Month: February 2018

Reflection for the 1st Sunday of Lent, year B

Over the many Seasons of Lent we have lived, what continues to be impressed upon us by the Church is the need to fast, the need to pray, and need to give alms. These “disciplines” are the key means in which we are able to enter into an even deeper relationship with the God who created us and loves us. Relationship is the key word here.

We live lives always in relationship with something. We have a relationship with the things we have or own, for example, cars, homes, cell phones, tablets, food, to name just a few. We have a relationship with the things that we do, work, sports, and other entertainments. The relationship we have with these things can dominate our lives. The 3 disciplines of Lent allow us to “refocus” the relationships that may overwhelm our lives.

Fasting from the relationships we may have with the things we own or the things we do, frees us to be more in relationship with God. Following the example of Jesus, prayer is a very intimate way in which we commune with God. While Mass is the ultimate prayer, let us pray daily. Prayer is not confined to the rote prayer we learned as kids. Among the myriad number of ways to pray are walking in nature, meditation, reading scripture, the rosary. We need to find the way we pray best, and then do it daily. Giving alms allows us to enter into a relationship with the presence of God in others. The means by which we give alms is as many as the ways to pray. We may give money to worthy causes. However, we may better give alms volunteering our time to help others. Visiting someone who is sick or homebound, volunteering in our child’s school, or at church, or in our community. Spending more quality time with our own children are all ways to “give alms”.

Lent is more than just giving up chocolate. Lent is about building a deeper relationship with God through the time honored disciplines of fasting, prayer, and alms giving.

A Lenten Hymn – Creator of the Earth and Skies

In praying the Liturgy of the Hours on Ash Wednesday, specifically Morning Prayer, the prayer began with the hymn, “Creator of the Earth and Skies.” This is the text of the hymn:

“Creator of the earth and skies,
to whom the words of life belong,
Grant us your truth to make us wise;
Grant us our power to make us strong.

Like theirs of old, our life is death,
Our light is darkness,
till we see the eternal Word made flesh and breath,
The God who walked by Galilee.

We have not known thee:
to the skies our monuments of folly soar,
And all our self-wrought miseries
Have made us trust ourselves the more.

We have not loved thee:
far and wide the wreckage of our hatred spreads,
And evils wrought by human pride
Recoil on unrepentant heads.

For this, our foolish confidence,
Our pride of knowledge and our sin,
We come to you in penitence;
In us the work of grace begin.”

I have been reflecting on the text of this hymn since Ash Wednesday morning. How well it applies to much of what has happened in human history. How sadly it comments on the present state of our United States. In terms of present policies and presidential orders affecting immigration, taxation, foreign policy, healthcare, the attacks on the important safety nets for our elderly, our poor, the hungry of our nation, all of it is based on human folly and greed. From the White House, and the halls of Congress, from the State Houses and the corporate board rooms, from the mansions of the rich to the homes and hovels of the poor, from the naves of mighty cathedrals and TV evangelists to the store front churches, we all be need be dressed in sackcloth and ashes.

For the politicians who continue to ignore gun violence and offer empty prayers for the victims of mass shootings

To trump, and all members of Congress on either side of the aisle that has received bribe money from the NRA and the gun manufacturers and spew meaningless rhetoric of keeping victims and families of victims of gun violence in their prayer, I offer these words written by the prophet Isaiah, thousands of years ago.

“What do I care for the multitude of your sacrifices?
says the LORD.
I have had enough of whole-burnt rams
and fat of fatlings;
In the blood of calves, lambs, and goats
I find no pleasure.
When you come to appear before me,
who asks these things of you?
Trample my courts no more!
To bring offerings is useless;
incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and sabbath, calling assemblies—
festive convocations with wickedness—
these I cannot bear.
Your new moons and festivals I detest;
they weigh me down, I tire of the load.
When you spread out your hands,
I will close my eyes to you;
Though you pray the more,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood!
Wash yourselves clean!
Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes;
cease doing evil;
learn to do good.
Make justice your aim: redress the wronged,
hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.
Come now, let us set things right.” (Is 1: 11-18a)

trump and Congress, it is time to set things right. legislate gun control so the gun massacres that occur in our schools end!

A musical prayer for the victims and their families of the gun massacre at Parkland High School, Florida.

(c) 2016 by Deacon Bob Wagner OFS. All rights reserved.

this Psalm Offering 1 Opus 7, composed as a prayer for the Philando Castille, murdered in August 2016 and for the mass shootings of Dallas police two days later, is offered for the dead, wounded, and emotionally and spiritually wounded victims of the gun massacre at Parkland High School, Florida yesterday.

A reflection for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

I received an education in how people like to group people into categories when, as a junior in high school, I moved back to Minnesota from Chicago. The high school that I chose was a microcosm of cliques, of those who were “in” and those who were “out”. Having been in the same school from kindergarten, students over time had been sentenced to social ghettos within the high school. There were the jocks/cheerleaders, the popular kids, the geeks, the street kids, the hippies, and so on. Being new to the school, I could not be assigned a specific student ghetto. As a result, I floated freely within the social ghettos of the high school and quickly learned the difference between a genuine welcome and a phony welcome. I chose the clique that welcomed me genuinely and in doing so met my future bride.

In the scripture readings today we experience the social ghettos of 1st century Jewish society. There were those people who were the religiously righteous and those who were the ostracized. Jesus floated equally among the contrasting religious ghettos of his society. What the religious righteous of his time could not wrap their minds around was why Jesus didn’t spend more time with them, and why he spent more of his time associating with and ministering to the lepers, social and literal, of their society, namely, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, and all they considered “sinners.” As the Gospels illustrate, Jesus was very astute as to who welcomed him genuinely and those who did not.

In our relationship with other people we like to think in categories of “us” and “them.” What this Gospel demonstrates for us is that there are no “lepers” estranged from God. There is no “us” and “them” in God’s eyes. All humanity, regardless of race, culture, religion and nation, are children of the one, true God. The religious and social ghettos we construct in human society and within our own parish are in direct conflict with the Divine plan of God. This Gospel challenges all of us to reexamine the way we order our world.

Bulletin Article for the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Scripture references: Jb 7:1-4, 6-7, Mk 1:29-39

In the first reading, we hear Job refer to human life as a drudgery. He then expounds on how miserable his life has become and ends his soliloquy with the words, “Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.” Job is not alone. The prophet Jeremiah, overwhelmed by depression, complains that God has duped him, and, what is worse, is he allowed himself to be duped. Jeremiah, lists how hard his life as a prophet has been concluding that he wishes he had never been born. Many of us may have felt or said something very similar at one time or another in our lives. It is a comfort knowing that while misery loves company, we are, at the very least, in the good company of Job and Jeremiah.

It is important for us to not leave Job and Jeremiah in the throes of their disillusionment. As much as they may have felt left abandoned by God, God did not abandon them. God remained true to them and was present to them. The Psalmist of Psalm 23 writes that even though he walks through the valley of death, God continues to walk by his side. It is important for us to note that the Psalmist does not say that by being faithful servants of God we will not experience desolation or hardship. What the Psalmist states is that when we do experience dark times in our lives, God will not abandon us. God will remain present to us, just as God has done for Job and Jeremiah.

If we need more proof of this we must look to the life of Jesus, who, in the Passion accounts of Mark and Matthew, also expressed, “My God, my God! Why have you abandoned me?” It is true that Jesus dies feeling alone and abandoned in those two accounts of his Passion. It is also true that God the Father did not abandon him, but remained present to him, raising Jesus victoriously from the dead on the third day. When times of disillusionment and desperation fall upon us, let us recall that we are never left alone by God. God is very present to us, just as God was present to Job, Jeremiah, and especially Jesus.

Bulletin Article for the 4th Sunday of Ordinary

Scripture references: Dt 18:15-20, Mk 1:21-28

Astonishment! Amazement! Those are feelings many felt when the Vikings beat the Saints in the last 10 seconds of that first playoff game. Having had my heart broken by the Vikings these many years, I was astonished they didn’t choke and lose the game. Astonishment and amazement are feelings that we reserve for only the most extraordinary moments we have in life. We generally use the word “surprise” to describe the ordinary moments in life, e.g. “Joe was surprised he aced the test.”

In the Gospel, today, people of Capernaum were not expecting even a surprise when they went to the synagogue for the Sabbath. However, when they heard Jesus teach they were astonished. It was not only the people of Capernaum who were astonished. The demon, possessing the man in the synagogue, expressed great astonishment as Jesus cast him out of the man. The people witnessing this act of Jesus were spellbound in amazement. Astonishment and amazement are not feelings we can manufacture or force upon ourselves. When we experience these two profound feelings, we find that they occur when we least expect them.
What feeling do you feel when you hold a consecrated host in your hand? How does it feel to know that the God who created you, the God who created heaven and earth, rests gently in your palm? Are you not astonished and amazed? The hymn, Gift of Finest Wheat, expresses this so poetically. “The mystery of your presence Lord, no mortal tongue can tell; whom all the world cannot contain comes in our hearts to dwell.” (© 1997, Archdiocese of Philadelphia, text by Omar Westendorf.)

The words astonishment and amazement aptly expresses our encounters with God. These encounters occur not only at Mass. We encounter the same astonishment when we walk out the door and see a beautiful sunrise greeting us at the beginning of the day, or in the amazement we feel as we lose ourselves in the heavens gazing upon the stars. We encounter the astonishment of God when we look into the eyes of a newborn baby, or gaze into the eyes of the one we love. As we walk into this new week, let us open ourselves to encounters with our God. They will come when we least expect them and we will be astonished and amazed.