The 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, July 22, 2013

Genesis 18:1-10a; Colossians 1:24-28; Luke 10:38-42

          The last weeks story of the good Samaritan and today's story of Mary and Martha are not complete without each other. Each one makes its own point, the Samaritan loves his neighbor, and Mary loves her Lord, but the true model for the disciple is found  in the combination of the two. The life of a disciple requires both: doing and listening.

          Obviously today's story of Mary and Martha emphasizes the skill and task of  listening.

          Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem-to die. We all can assume that this is what is on his mind as he visits his friends in Bethany. He comes to their home, perhaps to find some peace, to ease the tension of his heart, to find some calm away from the demanding crowds. It seems as he just want to rest a bit and to be in the presence of his friends. It is a great day for all of them, perhaps they have not seen each other for  a while.

          Martha is eager to celebrate that day and her friend's visit by cooking and preparing an exquisite meal for him, by laying on the best the house could give. But this is not what Jesus seems to need.

          I believe that one of the most important lessons of today's story is very simple - listen and discern other persons needs first before you try to do anything to help him or her. Be open to what they need and give them what they need. It is not about you.

          Unless you do that in your desire to help you might be of no help to them but rather become a source of frustration to yourself and the other.

          This seems to be true for each one of us in our personal lives, and also true for any organizations and parish communities we are a part of. Listening and discerning are very important part of theirs and our lives.

The 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, July 14, 2013

Deut 30:10-14; Col 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37

           I grew up with hatred towards and hating  Germans, Russians, Ukrainians and the Communists. You might ask me why? The Polish history is very complicated, but let me give you a very few examples taken just from a time of the War World Two.

          Because of that war hatred towards Germans was very much sanctioned by public media. After all they were responsible for starting it. Germans, of course no distinction was made between ordinary Germans and Nazis, were responsible for killing about 6 million Polish citizens, about 16 to 17 % of the population. Almost every Polish family lost someone during that war. I was shown rivers in which instead of water human blood was flowing, instead of fish corpses of polish soldiers. Aushwitz  was only 40 miles away from my hometown. I visited it for the first time when I was of kindergarten age. Some of my own family members were killed by Germans, others dragged behind the car for helping the Jewish and sent to forced labor into Germany. 

          The Ukrainians were hated mainly because of the actions of Ukrainian Insurgent Army which killed about 80 to 100 thousands Poles during the war. The Army  used to  pillage the villages and to burn them the ground. Victims, regardless of age or gender, were routinely tortured to death. If I recall correctly some of them were beheaded, dismembered, torn apart in half. More than once the whole populations of the villages, of course including small children and elderly, were burned alive after being lacked up in the barns. 

          The Russians and the Communists were also hated but this hatred could not be shown in public. After the war the words Montecassino, General Anders, Katyn were forbidden words. Why? For example, in Katyn in 1940 about 22,000 Poles were executed by the Russians.  Most of the killings were methodical. After the personal information of the condemned was checked, he was handcuffed and led to a cell insulated with stacks of sandbags along the walls and a felt-lined, heavy door. The victim was told to kneel in the middle of the cell, was then approached from behind by the executioner and immediately shot in the back of the head. The body was carried out through the opposite door and laid in one of the five or six waiting trucks, whereupon the next condemned was taken inside. The first transport on 4 April 1940, carried 390 people, and the executioners had a hard time killing so many people during one night. This is why the following transports were no greater than 250 people. The executioners used German weapons rather than the standard Soviet revolvers, as the latter were said to offer too much recoil, which made shooting painful after the first dozen executions.  The chief executioner is reported to have personally shot and killed 7,000 of the condemned, some as young as 18.

          And then my own personal turn came, to feel from my own experience what it means to hate the Communists. I was detained by them at the age of 17.  For some time I was interrogated, beaten, faced two marshal law courts, and constant thoughts of possibility of being executed in some forest. Thanks God it was not 1940s or 1950s, but 1980s.  I was finally released from detention.

          Still feeling physical blows to my body from the interrogations any other forms of physical violence against me, still smelling in my nostrils foul smells of  urine, feces and human sweat which filled the cell in which I was detained, still hearing the voices of man howling a day and a night like a dog I went back to my high school. After all I was still a student, I was supposed to be a junior that upcoming school year. I wanted to continue attending my high school and I guess I wanted to have again some feeling of normalcy. But shortly after I entered the premises of the school I was called to the office of the school principal. I was informed that I was suspended from receiving any further education in socialistic Poland and then I was placed under home arrest until my educational future could be determined by the members of the communistic party and the school faculty. Finally after two weeks of home arrest I was informed that I could continue with my studies in the school.

          Subsequently, I found out that the only reason I was allowed to continue my education was because a member of the communistic party intervened on behalf of  me and was defending me in a court. She was the only person, no one else,  who had enough courage to do it.

          I would never thought in million years that the person against whose kind I hold hatred in my heart for so many years since my early childhood would defend me and give me, so to speak, the second chance.

          My heart and my way of thinking started changing. Is that possible that not every German is a killer and a Nazi, not every Ukrainian is a murderer whom you cannot trust, not every Russian is a communist and an executioner who yearns to spill Polish blood, and not every communist is a monster?

          It was a process but I finally, probably, for the first time in my life consciously started to understand and accept that not every German, Ukrainian, Russian, Communist, Samaritan is bad. There are good Germans, Ukrainians, Russians, Communists, and Samaritans. I can't just label people and hate them because they are different from me and I was taught to hate them. I can't live my life being prejudiced against others even before I get to know them.

          Some of them might be actually even true heroes.  They are capable to demolish all boundaries of expectations of other people and their own prejudices. It seems as in their eyes any social position, race, religion, nationality, political convictions count for nothing if a person in true need is encountered. It seems as they believe that mercy sees only need and responds with compassion regardless of the circumstances.

          Could I say the same about myself who claims to be a good Pole and Catholic?

          An Arab proverb says: "To have a good neighbor you must be one."

                    This is why I believe to this day we tell the story of the Good Samaritan, and this is why to this day I remember my Good Samaritan, the Good Communist of my youth.

         

The 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, July 07, 2013

Is 66:10-14c; Gal 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-9

Independence is something, which we value a lot in America. Independence gives us freedom from any forms of abuse or oppression. It allows us to prosper, to develop, to express ourselves freely.  Each year we celebrate our National Independence Day on the 4th of July, as we just did it this past week, to honor those who sacrificed so much so we can live in this land of the free and the home of the brave, and never take it for granted.

If anyone should appreciate that nowadays  it is definitely us Catholics. For paradoxically, we have to put up quite a fight in this land of free to be free. We should never forget about it whenever we celebrate the Independence Day.  For it is indeed a miracle that Catholicism survived here in America, in the midst of English culture, where at the beginning we were less than 1% of settlers population. Let me bring to your attention and share with you some of the history of our country which might not be taught as much in our public schools.

As our country was forming under the influence of English empire England was openly anti-Catholic. The first settlers were publicly committed to keeping ‘papish” influence and the “whore of Babylon” (as you can guess the name used to describe Rome) out of their virgin land.

So in time, in the 17th century,  the laws were put in place in some of the colonies in this land of the free which made illegal to celebrate the mass in public, for the Catholic Church to own property, and for Catholics to vote. There was not much change in those laws for us Catholic even though we supported George Washington in the Revolutionary War of 1776.

Than in the first half of the 19^th century, Catholic immigrants poured into America. Because of economic conditions anti-Catholic sentiment increased again. The first anti-Catholic weekly was published. There were religious riots and burning of catholic churches. As catholic immigration continued, particularly in a result of the Irish potato famine of 1845 to 1852,  and the German Revolution of 1848 we had become the largest group in the country – 3 million people. And when industrialization brought tension between capital and labor, Catholic Church, unlike in Europe, sided with labor.

During the Civil War the law forbidding the Catholic Church to own property was quietly repealed in trade-off to fill New York’s army quote.

In World War I, Catholics were only 16% of the population but 35% of the American army. This however did not stop Nativists from influencing Congress to restrict immigration, which cut off the greatest source of Catholic growth in America.

Then Catholic American Bishops wrote in 1919 with an aid of John A. Ryan their epic-making document called “Social Reconstruction”. 11 of their 12 proposals became law under Roosevelt’s New Deal social agenda which took place between 1933-1936.

The public acceptance, in spite of still existing prejudices, reached its new dimension in 1960 when JFK became the first Catholic president of the country.

Today there are 77.7 millions Catholic in our country, about one-fourth of total population, and many very influential politicians call themselves openly Catholics. Being such a strong and independent group in the country we have obviously a lot of freedom. And we can use that freedom in various ways.

I believe that today's words of St. Paul from his letter to the Galatians are a good reminder to all of us what we should focus on and how we should use our freedom.

It is a great opportunity to ask ourselves some questions. Such as:

• How many of our Catholic religious beliefs and how much of our Catholic culture can we realistically expect to be respected by the remaining 75% of our country's population?

• Which one of them are truly relating to the heart of the gospel of Christ?

• And also how much our nationalism or Catholic pride co-opts the gospel of Christ we profess as Americans and as Catholics?

Saint Paul reminds us again in his letter to the Galatians today that the cross of Christ is at the heart of the Christian message.

It destroys all pride which might exist in us or in the world. If we are tempted to boast in our power, influence, wealth, intelligence, accomplishments, I would add Catholicism, we are pursuing a path that leads nowhere. If we give into the most insidious temptation, the one which the Galatians suffered from, the temptation to boast in moral or religious superiority we are completely lost.

To take Saint Paul's thought even further I would risk to say that what he proposes is that the cross destroys all such boasting and focuses us on Christ whose self-emptying love discloses the one and only truth that can be trusted, the truth of God's love for us regardless national, racial or even religious affiliations.

Truly to boast in the cross is to put our own lives on the line in acts of service to human kind. To declare in deed as well as in word that the cross is the revelation of God's love for all. We render true honor to the crucified Lord only be becoming conformed to him in becoming servants in love to one another, to our own church community we are a part of, to our neighbors, to our fellow citizens of our great country, and even to those whom we call immigrants.

I believe that one of the ways for us to show our appreciation for the gift of  living in the land of the free is to always look for the ways for us to exercise our freedom in the service to others in the ways which renders:

·       to the American nation what belongs to them,

·       to Vatican what belong to Vatican,

·       and first of all to God what belongs to God.

And to keep the cross of Christ at the heart of what we do knowing that from time to time we will be called upon service which will require of us little or much of the sacrifice on our part.