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

Feast of Ss. Peter and Paul; St. Casimir and Holy Cross parishes.

God plants us on a rock.  I find that a very realistic image for what it feels 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.  Now we get glimmers of those realities here and now, furtively we perceive the grace God is pouring out for us, the wonders prepared for us, and we’re given in foretaste, but for now the experience of living in the Church can be pretty well summed up by that image: we live on a rock.  It’s big and it’s craggy and it’s home.

God feeds us with his love – Jn 6:51-58, Deut 8:2-3, 14b-16a, 1 Cor 10:16-17

Corpus Christ; Holy Spirit Parish (Newman Hall), Berkeley, CA.  [Posted late due to travel.]

One day when I was in Haiti we had ice cream and it was amazing.  I was only in Haiti for less than two weeks, we were busy during the days, walking in blazing heat, having trouble sleeping in the sticky nights’ warmth, getting enough to eat (unlike most of the population there), but nowhere near as much as our Western stomachs were used.  But on Sunday afternoon, things quietened down.  Someone had a radio, we went outside, found a spot in the shade and out came the ice cream.  My limited Haitian was just about capable of crying out to our host repeatedly mesi boku mesi boku mesi boku, but really I had no words in any language to truly express my gratitude at that moment for something as simple as ice cream.  I’ve never, before or since, been so grateful for ice cream… and that saddens me.  I’m saddened that it took temporary presence in a third world country to draw out simultaneously a lament that my practice of hospitality doesn’t come close to matching most suburban Haitians’ and to intense gratitude at ice cream.  Unfortunately, it was too short a time to truly inculcate in me growth in the virtue of gratitude, but I have that memory which inspires me to keep on praying for it.

This week's Office of Readings: Judges

I've had an idea for a new blog series for a while, and figured I'd try it out today: look at the week's coming readings in Office of Readings, and provide an interpretive crux for them.  How can reading these readings be prayer?  Here are some thoughts about Judges, a book easily written off as fun but not particularly spiritual.

Love loves love, and us, as infuriating as we are – Exod 34:4b-6, 8-9, Jn 3:16-18 (Tri Sunday)

Trinity Sunday, Year A -- Holy Cross - St. Stan's.

“Early in the morning, Moses began to climb Mount Sinai, carrying two stone tablets.”  What isn’t clear from the beginning of our reading, is that this is the second time Moses had carried those stone tablets up that mountain.  The first time hadn’t gone very well.  He had spent forty days and nights up the mountain in intense intimacy with the God who had delivered His people from slavery in Egypt and was in the process of entering into renewed covenant with them.  The people below had not been able to trust that God would keep on leading them into fuller and richer freedom.  They feared; they felt abandoned.  So, at Aaron’s invitation, they took off their gold earrings and melted them down, forming a golden calf and worshiping it.  They then encountered the full display of God’s wrath which up until that point they had only seen directed at the Egyptians.  Moses, angry too, descended and smashed the tablets, burnt down the calf and made the people drink its ashes.  He now ascends with new tablets, upset, angry, scared.

God pulls us up by the flame of the Spirit – Acts 2:1-11

Pentecost Sunday; Holy Cross - St. Stan's.

Fire.  It fascinates us.  It captures our gaze and delights us.  I’ve just gotten back from what’s officially known as “early years of priesthood retreat” (but more commonly known as baby priest camp!) and we spent more than one night sitting out under the stars, gathered around our outdoor fire pit, enjoying the fraternity, but gazing at the fire.  It warms us, it lights up our world, it cooks our food, it fascinates us and attracts our gaze.

Jesus roots us that we might reach out – Acts 1:1-11, Matt 28:16-20

Ascension Sunday; Holy Cross parish.

We recently hired a new director of maintenance, Steve Velleman (which is very good news, by the way… he starts on Monday).  It’s of vital importance that he never hears the story I’m about to tell you.  This isn’t like a Messianic secret thing, where you go and tell the whole village anyway, seriously… he can’t know this.  We have various banners that are hung in this church for various seasons and Steve’s predecessor, Kevin, would put these up on his own.  What Kevin never knew, and Steve can never know, is that at the last parish where I was a regular parishioner before I entered seminary, I was on the banner hanging team.  I am happily retired from that, I desire no comebacks.  I had two partners in crime.  One was the designer and maker of the banners, who would stand back and tell me if they were hanging straight.  The other was an ex-Marine who held the base of the ladder for me, while I would climb up holding the banner.  Now, of course, the ladder couldn’t go right in front of the hook, it has to go off to the side a little.  So, once I’d gotten to the top, I would have to stretch out, sometimes almost straining, always leaning some, and reach, to hook the banner on, and then return a few times because it apparently was never quite straight.  You can see why I retired.  Now, I don’t think of myself as particularly weak, but I was pretty clearly less strong than Ron at the bottom holding my ladder, and that’s why we divided the tasks the way we did.  I could only dare to reach so far out, because I knew that Ron only needed to use a tiny fraction of his strength for me to be completely securely held.  I was rooted enough to reach out.