|
St. Elizabeth, Mother of John the Baptist
4330 Shreve Ave.
St. Louis MO 63115
314.381.4145
Fax 314.381.2212
St. Elizabeth at Christmas
The Bell Tower Blog
Daily reflections from the holy recipe of Sacred Scripture,
prayer and life in North St. Louis city
January 4, 2009
I’m breaking one of my “bulletin-writing rules” this weekend, but I couldn’t resist printing the text of a poem that I am using in my homily. Written by e e cummings, the famous 20th century American poet, I thought it was perfect for our celebration of Christ’s Epiphany.
i thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes
( i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any—lifted from the no of allnothing—human merely being doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
If you recall anything of cummings’ work, you will remember that he is known for his very strange syntax and his original use of punctuation (or non-use of it!). Still, despite the strange form, the poem’s themes emerge so clearly: the beauty of today, the endless possibility of our lives, the gift of life in God, and the life-changing opportunity to see our world in new ways.
An epiphany carried with it the very potentials that cummings describes. Typically, we define an epiphany as a manifestation of God. True enough. Any authentic manifestation of God, though, will necessarily move us toward recognizing the beauty of our lives and the potential we have for lives of purpose and meaning. God’s coming reveals not only God, but also our lives lived in God. In showing us God, any epiphany reveals the miracle of this moment and the possibility of this moment to change our lives forever. In glimpsing God’s majesty we necessarily glimpse our own. In Jesus, then, God reveals not only God to us, but “us” to us, our best and truest selves.
Each day gives us another chance to live from that truth, to entrust our lives to it and to give our lives for it. And so as we begin this new year together, God offers us an epiphany which asks us how we might say a deeper “yes” to our best selves, how we might thank God for this most amazing day—each and every day of 2009.
December 28, 2008
Today, December 28, is my niece Samantha’s 13th birthday. It is also the Feast of the Holy Family and our first time gathering since Christmas—but those feasts pale in comparison to me. I cannot believe that I have a niece that is also a teen-ager. Don’t get me wrong, there have been signs that this day was coming: a certain increased interest in clothes and friends, a higher percentage of looks that indicate that we, as adults, do not understand, not to mention a very real growing intelligence and maturity. But still, 13!
I remember so clearly the day she was born. I saw her just as she exited her mother after 30-some hours of work. She was rather purple and slimy, to say the least, and yet, I am still trying to get my brain around that experience: blood, pain, tears and this crazy joy that comes from being in the presence of a miracle. Watching that miracle actually happen, though, has done me the service of knowing that it should not be sentimentalized. Having a child and starting a family is miraculous and beautiful to be sure, but for all of its beauty it is also painful and dangerous—with the hardships of childbirth just a foreshadowing for all of the joys and pains to come.
I think if we are not careful we can overly-sentimentalize Christmas and the holidays as well. Filled with family—even in new Christmas clothes—it is still the place that growth and learning, love and hurt and forgiveness must happen. Some of the source of our holiday difficulties stems from our forgetting that. Somehow we can pick up the myth that families and friendships are supposed to be easy and trouble-free. Then we are disappointed and angry when they are not.
Such was not the truth of the family we celebrate today. Formed in controversy, both mother and father trusting in their dreams, moving from place to place without proper lodging or forethought, surely the collected aunts, uncles and cousins must have shaken their heads in disapproval. The experience of the first Christmas for this family could not be further away from the Christmas cards that bear their images, all neat and tidy and peaceful looking.Not
that such moments of tranquility and wholeness are impossible, just that they are gifts. We savor them when we have them knowing that they cannot and should not last.
Because the work of growing and learning and loving is not for the faint of heart. From the persistence a child must have in learning to read to the courage that being a good parent requires, the mess is precisely the stuff that allows the holiness to happen. Without the struggle, there simply is no sustained growth. And so that, too, is holy. The disagreements and misunderstandings, the angers and hurts are all a part of how God brings us to holiness. Sometimes the weeks and days seem to take forever in the midst of all this, and yet, the years fly by. I suspect there might be some extra potential for holiness around my family in the years to come—and for this we can be thankful—did I tell you that my niece is turning 13 today?
Festina lente; hasten slowly
December 17, 2008
While I was in the Seminary but before I was ordained, the pastor of my home parish, Msgr. Bernard Boessen, now long deceased, would have me out for lunch every year between semesters. I would meet him at his rectory and I would drive us to the small, simple restaurant of his choosing. In the course of the meal, he liked to dispensing large portions of grand-fatherly advice. I remember many of his kind wisdoms: “Jeff, it’s never too early to start saving your money,” and, “Jeff, we have to do what the Church says, but sometimes we need to do it in our own way,” are two of my favorites. By the way, he always dispensed this advice with a suitable story as well, so just a few pieces of advice would take up all of our lunch. Msgr. Boessen also used to say, “If brevity is the soul of with, then my soul is in danger.” That was no less true than the rest of his counsel.
Without a doubt, though, the advice that he gave me most often and that I needed most to hear (and perhaps still do!), was the Latin proverb: festina lente. Loosely translated, it means: hasten slowly. I would tell Msgr. Boessen of all my plans and all that I was doing and wanted to do. He would always be encouraging, but his encouragement would often end with that well-intentioned caution. “Ah, Jeff, festina lente, festina lente. Hasten slowly, Hasten slowly.”
Again, I think that such a proverb is always good for me to hear, but around this time of year, it catches the paradox that might benefit us all. As the days toward Christmas draw near, almost all of us have more to get ready, more to do, more places to go. We are more likely to be hurried, harried and stressed these days than almost any other. And while that speed is at times necessary, we do ourselves and the gift of the season a disservice if we do not take some time in our hurrying, to reflect, to savor, to be slowed in thought if not in action. If we do not slow down in our hurriedness, we miss the miracle of our family getting together, the wonder of God becoming human for us, the beauty of this season and this very day. Festina lente is not just a Latin proverb, but a spiritual truth. “Hasten slowly,” is not merely a paradox, but also a guide to living all of our lives during these harried days.
To slow ourselves down is to acknowledge that the beauty of life cannot be fully taken in at full speed. Just like a good wine is wasted if gulped and a good meal is missed when one wolfs down the food without consciously deciding to taste it before swallowing. It is not that life will slow down (at least until we hit that certain age, whatever it is), but that we can choose to slow our hearts a bit, trusting that life will not pass us by for our moments of savoring it. Just the opposite, of course, is true. Life passes us by when we approach it with too much haste. Slowing down a bit is the only way to keep up with life’s pace. (I always think the paradoxical truths are the best!).
So from me to you—and from me to me—during these hectic and beautiful days approaching our celebration of Jesus’ nativity, I say, “Festina lente; hasten slowly,” lest the speed of our Christmas, destroy its intended impact in our lives.
Liminal Space
November 4, 2008
As I write this, the campaigning is over. After almost two full years and hundreds of millions of dollars the campaigning is done. We do not yet have a president (although God willing we most assuredly will by the time you are reading this), and so here in this brief respite—this short in between space of silence—it all seems so unthinkable. That a young, first-term Senator from the Midwest who almost no one had even heard of would run such a tremendous campaign, would ignite much of a nation with his hope-filled rhetoric. I do not know at this point if he will win, nor am I even claiming that he should. But I will say this, I have been so honored to have watched this historic event with you. Several of our older parishioners have made remarks to me along these lines: “When I was young, I couldn’t even get a meal at the Famous and Barr downtown, now we might have a president.” Similarly, I have heard, “When I was in school, most hospitals wouldn’t admit me for training, now look at what might happen.” If you can hear those words spoken from someone who has actually lived through them and not get a little misty-eyed, then you are made of sterner emotional stuff than I. What is the message a young person gets when he or she is not allowed to eat at a certain place or study somewhere or even live in a particular subdivision? Conversely, what might happen to a younger generation when they see someone who looks like them in the most powerful office in the world? I suppose the answers to these questions are as varied as we are, and yet, surely the message one receives in either case must strike a very different, albeit a very deep, chord. One thing is for sure, though, no matter who wins the office of the President of the United States, only the campaigning will end. Mortgages will still be due, homework will still need to be done, bills will need to be paid and dust will still collect on our bookshelves. No matter who is president when you read this, we can have a renewed resolve for what is possible in our nation. We can have a renewed determination to achieve all that our abilities and faith will allow. No matter who has won this long and difficult campaign our nation is forever changed by it, dominated as it was by two vastly different women and one brilliant African-American male. Even a decade ago did any of us think such a cast of characters possible? It is worth remembering that woman have been voting in this nation for less than 90 years. There have been no shortages of prejudices to go around. And yet here in this short and silent space in between all that has happened and all that is yet to come, I am in awe of how quickly history moves when the time is right. For surely we have not seen the last of bigotry nor prejudice in our nation, even as we have not seen the last of it in ourselves. But in the midst of all of our individual and national shortcomings, we have been changed forever by glimpsing the possible. Having seen what could be we cannot be satisfied with ideas or behaviors that would lead to less than what ought to be. I’ll say again, I do not know as of this moment yet, whether Barack Obama is president. But I do know in my heart of hearts that he can be. And that fills my heart with hope, indeed.
Just looking in between the cracks
October 7, 2008
I come from a family of sweet-tooth’s. We all love our desserts. I remember often when we were young, my mom saying she was completely full, but then taking dessert. Whenever anyone questioned her, she would always reply with a hint of a smile, “Dessert only slides into the cracks!” Sure enough, no matter how full we were we always somehow had enough “cracks” in our tummies to gleefully ingest pie and ice cream or cookies or cakes or whatever was the sweet du jour.
While I suppose a little dessert and some mild over-eating isn’t the worst thing for me, I’ve been very aware lately at those cracks in our lives and how important they are. I’ll give you an example. Several weeks ago when it rained so hard, several of our walls were damaged by the water. The bricks are fine, strong and sturdy as ever. Ah, but a few of the cracks between them were open, and that made all the difference. Indeed, we just spent about $4,000 to fix the worst of those “crack” in the tuck-pointing so that we could stop the leaking and begin to repair the plaster and paint. Who would think, so much damage from a few cracks in the brick?
It got me thinking about what cracks might exist, not so much in our parish buildings but in our parish ministries—and in me. What people or groups are sliding through the cracks of our church? No one could dispute that we have a lot going on, but who aren’t we touching, what groups are under-represented? If not groups, then what individuals might be sliding through the cracks? Is there someone I should reach out to, or to whom I might offer a hand or an opportunity?
Even more than on a parish level, I’ve been thinking about the cracks in my life as a person. Certainly, I’ve been a regular pray-er, but where are the cracks in my prayer? What might I be allowing to slip by because I am too sure that the edifice in general is solid? What letters or emails or phone calls have been falling through the cracks in my work? It’s not that I haven’t been working, but what (or who?!) hasn’t received enough attention lately? I could ask the same questions of my family and friendships? Am I letting someone fall through the cracks?
Not that these “cracks” in our lives are so terrible. I suppose no matter how solid the brick wall, cracks will inevitably develop over time. In fact, when I was up with the tuck-pointers I was amazed at how many little cracks were developing—we haven’t seen the last of our new friends, that’s for sure. But how much better would it be to address the cracks before they get too wide or allow too much damage? How much better to check for them early and monitor their progress? If that’s true for buildings, it’s all the more true for us. I suppose it’s even true for the cracks that allow room for dessert—even when I’m already full.
Chili Cook-Off: What a gas!
September 21, 2008
The weather was perfect and the crowd was great, the only trouble was a persistent bias amongst our tasters against vegetarian chili! Well over 100 people stayed after our 10:00 a.m. to celebrate our parish stewardship with our first ever chili cook-off. Twenty people entered their best chili, and judging from the closeness of the voting, there was some fine chili to be had. We can still smell the chili powder and the peppers lingering on the parking lot! Eighty-four people voted for their favorite chili. Every chili that entered received multiple votes as a favorite, but Mrs. Dorothy Dempsey’s chili, narrowly beat out Mrs. Marie Buckner’s recipe by a score of 11 votes to 10. Several other chilies received 6 or 7 votes as well. All of that good eating combined with the basketball, the music and the other foods and drinks made for a great couple hours of fellowship and fun. That kind of event strikes me as such a perfect way to “finish” a celebration of the Eucharist. We have so much ritual celebration and thanksgiving complementing our “real life” party. It is the best of both worlds. It seemed like a perfect living out of our mission statement: Celebrating Jesus, Creating Community. In some sense, of course, those two phrases are redundant. One can never celebrate Jesus outside of bringing together his body here on earth; and any authentic growth in communion is a de facto celebration of the presence of Jesus which makes our communion possible. So was the Mass the Jesus part and the chili cook-off the community party? As you know, there is plenty of community celebration in our liturgy, and the Spirit of Jesus was very evident at our post-Mass tail gate party. I suppose that’s how it should be: two different sides of the same coin—a community celebrating all of the ways Jesus brings us together.
|
