God conquers division through intimate embrace – Mark 6:30-34, Eph 2:13-18

OT 16, Yr C; Sacred Heart parish.

Do you ever wonder how the apostles felt?  They’d just come back from their first mission experience without Jesus by their side.  It’d been hard, maybe harder than anything they’d ever known; Jesus has sent them out without provisions, without anything to keep them warm at night if they couldn’t find someone to take them in, shabbily dressed, totally dependent on those they went to serve.  And he’d warned them: they would encounter rejection, being ignored, being turned out of town.  And I’m sure they did.  But we don’t actually read about any of that in Mark’s gospel; he just gives us a short summary of their performance “they preached repentance, drove out many demons, anointed many sick with oil and cured them.”  It had gone great.  They must be coming back at once energized and exuberant with joy at their success, and at the same time completely exhausted.  And emotionally… they’ve probably missed Jesus.  So, when he invites them to come away with him, just the 13 of them, for an intimate time of rest and refreshment… that must be a dream come true!  It’s the two key moments of discipleship back to back: doing the work of Jesus, and enjoying the friendship of Jesus, just wasting time with him.

God heals through our dependency – Mark 6:7-13, Eph 1:3-10, Amos 7:12-17

Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time; Holy Cross parish.

As a Brit living in America, I always find celebrating Independence Day a little odd.  Now, I like burgers and fireworks, so I quickly get over any feelings of oddness and just enjoy myself, but I’ve often wondered what it might look like if a civil celebration of political Independence was somehow paired with a more religious celebration of Dependence: an interior attitude of dependence on God, that’s expressed and formed by actions which make clear to ourselves and to others our total dependence on God’s creation, and the humans who crown that creation.  By Providence, that’s precisely what our gospel today encourages us to do.

God reaches out to us in the mundane – Mark 6:1-6a, 2 Cor 12:7-10, Ezek 2:2-5

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time; St. Adalbert's, South Bend.  (one English Mass; one Spanish).

Jesus was amazed.  Jesus didn’t get amazed all that much, at least not in the scriptural texts we have, and when he did, it was generally being pleasantly amazed at someone’s faith. But here, he’s amazed and the emotions that go along with that might be saddened, mournful, lost, dismayed.  He’d come home, to the place he was most familiar with, the place he might expected comfort, even might look forward to an enthusiastic welcome; but he finds a lack of faith, a dishonor that amazes him, shocks him.

Two weeks off preaching

I have a couple of weekends (this and next) without any preaching commitments, as I transition to Notre Dame.  In July, I have parish assistance gigs lined up for three of the Sundays and come late August, I'll be regularly preaching in one of the women's residence halls on campus.

God gives surprising growth – Mark 4:26-34, Ezek 17:22-24

11th Sunday of Ordinary Time; last Masses at Holy Cross and St. Stanislaus parishes!

For some reason that right now escapes me, I thought it would work fine to have this past week be my last at the parish, and then move to Notre Dame and start summer school on Monday.  So, the past week has been an odd mix of packing, moving and unpacking, physically as well as trying to wrap up projects or at least package them neatly enough that they could be handed over, to another member of our pastoral team, a parishioner, or just offered up to God.  Apart from my formal teaching in the school, which wrapped up nicely, so many of my ‘projects’ here are in fact people’s lives, and lives don’t wrap up into nice neat little packages.  As I’ve been praying this week with these scriptures, it strikes me that I’m leaving here with a lot of seeds still in the ground.  I say that about these two parish communities, I say that about many of the individuals and families who I’ve been privileged to serve in their more fragile, transparent moments, and I say that about myself: my priesthood, my discipleship.

God joins Himself to us – Exod 24:3-8, Mark 14:12-26

Corpus Christi, Year B; Holy Cross parish.

I have a confession to make: over the Easter season, I really enjoyed sprinkling all the water around on all of you at the start of Mass each Sunday.  On the somewhat rare occasions we have incense, I also enjoy wafting that vaporized medium of blessing towards the altar and giving it to a server to receive that same blessing myself before sharing it with you.  I’m not sure, however, quite how I’d do with all of this sprinkling of blood Moses was doing in the rite that made up our first reading.  I’m not sure how well we’d do at retaining sacristans and cleaners either, if we did all of that.  If the priesthood of the new covenant had inherited from the old the need to sacrifice young bulls… well, I don’t think I’d do very well at that either.  Praying with these readings, preparing to preach today, the first thought that came to my mind was: well, that’s not the question, “how good are you at sacrificing bulls?”  The question is, “How good are you at sacrificing yourself.”  And the first answer that floated to my mind was: “honestly, not very.”  But, then I heard a deeper answer resounding: “but Christ is.”

God brings us into His divine Life – Deut 4:32-40, Rom 8:14-17, Matt 28:16-20

Trinity Sunday, Year B (baptisms during Mass) -- Holy Cross parish

“The Lord is God in the heavens above and on the earth below.”  That’s what Moses has to say to his people.  They’ve been rescued by God from slavery in Egypt, they’ve encountered him and received the Law on the mountain, they’ve wandered the wilderness led by him, and now they stop on the plains before crossing the water into the Promised Land, and listen to Moses, who proclaims to them: “The Lord is God in the heavens above and on the earth below.”  And he proclaims it, because it matters.  I think we’re probably on board with God being God in heaven; it’s God on earth we might be disquieted by.  The idea that God, while totally incomparable to any finite, fallible, created thing, enters into our world, acts, concerns Himself intimately with each one of us, with our greatest triumphs, with the most mundane pieces of daily life, and with our sin, our hunger, our weakness and our need… it’s almost too much to bear.  God loved Israel so much he wanted to make them His own, and he loves us the same.  That changes everything, and that’s not always comfortable.  He offers us a mutual binding: he’ll commit to us, and He longs for us to commit to Him.  He’ll lead us, to the Promised Land; that’s an invitation for us: to follow.