Jesus gives us the gift of being givers – John 21:1-14, Rev 5:11-14

Easter, Week 3 (Year C); Notre Dame (Keenan / Howard)

When I was in my first semester of the MDiv degree here at Notre Dame, I was rather surprised to get an email from one of our professors asking, “Can I keep a copy of this paper?”  It was a class in which we had to write a bunch of short papers over the semester, and after turning in about half of them, she would contact me to ask if she could keep a copy.  At first I thought it was a little strange, mainly because I didn’t really see why she felt the need to ask, but also because these weren’t papers that had really contained a lot of original research on my part, I’m sure I hadn’t told her something she didn’t already know in them, they were really just processing and reflecting on the readings that she had already given us.  But, then I remembered she was a scholar and a teacher.  She had chosen to dedicate her life to theological scholarship because she loved to read good theological writing, and apparently, I was producing something at least approaching that.  And, as a teacher, she needed to teach me that I was doing that, and asking permission to keep a copy of something she had a right to anyway, something that I could only have produced with her help and at her command; that was how she went about that.  In her deigning to receive my work as a gift, she nourished my scholarly zeal.  In deigning to receive my work as a gift, she gave me a gift in addition to the teaching she had already given; she gave me the gift of being a giver.

Jesus refuses goodbye – John 20:1-9

Easter Sunday; Notre Dame (Basilica of the Sacred Heart).  Video.

I don’t really like goodbyes.  I’m generally one of those people who tends to quietly slip away from a party, rather than going round bidding farewell to everyone I know.  And with casual acquaintances, or good friends we’ll only briefly be separated from, that’s OK (even if it verges on unconscionable for some of my more extroverted friends).  But the dearer the friend and the more remote the absence or uncertain the possibility of renewed contact, the more important the goodbye is.  And the harder it is.  So, I really don’t like those goodbyes, and still less final goodbyes, as much as I still cling to them as precious.

Jesus constantly desires closeness – Luke 22:14-23:56

Palm Sunday (Year C); Notre Dame (Lewis Hall)

How might we have responded to Jesus’ Passion at the time?  How are we responding now?  How are we responding to Christ’s suffering lived out in the suffering of our sisters and brothers and of ourselves?  How are we responding to Christ’s sacrifice, re-presented on every altar at every Mass, that we might be fed?

God sends us to the goal of glory – John 8:1-11, Isa 43:16-21, Phil 3:8-14

Lent, Yr C, Wk 5; Basilica of the Sacred Heart (ND).

The saddest thing about this gospel is that they walked away, these people with stones in their hands.  And there’s pretty stiff competition for the saddest thing about this gospel.  There’s the fact that there were going to stone a woman to death.  There’s their desire to test Jesus.  There’s the possibility that an act of adultery had been occurring, and we have to stand back and also be just as saddened, nay outraged, that we don’t know who consented to what in this encounter.  There is a lot to lament in this Gospel, about this happening retold to us, and about people and events in our lives whose memories it evokes.  But, I still contend that the saddest thing about this gospel is that they walked away, these people with stones in their hands.

God feeds us for joy – Luke 15:1-3. 11-32

Lent, Yr C, Wk 4; Holy Cross House.

Baby flamingoes are born with grey feathers.  They only become pink because their diet is rich in a natural pink dye called canthaxanthin, which is found both in brine shrimp and, somewhat paradoxically in blue-green algae.  Zoo flamingoes used to lose their acquired pinkness until zookeepers realized that they had to provide them with artificial sources of canthaxanthin.  As with flamingoes, so with us: we are what we eat.

God enlivens our vision – Exod 3:1-15, Luke 13:1-9

Lent, Yr C, Wk 3; Notre Dame (Farley Hall)

I wonder how many burning bushes Moses walked past.  We’d all like to think that we’d notice something like that, that it takes no special spiritual gift to notice something, to draw close to it out of curiosity, and then be surprised by God.  But, we walk past burning bushes all the time.  That kind of attentiveness that attends to the world in a sensitive enough manner to notice how God might be calling out to us isn’t something we just have automatically.  It is a gift, but it’s a gift we give thanks for by working to develop it, just like musical talent, or athletic ability.

Jesus’ glorious word sustains us on our walk –Luke 9:28b-36

Lent, Yr C, Wk 2; televised Mass for those unable to attend Mass (Diocese of Fort Wayne - South Bend)

I’m sure we all have moments from our past that we love to revisit in our memories; moments that we would have loved to freeze-frame when they happened, that we long to have been able to package in a way that we could open them up again and again, and let their fragrance revive us from any spiritual drowsiness we find ourselves in.  There are big, obvious moments like a wedding, your first child’s first smile or, for me, my profession of perpetual religious vows, or my ordination; and any number of more unique moments we each cherish.  What’s amazing about those moments though, is that each of them look forward, prepare us for something totally new, something that we could never have begun to embrace without that amazing moment, but we also could never have gotten to if we hadn’t climbed down from the mountain and dared to walk in the plain.