WHO SETS THE TONE?

 

 

When you consider any working group of humans, you can look at them at how well they produce? Do they accomplishe their work? Are they efficient?  Are they inclusive to having new Canadians, different ethnic groups and woman working in their structures? 

 

But we also need to look at the ‘tone’ that the leadership sets for the group and the way that the social/working group will permit the leader to influence them.

 

One insightful leader spelt it out clearly: “I cannot define tone in words but I certainly can feel it when I begin to work with these people.” You will recognize the tone by living it.

 

The best place to begin with tone is your family of origin. Most probably it was your Mother who set the tone how the family would function. This was not a policy paper that she sat down and developed. She just did it! The family functioned and moved along, and she adjusted to each child --- and you changed along with her!

 

You probably could not have put it into words when you were growing up. You just did it and got along well with everyone. But when push came to shove, your Moher set the tone! 

 

Take a few moments. Look around at the tone that exists in your workplace? With the parents and organizers of your child’s hockey team? your in-laws? Your small group of close friends? Your parish church?

 

Leaders do make a difference. The real leaders (who may not be the person out in front) set the tone.

 

This is why the leadership of Pope Francis is significant. Did he change anything? Are there new rules to follow under his leadership? We are having to work to gather up any definite change in church practice and teaching that he implemented.

 

What he did change was the tone. He is moving the Church to become a Church for the poor. He is turning our gaze toward the poor and the forgotten of this world. Everything that the Pope does and says has symbolic meaning. It also carries political meaning.

 

His first visit was to the island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean. This tiny island is the first landing  place of countless poor people (i.e., undocumented) trying to move into Europe. These are people who are trying to build a better life for their children and find security from the turmoil and civil unrest that they have experienced in their countries of origin. 

 

The first people he went to engage with were the poor of this world. What kind of tone, what kind of response was Pope Francis seeking to create by visiting the migrants (i.e., the poor) of this modern history?

 

He teaches that he wants Christians to come to church with dirty shoes because they have been out on the streets caring for the poor. Can you think of a better image to express compassion and respect for our fellow human beings who so often disappear into the shadows? This is a Church that cares about the well-being of the people with little power and income.

 

The tone that Pope Francis is setting will bear fruit many generations hence. Being challenged to be a Church for the poor is  a  blessing.

 

 

 

 

 

THE HANDS OF FAITH CARE FOR THE WORLD

Christians have been criticized for being so concerned about heavenly things that they completely ignore the pain of suffering of this world. There have been many times when this was blatantly true in our checkered history. 

 

For example, if the people of the church speak about the neglect of refugees and the many displaced peoples throughout the world, there will be some critic that will say, “This has nothing to do with spiritual things. Stay in your own lane!” Often, this is a very harsh criticism.

 

When religion is authentic it means that we are moving into the heart and concerns of God. Religion never means protecting our wealth and power. It means cooperation with the heart and the plan of God.

 

We know from long experience that whenever a person draws closer to God, in their prayer and their worship, they always draw closer to their fellow human being. The Christiaan faith, when it is lived honestly, has a strong concern for the plight of human beings and their sufferings. The closer that your heart and convictions are turned toward God, the closer you will draw to your sister or brother who is deprived of the necessities of life. 

 

Jesus told the story of the rich man and the poor man, Lazarus (Lk. 16, 19-31).  The story is a brilliant contrast between the very rich man and the poor man who sat at the rich man’s door-step looking for crumbs to eat. They both die (how coincidental!). the rich man ends up on Hades (i.e., punishment) and the poor man ends up walking with Abraham (in heaven).

The point of the story is not the rich man ended in suffering because he was rich, but because he did not care about his fellow human being. Lazarus lived very close to him.

When there is poverty in our society, when there is suffering caused by wars and uprisings, when there are blocks in society toward certain groups of peoples, then Christians hear the cry of the poor and they seek to respond. 

 

Start looking around to see that many of our Church communities reach out to refugees and new-comers to our country. They try to get these people settled but also seek to become friends with these refugees (many of whom are not Christians).  There can be a lot of bureaucratic hurdles to jump over to bring and settle refugees but this is one example where our Christian faith cares deeply for the well being of strangers from another country.

 

Today, when Church people examine and bring to government and the public’s attention that fair wages and living conditions are provided to the thousands of temporary workers we bring in to care and harvest our vegetables and fruits. Farm workers are a strong concern of the Christian heart.

 

In our Sunday Eucharist we have a strong symbol of our concern for the earth. When the priest breaks the sacred bread, it is to be a sign of Christ giving his life for the sake of humanity but also a sign that each person is breaking their lives and giving their life for the sake of others.

 

Our prayer is filled with concern for the people of the earth.

 

 

TRANSFORMATION IS THE WAY TO IDENTIFY THE CHURCH

 

Gain an insight into people’s shopping behavior. Stand beside the door of your local convenience store. Ask people why they have come here. Almost always the answer will be, “I just need this one item and I didn’t want to run down to the mall.”  

 

What is a convenience store for anyway? Convenience!

 

Now, ask why the people want the Church. Do they want it because it provides meaningful rites of passage, i.e., “I got all my children their sacraments here,” or are they in touch with the powerful contribution the Church makes to our life and our salvation?

 

The Church, with its organization, its liturgies and its canon law, are the mere instrument to the purposes of God. It is to carry forth the mission of Jesus Christ, to bring all human beings to live and grow in the mercy and love of God. In simple words, the work of the Church is to nourish and bring forth transformation of life.

 

A Church of transformation is so different from the image some people have that the Church is to provide religious services. 

 

In a Church of transformation, the first thing you observe is the hard work they put forth to know and incorporate the mind of Jesus into their lives. They take seriously all the teachings of Jesus, and also the hard teachings;  and seek to make them a living part of their lives. They work toward being servants of God; to live as daughters and sons of God the Father. There is a personal relationship with the person and mission of Jesus.

 

A Church of transformation is a community of prayer. These are people who pray daily. They seek to be in living contact with the very life and heart of God’s Holy Spirit. There are many ways to pray but the first and foremost is spending time with the heart of God. 

 

A Church of transformation knows that the closer you draw towards God, the closer you draw towards your fellow human being. These are people who recognize the poor who live right around them. They see the new poor in our nursing homes, who hunger for human friendship. They are people who bring the issue of homelessness before  our government officials. Their concern for the ‘other’ is right up front on their sleeves.

 

Each Sunday, as they celebrate the holy Eucharist, they want to enter into the life, the sacrifice and the compassion of Jesus  Christ. They actively make this a living participation in the life and salvation of Jesus Christ. And…. they take seriously the sending forth to be the living heart of Jesus Christ in the world. 

 

Being a living, working part of the Church is a dynamic life. We cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s energy to transform us into the likeness of Christ. Something great is meant to happen within your life. 

 

 

 

 

THE LITTLE ONES RECOGNIZE GOD

 

This Sunday (February 02) we celebrate the presentation of Jesus in the Temple. In the Jewish law a woman who had given birth must be purified in prayer and ritual in the Temple. This was to happen forty days after the birth of the child. Thus, February is forty days after Christmas.

 

Now Mary and Joseph encounter two people. They recognize the revealing hand of God in the birth of this child. In Jesus, they recognize God breaking into human history. Life will be very different after this birth.

 

Today, pay attention to the ordinariness of the people. It is not the powerful priests of the Temple who recognize what God is doing. It is not the rich merchants and the Roman rulers who pay attention to the hand of God at work in their space and time.

 

It is some very ordinary people. Probably the majority of the people might not have known their names!

 

Now it was Simeon (Lk. 2,25) who comes into the Temple and takes the child in his arms. He praised God that he was given the insight that he would not see death until he had seen the Messiah, i.e., the salvation, that God was bringing to his people.

 

Then, there was the eighty-four year old widow, Anna. She began speaking about the gift this child was for all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem  (Lk. 2, 18).

 

One of the insights that I hope we all take from this event is that God works through very ordinary people. These were not the powerful, the rich or the well-educated people. They were ordinary, uncomplicated believers who recognized the hand of God in the birth of this very ordinary child (like every other baby in the country).

 

Now, you are ordinary and uncomplicated. 

 

See the revelation of God coming to you when the Scriptures are proclaimed in Church, when you read and pray over a particular passage in one of the four Gospels, and in your  quiet prayer time.  The Holy Spirit is active and coming to you in these very ordinary moments of prayer and reflection.

 

God comes to you in the  poor with their many faces. It may be the kindness you bring to your aged aunt in the nursing home. She recognizes no one but you take her hand and gently speak to her of her life, her relationships and all the things she used to be so concerned about in her house. See the face of Jesus in her blank stare.

 

God comes to you in the loud concern that you hear from one of your co-workers. If there is an opening to speak about the homeless people in Regina and our own city, he lays out his strong concern about homelessness. Speaking about concern for the poor and suffering is not always pleasant. Even though this may brother many others at times, this concern is a moment when God is revealing Godself in this very ordinary person.

 

Simeon and Anna, you are so ordinary yet you teach us to see the hand of God in the very ordinary moments of our lives.

 

MAKE THE COMPARISONS

 

Today  (January 20,2025). is the inauguration of the President of the United States This is a  world leader with power and influence. I want you to make some comparisons here between political/financial power and the power within Christian leadership.

 

All leaders, from the local school principal to the heads of all the major countries of the world, convey a great deal of truth about themselves and their values by their actions; whom they associate with and what kind of music they will use and what kind of foods they will eat. For all leaders, their actions speak louder than their words.

 

Leaders set the tone! You may have difficulty putting it into words but you sure can feel it. If you have any doubt about setting the tone for a community, country or a family, just think of your mother. Now, that was a person who set the tone in the family you grew up in! She may not have spoken much but her influence was felt by everyone; even the family cat knew how to behave in the house!

 

In the inauguration in Washington, count the number of billionaries who were invited. And count if there were any poor, working people, house cleaners and the pickers of vegetables, who were invited. 

 

Bring your memory back to 2013 when Pope Francis was elected pope (a world leader with some very powerful influence). Shortly after the election and installation, his first trip was to the little island of Lampedusa. This is a small island in the Mediterranean Sea where the migrants and refugees gather as they try to make entry into Europe. These are not the rich  and the powerful. They are the marginalized and unwanted people of the earth. 

 

Was Pope Francis trying to win favour in high places? Earn more money? Make more friends with the rich and the powerful?

 

And then, for his living accommodations he choose to live in a two room apartment in the guest house at the Vatican. What world leader (of CEO of a large corporation) lives in such a humble abode?

 

In one of his first talks, the first image he uses for the Church is not the ‘Body of Christ’ or the ‘Powerful sign of Salvation.’   He uses the image of a ‘field hospital.’ Now a field hospital is in a tent. It is set up to care for the wounded in battle or it is set up to care  for the wounded after an earthquake or hurricane. A field hospital is meant to care for the poor, the wounded and the unwanted. What does the image of a field hospital communicate?

 

Actions speak much louder than words. Spend some time making comparisons between the Washington inauguration and the actions of Pope Francis. What does the world and the Church have to learn here?  What values of Christianity is Pope Francis making explicit? What can we learn here  and make part of our civic and personal lives!

 

 

 

WE ARE A REPENT CHURCH

In our journey of faith, we are blest with new insights. These new insights help us to live our faith in a vibrant way.

 

I am so thankful to Archbishop Rowen Willians, who reflected on the signs of Christ’s Church. From very early times we have used four signs to identify the Church, the community of faith. It is (1) One, (2) holy, (3) catholic and (4) apostolic. Each of these four signs of identification root us in the Church of the Scriptures and the early centuries.

 

But then he added a fifth: a repentant Church. 

 

We do not stand as holy and perfect. We do not have it made and are no longer in need of conversion. We want to stand in contrast with people who are very satisfied and secure in the way they believe in a supernatural power. They stand too confident in their own abilities and insight.

 

But when the Church practices repentance, when it walks as a repentant church, it takes responsibility for its failure to live the gospel message of Jesus. It takes ownership of its exploitation and abuse of power. It is a Church that holds its sins in its own hands as it walks through history.

 

A repentant Church is one which knows how much it needs the power of God to change its bad practices and exclusion of others. It needs God to turn away from violence and war-making. It asks God to wash our hands of all the greedy things we have done and our refusal to share our riches with the poor and marginalized of this world. 

 

A repentant Church walks with the prophets of the Old Testament who railed against the selfishness and greed that they experience in the Jewish society and the neglect of the poor, the widows and the alien in their midst. A repentant Church can feel the heat of the prophets’ voice calling for a change in social arrangements of their own society.

 

We bring with us the long history of slavery (over three centuries), where black working people from Africa were exploited and enslaved on North and South American farms. Canada also has some practice of slavery in its history. We are not unscathed on this matter. We repent of our terrible history and work towards justice and full equality of all peoples. This may cause much social discomfort but a repentant Church works to correct the wrongs of the past. 

 

A repentant Church is trying to come to grips with the overuse of the earth, and all the harm that our unbridled exploitation has caused the earth. We are actively trying to hear the pains of the earth when we humans have heated the atmosphere, poisoned the waters and caused plants and animals to decline rapidly. We are trying to listen to the pain of the earth. 

 

We have only just begun but we turn to our God, seeking the strength, the wisdom and the insight to make things right. We are asking for the Holy Spirit to move and empower us and  be redeemed of our past sins and human failures. 

 

A repentant Church is one seeking the new life that only God can give us. It embraces all the pain of past sins and turns towards God for forgiveness , new life and justice. A repentant Church is not trapped in the darkness of the past but embraces the painful recovery of God’s life and God’s self-giving peace. 

OUR SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON LISTENING

 

Count all your relatives and co-workers who talk a lot. They do not listen. They are more than eager to start talking the moment you utter your first word to respond to the conversation. 

 

Humans are very poor listeners. 

 

Countless arguments, fights, hurt feelings and wars are the debris of not listening.

 

When I deliberately listen, I take the other person’s arguments and position into perspective. Listening does not mean that I give in to the other person’s position, but I accept that their arguments and concerns are authentic. We will disagree (that is healthy) but we will not throw the other person into the recycle bin.

 

Pope Francis has taken a very bold step in trying to move the Church into a lifestyle of sincere listening. He names it “synodality.” A big word which means that the people of the Church embrace the hard, but life-giving, process of sincere dialogue and humble listening to one another.

 

The Church is worldwide. The way they do Church in Africa is not identical to that of Europe. They way they do Church in India is not the same as the Church in the Philippines. There are so many bridges of understanding that must be built to live and function as the Church. Pope Francis is correct in trying to move the Church to become a listening (embracing the life and experience of the other) community. Our faith has not changed whatsoever, but our way of operating must become more receptive to the life and experience of the other.

 

To listen is to be humble. To listen does not mean that we dilute our truth and firmly held convictions but that we accept that the other is equally sincere, well thought-out and who also seeks the truth. 

 

Stress the humble part of listening. We are living in a culture where it is all about power; use your mouth to try to destroy the opponent. The cultural air that we breath is anything but humble listening. In this culture too many people talk with their muscles.

 

There is no guarantee that the people of the Church will enter into dialogue and humble listening, but Pope Francis is leading in the right direction.  Will the world-wide Church embrace a listening Church?

 

To live a life of humble listening will make many insecure and fearful. This not only means listening to our fellow believer but also listening to God. Where is the Spirit of God leading the Church? Your parish community?

 

There will be stumbles, misunderstandings but we must go forward. Be humble. Keep your mouth still and listen, take in the other, even when it makes us insecure. But in the end, listening will change us on both sides of any issue.