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.”
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.”
posted by Mike at 1:22 PM
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