Welcome to the World, Isabella Josephine Buckley

This week I witnessed a miracle, the birth of my first granddaughter, Isabella Josephine Buckley. I didn't actually witness the birth, but I was there, in the waiting room. I've been in enough delivery rooms, thank you very much. I don't need to see every gory detail.

But, I did need to be there. Anyone who doubts the existence of God can't possibly have ever seen a tiny human being, just minutes old. They're so small and so helpless. And this marvel of human life is the result of a man and a woman loving one another! It's the only miracle that God actually lets us help create.

Oh, I know that doctors perform miracles in the operating room. Engineers do miraculous things with steel and concrete. But, when two people come together with no tools, no instruments, just themselves and their love for one another and create the wonder of a new human being, that's a REAL miracle.

Jesus knew that birth was what made us human and so he chose to be born one of us.

So many thoughts went through my mind both before the birth and since. I thought of my mother. She's been gone almost eleven years. How proud she would have been to be a great-grandmother. She must be smiling in heaven from ear to ear. I also thought about Isabella's three siblings who didn't make it out of the womb alive. I pray for them every day, but this new birth seems to have put a face on those little souls. Now they're Isabella's brothers and/or sisters.

And, of course I've been giving a lot of thought to how I'll be as a grandfather. She's so tiny. And, I'm getting older. With my own kids, I never gave a thought to my own mortality. It just wasn't an issue. But, now I wonder how much of her life will I be around for? Will I be able to keep up with her? Will she want me to? It's all very sobering.

Mike Jr. is the only one of our four children who's married. Will I be around to see the other three get married? Will I see their children? All four of my grandparents died before I was born.

But, for now at least, none of that's very important. All I know is that God has blessed all of us with a new member of the family. She's truly a gift.


How on earth anyone could possibly see a tiny human being like Isabella and think that abortion is OK is beyond my comprehension. There are so many couples who aren't able to have children of their own. How selfish it is to deny them the joy of having a baby in their lives, especially a baby that's not wanted by his or her natural parents. For a few months of discomfort and inconvenience, a birth mom can give three lifetimes of joy and happiness.

But, I'm getting too serious. What a great week this has been! Isabella and her mother are probably on their way home just about now. I hope that the other relatives will be smart enough to leave this new little family alone tonight. They need to get used to one another on their "home turf". There will be plenty of time to visit and to spoil. Experienced grandparents have been telling me for months how much fun it is to spoil a child and then go home and let the parents deal with it. I know our kids grandparents seemed to enjoy that a lot.

Welcome to the world, Isabella. Have a bright future and a long, happy life. May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Brandon

Thanks to Deacon Bernard Lyngdal of the Diocese of Superior, WI for the following story:

Six -year-old Brandon decided one Saturday morning to fix his parents pancakes He found a big bowl and spoon, pulled a chair to the counter, opened the cupboard and pulled out the heavy flour canister, spilling it on the floor.

He scooped some of the flour into the bowl with his hands, mixed in most of a cup of milk and added some sugar, leaving a floury trail on the floor which by now had a few tracks left by his kitten.

Brandon was covered with flour and getting frustrated. He wanted this to be something very good for Mom and Dad, but it was getting very bad.

He didn't know what to do next, whether to put it all into the oven or on the stove and he didn't know how the stove worked!. Suddenly he saw his kitten licking from the bowl of mix and reached to push her away, knocking the egg carton to the floor. Frantically he tried to clean up this monumental mess but slipped on the eggs, getting h is pajamas white and sticky.

And just then he saw Dad standing at the door. Big tears welled up in Brandon's eyes. All he'd wanted to do was something good, but he'd made a terrible mess. He was sure a scolding was coming, maybe even a spanking. But his father just watched him.

Then, walking through the mess, he picked up his crying son, hugged him and loved him, getting his own pajamas white and sticky in the process!

That's how God deals with us. We try to do something good in life, but it turns into a mess. Sometimes we just stand there in tears because we can't think of anything else to do. That's when God picks us up and loves us and forgives us, even though some of our mess gets all over Him.

Can't we all relate to Brandon. We mess things up. We make mistakes. We do the wrong things for the right reasons. Or we do the right things for the wrong reasons. But God, our father, loves us anyway. Brandon wasn't crying because he was afraid of a spanking as much as he was crying because he felt like he had failed his parents. Don't we all feel like that sometimes?

Sometimes we don't even do anything wrong, but we just feel inadequate. We do something good, but we don't think it's good enough. We think we should have done more, even when we know, deep down, that we did the best we could.

God is like the best father you've ever known times a million. He knows what's in our hearts and judges us accordingly. He doesn't care what we look like. He doesn't care what we do for a living. He doesn't care if we have a grade school education or a PhD. He loves us for what's inside. He loves us more than we love ourselves. He loves us just because we're us.

St. Paul writes in the second reading today that “God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions brought us to life with Christ. And there were some pretty serious transgressions going on in Ephesus in the first century.

In today's Gospel, the famous John 3:16, John tells us “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everytone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

That's EVERYONE. That's you and that's me. He didn't come just to save the beautiful, or the strong, or the smart, or the talented. EVERYONE who believes in him can have eternal life. Doesn't it make sense that He and His Father are there for us when we pull a “Brandon”?

Jesus told us to love one another as we love ourselves. Most people think He meant that we should love others as much as we love ourselves. I think He meant that we should love ourselves as much as we love others. That's much harder.

We may not look like Tom Cruise or Katherine Zeta Jones. We may not be able to play baseball like Albert Pujols, or sing like Sinatra, or preach like Bishop Sheen. But those are superficial things. They're not important things. What's important is what's in our hearts, and God knows that and loves us because of it, or in spite of it.

We live in a place and a time where there is a lot of emphasis on the material; on looks, on money, on things. Most of us can't measure up to the standards that Hollywood, television and magazines set for us. Why do they do it? Mainly they do it to sell products. Americans spend more than a billion and a half dollars each year on hair dye! And sales to men are growing faster than sales to women. Fortunately, I'm not part of that market.In fact, men aged 18 to 24 are the most likely group to be coloring their hair.

I'm not against companies selling their products, as long as they aren't harmful. But, I am against advertisers and others setting standards for us, and our kids and grandkids, that are impossible to meet. That is harmful. Our young people, and some older people as well are trying to be something that's nearly impossible. That leads to frustration, depression, eating disorders and even suicide.

Most of us have no more chance of looking like a movie star, or playing baseball like Pujols, or singing like Sinatra than little Brandon has of making pancakes.

Our value isn't on the outside, it's on the inside. And God knows that, and He loves us unconditionally.

In the entire history of the world, there's nevere been a person exactly like you or exactly like me. There will never again be another person like you or me either. Don't you imagine that God had a reason for creating each and every individual human being? We know that He doesn't make mistakes. So, yes, there must be a reason.
As we enter the final days of Lent, why not make part of your preparation a daily prayer of thanks for making us who we are and asking for His guidance to be the best “us” we can be.

When we think of little Brandon standing there covered with goo, crying his eyes out because all he wanted to do was make his parents happy, remember his father's reaction. That's how you and I would react and it's definitely how our Heavenly Father reacts. He knows what's important, and deep down I believe that we do too.
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God works in mysterious ways. As I was writing this homily, the phone rang and it was a friend of mine. He wanted to know how my daughter-in-law and our soon-to-be granddaughter were doing. The baby is due on Holy Thursday and that fact led us to talking about me serving on Good Friday at the Cathedral. Jim, who isn't Catholic, thought that was awesome, which it is. I made a comment about not thinking I'm worthy for such an honor. He proceeded to give me a lecture very similar to the one I just gave you.

At ordination the candidate kneels in front of the Archbishop and he says, “receive the book of the Gospels, whose herald you now are. Believe what you read. Preach what you believe, and practice what you preach.” Good advice, not always easy to follow.

St. Patrick's Day

Paddy was driving down the street in a sweat because he had an important meeting and couldn't find a parking place. Looking up to heaven he said, "Lord take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I’ll go to Mass every Sunday for the rest of me life and give up me Irish Whiskey".

Miraculously, a parking place appeared.

Paddy looked up again and said, "Never mind, Lord, I found one."

Aren’t we all like Paddy sometimes? Don’t we try to play Let’s Make a Deal with God? I know I do. Sometimes it’s a direct offer. “God is you’ll do this, I’ll do that.” Other times, it’s less of a deal and more sneaky on our part, especially during Lent.

For example, have you ever given up something for Lent but the temptation was just too much for you and you gave in? Then you try to justify it. “You know, when I said I’d give up chocolate, I didn’t mean DARK chocolate, just milk chocolate. And WHITE chocolate really isn’t even chocolate, so it doesn’t count.”

Or, did you ever play the “finger game”? The finger game is like in checkers, where your turn isn’t over until you take your finger off. “Lord, I know I said I wouldn’t eat between meals, but the phone rang before I was really finished with breakfast, so this donut is still part of breakfast and not really a snack.”

But you know what? We’re not fooling God. We’re really not even fooling ourselves, are we? We laugh at the story of Paddy and the parking place because we can put ourselves in that same spot. Like my kids say, “it’s funny because it’s true.“ We’re weak. We’re subject to temptation. And, we’re not always reliable when we promise things to God.

The Archbishop recognizes our weakness. He gave us dispensation from Friday abstinence today so we could celebrate the feast day of St. Patrick in the traditional way, with corned beef and cabbage. He didn’t have to do that, even though he is Irish. A lot of us would have gotten by. We could celebrate tomorrow. The feast only falls on Friday once every five years or so.

But, by giving us an out, letting us eat meat today in exchange for not eating meat some other day this week, he saved a lot of us from having to bargain with God. That is, unless we can’t manage to abstain some other day. And of course, for those who aren’t lucky enough to be Irish, it’s probably no big deal anyway. Then again, a lot of the less fortunate do like to PRETEND to be Irish on St. Paddy’s Day.

But, as we celebrate what’s become a big secular holiday, we should also remember that Patrick brought Christianity an entire country. While we know little about him, many millions of people are Catholic today because of him. And he wasn’t really Irish either.

Here’s another religious story for you, kind of a St. Patrick’s Day bonus.
An Irish priest gets stopped for speeding. The state trooper smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car. He says, "Sir, have you been drinking?"
"Just water," says the priest.
The trooper says, "Then why do I smell wine?"
The priest looks at the bottle and says, "Good Lord! He's done it again!"

May your home always be too small to hold all of your friends.

Fasting

Yesterday morning, I underwent a medical procedure. It required that I not have any solid food after midnight Sunday night (or Monday morning, depending on how you look at it). It was about thirty-two hours.

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but I was definitely uncomfortable, especially yesterday morning waiting for the procedure to begin. I was allowed Jello (not red), broth and diet 7 Up, which made things a little easier. But, the fast caused me to think about Christ, fasting for forty days.

How pathetic we are when we try to imitate Jesus. He suffered for forty days, nearly six weeks. Why? For you and me, that’s why. Even though He was God, he was also a man. There’s no reason to think that he didn’t get just as hungry as we do.

So what does the Church ask of us? We’re asked to fast a total of two days each year! Two days! And what a fast it is! We’re allowed one meal, plus two smaller meals. We’re not to eat solid food between meals.

Jesus abstained from all food for forty days. We’re not allowed to eat between meals for two days. And, they’re not even two days in a row! My question is, “Do we do it? Do we do it willingly? (I know, that’s two questions.) Or do we whine and complain? Do we feel like we’re really making a big sacrifice? (I know, that’s two more. Offer it up!)
Do we make a sincere effort to imitate Jesus in our own, pitiful way? Or do we look at it as some kind of Church-imposed punishment that’s really above and beyond the call of duty? Do we rationalize our weakness by telling ourselves that our mid-morning snack is really a continuation of breakfast, and not eating between meals? C’mon, we’ve all done it. It’s like not taking your finger off the checker. The move’s not over until we do.

“I was in a hurry at breakfast and didn’t really finish. This donut is just a continuation of that one meal.”

The good news is that God knows how weak we are. But He also knows whether we’re really trying or not. We may fool ourselves, but we can never fool Him. He doesn’t expect us to spend forty days in the desert, but He does expect our penance to be sincere and meaningful. We’re not yet halfway through Lent, so we have plenty of time to show our love for Him.

It's Not Fair!!!

“It’s not fair. It’s just not fair.” How many times have we heard that phrase? Usually we think of it coming from the “mouths of babes.” Children have a deep sense of right and wrong, at least what they think is right and wrong, and they don’t mind telling us about it.

Tell them they have to eat their vegetables and it’s not fair. Tell them they have to go to bed early and it’s not fair. Tell them they can’t have ice cream ten minutes before dinner and it’s not fair.

Normally we think that “it’s not fair” is something we outgrow. But today we have the prophet Ezekiel chastising the Israelites for saying that the Lord’s way isn’t fair. These aren’t kids. They’re grown men and women. Ezekiel says, “You say, “The LORD’s way is not fair!” Hear now, house of Israel:
Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?”

After all these years, not much has changed. We hear it all the time. Life’s not fair. Someone gets a promotion at work and it’s not fair. “We’re smarter than the other person. We work harder. We’ve been here longer. It’s not fair.”

Someone cuts in front of us driving down Telegraph. They get through the light at 255 and we don’t. It’s not fair.

Someone who has always taken care of themselves, eaten right, exercised every day and never smoked drops dead at a young age while the overweight smoker lives to be 100. It’s just not fair.

It seems like every year we hear about a young man or woman on the way to their prom, or on the way home from their graduation getting killed in a car accident, maybe caused by a drunk driver. What’s fair about that?

We see it all the time in the Church. A parish closes. A school closes. It’s not fair. A parish decides that they don't want to accept the direction of their Bishop and their actions cause them to be excommunicated. What's their response? You guessed it, "it's not fair."

Jesus never promised us that this life would be fair. In fact, He often spoke of the unfairness that we would experience if we followed Him. He said that there would be those who would hate us because of Him. God is love. Jesus is the Son of God, but He tells us that people will hate us because we love Him. That’s not fair.

But here’s the good news. When we reach the end of this earthly life, we will each be judged according to our actions. The judgment will not be fair. If it was, we’d all be in a lot of trouble. God is a God of mercy. He forgives us our sins, just like human parents forgive their children. If He didn’t, none of would be worthy to see Him face-to-face. We’re not good enough to be in the presence of the Creator of the Universe. Thankfully the judgment won’t be fair. It will be much more than fair.

As we come to the end of the first full week of Lent, it’s a good time to reflect on how wonderfully unfair our faith journey is. Good people lose their jobs. Good people die way too soon. People who seem to be healthy get diabetes and heart disease and cancer and it all seems so unfair. But what was fair about Jesus coming to earth as a human being and dying a horrible, painful death to pay for our sins? When you look at the big picture, shouldn’t we thank God that life isn’t fair?

Friday After Ash Wednesday

Have you been using the prayer book that Father sent you in the mail? If you haven’t, it’s a great resource to get you started each day on your Lenten prayers. Of course, the fact that it’s based on St. Patrick’s spirituality doesn’t hurt.

Yesterday’s reading concerned evil. It’s the age-old question, “Why is there evil in the world?” The Bible tells us that it’s our fault, which it is. God doesn’t make bad things happen. We make bad things happen by OUR actions, or inactions. By we, I don’t necessarily mean you and me, “we” includes everybody. You and I aren’t going out to rob a bank today, or to shoot somebody. You and I aren’t personally responsible for hunger and poverty. But the bigger “we”, the society in which we live, is responsible for a lot of evil.

The book talks about the “Lord’s Prayer”, where we ask God to deliver us from evil. Of course, He’s already delivered us from the greatest evil of all, our own sins. He came to earth as a human being to die for our sins.

As the book says, “Because of Jesus, God delivers us from evil. God fills us with love so that we can help instead of hurt. God empowers us to be the means to bring healing to others. And God promises that, no matter what may happen to us, all things work out for our good.”

Twenty-six years ago, on New Year’s Eve, I was fired from my job. We didn’t have much money then, anyway, and most of what we had bought for Christmas, we’d put on the credit card. There I was, less than a week later, with no job. Fortunately, I had interviewed for another job a few weeks before. I called them back and asked if the job was still open. It was. I made an appointment for the following week and got the job. Actually, because the company that fired me gave me a week’s severance pay and I had another job less than a week later, I actually came out a little bit ahead.

In the long run, I came out a lot ahead. There was really no future in that other job, but there was a lot of future with the new one. I’m still there. What started as one of the worst experiences of my life turned into a life-changing good.

I’ve been fired more than once in my life, and I’ve had to fire a few people over the years too. I have never lost a job that I didn’t end up better off in the long run. And, I’ve never fired anyone who didn’t go out and get a better job. God does deliver us from evil.

In the first reading today, the prophet Isiah points out the hypocracy of some who fast. He’s not impressed. He suggests that the real fast is one that “releases those bound unjustly”. It’s one that “sets free the oppressed”. He suggests that we share our bread with the hungry, clothe the naked and not turn our backs on our own.

He says, “Then your light shall break forth like the day and your wound shall be quickly healed.”

The reading concludes, with an excerpt from the 46th Psalm. “God, you are our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”