24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
The kids are back in school and the first thing they're often asked to do is write a paper on how they spent their summer vacation. So, in the spirit of the new school year I thought I'd tell you what I did on my summer vacation. Don't panic. I'm not going to show slides or anything, but a couple of things happened while Jan and I were away a couple of weeks ago that I thought were kind of interesting.
Three weeks ago we attended a wedding at a Baptist Church in Atlanta. The church is right next door to the Atlanta Cathedral so we decided to go to 5:00 mass and then walk next door for the 6:00 wedding. The mass itself was nothing out of the ordinary except for the number of clergy on the altar. There were four priests and a deacon. They were getting ready for a parish mission so the homilist that day was from Nebraska. The interesting thing was the pre-mass announcement. We don't do it here at St. Bernadette but a lot of parishes do ask everyone to silence their cell phones and pagers, nothing special there. But what the man said next made me do a Loony Tunes double take. He said, "please refrain from texting during the holy sacrifice of the mass."
Refrain from texting! I thought it might be a joke. But I looked around and no one was laughing, so I guess he was serious. Are there really people who would send and receive text messages during mass? Sadly, I guess there are. An announcement like that is usually made because it's been a problem in the past. C'mon, people. We're not at a ball game! Where are our priorities?
The other thing worth mentioning is the length of the mass. Jan and I did something that we haven't done in years and something that I'm not recommending to you. Don't say "the deacon does it so it must be ok." This was an emergency. We left after communion. Remember I said that the wedding was at 6:00 and the mass was at 5:00. We walked in just ahead of the wedding party.
Another thing worth mentioning: Even though Atlanta is almost twice as big as St. Louis and has 200,000 more Catholics, their Cathedral isn't nearly as big or as nice as our own Cathedral Basilica. We should be very proud of that. One more thing before we leave Atlanta. The wedding was held at the Ponce de Leon Baptist Church. It was a very nice church in a protestant sort of way, but Ponce de Leon was Spanish. He lived in the last half of the 1400s and the first half of the 1500s. Wouldn't he have been a Catholic? It just seems like a strange name for a Baptist Church.
Jumping ahead seven days, two weeks ago we went to mass at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Madison, Alabama. The pastor there is Fr. Phillip O'Kennedy, a fine Irish lad with a gift of gab. Quite a gift of gab. The one hour plus mass in Atlanta was nothing. This one lasted more than an hour and a half. I thought to myself, the folks back home at St. Bernadette wouldn't like this. We were supposed to meet our son and daughter-in-law for lunch at 1:00. Needless to say, we were late.
But here's the thing. No one in that church looked at their watch as Fr. Kennedy delivered his half-hour homily. It was that good. I've commandeered some of his words for this morning. They actually fit pretty well with today's readings, particularly the second reading from the Letter of St. James. We've heard from James for the last three Sundays (counting today) and we'll hear from him for a couple of more weeks.
Two weeks ago, the weekend that we were in Alabama, he wrote to us "Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves." Last week he reminded us that we shouldn't show preference to those with gold rings and fine clothes over poor people with shabby clothes. Today we heard my personal favorite from James, "If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,' what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead."
You can't get much plainer than that!
Fr. O'Kennedy used a term that I'd never heard before, but that seems so appropriate when you're talking about James writings. He said, "Don't be a pew potato!" A pew potato. James couldn't have said it better himself.
We all know what a couch potato is. It's someone who just sits on the couch doing nothing. So, it follows that a pew potato comes to church on Saturday or Sunday but doesn't do anything. That's what James was warning us about. Some say that faith alone is all that we need to get into heaven. Solo fidae. Faith alone. But James says no. "Be doers of the word." "Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead." "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works." Don't be a pew potato.
Alabama isn't exactly a hot bed of Catholicism. There are seven Catholic churches in the Huntsville/Madison area. There are more protestant churches than that on the street where St. Joseph is located. So, I think the good father might have been taking a little bit of a shot at the competition. He said that we don't come to church to feel good. We come to do good and to be good. Isn't that exactly what St. James has been telling us. Our purpose in this life is to take others with us to the next life. We do that by doing good and by being good, leading by example. And that comes from church.
Some folks think that they can master the do good and the be good on their own. We've all heard someone say that they don't need a "building" to be close to God. They're right, up to a point. Between Atlanta and Huntsville we spent a few days in the Smoky Mountains. You can't visit the mountains without feeling close to God. At least I can't. But admiring His handiwork, as awesome as it is, won't help you to do good and be good.
For one thing, we need the Eucharist. We need Christ's physical presence coursing through our bodies to help us stand up against the pressures of modern society to be bad and do bad. We also need the encouragement of the Word of God. I'll let you in on a little secret. I may read Sunday's readings a hundred times, but when I hear the lector read them out loud, I always pick up on something that I missed reading them to myself. The word is spiritual food just like the Eucharist.
Here's something you may not know. Have you ever noticed that we carry the Book of the Gospels into church but we don't carry it out? The reason for that is that you carry the word out of church in your hearts and minds. The readings are crucial in your daily struggle to do good and be good.
Finally, we need to surround ourselves with a community of believers. We're not naturally solitary people. Remember that in the Passion the people shouted "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" Chances are that if there had been only one person there he would have kept his mouth shut. But there's strength in numbers. In the same way, when we're challenged by society to do what's popular rather than what's right, we can be stronger knowing that we're part of a world-wide community of believers who gather each and every week to hear the Word, share the Eucharist, and worship with our fellow Catholics.
Before mass you heard Greg tell us how generous you are. You're the best when it comes to supporting the church and helping the poor. We've had a parish surplus for ten years. We exceeded our goal for the Annual Catholic Appeal with one of the highest percentages of givers in the Deanery. You should be very proud of that.
[long pause]
Eight years ago yesterday (Friday) our country was brutally attacked by terrorists who hate our country and hate our way of life. Thousands of our brothers and sisters were killed and injured that day. But instead of bringing us to our knees, those attacks brought us together. Instead of running away from the burning buildings, brave Americans ran in, hoping to save the people trapped inside. Some of those brave men and women died themselves. All Americans, regardless of our religious faith or political party banded together. For days and even weeks and months afterwards we rallied around the President and our country, determined not to let the acts of a few deranged individuals destroy the America that we all know and love. After all, we're one nation, UNDER GOD.
Sadly it didn't take us long to get back to business as usual. 911 became one of those days, like the moon landing or the Kennedy assassination, where we remember where we were on the day, but the significance has faded away. Remember how everything used to stop when their was a launch at Cape Kennedy? We were glued to our television sets. Not anymore. Did you know that there was a shuttle landing just last night? (Friday night?) I'm just sayin'...... Ironically, our country's success in warding off further attacks has lulled us into thinking that the threat isn't still there. Make no mistake. It is. But we, as Catholic Christians have other enemies, the first of all being Satan. And he's done a pretty good job of convincing us that he's not still around, just like we may have forgotten that Al Kaida is still around.
I apologize to those of you who were at yesterday's (Friday's) communion service. You already heard some of this. But I think it's important enough to repeat. Our country was founded on religious freedom. The pilgrims came here to escape religious persecution. Our founding fathers created a nation UNDER GOD. But in trying to avoid creating a national religion, our courts have done exactly that. Through a series of misguided decisions athiesm has become our national religion. Our brothers and sisters who don't believe in God are the only Americans who are 100% free to practice their faith, or lack of faith, as they see fit. Not only that, they demand that laws be changed to reflect their views and usually win. The bad news is that what they want may not be what God wants. When Christians sit by and watch as laws are passed that are clearly not what God wants, that's when we end up with the legal murder of unborn children. That's what happens when good Christians become hearers of the word and not doers of the word. That's what happens when we become pew potatoes. Complacency and inaction are the enemies of faith and of freedom.
God gave us free will so we have a choice. We can come to mass on the weekend, shake the priest's and the deacon's hands on the way out the door and go about our business or we can become "doers of the word." Nourished by the word and by the Body and Blood of Christ, fortified by the strength of the community, we can stand up for what we believe and show the world through our words and our actions that we're people of faith, or we can be careful not to make waves. Not to rock the boat. We can forget James' words, "Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead." We can feed the hungry, clothe the poor, comfort the lonely or we can say 'Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,' Oh, and have a nice day!
He gave us free will so it's really up to us.
Three weeks ago we attended a wedding at a Baptist Church in Atlanta. The church is right next door to the Atlanta Cathedral so we decided to go to 5:00 mass and then walk next door for the 6:00 wedding. The mass itself was nothing out of the ordinary except for the number of clergy on the altar. There were four priests and a deacon. They were getting ready for a parish mission so the homilist that day was from Nebraska. The interesting thing was the pre-mass announcement. We don't do it here at St. Bernadette but a lot of parishes do ask everyone to silence their cell phones and pagers, nothing special there. But what the man said next made me do a Loony Tunes double take. He said, "please refrain from texting during the holy sacrifice of the mass."
Refrain from texting! I thought it might be a joke. But I looked around and no one was laughing, so I guess he was serious. Are there really people who would send and receive text messages during mass? Sadly, I guess there are. An announcement like that is usually made because it's been a problem in the past. C'mon, people. We're not at a ball game! Where are our priorities?
The other thing worth mentioning is the length of the mass. Jan and I did something that we haven't done in years and something that I'm not recommending to you. Don't say "the deacon does it so it must be ok." This was an emergency. We left after communion. Remember I said that the wedding was at 6:00 and the mass was at 5:00. We walked in just ahead of the wedding party.
Another thing worth mentioning: Even though Atlanta is almost twice as big as St. Louis and has 200,000 more Catholics, their Cathedral isn't nearly as big or as nice as our own Cathedral Basilica. We should be very proud of that. One more thing before we leave Atlanta. The wedding was held at the Ponce de Leon Baptist Church. It was a very nice church in a protestant sort of way, but Ponce de Leon was Spanish. He lived in the last half of the 1400s and the first half of the 1500s. Wouldn't he have been a Catholic? It just seems like a strange name for a Baptist Church.
Jumping ahead seven days, two weeks ago we went to mass at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Madison, Alabama. The pastor there is Fr. Phillip O'Kennedy, a fine Irish lad with a gift of gab. Quite a gift of gab. The one hour plus mass in Atlanta was nothing. This one lasted more than an hour and a half. I thought to myself, the folks back home at St. Bernadette wouldn't like this. We were supposed to meet our son and daughter-in-law for lunch at 1:00. Needless to say, we were late.
But here's the thing. No one in that church looked at their watch as Fr. Kennedy delivered his half-hour homily. It was that good. I've commandeered some of his words for this morning. They actually fit pretty well with today's readings, particularly the second reading from the Letter of St. James. We've heard from James for the last three Sundays (counting today) and we'll hear from him for a couple of more weeks.
Two weeks ago, the weekend that we were in Alabama, he wrote to us "Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves." Last week he reminded us that we shouldn't show preference to those with gold rings and fine clothes over poor people with shabby clothes. Today we heard my personal favorite from James, "If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,' what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead."
You can't get much plainer than that!
Fr. O'Kennedy used a term that I'd never heard before, but that seems so appropriate when you're talking about James writings. He said, "Don't be a pew potato!" A pew potato. James couldn't have said it better himself.
We all know what a couch potato is. It's someone who just sits on the couch doing nothing. So, it follows that a pew potato comes to church on Saturday or Sunday but doesn't do anything. That's what James was warning us about. Some say that faith alone is all that we need to get into heaven. Solo fidae. Faith alone. But James says no. "Be doers of the word." "Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead." "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works." Don't be a pew potato.
Alabama isn't exactly a hot bed of Catholicism. There are seven Catholic churches in the Huntsville/Madison area. There are more protestant churches than that on the street where St. Joseph is located. So, I think the good father might have been taking a little bit of a shot at the competition. He said that we don't come to church to feel good. We come to do good and to be good. Isn't that exactly what St. James has been telling us. Our purpose in this life is to take others with us to the next life. We do that by doing good and by being good, leading by example. And that comes from church.
Some folks think that they can master the do good and the be good on their own. We've all heard someone say that they don't need a "building" to be close to God. They're right, up to a point. Between Atlanta and Huntsville we spent a few days in the Smoky Mountains. You can't visit the mountains without feeling close to God. At least I can't. But admiring His handiwork, as awesome as it is, won't help you to do good and be good.
For one thing, we need the Eucharist. We need Christ's physical presence coursing through our bodies to help us stand up against the pressures of modern society to be bad and do bad. We also need the encouragement of the Word of God. I'll let you in on a little secret. I may read Sunday's readings a hundred times, but when I hear the lector read them out loud, I always pick up on something that I missed reading them to myself. The word is spiritual food just like the Eucharist.
Here's something you may not know. Have you ever noticed that we carry the Book of the Gospels into church but we don't carry it out? The reason for that is that you carry the word out of church in your hearts and minds. The readings are crucial in your daily struggle to do good and be good.
Finally, we need to surround ourselves with a community of believers. We're not naturally solitary people. Remember that in the Passion the people shouted "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" Chances are that if there had been only one person there he would have kept his mouth shut. But there's strength in numbers. In the same way, when we're challenged by society to do what's popular rather than what's right, we can be stronger knowing that we're part of a world-wide community of believers who gather each and every week to hear the Word, share the Eucharist, and worship with our fellow Catholics.
Before mass you heard Greg tell us how generous you are. You're the best when it comes to supporting the church and helping the poor. We've had a parish surplus for ten years. We exceeded our goal for the Annual Catholic Appeal with one of the highest percentages of givers in the Deanery. You should be very proud of that.
[long pause]
Eight years ago yesterday (Friday) our country was brutally attacked by terrorists who hate our country and hate our way of life. Thousands of our brothers and sisters were killed and injured that day. But instead of bringing us to our knees, those attacks brought us together. Instead of running away from the burning buildings, brave Americans ran in, hoping to save the people trapped inside. Some of those brave men and women died themselves. All Americans, regardless of our religious faith or political party banded together. For days and even weeks and months afterwards we rallied around the President and our country, determined not to let the acts of a few deranged individuals destroy the America that we all know and love. After all, we're one nation, UNDER GOD.
Sadly it didn't take us long to get back to business as usual. 911 became one of those days, like the moon landing or the Kennedy assassination, where we remember where we were on the day, but the significance has faded away. Remember how everything used to stop when their was a launch at Cape Kennedy? We were glued to our television sets. Not anymore. Did you know that there was a shuttle landing just last night? (Friday night?) I'm just sayin'...... Ironically, our country's success in warding off further attacks has lulled us into thinking that the threat isn't still there. Make no mistake. It is. But we, as Catholic Christians have other enemies, the first of all being Satan. And he's done a pretty good job of convincing us that he's not still around, just like we may have forgotten that Al Kaida is still around.
I apologize to those of you who were at yesterday's (Friday's) communion service. You already heard some of this. But I think it's important enough to repeat. Our country was founded on religious freedom. The pilgrims came here to escape religious persecution. Our founding fathers created a nation UNDER GOD. But in trying to avoid creating a national religion, our courts have done exactly that. Through a series of misguided decisions athiesm has become our national religion. Our brothers and sisters who don't believe in God are the only Americans who are 100% free to practice their faith, or lack of faith, as they see fit. Not only that, they demand that laws be changed to reflect their views and usually win. The bad news is that what they want may not be what God wants. When Christians sit by and watch as laws are passed that are clearly not what God wants, that's when we end up with the legal murder of unborn children. That's what happens when good Christians become hearers of the word and not doers of the word. That's what happens when we become pew potatoes. Complacency and inaction are the enemies of faith and of freedom.
God gave us free will so we have a choice. We can come to mass on the weekend, shake the priest's and the deacon's hands on the way out the door and go about our business or we can become "doers of the word." Nourished by the word and by the Body and Blood of Christ, fortified by the strength of the community, we can stand up for what we believe and show the world through our words and our actions that we're people of faith, or we can be careful not to make waves. Not to rock the boat. We can forget James' words, "Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead." We can feed the hungry, clothe the poor, comfort the lonely or we can say 'Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,' Oh, and have a nice day!
He gave us free will so it's really up to us.
posted by Mike at 5:26 PM
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