God perfects us in love – Phil 1:4-6, 8-11.

Moreau Sunday Vespers; Preaching on the Second Reading (Phil) from today's Mass.

“May God who began this good work in you bring it to completion.”  Many of us in this room have heard these words spoken directly to us and many will hear them in the future, whether again or for the first time.  They were first spoken to me by Fr. David Tyson right after I professed first vows.  I hope I will hear them for a final time in April of 2014, moments before the Bishop’s consecratory prayer will make me a priest.  This good work… may God bring it to completion.

God’s is the strength, God is destination – Adv I collect

Preaching on the Advent I Collect for Old College.

Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God,

The resolve to run forth to meet your Christ

With righteous deeds at his coming,

So that, gathered at his right hand,

They may be worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

One God, for ever and ever.

Advent is for waiting – if people know one thing about Advent, it’s probably that.  We’re waiting for Christmas, which isn’t very long to wait (and seems even quicker given the decorations we have up in Old College!) and we’re waiting for Christ’s second coming, without knowing how long that will be.  Regardless, we’re waiting.  So why does this collect talk about running?  No matter what the pastor of St. Joe parish might tell you, it’s not a shout out to the St. Nick Six, but a characterization of what Christian waiting looks like.

God strengthens our hearts and raises our heads to live in freedom – Advent 1 (Yr C), Luke 21:25-28, 34-36.

Homily for preaching class on this year's Advent I readings.

What do you want for Christmas?  I want a puppy, but I know that’s not going to happen.  Realistically, I’ll be glad to get some good books, a trip to visit family, and a decent bottle of scotch from the duty free on the way back.  And I’m sure all of us have some simple things we want to get, but maybe we could each think of something we’d want to be rid of too.  For some of us… some just want to be sober for Christmas, to get through the holidays without smoking or to be free of another addiction.  Some of us want to be free of guilt when they take an extra Christmas cookie or of shame when they even contemplate seeing their body in a mirror.  Some of us want to be free of crippling social anxiety, or of a temper that erupts at the worst moments.  For others of us, what we want to be free from might be much subtler: a laziness that thwarts our best intentions, an envy that prevents us from being truly happy for someone else, a need to always be right, clumsiness.  Whatever it is, we want to be free. 

God shakes our world – Matt 28:1-10

To complete my series on the Seven Sorrows of Mary, I closed with the resurrection.

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.  And, behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord had come down from heaven.  The angel came and rolled away the stone, and then he sat upon it.  His countenance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow.  The guards quaked with fear and became like corpses.

The angel spoke to the women:  “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are seeking Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here, for he was raised just as he said.  Come, see the place where he laid.  And now, go, tell his disciples that he has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.  See, I have told you.”

Immediately, they went away from the tomb with fear and great joy.  They ran to tell his disciples.  Jesus appeared right to them, met them and said:  “Rejoice!”  They went up to him and grasped him by the feet and bowed down in homage to him.  Then, Jesus said to them: “Do not be afraid.  “Go, tell my brothers to go away to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

~~

Back when I still lived in California, there was a Bible study I’d go to in the rectory of nearby church.  One day, we were discussing some passage and as I was explaining how some aspect of it struck me, suddenly everything jolted.  My first, unthinking instinctive reaction was: “someone’s done an emergency stop.”  Then, I remembered we weren’t in a car… we were in the rectory, and rectories don’t do emergency stops.  It was an earthquake.  Not one that caused any real damage, but enough to jolt us, to spill people’s drinks, to make me joke that God maybe didn’t like that interpretation I’d just offered.  Enough to remind me that the earth we instinctively think of as solid and ultimately dependable is neither of those things.

God blesses us and bequeaths us as blessers – 1 Pet 3:8-9

1 Pet 3:8-9; Moreau Lucenarium.

Imagine you missed out on a great night out last night.  All your friends had an amazing banquet and raised their cups several times in toasts.  But, you knew there’d be toasts to the gods so you didn’t go.  Since becoming a Christian, your social life has really suffered.  And it’s not just that, or that your old friends think you’ve gone crazy for thinking that a crucified Jew could have come back for the dead, they think you’re selfish and mean-spirited because you won’t offer meat to be sacrificed to the local deity.  At times even you wonder if this year’s harvest will be that much worse because of you. Every time you go to the market (which you’re not really sure you should be at anyway, because of all the idols on display), people look at you funny, you’re sure whispering behind your back is about you and occasionally an insult does reach your ears.  And the Christians who welcomed you?  They don’t live like the teacher said they would: they bicker, they’re proud.

God acts extravagantly, but in secret

That last of the seven sorrows of Mary: laying Jesus' body in the tomb.

Nicodemus, who had first come to Jesus by night, came carrying a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing about 100 pounds.

Then, they took the body of Jesus and bound it with linen and with the spices.

This is the burial custom of the Jews.

There was in the place where he was buried a garden

and in the garden a new tomb, in which no-one had been placed.

There then, because it was the day of preparation of the Jews, and because the tomb was near,

they placed Jesus.

~~

He had come at night to see the Light of the World.  Nicodemus wanted to keep his interest in Jesus secret, so he went to see him at night to ask his questions about how to enter the kingdom of God.  Now the secret is out: a respected member of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus can’t have been a young man and must have struggled to carry 100 pounds of ointment up a hill.  The sight must have seemed almost comic, almost pathetic as he tottered along struggling with this heavy load.  He certainly can’t have been moving quickly, covertly or even inconspicuously.  Everyone would now know that he was off to do something extravagant.

God shows his love for us even when all we see is gruesome – Mk 15:42-45

Continuing my Old College series on the the Seven Sorrows of Mary with taking the body down from the cross.

As it had already become late, since it was the day of Preparation (before the Sabbath),

Joseph of Arimathea, an honored member of the council who was also waiting for the kingdom of God,

Dared to go to Pilate and ask for the body of Jesus.

Pilate was amazed that he was already dead and called to the centurion and asked him if Jesus had already died.

When he had found that out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph.

~~

How do you have hope, when all you have is a dead body?  When you see suffering, when you see the marks of thorns, nails, whips, and you feel their effect in the graying stiffening smelling corpse that’s all you have left, how can you have hope?  When you know that on a deeper level than physical causes of death, that the real cause was human hands, the hands of sinners, created in the image and likeness of God but fallen… just like you, how do you have hope?

What is a homily?

Fall break gives me two weekends free of preaching, and I didn't want to leave this blog fallow for that long, so here's an article I once wrote to answer the question in the title: "What is a homily?"

At Mass, you are told to lift up your hearts.  God wants your hearts uplifted; He wants them on fire with the love in which and for which you were created.  If this command is given at Mass, there must be some means provided by which you may be formed (or, better, re-formed) into creatures who have their hearts lifted to their Creator.  He must be trying to lift your hearts.  The aim of the Eucharistic homily is to enable your hearts to be lifted.

God in His holiness forgives us – Hos 11:1-6, 8-9

Hosea 11:1-6, 8-9; Morning Prayer at Old College Retreat on the Sacred Heart.  I used the NABRE translation, because it's a very hard passage to translate and I didn't have time to do it myself.  I did re-translate a few things, including nehpak ("[my heart] was overwhelmed") to "overthrown."

Hosea knew what it meant for a city to be overthrown.  He knew what it looked like for enemy forces to outflank troops, to press hard and conquer.  He lived most of his life threatened by exile and slavery at Assyrian hands, living among a people that had imposed the same on others.  When he talked about something being overthrown he knew what kind of violent destruction he was talking about.  When he says that God’s heart is overthrown, that’s not throw away language.

Jesus brings us back to God’s creative love –Mark 10:2-12.

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B).  Homily for Liturgical Celebration class.  The practice context was a parish where I didn't know anyone, having been asked to substitute for a pastor on vacation.

“Go back to the beginning… how did this all start?”  When something that was meant to be wonderful starts to taste bitter, that can be just the question to ask.  What was it that so exited me and led me to begin this course of study, to play on this team, to take this job… to marry this person?  How can I bring that initial fervor to life again, in the more mature way that’s needed to deal with our more seasoned problems or our creeping ennui?

God went to the cross for us – Jas 5:1-6.

Preaching on the second reading from today's Mass; Sunday Vespers, Moreau Seminary.

Thanks be to God?  Do you see God in this reading? Because I have to admit that when I first looked at the text I’d been assigned to preach on tonight, the happiest thought that came to me was that at least I wasn’t being asked to tell you to cut body parts off.  But we have to find God in this reading from James, because the people we minister to are relying on us to help them point to and name the action of God in their lives and if we can’t do that with sacred scripture, we’re in trouble.

God forges community from the cross – Jn 19:25-27

Continuing my Old College series on the the Seven Sorrows of Mary with the Crucifixion.

There stood by the cross of Jesus his mother and his mother’s sister, Maria the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalen.

Then Jesus, seeing his mother and the disciple he loved standing by, said to his mother:

“Women, behold your son!”

Then, he said to the disciple:

“Behold your mother!”

And from that hour, the disciple received her as his own.

~~

Goudou Goudou: that’s the word in Haitian Creole for ‘earthquake.’  Prior to January 2010, there was no Haitian Creole word for earthquake.  Language was not the only thing that changed on that day that knocked Haiti down.  Haiti was not doing well before the goudou goudou and it’s not doing well now, but things have changed.  This summer I spent some time there and met some amazing groups of Haitians that, with outside support, have come together in the face of horrific disaster to work together to improve their community.  I met people that never realized they were a community, with deep responsibilities to each other, until disaster hit.  I would never want in any way to romanticize, sugar-coat or over-spiritualize what happened when the earth shook in Haiti.  But from that very real cross, God forged community.

God commands life – Luke 7:11-17.

The Widow of Nain; Sunday-length homily for preaching class.

What are you carrying? … Is it heavy?  Is it in your arms, or on your back, or is a friend holding it for you right now?  What are you carrying?  I’m not asking you to answer out loud, because I want you to think of something you wouldn’t want to tell this whole group.  Because most of us have something that weighs us down.  A memory, a fear, an injustice suffered or inflicted, an incompetence or a deception. 

Jesus expands our vision – Lk 23:26-31

Continuing the OC series on the Seven Sorrows of Mary.  This week, the Way of the Cross.

As they led Jesus away, they seized a certain Cyrenean, Simon, who was coming from the countryside and they imposed on him the cross to carry behind Jesus.

A great crowd of the people was following him including some women who were mourning and lamenting over him. 

Turning to them, Jesus said: “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me.

“Weep rather for yourselves and for your children,

“for, behold, the days are coming in which they will say,

“‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that have not born children and the breasts that have not nursed.’

“Then they will start to say to the mountains, ‘fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘cover us.’

“For if these things happen when the trees are green, what will come to pass when they are dry?”

~~

It wasn’t the first time Jesus had heard a woman cry out as he walked.  Near the start of the great journey to Jerusalem he undertook, a woman cried out, “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts at which you nursed!”  Jesus certainly does not deny the blessedness of his Mother Mary, but his response expands that woman’s vision: “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and do it.”  The blessing of having the Word of God be born in you is great, but Mary’s motherhood does not compete with or eclipse, but begets the Church’s motherhood, and who is the Church but all who hear the word of God and do it?  Thus, the word of God is born in us. 

Jesus waits with us before walking with us – Lk 2:41-49

Continuing the Old College Holy Hour Series on Our Lady of Sorrows

Jesus’ parents used to go each year to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. 

When he was twelve years old, he had gone up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast, and when the days of the feast were completed and the people were going away, Jesus remained, the boy in Jerusalem, and his parents did not know.

Thinking that he was amongst the fellow travelers on the way, they went a day’s journey and were seeking him out among their relatives and acquaintances.  When they did not find him, they turned around and returned to Jerusalem to search for him.

After three days, they found him in the Temple, sat in the middle of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.  All those who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his responses.

Upon seeing him, his parents were astounded and his mother said to him: “My child, why have you done this to us?  Look, your father and I have been seeking you in such grief.”

And he said to them: “Why did you seek me?  Did you not know that it is necessary for me to be amongst the things of my Father?”

~~

There was an ad that aired on British television in the run up to last Christmas.  It featured a young boy who longed for Christmas to come sooner.  We would see him gazing listlessly out of a window as the leaves slowly changed; we saw him mark off the days with tally marks on his wall; we saw him dress up in a wizard costume and zap the clock with his wand to try to make it go faster.  Finally, we see him wake up, way too early for his parents, on Christmas Day morning, eyes a-glimmer with excitement.  He takes a clumsily wrapped box from under his bed, walks into his parents’ room, and offers it to them.  The caption comes up: “Lewis’s – for gifts you can’t wait to give.” 

God has a loving plan for us – Matt 2:13-15

Continuing the Old College Holy Hour series on Our Lady of Sorrows.

When the Magi had left, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph, saying:

“Arise and take the child and his mother

and flee to Egypt and stay there until I tell you,

for Herod is about to seek the child out in order to kill him.”

When he had arisen, he took the child and his mother by night

and they went away into Egypt and were there until the death of Herod,

in order that what the Lord said through the prophet might be fulfilled:

“Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

~~

God calls Joseph to become a refugee, to undertake a perilous journey to a strange land and experience the alienation and marginalization of life on the edge of society in Egypt.  God calls him to rise from death to life, but not to an easy life, and He doesn’t give him an easy road to tread to get there.  God doesn’t promise us an easy life either; He promises eternal life.

God promises to raise us if we trust enough to fall – Lk 2:27-35a

This is the first in a series of reflections I'm giving at the Old College Saturday morning Holy Hour on the Seven Sorrows of Mary.

Simeon came in the Spirit to the temple grounds and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do to him what is customary according to the Law, he took him in his arms and praised God, saying:

“Now you release your servant in peace, Master, according to your word.

“For my eyes have seen your salvation that you prepared in the sight of all peoples,

“A light for the revelation to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.”

His mother and father were amazed at what was said about him.  And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “Behold, he is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel and for a sign of opposition; and a sword will pierce your soul.”

~~

“It was the scariest day of my life.”  That’s not what I expected my friend to say after the baptism of her first child.  So, I probed a little.  She explained that as little Julie passed through the waters of rebirth, she had a profound sense that she was giving her daughter up for adoption.  She was; that’s true.  Now, the way God parents us does not in any way compete with our earthly parents, it doesn’t take them off the scene, the domestic church is where we hope people first experience God’s fatherly love even if that doesn’t always happen.  But, at the end of the day, God is first.  We’re all adopted, and I’d never really stopped to consider how that affects some parents.

God gives us as shepherds– Jer 3:14-17

Friday of the 16th week of Ordinary Time; St. Joseph parish.  [I'm leaving St. Joe this weekend, so there might be a two week break rather than a one week break between posts until I get in to a rhythm at Old College.]

The book of Jeremiah is disaster literature.  Jeremiah’s Jerusalem was besieged and destroyed by the Babylonians and the People were exiled from the Land God had promised.  The disaster was theological, political and physical all at once.  In the midst of this, Jeremiah offers words from God.  He does not bring promise of warriors, or kings, or even builders.  He promises shepherds: basic care for a pilgrim people with nowhere to lay their heads.  It’s smaller than you think: humbler.

God makes the humdrum great, when invited in – Matt 12:1-8

Friday of the 15th week of Ordinary Time; St. Joseph parish.

The Second Temple stood in Jerusalem for over 400 years.  It was 1600 feet long, 900 feet wide, 9 stories high, and its main walls were built with 30 ton bricks.  But Jesus wandering in a field with his disciple munching on someone else’s corn: this was something greater than that.  The Temple was the site of passionate, lavish, exquisitely celebrated festivals of joy, mourning and sacrifice.  But Jesus and his rag tag band: that was something greater.  The Temple was the symbol of national and religious pride, the site of the Chanukah miracle, celebrating Jewish defeat of pagan idolatry.  But this lax, hungry group: something greater.

God heals us of our idolatry – Hosea 14:2-10.

Friday of the 14th week of Ordinary Time; St. Joseph Parish.

We’re very used to making deals, we’ve probably been doing it since we were kids.  “So, if I were to eat two of my brussel sprouts, what would the chances be of some ice cream?”

It’s very easy to see our first reading from Hosea as just such a deal, offered by an Israelite prophet to God: “So, if I get rid of these idols, and make some burnt offerings, how about making us prosper and bear fruit like a mighty tree?”  It sounds almost ridiculous, but I think that’s often how we think about our relationship with God.  If I work hard, offer enough up, eat enough brussel sprouts, God will have to repay me somehow.

God dines with us – Matt 9:9-13

Friday of the 13th week of Ordinary Time; St. Joseph Parish.

Who would you least like to have dinner with? 

I ask because we often have this romantic idea that Jesus really enjoyed dining with tax collectors and sinners, that he got more out of their company than the fuddy-duddy righteous legalistic types.  Really?  Maybe… but if we confess that Jesus walked to his cross for us, maybe we can also at least imagine him sometimes having dinner with someone he didn’t much like.  Certainly, when challenged on his choice of table companions he doesn’t excuse them or say, “I eat with them because they’re so much fun;” but: “They’re sick; I came to heal.”

God plants us on a rock – 2 Tim 4:6-8, 17-18; Matt 16:13-19

Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Joe.


God plants us on a rock.  I find that a very realistic image for what it looks like to live out our lives in the Church.  We don’t live in a rose garden, yet, and we don’t experience perpetual banquet, yet.  As much as I hope we get glimmers of those realities now furtively, we live on a rock.  It’s big and it’s craggy and it’s home.

God reforms our vision – 2 Kings 11, Matt 6:19-23, SS. John Fisher and Thomas More.

Friday of the 11th week of Ordinary Time, St. Joe.

When did you last have your vision checked?  I don’t mean by an eye-doctor; I mean by Jesus.  In today’s gospel, Jesus tells us that the quality of our vision will determine the health of our entire self.  Our Holy Cross Constitutions tell us that “for the kingdom to come, disciples need the competence to see and the courage to act.”  The world looks different through eyes of faith, through kingdom-focused eyes, through compassionate eyes, through courageous eyes.

Godly vision doesn’t make the world looked rose-tinted; it doesn’t look nicer in a cheap way.  The priest Jehoiada in our first reading had the keen vision to see more clearly the injustice of Athaliah’s power-hungry reign. He also had the courageous vision to see this as injustice he must right, and we just heard how he managed to preserve an heir, depose Athaliah, destroy the site of Ba’al worship, and bring calm to Judah.

SS. John Fisher and Thomas More also had the God-given vision for injustice to see how Henry VIII was acting irreverently towards the Pope, wickedly towards his first wife, Catherine of Aragorn, and hubristically towards God by claiming the power to annul his own marriage.  They also had the courageous vision to see these wrongs as wrongs they must try to address.  They failed.  They were put to death and Henry abandoned Catherine and the Catholic Church.

But we celebrate their feast day today.  Why would we celebrate failures?  To see them as failures is to see them with clouded eyes.  Godly eyes do not let their death blot out the rest of reality.  Godly eyes see two men who loved: who loved their queen, loved England, loved the Church, loved justice, loved God… who loved enough to die for love.

That’s not failure, that’s what Jesus died for.

God humbles us – 1 Pet 5:1-6

Moreau Lucenarium; 1/26/12.  I didn't preach this week as I was on vacation, so here's an old one from earlier this year.  Note: I instructed the lector to say "be humbled" rather than "humble yourselves" in v. 6.  Both are grammatically possible translations, but the passive is preferred to the middle as it puts the emphasis on God's saving action rather than making it seem as if we could humble  ourselves without His grace.

“My future spouse often humiliates me.”  That’s a red flag.  When you’re preparing a couple for marriage and one of them agrees with that statement on the FOCCUS questionnaire, you know you’ve probably identified something you’ll need to talk about during the preparation process.  In fact, when you get the results printout from the computer, it even puts a big star next to that statement, in case you couldn’t guess that it’s kind of a big red flag.

So, when I brought this up to Maria during one of our meetings, I was surprised when she was surprised that I brought it up.  Her fiancé was pretty surprised about the whole thing too.  Eventually, and there’s five confusing minutes of conversation I’m abridging, we worked out what was going on.  Maria is not a native speaker of English and in her language (actually, in many languages), the word for ‘to humiliate someone’ is the same word as ‘to humble someone.’  “John makes me humble,” she told me. “To be loved by such a wonderful man, how could that not make you humble?  Isn’t that beautiful?”

I couldn’t help but agree with her.  That is beautiful.  That’s not a red flag, that’s good news, great news, for their future marriage.  During that conversation, I struggled to put into words something so seemingly obvious as the difference between being humiliated and being humbled.  Part of it is consent – humiliation ordinarily happens against our will, it’s forced.  To be humbled, we must cooperate, “not under compulsion but willingly.”

To be humiliated is to be pushed down, often by someone smaller than you, so you are forced to crank your neck to see them.  To be humbled is to stand tall willingly straining your neck to gaze upon something much bigger than you.

God never humiliates us.  God humbles us.  That’s good news, that’s great news not for our future marriage but for right now.  It’s so tempting to skip past that line in our reading, “be humbled under the mighty hand of God” and jump to “so that he might exalt us.”  And that’s beautiful too – the exaltation that is to come, the unfading crown that belongs to a future age – all wonderful.  But, “be humbled under the mighty hand of God…” that’s not quid pro quo; that’s not the price, how we earn a crown we could never earn.  That’s the good news for right now.

God takes our virtues and shows us what they look like in their fullness, in his mighty hand.  To strain your neck to gaze at that is to be humble.

He takes us when we finally realize we have slipped up and fallen down and offers us that hand.  To be humble is to take it, to grasp that loving hand, that wounded hand.  To be humble is to bear witness to the sufferings of Christ and say look at this hand that holds me, look at the sign of love etched into its palm.  Can I love like that?  On my own, am I nothing, but I am not on my own.

Jesus is Lord – 2 Tim 3:10-17; Mark 12:35-37

Friday of the 9th Week of Ordinary Time; St Joseph parish.

What’s the brashest way you can think of to proclaim “Jesus is Lord”?  Picture a van careering through traffic on a dusty street, crammed with 12 people in the back with about enough seating for 6, open to the air except for a brightly painted wooden frame enclosing them, decorated with vibrant patterns, joyful pictures and religious phrases written in French or sometimes Creole.  This is a tap tap and they function as buses all over Haiti.  The phrases vary – you can ride in a “Blood of Jesus” tap tap, or a “Promise of God” tap tap, or a “Jesus is Lord” tap tap.

These were some of the first sights to greet me when I arrived in Haiti and they surprised me.  I went to Haiti thinking I was going to a very poor country, and I was.  Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and the poverty I saw was crippling and horrific.  Disease, disaster, malnutrition, poor education, a history of oppression, dictatorship and corruption conspire against life.  But, Haiti is not hopeless.

Naïve Haitian art is colorful and daring. It focuses on what makes Haiti so very rich – its beautiful natural surroundings; its welcome of the stranger; its familial sense of mutual support and biblical neighborliness; its lively faith.  It sees what a cursory glance cannot see.  It sees through all of the rival powers that seem to overwhelm the country and declares that they do not have the final word.  Jesus is Lord.

Our reading from 2^nd Timothy tells us that all scripture is useful training for righteousness.  The insight from today’s gospel that brought the crowd such joy – that the Christ is Lord – is emblazoned on so many tap taps because it’s part of the Haitian training regime.  It’s what gives hope.  It’s what tells them that wounds don’t get to have the last word: resurrection does.

God is pervasively close to us, driving us to glory – Rom 8:26-30

Moreau Lucenarium, Feast of St. Edward the Confessor, 2011; I've just come off retreat, so no preaching this past week.  Here's an old one from last Fall.  I'm about to leave for some time in Haiti, so I won't post again for a couple of weeks.

I remember the first time I saw St. Edward the Confessor, today’s saint (and patron not just of Fr. Sorin but also of ___ ___, our cantor – wish him a happy feast at the social!).

I first saw him in the Bayeux tapestry, which is basically an 11^th Century comic strip, almost as long as a football field, depicting the run-up to and execution of the Norman Conquest of England in which St. Edward features rather prominently.  Here are two interesting things about the Bayeux tapestry – it’s not from Bayeux, and it’s not a tapestry.  The Bayeux name comes from where it was found after being lost for a few hundred years, but why it’s called a tapestry is rather a mystery to me given that it’s actually an embroidery.

Now, for those of you not up on your textile art, let me explain the difference: a tapestry is made by taking a bunch of colored threads and weaving them together to make a pattern or a picture.  An embroidery is where you take an already woven piece of cloth (beige in this case) and sew pieces of thread into it to make patterns or pictures.  Maybe people call it a tapestry because they’re so enamoured with the action in the pictures that they miss the cloth they’re sown into.  And that’s a shame.

…Because life is an embroidery, not a tapestry.  The world is not just a bunch of threads that hold themselves together; the world is held on, suspended in, a seamless cloth.  Like those images in the Bayeux embroidery, we have form only because each and every stitch that makes us up is knotted in to God.  You and I can only exist in relationship together in the same space because the space between us is full of God.  The Spirit is within and between us, enveloping us and, as Paul says here, searching us and praying for us.

Romans 8, the chapter our reading is drawn from, is Paul’s gospel of hope.  In fact, just two verses before the start of our reading comes the line Pope Benedict used as the title of one of his encyclicals: in hope, we are saved; Spe salvi.  The link between hope and the Spirit’s enveloping and penetrating of us is key to the logic of this chapter of Romans and the Holy Father draws it out beautifully in his encyclical, telling us: it is in prayer that we learn hope.  If there is no one to listen, God listens.  If I have no one to talk to, I have God.  If there is no one to meet some need or desire that goes beyond the human capacity for hope, I hope in God.

Friends, if true hope is hope in God; true hope is also hope for something, hope for salvation.  The pervasiveness of the Spirit is the pervasiveness of our crucified and risen savior.  Resurrection is the hue of the cloth in which we are sown.  Recall the chain of verbs that closes our reading: foreknow, predestine, call, justify, glorify.  This chain shows the relentless action of God – God never relents from loving us; God never relents from pushing us onwards to live out the glory that Jesus won for us.

The resurrection is not an exception or an irruption into the normal course of human affairs – it is the cloth we’re knit into.  It is the true normal.

I would wish you a glorious break – and a glorious life – but someone much more powerful than me has already done that!

Jesus looks at us – John 16:20-23

Friday of the 6th week of Easter; St. Joseph parish.

She was scared to be left alone with him.  My friend Abi recently had her first child, a beautiful baby boy named Jack, and she shared with me during the pregnancy what her greatest anxiety was – it wasn’t how her and her husband would cope with the huge changes to come in their lives, it wasn’t sleepless nights, it wasn’t labor; it was that first time after the birth that she would be left alone the baby.  How would she know what to do?  Of course, that time eventually came.  After the birth, once she had come home from the hospital, and friends and family had left, after a while her husband had to leave too go to the store.  She took a deep breath to try and calm her nerves, and then looked down at the impossibly precious bundle in her arms.  Jack looked back at her.  He couldn’t smile yet, but he could look with love.  At that moment, Abi felt no anxiety, only joy.

In that moment, she understood the surprising good news that Jesus had for his disciples in the upper room and has for us today.  While we may want to see Jesus (and I hope we do), what gives joy to our hearts is that Jesus will see us.  He says, “I will see you and your hearts will rejoice.”

Do we long for that searching loving gaze?  Do we prepare for it now, by showing him our all in our prayer?  Do we show the good, so as he can see gifts given to be handed on?  Do we trust that he can take it when we show our pain and lament, so as he can see our wounds that match his? Do we trust in his love to show our failings, our temptations and our wrong-doings, so as he can see what to forgive to send us out into the world as agents of forgiveness?

Having Christ born in us is scary.  That kind of honesty involves serious labor pains.  It leads to that look of love.  It leads to joy.