CHURCH MUST HAVE A VERY HUMAN FACE

At noon time, I invited the grade one’s and two’s for a picnic. Everything was simple. The children were well behaved and orderly. When the hot dogs and ice cream were finished,  the children ran to play on the green grass.

 

For the majority of these children this is one of the very limited encounters they will have with church. But this encounter in a picnic highlights that the church must have a very human face. It is so much more than going through the prayer rituals and then walk out of the church  building.

 

The Church is first of all lived and expressed in the lives and faces of the people. The rituals and the arrangement of the church building are an expression of the fundamental reality, Christ present and living in the people.

 

In relations between human beings, we know that if one person does not like another person, they will  not accept the other’s truth. It may the most obvious truth, but we withhold acceptance of the truth from the people we do not like. 

 

A stranger may approach us respectfully and hand us a small package we had dropped a few meters back. We are not offended but we graciously accept the kindness. We accept his truth.

 

The face of the Church is found in its people. It is the people who make up the Church. It is the people who witness to the reality of Christ in their lives,

 

We want to welcome all people who will come to join us for Sunday worship. In some of the more advanced parishes they begin by turning around and welcoming the people who are located close by. People mention that it does make a difference when you pray for others and they are the new stranger with the wonderful smile is who is standing beside you.   

 

We want to listen to the stories of people who are having a hard time getting by in our own city and country. We want to listen to the stories of the people who are on the margins of the society. We never want to be the ‘we have well-paying jobs and we are among the winners’ club. The spirit of Jesus (i.e. his attitude) is one of compassion and understanding for the poor and excluded of his time. We want to allow his spirit to blossom in our lives as we include the excluded in our listening. The Sunday Readings are not only a time to listen to the Word of God but also a time to listen to the word of our fellow human being who is struggling. 

 

When you were joined to Jesus Christ in the waters of baptism you were signed on the ears with the sign that you are to become a listener to the Word of God. And, included in that sign, you will listen to the heart of the poor just as Jesus listens to the heart of the poor.

 

We can become the very face of Jesus in so many ways. Most of all in the e everyday events of respect and kindness towards others. 

 

Today, give a moment of reflection to the times when you recognized in another the very face of Jesus. And when did they recognize the face of Jesus in your face?

 

 

 

THE MEDIA: TIME FOR PUSH-BACK

 

In our family life, the one who tells the story is the one who determines the narrative. You may have a relative who tells you all kinds of shaddy dealings that your deceased uncle was involved in. It may be true, it may be exaggerated or it may be revenge ‘bad news’ of someone trying to get even with a past wrong doing.

 

There are always two sides to every story.

 

The media have become too powerful and too big. No one can have enough time to investigate every story that comes across the media in one morning. 

 

No one must see the media as first of all a service. This is a business. This is all about making money. The first concern of the media is counting the number of viewers. Viewers means advertisers. The first purpose of providing news, information and entertainment is to support the shareholders of the media companies. There is no such thing as ‘free’ news!

 

As a company executive, if you want to have viewers you follow the dictum: bad news attracts more eyes than any good news. If there is a fight at city council, people will listen. If the city council members are working hard to negotiate a new water main in your district (rather important to your life) or negotiate to hire three more workers for city maintenance,  this is not too newsworthy. 

 

Bad news sells; good news is pushed to the periphery.

 

As we listen/view the daily news we must have a critical eye. On each item we must ask: what is the other side of the story? Why am I not hearing the good things that our civic institutions are doing? What am I missing here?

 

The media will go after all the shortcomings and failings of all our institutions (they are the big targets to shot at). The focus is on all levels of governments, school board decisions, anything in the health care system, church and small business. 

 

In each of these cases, we must always ask ‘Media, you are bringing up the failings of this institution, but what about all the good they have accomplished?’ This is the other side of the story that never gets told in the media.

 

No one should be offended if your friend challenges you with ‘you need to become more critical about what you hear and see on the media.’ How close to the actual truth is this media story or how much is bad-news entertainment? 

 

At the same time, we need to ask how well our high schools are training our young people to become critical thinkers in today’s world. How sharp are our young people not to accept everything they hear in the media as the absolute truth? How critical are they towards the media?

 

Seeking the truth has never been easy. Today, because the media is so large and so powerful, it is very difficult. But it is not impossible.

 

Whatever you hear in the media, always counter with: ‘Well, maybe it is not like you have just said. There is the other side of the story that you have not told.’

 

MAY YOUR PENTECOST EXPLODE

 

Our Church is trying to re-establish the balance in the way we celebrate the Eucharistic liturgy and in our daily prayer life. Over the centuries all the attention was focused on the birth (i.e., Christmas) and the death (i.e. Good Friday) of Jesus. Even though this gave incredible spiritual energy to the faithful, this was not a balanced approach to the mystery of our redemption.

 

To quickly draw an outline that ranks the importance of each feast it should look like this.

First in importance are the three days of Easter. This is not one feast day but a three-day feast where the Church shares in the great mystery of our redemption, the death and resurrection of Jesus. Joined to the three days of Easter is the feast of Pentecost. This is the giving of the Holy Spirit and the actual birth of the Church. We should try to keep these two feasts as bookends to the great mystery of redemption.

 

We are brought to God in the sacrificial death of Jesus. The resurrected Jesus is poured out to the people in the giving of the Holy Spirit. Now, the baptized are to make real and tangible the love and mercy of God. The death and resurrection of Jesus always leads to the outpouring of Jesus’ great work of redeeming the world.

 

If you would ask the majority of Christians, ‘What is Pentecost?’ they would tell you that it is one more Sunday with a nice story. 

 

We want to work hard that Pentecost is the explosion of the mystery of salvation into our world. The disciples (women and men) are given the very Spirit of God. This is not just some add-on that God gives, but an actual sharing and living the very life of God. Now, what Jesus has been to the world, so now the believers are meant to become the flesh and blood of Jesus. 

 

The sign of pieces of fire (i.e. tongues – think of tongue and grove in carpentry)  descending on the disciples is to be a sign of God being revealed to them. Just as Moses encountered God in the burning bush, so now the disciples are given a piece of God, manifested in the physical sign of fire. 

 

This Sunday, we want to bring the Word of God to land on the soul of every believer. We want everyone to be gifted with the Holy Spirit. And as the first disciples went out from the event of Pentecost to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with the world, so now, may today’s believers move out into the world to share the Good News. May the Holy Spirit be so alive in them that they become in their person the very love and mercy of God. May they become Jesus to the world.

 

I use the word ‘explode’ to convey the dynamism of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is like the mighty wind that moves and shapes the forces of the earth. 

 

May the Holy Spirit always be an explosion in your life. May the Holy Spirit bring the great work of Jesus to life in your daily existence.

 

 

 

 

DOES THIS CONNECT WITH MY LIFE?

 

Last week, shortly after the grocery store opened, the PA system came on and one of the women in the office wished her employer a happy birthday. Then she sang ‘happy birthday’ over the system. This was a nice gesture but I stood there for a moment. I do not know any of these people. This has nothing to do with my life. I could not make any connection with the birthday wishes that filled the entire store space.

 

We need to compare this experience with the experience or lack of experience that so many of our people who were brought up in the Church have. Does our common prayer life, our teachings about Jesus and the doctrines of the Church have anything to do with their lives?  We may be speaking all the correct words but it does not strike their lives as anything that actually counts. There is no connection here.

 

In life, we all pay attention and plug into what matters to our life. We hang on to all the stories from our grandparents because they are so much a part of our identity. We have made our own the teaching and values that our parents gave us and now hand these values on to our children. The teachings of our parents connect with us. They are a part of us. We take ownership of these values that they worked so hard to impart to our lives.

 

We tell stories among our siblings about learning at five yers old not to pick up treats when Mom went grocery shopping. We connect with that lesson learnt years ago.

 

Now we must ask people, with what do you connect in our Church life? With the Sunday Eucharist? Daily prayer? The Scriptures?  The teachings of the Church about justice and peace? The volunteer work with the food bank? Our spiritual need to care for the earth?

 

We have come out of a century where the value of the faith community and its service to the larger community was valued. People put a tremendous amount of effort into their prayer, their Sunday worship and their service to the poor of this world. They connected!

 

But now as our North American culture shifted to a very individualistic culture we drift from the importance of living in community. More and more it becomes ‘each one does their own thing.’

 

This is why we need to ask of our adult children, “Does anything of our faith life really connect with your life?” Does it make any difference to the way you think and the decisions you make?

 

We will find that these are wonderful human beings who have a comfortable sense that there is a God above them. But, there is no Christ in their spiritual perception. There is no cross (i.e. The self-giving of God) and no resurrection (the lived experience of Christ among us). They connect with a religious belief in God but do not connect with faith community that shares the great event of salvation, i.e., the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

 

Start asking what you connect with in the realm of God. Ask others what they connect with in the Christian religion. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YOU ARE ALSO YOUR MISTAKES

 

We are human. We always want to present our best foot forward. No one wants to admit any type of failure. This is why the teacher giving out weekly tests in high school is such an incentive to study and learn the materials of the past few classes. No high school student ever wants to fail.

 

In our own personal lives, we value all our successes and hard work. We look at our house, our vehicle, our education accomplishments and our work skills, and we feel good. Our identity is not the sum total of all our successes and accomplishments.

 

We also have made a lot of mistakes along the way. We did not get our work done for the deadline because we were out playing soccer with our friends. We went along with some of the hair-brained projects of some of our friends and ended up getting the truck stuck in an irrigation ditch along a farmer’s field. We made some risky investments and lost eight thousand dollars. 

 

Everyone has made their fair share of mistakes and poor choices. Hopefully we never repeated these mistakes. We learnt from them and made better choices. But these mistakes are part of our history. They make part of our identity. For many people, they are much better human beings because they made many foolish mistakes. They learnt from them. They grew and matured. 

 

We need to reflect on all the mistakes we have made and cherish these mistakes for the growth they propelled in us. Just as parents become better parents through their mistakes, so we too become better people in working through the consequences of our mistakes.

 

Do not limit making mistakes to the individual.  Societies, governments, medical institutions and the Church also make mistakes. Our history is not Lilly white. There are many very dark parts of our history. How have we learnt from our mistakes?

 

One of the blatant examples is the practice of slavery. Already two hundred years ago it was committed Christians who worked hard to abolish the slave trade. No human being can ever be owned as a piece of merchandise and exploited for their labor. Every single human being, we have learnt the hard way, has the right to be free and can never be owned as a commodity. 

 

How many times have you heard an individual who struggled with the addictions conclude: What was the worst thing that ever happened in my life? It would be those many years of heavy drinking. And what is the best thing that ever happened in your life: It was those many years of heavy drinking! ‘It was only through the pain and suffering of alcohol addiction that I came to sobriety and am sincerely living a good life filled with a lot of friendships.’

The strongest indications that we have not benefitted from our mistakes as human beings is the wars we keep fighting. How has humanity ever benefitted from the killing fields of war? All those mistakes of war are part of our identity. 

 

If we can be honest enough to name and take ownership of our mistakes, we can enter into a more honest time of our history. Our story is shaped by great feats of creativity and moving forward but is also shaped by many soul-hurting mistakes. 

 

Mistakes are part of who we are. For the most part, these mistakes have spurred us on to a better and life-giving existence.

 

Naming and taking ownership of our mistakes will makes us better human beings and a healthy society.

A SOFT PAGANISM

 

Last week, when Pope Francis was visiting the country of Hungry, he used a new image while speaking to religious and clergy leaders. He warned of a ‘soft paganism’ shaping the European culture.

 

When Christianity arrived on the scene in the first centuries, they viewed all other people as pagan, that is, as people who worshipped the wrong or non-existent gods. There was a line that divided those who worshipped the one true God in Jesus Christ and all the rest. 

 

We come out of a history where we assumed that everyone believed in God and was eager to follow the teaching of the Bible. If there were people who were hesitant about believing they played a very low profile.

 

There also was no room to discuss the possibility that many people felt indifferent towards a religious faith. Life as going well for them. Why the need to serve a higher power?

 

By using an old noun to describe the current situation means that we are recognizing that many people may have a very comfortable life style and have wonderful human values, but live their lives as if the divine was superfluous. Simply put, the core values of the Gospel and the central person, Jesus Christ, does not matter. 

 

In this understanding of being a pagan means that the divine does not really matter to my life.

 

Now, those who claim to be the followers of Jesus Christ and walk on his path are being challenged: does my religious identity actually make a difference to my life or am I just going along with the motions?

 

It is very healthy to be challenged along the way. It makes us sit up and claim ownership over our religious beliefs and live out their impact in our daily life.

 

It means reclaiming that God has asked us to take off every seventh day for prayer, thanksgiving and worship. It means taking this time off for rest and recreation; all the while trusting that God will provide. There is a weekly rhythm to our life.

 

It means learning to live the Sunday Eucharist where we take the teachings of Jesus, week by week, and apply them to our lives in family, our work and in the larger Canadian society.  

 

And it means growing in sensitivity to the poor right around us. Too often people are forgotten who are suffering and in distress. When our heart is in harmony with the heart of Christ, we

 will be moved to care about others: the lost, the least and the last.

 

When we use the adjective ‘soft’ beside the noun ‘paganism’ we see that we could be saying all the correct Christian words but actually be living by very secularistic values. We may be a very fine human being but what moves us are just human values.

 

Christianity is not doing nice religious things but being shaped by the values of the Gospel. Our lives then become a living testimony to the reality of God. Pagan can mean just going through the religious motions.

 

This needs a lot more reflection on the part of our Christian people but naming a weak following of the Gospel as a ‘soft paganism’ is very challenging. 

 

 

 

 

DOES YOUR CHRISTIANITY IMPACT YOUR LIFE?

 

One of the strongest insights that I received was in a situation where the young mother wanted he baby done.  I explained to her, “But that is not baptism.” She fired back, “I’ll make it what I want it to be !”

 

She summarized in a few words what most people actually do. They live their religious teachings at what they want it to be. It is no different whether you be a Buddhists, a Hindu, a Moslem or a Christian. There is no room for the challenge that religious faith actually brings to our lives. We live religion at our own level, even it be a very mediocre level.

 

Today, I would ask you to take stock of your own faith life. Does the teachings and core values actually impact your life? Does your claim to a Christian faith actually make a difference in your daily life?

 

In a society where life can be non-important, such as in abortion, medically assisted death or the refusal to pay a decent living wage; what does your Christian faith teach you about the value of human life?  A just life where humans can thrive? 

 

How does your Christian faith challenge you on the survival of the earth and all future generations?  Do you even know if your religion has anything to teach you about responsibility and care for the earth? For all living things? 

 

Humanity has a terrible record when it comes to making war. At the moment we have Somalia, a very poor African country, but is still able to finance a civil war. What does your Christian religion teach you about making war?  Even if the teaching is very positive, does it have any impact on the decisions of governments and individual citizens? 

 

As we move into the confines of our own house, what does your Christian religion have to teach about intimate partner violence? About battered women and children? What does it have to say about sexual abuse toward children that happens in the home setting? 

 

And what about all the homeless in our country. Finally, this is getting attention in the media. What does your Christian faith have to offer on this question?

 

This reflection is not to make you feel down, but to alert you that there are strong and well-developed social teachings on each of these questions. Under the leadership of our bishops well-spoken and reflected Christians have worked out the consequences of our Christian faith in each of these situations. The average Christian may be totally unaware that there is a strong body of social teachings on each of these social issues. You and I do not have to re-develop the wheel!

 

The purpose of this little reflection was to spur the reader on to discover the social teachings of our Christianity.  There is so much in the social teachings of the Church that our faith life will be strongly enriched and deepened.

 

How aware is your local Church aware of this rich source of teachings on so many of these questions today?