The God Jesus

The Jews did not entertain the idea that Jesus was equal to God.  For them, God was so different, so other, so beyond that no one could be equal to God.  God was for them, someone who was concerned for this people, the Jews, God’s People.  Through the prophets, this unknowable God would speak, challenge, exhort, love and punish, all in the hopes that the people would repent and change their ways.  But once the Gentiles, non-Jews, began to believe, it was a lot easier to see Jesus as God.  Why?  Because pagan religion already had the idea of their gods being able to have bodies, being nearby.  Their gods could take on forms and shapes we could see.  They could interact with human beings even in the bedchamber.  Their gods were prayed to, offered sacrifice, worshipped in order to get stuff.  Jesus said, “Come follow me.  Pick up your cross,  The one who loses their life will find it.”  Well, forget that say the pagan believers.  They wanted a god they could ask to get things.  In other words, “He is God. You don’t expect me to do the stuff he said.  I am just a human being.”  So each day, I do not ask for faith in, but rather for strength to do what Jesus asked.  Creed faith is a lot easier than Gospel faith.  Would that we drop the creed at mass and repeat the Sermon on the Mount.

Worship Watching

For some if not many of us, watching mass on TV or attending in a church is different only in that you get communion in church.  Many of us simply watch mass when we attend.  We don’t sing.  We don’t care much for interacting with people around us, and might even prefer that there be no one around us.  I might start out praying, talking to God or listening, but soon I begin to simply watch, the people around me, what is going on around the alter, what people are wearing, along with my silent commentary on the whole scene.  And if the consecrated host is all you really came for, then you are not participating in what the church would call mass.  When the church called for renewal of worship back in the 1960s, it wanted to move the focus from private worship, you and Jesus in the host, to communal worship.  This would mean you would pray communal responses in your first language, listen to English readings to understand the challenge, sing as a group, greet one another before mass, the sign of peace to take some time, and so on.  I saw it happen in Houston in the late 70s and Boulder in the early 80s.  But gradually, with renewed clericalism in younger clergy and seminary teaching, the focus went back to the consecration of the host and private reception of communion.  Groups that used to lead singing turned into choirs and cantors to whom you listened, like in the old days.  It takes us back to a society of individualism, in which we talk to our friends, people like us, and ignore the stranger or visitor.

Problem Solvers

For children at home and their parents, boredom is not a problem.  It is an opportunity.  Why are you going to school or trying to learn on-line?  Let’s look at the job market for when a child grows up.  Be it blue collar, white collar or no collar, bosses are all looking for a certain kind of person.  They are looking for critical thinkers and problem solvers.  Rote jobs will be done by machines and robots, machines that look like us.  Even on assembly lines, management is looking for workers who think how a job can be done better, more efficiently, less costly.  Problem solvers.  No one is looking for a worker in an office who is “bored” and calls Mom to say, “I am bored, Mom.  Do something to make me happy.”  So suck it up kid.  Boredom is an opportunity to solve a problem on your own.  So blog readers, if you are bored reading this, shame on you!  Oops, I got off message.  If you are bored then see it as a problem, a game to solve.  The solution might be right in front or nearby your creative imagination.  Happy Mother’s Day to all those Mom’s who told their kids to go figure it out.

Becoming

I have a problem with the word, “retirement,” as to myself.  If I am retired that my identity is “Who I was,” or “What I used to do.”  When we are young we might ask, “Who am I?”  I know I did that when trying to figure out what to do with my life, or work, or career.  But I have found that the better question is, “Who am I becoming.”  There ought to be no retirement in becoming.  It is ongoing for me.  It may end in death, or maybe not.  At the monastery, seemingly doing nothing, I am not doing nothing.  I am still “becoming” which means stay open to the present and to Grace.  Meditation is not to figure things out, but rather to stay open to the present where The Power lives, in me.  I learn a lot on my techie devices, in cyber space, but nothing of “becoming” and its dynamic power.  Wi-Fi connects me to the world events, but not to me.  I am still a “becoming event.”

Diversions

I am waiting for the autobiography in which the author says, “I spent my youth traveling with my parents to made up worlds of fantasy, or summering at various diversions so that I would not be bored with the everyday.  Then when I grew up I became a brilliant scientist, engineer, inventor of things, and so on.”  My point?  No child spends their youth escaping the everyday, and then fully develops their potential.  I have not read or heard it yet.  They may get a job, which might be a diversion from poverty or dependence, but it will not be pushing their boundaries.  With Covid I see children developing the ability to create in play, to deal with being alone and the gift that can bring.  So maybe we don’t have to be so frightened that they will kill themselves or become drug addicts if we don’t keep them busy, fantasy lands and camps and controlled group activities.  I would hope to read someday, the story of a child, who was asked what they did during the Covid times, and they answer, “I self-educated.”  I have heard that when the student is ready, the mentor appears.  I have found it so.

Voting

I hear people saying the government should do this or that, or the government is not doing enough for them.  I wonder how many of these same people did not bother to vote in the last two elections for Senator, Congress persons and President?  Very few eligible people actually do vote in any election.  How many people who could be on the citizen trac did not bother because they are not here to become citizens, learn the English language or participate in civic life?  I do vote, even in those so called “off years.”  I think it a privilege and a duty no matter if my person wins or not.  And for those people who don’t participate in elections, maybe the government is doing a lot...for those who elected them.  I don’t know, but the government, local, state and federal is doing something even if it is not what the non-voter wants.  So, Covid or not, there is an election coming up in the Fall.  Just sayin’

Familiarity

If you are like me, a kid from a city, you think of shepherds like you think of cattle ranchers.  The animals are out there in the field grazing and you are watching from some distance, fixing fences or doing anything but hanging out with the animals.  But in fact a shepherd is quite different from a cattle rancher.  I live with cattle grazing at the monastery.  No one hangs out with the cattle.  The animals are not familiar with our smell or sounds.  No cow or steer would come within ten meters of us.  They take off if we go near them.  They remember only the branding or piercing to denote ownership.  A sheep is different.  Shepherds live with the sheep in many instances.  It is all a close family.  Sheep need protection from predators.  They need a lot of hands on care.  So a good shepherd is around the sheep all the time, not like the animal is out in a field somewhere grazing.  The sheep don’t see so well and can get lost.  The shepherd is their friend, guardian, protector.  That is why God is not called in scripture, the “Good Cattle Rancher.”  Rather, God is called the “Good Shepherd.”  In prayer, I am the sheep.

Killing Commendatore

I recently read my first Haruke Murakami novel, “Killing Commendatore.”  To me it is about belief in things that are a bit beyond the concrete.  If you pick up an orange and squeeze it, you say it is an orange.  There is no belief in that, nor the fact that it is an orange, is it going to advance some knowledge about yourself, your deeper self.  Belief does that as this novel points out.  Belief is in things that don’t have to make sense in a concrete fashion, or a scientific sense, to tell you much about yourself.  Belief leads you onto a path, if you have the courage and fortitude to follow, in which much will be revealed beyond STEM school studies.  Good fiction is never fiction.  It possesses much truth. Each of us is a story.  Believe in yourself and be open to happenstance, the unexpected scene or sound or presence.  And your life will unfold if you let it.

Rachel Evans

I was reading about a Tennessee woman named Rachel Evans.  She thought that if the Bible did not trouble you, it is because you probably have not read it.  So if you were a bible reader then your church should be a safe place where you are not comfortable.  Most of us, if we want a church or group at all, we want one that is both safe and comfortable.  Who grows or is challenged by comfortable?  Comfort means that everyone agrees with you, looks like you, the preacher says what appeals to this comfort, and you leave unchanged, unchallenged.  I hear people in recovery rooms wanting to feel comfortable.  They don’t want to be pressed to change, get to the edges of growth, by someone in the room who actually reads and studies the Big Book on a daily basis.  I am always challenged when someone reads to me some understanding or passages from the Hebrew Scriptures that challenges my comfort zone.  The Big Book as well, though they go on my resentment list first before I can accept the challenge.

The Shepherd

Being a City boy from the Bronx, I always assumed that men were the shepherds.  We Catholic kids saw pictures of Jesus carrying the lost/wayward/lamb.  Two things about that.  First, Jesus was a “want to be.”  He was a carpenter, not a shepherd.  Second, men did little shepherding in his day.  Children and adult women did that.  Men were busy with other stuff.  I get it that Jesus with the lamb is more symbolic.  Orpheus, the god, carried a lamb too.  So why not have images of women being the shepherd?  Well, it would mess with institutional religion’s idea of who is the boss.  In my case, the ordained are called the shepherds.  This is just an example of taking one cultural reality, girl and women shepherd, and changing it to fit another cultural reality, men are the boss.  So keep that in mind ladies when some male tries to culturally boss you around.  And think of the lost sheep.  A male probably would have written it off to a loss rather than bother looking for the lost sheep, since money is often the bottom line with us.  Or if they went to find the sheep they would have killed and eaten it so it would not run away again.  A woman shepherd would have been more compassionate and attached.  But this is just an opinion.  I think Jesus was a challenge to men.  Maybe that was more the point of the story.

Cleaning Up

When I clean my room and bathroom and launder and change my bedding and towels, I try not to get caught up in the attitude, “when this is over then I will have fun” or “then I will do what I want.”  Why spend a couple of hours living for the future, and whining about the present?  I try to make my attitude more upbeat.  First, I have my own room and my own bathroom to clean, or even if I share a bathroom, I am making it nicer for someone(s) else, which is practicing selflessness.  I might play some music.  Take a small break here and there.  Think of how I am helping my health by getting rid of that Covid grime.  And I don’t hurry to get it over with.  Life is too short to be hurrying to get to something else.  I might miss surprises right in front of me, in the present moment.  A clean room is a way to be good to myself.

Belief Not Necessary

You don’t have to believe in God as an idea in your head to become a saint.  Say what?  Well, just do everything with love.  That is a sufficient belief in God.  Would you not rather have people who act with love, but say they don’t believe in doctrine, than someone who believes their catechism in their head, but is a whiny, selfish person?  I have seen plenty of the latter and not too many of the former.  I know this because I am never surprised at bad behavior, but am in awe of loving behavior.  Why not make your goal today to be an awesome person, that is, someone who does everything with love.  Maybe wear a mask for starters and don’t hoard when you shop.  And maybe not visiting our loved ones, and relatives might be the best way to keep them safe and healthy.  I would rather miss people I love for the next year plus, than have them dead because I got on a plane to go visit, or went into their home when I might be a-symptomatic.  The post office still functions and you can get stamps on line or in the supermarket when shopping.  Send me chocolate.  Oops!  Being selfish.  Miss you.

Temporal Pleasures

What is wrong with temporal pleasures?  I like temporal pleasures.  What I must be vigilant about is greed.  Temporal pleasures have limits as to their ability to please.  One limit is “too much” as in drink or chocolate.  Well, maybe just drink.  Another limit is that we don’t always see that something is bad for us or bad for the other person with whom we are engaged in “temporal pleasures.”  Sex of course would be obvious when we are simply selfish.  Would you take someone into deep water who says they cannot swim, just because you love to swim?  Would you offer a diabetic chocolate simply because you love chocolate yourself?  And some temporal pleasures are good for someone else but absolutely a disaster for me.  So I have to watch for greed, self-centeredness, and forgetfulness when I look at temporal pleasures.  So far, I am safe with chocolate.

Corrupt And Inefficient

In my prejudiced fashion, I used to look at much of Africa and South America as full of corruption and inefficiency.  That is why they are such a mess and so little influence in the modern world.  We don’t think too much about the countries on these continents, and many of us could not say exactly where each country is without a map in front of us.  We in the USA are much more efficient and less corrupt, I used to say.  Then came the Coronavirus.  I am incredulous, humbled, and scandalized by what a mess we are making of this.  What makes us a great country is not how government works or not, but how individuals rise up and become of such incredible service on behalf of one another. No red tape and politics here.  On the larger level of government, we are inching toward the more inept and dysfunctional.  Proud and humbled.

Who Is Listening?

A problem with my church is that because it is hierarchical, that is run from the top down, there is not very much listening or willingness to change.  The hierarchy simple says this is the way we did it in the past, this is what we believe from the past, and so case closed.  The past has a value, otherwise you have no tradition and no continuity.  Ford makes cars, but they don’t still make the Model-T.  My church has basic beliefs, but has to find new ways to express and live them out as culture and scientific knowledge develops/changes.  A good conversation is where I am willing to listen and open to change.  But if I am the boss and everyone else around or beneath me has no power, or none of consequence, then the impetus to listen or change is truly diminished.  The laity job is to basically pay for things.  If you don’t finance your parish, the hierarchy will close it, or merge it.  Simple.  I don’t think my church will fade away but I do think we will become much less influential in this changing world.

Catherine of Siena

I am impressed by Catherine. She died in 1380.  She was a laywoman who rejected the few paths that were open for young girls back then, marriage or the nunnery.  Staying single allowed her talents to be more fully manifested.  She was challenged by her parents when she did not marry young.  Her Mom had 25 kids and Catherine was #24.  She did not care for that path.  At first, she was made a servant in her own home.  Instead of whining and victimhood she developed an interior spiritual life to escape from the drudgery.  This led to a much more public career which she could pursue, since she was no man’s property.  She began to care for the poor and sick, but did not get sick herself.  At age 27, she saw her mission as wider.  Work to heal the world and the church.  She became a letter writer to powerful men, challenging them as to their duties to work for peace and unity.  She even wrote and then tried to visit the Pope who was living in France at the time, to return to Rome.  She dictated a book of her religious instincts.  She died young, but free of demands put upon her by her culture.  She is now one of the saintly patrons of Europe, one of three women.  Spunky!

Muddy Waters

Fill a glass with water.  Then put some mud in it.  Not just loose dirt, but mud.  At first, all the water will be affected by the mud.  Let the glass sit for a day or two.  Now the mud sinks to the bottom and the water at the top of the glass looks much better.  This is a metaphor for my spiritual journey.  Before the journey my whole life looks muddy/messy/murky.  I say, “I gotta get some help!”  So I start on a path in which there is some time of silence and stillness.  I “feel” better.  “See, I am well, a spiritual giant!” I tell myself.  My outside actions, the ones people see, are a bit more virtuous.  But the mess is still there, lurking.  If I stop the spiritual practice, the mess will rise up and bite me with bad behavior, at the least.  Without a daily spiritual practice, I will shake up the mud of my life, like the glass being shaken.  Daily vigilance for me.  Maybe you can pray once a week and do OK.  Then again maybe not.  Knowing your demons can keep you disciplined.

More Nagasaki

So after the Western Christian Clergy came back into Japan in 1865, they of course built churches, as this is what clergy do.  Oura Cathedral was the Catholic one, I think the first Cathedral.  In 1895 they build a larger Cathedral.  It took 30 years.  Officially, it was named The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.  One year, on an August 9, the faithful had gathered to prepare for the Feast of the Assumption, on August 15.  Mary was a big deal.  And then she wasn’t, as the bomb dropped and flattened the whole place.  Everyone inside the Cathedral was killed.  Years later there was reconstruction and then remodeling.  Mary did not go away.  A blackened, damaged statue, the Madonna of Nagasaki, had survived the bombing and was placed inside the Church.  Even the bomb could not get rid of her, or of the memory of the bombing. If the Olympics had happened this year, in Tokyo, guess what day they were going to have the concluding ceremony?  You guessed it,  August 9.  Oh, and a lesser memory, today is my ordination anniversary, 43 years.  I did not go away either.

Nagasaki

In 1865, Japan was reopened to the West.  Christians had been expelled from there for about 250 years, and yet when priests came to Japan in 1965, they found Catholics still there, with no churches or priests all those years.  The lay people had held onto the faith and passed it on to each succeeding generation.  That probably would not happen in The USA. Catholics here clammer for clergy, masses, churches and schools so someone else can educate their children and keep them Catholic.  Being responsible for passing on the faith yourself, is not part of Catholic culture in my world.  The bishops of this country opted for churches, lots of masses and Catholic schools with or without the religious sisters to teach. When the Amazon, with so few clergy, had their synod in Rome recently, the Pope did not try to “solve” that issue with married clergy and women deacons.  Some people thought he made a wrong decision on that one, but the Pope has come to realize that with lots of convenient masses and churches as we have in this country, people are not really following Christ.  For many it is a private religion between the person and God with holy communion.  What the Pope is looking for is a whole new culture or inculturation, empowering the Amazon locals to develop an indigenous spirituality that will follow Christ, much like happened in Nagasaki.  And the Pope would like ecology, care for the earth, to be part of that faith practice.  Ecology in this country is not very central to many a Catholic standing on the communion line waiting for their host.

Shane

“Come back Shane, come back. Shane!”  And thus ends the movie as Shane rides away, his gun on his hip, still hot from ridding the area of the bad guys, lead by Jack Palance, who played bad guys well in Westerns.  Though Shane wanted to be a man of peace and not violence any longer, his love for the female lead, Jean Arther, led him back to violence.  The noble Shane left her to continue her life with her husband.  Not only was Shane’s name short, so was Shane.  As an actor he stood only 5’ 4” tall.  He had to stand on a box when he talked to Jean.  Probably many people told this male actor he would never make it in Hollywood since he was not tall enough.  But he would not accept his height as a limitation on his aspirations.  And he made it big in Hollywood as a leading man.  So what limitations have people told you about, or you told yourself, and are they legitimate?  Why limit ourselves where it is not necessary?  I am still blogging in social distancing and still teaching on zoom, and as I age, I am getting shorter!  OK. Now the quiz.  Who played the role of Shane?  Hint: two “d”s in his last name, which is also short!

Adolescent Spirituality

So often I have heard people in and out of meetings talk about the God out there who will help them if they learn the correct asking formula.  Since we don’t trust children to be mystics, this is what we tell them, often because this is what the teacher believes too.  But when you mature in a more contemplative/deeper meditative prayer, you begin to move from God the object that you might say you love, to a Presence that you surrender to.  Surrender, rather than getting something becomes the main motive for prayer.  The mystic sees themself as they are, hopelessly powerless to change on their own for the better.  People who ask God out there for stuff, don’t really want to change.  The drunk who says, “God get me out of this mess and I will be good and sober, never stops drinking.  Only someone who knows they cannot stop, but wants to, will surrender.  Surrender and you get what you need.  What you want is more about ego and fear.

Little Richard

Little Richard passed away yesterday from bone cancer.  Who was he?  For me, he was the voice and music of the long playing record that I brought me with from Chicago when I moved to San Francisco.  I loved his R&B, his shouting out, his music and his outrageous look.  “Good Golly, Miss Molly” was one of my favorites.  I was  a white collar worker, suit and tie in San Francisco.  That was one side of me.  I had the wild side.  Do you?  I introduced Little Richard to a bunch of friends like me.  We all loved to dance to the music.  Of course, first we would get stimulants into our system, then either dance to him  at our own party, or we would crash a party and play Little Richard as we sang and danced.  Then we would all go back to work on Monday, awaiting our next Little Richard party.  When I went into the seminary, well, that was not the place for me to dance and shout to Little Richard.  Someone has the record now, and our group broke up as I went off to get holy.  I never got holy, but I did keep Little Richard in my heart, along with Jesus. Does your heart have lots of stuff?   Oh, and I stopped the stimulants in time too.  I wish I could find a Little Richard companion somewhere, but my friends now are not all that wild nor have in their music a great Little Richard album.  Any fans out there?

Plans Change

I have become the priest I thought I would never be, the one who does not do what other priests will do.  I always prided myself on doing what the more orthodox priests preferred not to do.  I would work with people on the periphery of the rules, the ones on the outer edges of religious practice, the unorthodox. I was accommodating.  The virus and fear has changed me, but I hope it is opening up something new that is yet to appear.  I am among the old, and have had pneumonia twice in this century.  So I avoid crowds, ceremonies, groups of people.  That is, I don’t do the weddings, funerals, big ceremonies to which I used to say “yes.”  I have become the guy who does not accommodate.  I am uneasy with this at the moment.  I will go off to the monastery soon and be in quarantine because they are in lockdown mode.  Their youngest monk is almost 70.  In quarantine, I won’t have access to Wi-Fi.  I don’t know if my blog will show up in your email or my blogspot.  Certainly it will not be on Facebook unless I put it there using Wi-Fi.  So soon, I will disappear for a couple of weeks, into silence and stillness.  When quarantine is over, I may have discovered something about myself that will put me onto some other path even in my senior years.  So don’t be expecting return phone calls, emails, and requests to do this and that.  And skip messenger.  I never use it.  Until then.

Normal

One T-Rex said to another, “Can’t wait till it gets back to normal.”  See any T-Rex around?  At the time of that quote a giant rock from outer space had recently crashed through our atmosphere and pounded into the ground.  It was a six mile wide rock.  It threw up so much debris into the atmosphere that life was no longer healthy for the Dinosaur.  They could not adapt.  They waited around for things to return to a  their normal.  Never happened.  So I am not waiting around for things to get back to normal.  Rather, I ask myself how I will live in an evolving daily life on this planet.  While science is coming up with a vaccine, Virus does not just sit around.  It adapts.  Can we?

An Old Saying

If you ever live in a nursing home or even an “Assisted Living” situation, it might be likely that an old saying will make sense: “You are one time a man/woman, and twice a child.”  There is the biological childhood and then ever so much so, the old person childhood.  They share some things, or share some lack of things.  They cannot do something because they are not old enough yet, or they are too old to do it anymore.  A Driver’s License would be a simple example.  Your body is not strong enough yet, or no longer strong enough to do things, and so on.  If that Man/Women time was one of spiritual fitness, then acceptance, humility and gratitude for any help will be part of your daily life.  If no spiritual fitness than you may be a mean old nasty person to others though you don’t see it.  Crabby and cantankerous could be how those around you or those who could be around you, might describe you.  Either way, you will be just as helpless.  And for those younger, more able-bodied people, when Covid-19 allows you to get out and be with others, why not go to one of these senior places, and ask if anyone would like a visit?  And don’t go with any plans to be a light in their life.  Results are not up to you.  In this you too are helpless.

The Weather

If you work outdoors you have to account for the weather.  It won’t account for you.  The weather does not ask your permission to do what it is going to do.  You can neither make water nor keep it away.  Even if you gravity irrigate, the water comes from someplace not of your making.  If you want it dry so you can work on your roof or have a family outing or play golf, watch an outdoor event that is your humble plan.  The weather will come without a ticket, maybe pass through and maybe stay a good while.  You have no say.  So how do you respond to your plans being invaded?  Do you whine, complain, fill up with self-pity or rage?  Only a big ego can resent something as powerful as the weather.  Maybe you will have a better time of your time if you can just sit for a bit and watch it, if their is something to watch. Or change your plans and do something else that suddenly open to you in A Change Of Weather.  Acceptance has its place.

Untongued Stories

If we live long enough, we will lose friends more quickly than we make new ones.  The energy of youth and the many new things that come with growing up, bring new people into one’s life and we have the energy to give over to forming friendships.  The elderly lack that energy or new movement but do have the insight to cherish their friendships and to give them time, especially in this Covid-19 era, when time is looking for something with which to fill it up.  One of the ways we honor friendship, living or dead in body, is in telling and retelling stories.  When younger, we might tell stories that embarrass one another, being that youth is more competitively and ego-focused.  But with age, we cherish the goodness in people more and more, forgetting uneven past events.  I think stories are the way we honor people, stories of their specialness, in themselves and to others.  The telling of these stories are Good News, Gospel, examples to follow, or at least admire.  So don’t have “Untongued Stories” of friends.  It does us all a disservice.  Keep the goodness in view and up front.  The darkness has no problem in taking center stage.

Do It For Love

The farmer seems to always have something to do on the farm.  Since the work is never over, what keeps him going?  Pace and love.  The farmer works at a certain efficient pace because he/she knows what their body can do and does not ask it to do what it cannot, either too much or too fast.  The farmer is not into “more” as in more money or more stuff.  There must be time for some rest, to look over the land, be with one’s thoughts and with friends talking about what they share in common.  They love the land and care for it not asking too much of it, so that the land can rest a bit and be renewed.  The farmer loves the land.  So pace and love keeps them going and informs the fullness of their lives.  Think about this when you are working at whatever you do.  Maybe you have no choice in what you do.  And then, maybe you do.

Parks And Phones

I find it sad that people walk in parks talking on their cell phones.  I think of parks as places to get away from all that connection/disconnection of the tech world.  It is why parks don’t include wi-fi.  A park for me is a refuge from all but me and nature.  I get to undergo the challenge of just being with me, a human, and the sounds, scenes of nature, in trees, birds and ground critters.  If I am having trouble being with me and the world of nature, then I should not expect people to want to spend time with me.  What is the matter with being out of touch with tech world, associates, friends and information?  I never take a phone into a park.  But I do take one into church at times, but turned off, of course.  Unless I don’t forget.  And you?

Attention

The root for the word, “Attention” is ad-tendere, that is, to stretch toward. My spiritual practice is to help me to stretch toward, rather than pass by, or simply notice.  If I walk into a room on the way to some destination, and I “see” someone, how do I “see” them?  If I say, hello as I am walking by, and then “how are you” as I continue on to my destination, then I am not giving them any attention. But I if stop when I say hello, and ask how they are, and stand there to actually listen with an open heart, then I am stretching toward, them, paying that person attention.  I am open to engaging them in their life.  Generally, people expect a lot less, because when I do this, but don’t move on, they look at me as if I want something.  They might ask, “Can I help you?” Or “Is something the matter?” People expect little from one another, I guess.  Or we pay so much attention to the task/work at hand that their in nothing left over for one another.   But paying attention has to start someplace, so why not with me.

Emmaus

HOMILY NOTES

FR. TERRY RYAN, CSP

LUKE 24: 13-35

APRIL 15, 2020

In all the times that I have read this “Road To Emmaus” Gospel, I have failed to notice that the two travelers did not finally recognize God in their midst until after they had offered hospitality to him, after they became concerned not so much about their disappointments, personal narrative, but became concerned about the welfare of the person traveling with them.  Before that the two disciples were focused on what they had not gotten, and then they entered into a bible study with Jesus that opened them up to a deeper meaning of scripture as does many a bible study.  But they still could not recognize the powerful presence of he Holy in their midst.  

Is it not often like that with all of us?  We say that we cannot find God and wonder what is the matter.  Why is God hiding from us?  But in reality, we are filled with our own agenda, and this is how we pray.  We ask, complain, plead, filled with mind-filled thoughts and heavy heart.  And some of us do bible study and we learn a lot, but as someone said, Knowledge seems to avail us nothing, or little in terms of recognizing the intimate presence of God in us.  

The gospel today is telling us that we must have compassion for others.  Get out of ourselves and our agenda and pay attention to the needs of others around us.  In this day of Social Distancing, we might be somewhat limited in what we can do.  But maybe we could attend a Zoom meeting where we could be of help to others in listening and comments.  Or we could write someone a letter since the post office is still functioning.  Or we could call someone on the phone and say we are thinking about them and their welfare.  I find that when I reach out to someone else, I get taken out of the prison of myself, me and mine.  I am on the same road to Emmaus as these two disciples.