2nd Sunday of Easter

2.a.Sunday.of.Easter.Divine.Mercy

Acts 2:42-47; 1 Pt 1:3-9; Jn 20:19-31

          There is a plethora of topics and themes we could discuss this Sunday:

1.    We could talk about the first Christian communities and the ways they were experiencing the Risen Lord.

2.    Or about doubting Thomas.

3.    Or about Divine Mercy Sunday, which implicitly tries to convey a message about the value of every human being and his or her preciousness in the eyes of God.

4.    We could talk about one of the greatest propagators of the devotion to Divine Mercy, John Paul II, who is beatified today, May 1, 2011, by our pope Benedict  XVI.

          However, I believe that in each of these themes we find one common factor, namely - an encounter with Christ can change the lives of all those who are willing to open their hearts to His truth. The Eucharistic Liturgy for which we gather here should be one of those opportunities when we encounter the Risen Christ.

          Recently I read an article called “The Hidden Exodus: Catholics Becoming Protestants,” by Thomas Reese. In his article the Pew Research Center Forum on Religion and Public Life has come up with hard numbers regarding some anecdotal evidence that (quoting or paraphrasing the words of the article):

·       One out of every 10 Americans is an ex-Catholic. (That would be about 31 million people, according to my calculations). Other articles mention number of 22 millions.

·       If they were a separate denomination, they would be the third-largest denomination in the United States, after Catholics and Baptists.

·       One in three people who were raised Catholic no longer identifies him or herself as Catholic.  

·       Almost half of those leaving the church become Protestant, joining the mainline or the evangelical Protestant churches. The principal reason for them to become Protestant is that their "spiritual needs were not being met" in the Catholic Church. They joined their new church because they enjoy the religious service and style of worship of their new faith.

·       Those who join the evangelical churches are leaving the Catholic Church to get spiritual nourishment from worship services and the Bible.

As Reese says in his article, "Dissatisfaction with how the church deals with spiritual needs and worship services dwarfs any disagreement over specific doctrines...the people becoming Protestants are not lazy or lax Christians. In fact, they attend worship services at a higher rate than those who remain Catholic...they also claim to have a stronger faith now than when they were children or teenagers.”

          Reading this article sent a chill through my body. What about you? Does this article also speak about our own community of St. Mary's? 

          Many of us, although we would not admit it, are very confused:

1.    Some of us, regardless of our age, are yearning for the church of 50s and 60s easily confusing tradition with traditionalism despite the fact that as famous church historian Jaroslav Pelican says: "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living."

2.    Some sees catholic tradition as religious grab in which they are free to pull out whatever they find appealing. Cafeteria approach to life is the best, isn't it?

3.    Some of us, as good consumers, expect the best possible service at the most convenient time and at a minimal cost. It is always someone else who has to sacrifice or deliver. The consumer is always right, isn't that true?

4.    And some of us are yearning for the good old days when "priests were priests and nuns were nuns", we had more priests and nuns and pending on a location congregations tended to be smaller. Priests had time to pray and study theology. Priesthood was considered a lifestyle. However, if you are now expecting me to cry on your shoulders about hard times, don’t worry: I won’t. 

          Rather let us talk about what we can do here, now, in the midst of our community, to make sure that the Eucharistic liturgy for which we gather is one of those opportunities when we encounter the Risen Christ. 

          Please listen carefully to what I am about to say. I will be seeking your advice and wisdom. I will be also asking you to help yourself to have more meaningful liturgical experiences here at St. Mary's. In two weeks we will take a survey that will help us make final decisions so we would be able to implement them after June 12th, after our parish picnic. If you miss anything from today's reflections, you can check my blog, its address is in our bulletin. These reflections are posted there almost word for word.

          What I am about to say is both a proposal and an opening dialogue and consists of negotiable and non-negotiable items. 

First the Non-negotiable items:

          Starting the weekend of June 18 and 19, we will change to a new Mass schedule. We will have only three Masses each weekend so that we will not be so "splintered" as a community and will have a richer liturgical experience. The Sunday 5 pm Mass will be terminated.

Now, the Negotiable items:

          The Saturday 5 pm Mass, if the diocese allows us to do it, could be moved to 4 pm. I think that would be more accommodating for senior citizens and would allow us to have Saturday evening activates as a community after Mass from time to time. Confession would be moved to Friday morning or a weekday evening or between Masses on Sunday. God willing, we would have more "traditional hymns", including organ music, offered during that Mass. 

          The Sunday 8:30 am Mass would move to 9 a.m. I believe that a later hour of the morning will allow more of you to attend this celebration.  Families with children will not feel so rushed in the morning to come to church. God willing, we would have our choir at this Mass with well-known music from the past 40-50 years.

          The Sunday 11:00 am Mass would move to 12 noon. I hope this time will encourage many of you who have attended the Sunday 5 pm Mass to come to this celebration.  God willing, we will have a band playing contemporary Christian music of the new millennia.

Having Sunday Masses at 9 and 12 should give us the necessary time to continue our children Christian formation classes on Sunday mornings. It could also help us to have an ample time for possible confessions.

To further increase our liturgical experience here in our church, I would request of you the following:

1. Please, if you can, be more generous financially so that we can hire a choir director and /or some accompanists to help us with music for our celebrations. If you are asking yourself if you should put more of your contributions into debt reduction or regular collections, please know that for the next year or two we need more financial resources to help our ministries. This should be our priority for now. The answer should be then regular collections.

2. Be willing, if you have not done so yet, to step up and to get involved in the liturgical ministries of our church. In the narthex for the next two weekends, we will have volunteers waiting for you to sign up to be:

a)    an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist,

b)   a Lector,

c)    an Altar Server, even if you are an adult,

d)   a Greeter,

e)    an Usher,

f)     a Choir member or an instrumentalist, or

g)    an Art and Environment Minister

This Eucharistic Liturgy for which we gather should be one of the most important opportunities when we encounter the Risen Christ. We all should do anything possible to make that a reality for all of us here.

         

Good Friday, April 22, 2011

Can you forgive God for suffering you and so many others experience?

Can you forgive God for creating a world in which the wrong things happen to the people you love?

Can you forgive yourself for inflicting hurt on others?

Can you forgive God for allowing His Son to suffer and to die on the cross?

As you venerate the cross tonight, as you embrace its mystery, please remember that God suffers each time one of His children suffers and dies.

The answers you are looking for can be found only with God  who has come to us in the incarnation of His Son. God who continues coming to us through the incarnation of caring people.

Holy Thursday, April 21, 2011

        The nomadic Semites had a feast that they celebrated the night of the first fool moon of spring, when they were about to lead their flocks to summer pastures. With the unleavened bread of Bedouins, they had no time to let the dough rise, and some herbs, which were found in the desert, they ate a roasted lamb from the flock. This “migration” was a very important occasion, and a very dangerous one. So to ward off these dangerous they adored God, the source and master of life, by marking their tent-pegs with blood of the lamb which they killed. The whole celebration was taking place at night, at the beginning of their journey, before the flock was ready to leave at dawn.

        Many centuries later, during the Israelite's exodus from Egypt this ritual received a new meaning. The meaning presented to us in today’s first reading from the book of Exodus. The feast was to be celebrated as a memorial of God’s intervention on behalf of His people who were called to leave a land of their slavery in order to migrate to the Promised Land.

As centuries were passing by, that particular celebration has become for the Israelites an occasion to express their yearning for God’s saving power and for His Messiah who was to save them from their current problems and sufferings. This celebration was such an important occasions that it could not be observed alone. It had to be celebrated among family members and neighbors.

This was exactly the meal Jesus celebrated with his disciples on the night before he suffered and died. It was a dark time in the history of the Israel who was occupied by the Romans.

 However, that night, one more time, this meal received a new meaning. That night Jesus made clear to his disciples that he was that Messiah everyone was waiting for, the one who was promised to them by God to bring salvation, that this salvation would be offered to people of Israel in its fullness after he willingly allowed for his life to be taken away from him. He was to be a new sacrificial lamb.

Jesus was heading towards that ultimate sacrifice.  He had been giving up his life in the service to others for many years:

-        by leaving his house, family, and preaching the good news of salvation,

-        by bringing forgiveness and peace to sinners,

-        by defending the poor and the oppressed

-        by healing the sick,

-        by challenging inhuman rules and leaders.

He served others anyway he could to bring them closer to God and each other. He served them by building the reign of God in their midst. This was a goal of his life.

However, before he was to pay the ultimate price, on that night we have heard about in today’s gospel, during his Passover meal with his disciples, he reminded them what his ministry with them was about:

“He rose from supper and took off his outer garments.

He picked up a towel and tied it around his waist.

Then he poured water into a basin

and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them

with the towel around his waist.”

And as he finished washing their feet he put his garments back on and reclined at table again and simply said to them:

“I have given you a model to follow,

so that as I have done for you, you should also do”

        Jesus affirmed and reminded his disciples that salvation of God is offered to God’s people through service and ministry, even through the most humiliating acts of service, as slaves’ work of washing feet, or the ultimate act of giving up the life if necessary.

        We are gathered here tonight in our church to pronounce that as Disciples of Christ we understand the legacy Jesus left us. That we have not lost that legacy’s meaning. We are gathered here celebrating our Christian Passover, the Eucharist, knowing that it calls us to service and ministry, to easing the pain and suffering in this world. For this is one of the most important ways God continues offering His salvation to this world and His people.

Tonight our Eucharistic Celebration is to help us to deepen our understanding of our service and ministry to others, to each other, by reliving some of those moments described in today’s gospel.

What we are about to do is not just re-enactment of what happened in the past. This is not just dramatization, or actors’ play, in which the priest and 12 men portray one of the scenes of the Last Supper. We will be using the symbolic action of washing feet to pronounce that Jesus’ legacy is present in the life of each one of us regardless of who we might be:

-        a man or a woman

-        a parent or a child

-        a priest

-        a husband or a wife.

We will be kneeling before the one whose feet we will wash, as we do that in the front of the Blessed Sacrament, recognizing God’s presence in them.The mystery of our service and ministry to each other on our journey to God is to be a center of our Christian lives. This is the way we build the God’s reign in our midst. Through the ministry of love, forgiveness, and compassion.

In a couple of minutes some members of our pastoral and finance councils of our church will began washing feet of others. We will have four places in front of the altar. Please, come forward, have your feet washed or if Spirit of God calls you , replace those doing that service and start washing the feet of others, perhaps the feet of your wife or husband, your parent or child, your neighbor, or your classmate.

This is the legacy that Jesus has left to us, to serve one another as he served us. Tonight we just remind ourselves about it in this symbolic action of washing each other’s feet.

We are no longer priests, deacons, layers, doctors, teachers, professors, man or women, children or parents, husbands or wives, but we are servants of God and each other. The servants who through the service of love, forgiveness, and compassion build God’s reign in the midst of this community and world, and make God’s salvation a reality of their and our own lives.