering that. What I am alluding to is in reference to the order of grammar.

Grammatically, first person singular is stated by using the word, “I.” For instance, “I walked to the store.” Second person singular is stated by using the word, “you,” as in, “You went to the store.” Third person singular is stated by using the words, “he” or “she”, as in “He or She went to the store.”

In many of the Psalms, God is addressed in the third person singular as “he.” The difficulty I find with this is not only because the reference is not inclusive of the reality of God in whose image women and men are created.

My primary difficulty is that the third person singular reference to God is too impersonal. Praying to God in the third person singular I find tantamount to praying to an object, like praying to a rock, or a chair, an “it.” The relationship we, as human beings, have with objects is one of ownership, not a personal relationship. Theologically, we, creatures of God, do not “own” God, even though we may try to created God in our own image. The creature does not own the creator.

However, praying to God in the 2nd person singular form, “you”, implies a relationship that is personal and close. This requires a little mental “retranslation” as I pray the psalms during the Liturgy of the Hours. For instance, using the Grail translation of this morning’s psalm, Psalm 24. The Grail translation states, “The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness, the world and all its peoples. It is he who set it on the seas; on the waters he made it firm.” I retranslate this from the third person to the second person in this way. “My Lord, yours are the earth and all its fullness, the world and all its peoples. It is you who set it on the seas; on the waters you made it firm.” Is not referring to God in the second person far more personal? Is not referring to God in the second person far more prayerful?

I suggest for those of us who pray the Liturgy of the Hours, especially the psalms, to try using the second person singular in praying to God. It adds a depth to the Psalms that is sorely lacking in the third person singular. In closing, I leave your with a retranslation of the Grail translation of the Morning Canticle, the Canticle of Zachary.

“Blessed be you, my Lord, the God of Israel; you have come to your people and set us free. You have raised up for us a mighty savior; born of the house of your servant, David.  Through your holy prophets you promised of old, that you would save us from our enemies, from the hands of all who hate us. You promised to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember your holy covenant. This was the oath you swore to our father, Abraham, you would set us free from the hands of our enemies, free to worship you without fear, holy and righteous  in your sight all the days of our lives. You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare the way of the Lord, to give the people of God knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of sins. In your tender compassion, our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shone on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”