January 21, 2004 Memorial of St. Agnes

Isn't it funny how we picture things, sometimes? Today's first reading is a familiar story, David and Goliath. We often see this story as a cartoon. There was a Disney cartoon where I think Mickey Mouse played David. There have been other cartoons made of the story. There was even a Simpson's episode where Bart plays David and Nelson (the bully with the funny laugh) plays Goliath. But, as we read today, there's nothing funny about the story. Today's reading ends,
“Then David stood over him;
with the Philistine's own sword, which he drew from its sheath,
he dispatched him and cut off his head.“

Today is the Memorial of St. Agatha, also not a funny story. You may wonder, “Deacon, we know you went to classes for a long time, exactly what did you learn?”

Well, one thing I learned was about St. Agatha. In church history class, we each had to write a short paper on a saint. But we didn't get to pick which one. Fr. Molini had a bunch of names in a hat and we had to pick one. I got Agatha. This is what I found out about her.

(Read paper).

Agatha was a far cry from today's so-called pro-choice women. They say, “it's my body. No one can tell me what to do with it.” Agatha was willing to endure torture rather than give up her vow of perpetual chastity. St. Lucy too. Even David faced death knowing that God would keep him safe from the clutches of the Philistine.

I think the message we can take from today's readings, is that whatever God asks of us, it‘s never too much.. He gives us everything we have and everything that we are. If He asks us to give something back, it’s something that he gave us in the first place.

January 12, 2004

First Monday of Ordinary Time

We live in a time when there are an awful lot of distractions. We have instant communications with cell phones and the internet. We have six different phone numbers at our house. My married son and his wife have three. I don't even know all of them. I have a whole page in my day planner with just Buckley phone numbers.

Then we have hundreds of television stations on cable. The internet gives us access to just about any kind of information you would ever want and even more that you would probably not want coming into your house.

Between work, home and the church, I get literally hundreds of emails every week, most of them junk. But you have to wade through all the junk, just in case there's something important. Part of my job is to collect information for my company, so I spend at least the first hour of every work day just going through correspondence. Most days it's a lot more than that.

I subscribe to all kinds of internet lists that send me information that I can use in my job. Then there's the radio. You can even get satelite radio that gives you more choices than you could ever possibly listen to.

Then there are the meetings. Church meetings. Parents meetings. Work meetings. More information. At my company, they don't think you've had a productive day unless you've been to at least one meeting. We just spent thousands of dollars to install a video conferencing system, so we can have meetings with people all over the country without having to travel. Less travel time gives us more time for more meetings. We've bombarded with stuff every minute of every day.

In Jesus' time, live was much simpler. If you wanted to communicate with someone, you went and saw them. In today's Gospel, Jesus begins the task of forming what today's business people would call his “project team.” These are the twelve men who will travel with him and live with him during his public ministry. They will go through three years of on-the-job training to prepare them for the day when Jesus will lay down his life for us.

He had no cell phone or email, so he went out and looked for them. Today he selected the first four, John, James, Simon and Andrew. He asked them to give up everything and follow him. And they did! They had no trouble hearing him. He was right there, looking them in the eye. He could speak to them directly.

As we proclaim at every mass, before Christ's coming God spoke through the prophets. Sometimes he spoke in dreams. Sometimes he sent an angel. He even appeared as a burning bush. But how does he speak to us today?

He still talks to us, but now He has to get through all the clutter. It couldn't have been that difficult to get the attention of a shepherd sitting alone on a hillside with no one to talk to except sheep. But for us, he has to get through reality shows, and talk radio, and cell phones and the internet. At most of our Sunday masses we pray that our young people will hear and heed God's call to the priesthood and religious life. There is a critical need for more priests and religious. But I don't belive that God isn't calling, I believe that no one is listening.

I think the message we can take from today's Gospel is that we have to be attentive to what God is saying to us. My family has been associated with the Young Catholic Musicians for many years. They are an archdiocesan-wide group of young singers and musicians who provide music for one mass a month at parishes in the area. At Christmas they perform a concert based on the nativity. Each year Fr. Bruce Foreman writes a narration to go along with the music. One year he wrote, “with all the important people who were in Bethlehem for the census at the time of Jesus birth, why did God choose to give His most important message to shepherds, the very bottom of the social order? Because, God speaks to those who sit quietly and listen.”

January 6, 2004 The Twelve Days of Christmas

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...... Today's the twelfth day of Christmas, January 6. This was the original day for the feast of the Epiphany which was the twelfth day of the Christmas season, which is the origin of the song. So, if this were sixteenth century England, today would be the day for the last delivery of lords a leaping and maids a milking.

Actually, there's a story that the twelve days of Christmas was actually a devise that the Jesuits used for teaching the catechism to children during the years when it was illegal to be a Catholic in England. “My true love” represented God. The 12 drummers represented the 12 points of the Apostle’s Creed, the 11 pipers were the 11 faithful disciples, the 10 lords were the 10 Commandments and so on, down to the partridge in the pear tree--Jesus on the cross.

That may be a true story, or not, but it’s really not what I wanted to talk to you about.

When I was in Branson before Christmas, a minister on the radio asked “How would you feel if you followed your star and ended up in a stable?”

That's an interesting question. Obviously the magi weren't disappointed. Even in a stable they recognized the baby Jesus as the Mesiah that He was.

What about you and me? Do we have enough faith to accept what comes our way in the same spirit as the magi? They had traveled hundreds of miles, expecting to find a king. And, so they did. But He wasn't exactly in kingly surroundings. They saw and they believed.

How many times have our prayers appeared to have gone unanswered because the answer wasn't exactly what we were looking for? But, it turned out that we were better off than we would have been if we had gotten the thing we thought we wanted.

On Memorial Day, 1968 I went to a picnic at St. Sebastian's Church in north county. It wasn't my church,. At the time I wasn't even Catholic. But there was a girl that I expected to see there. It turned out that she wasn't there. I was a little disappointed but I met another girl that day. Her name was Jan and we were married six months later.

On New Years Eve, 1979 I lost my job. That was a pretty low point. Two little kids, credit cards maxed out, a week after Christmas and I didn't have a job. Talk about being in a stable, I was in deep you-know-what. But, I had had an interview with another company a few weeks earlier. I called them, the job was still open and I started to work for them a week later. Tomorrow, I'll be there twenty four years.

So the lesson we can take from the three kings is that things aren't always as they appear. Jesus may be in a stable, or in a homeless shelter, or in a hospital room or even a prison cell. As Christians, we should see through the eyes of faith, seeing past the things that others see.

God knows what’s best for us, better than we do. So when our prayers don’t seem to be empty, or when we end up in a stable full of animals with no shovel, we have to do the thing that’s the hardest for most of us. That’s letting go, and letting God do what He knows is best for us.

By the way, did you know that all that stuff in the song would cost over $65,000 today?