The Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God: 1/1/2015: 5:00 PM and 8:30 AM

I think it’s interesting to see how we use combinations of letters as short cuts in referring to groups or institutions. When doing so, one has to be careful because those same combinations of letters can refer to very different groups with the same initials. For example, the letters MIA can mean “Missing In Action” or “Miami International Airport” or “Minneapolis Institute of Arts.” Another such combination of letters would be DOA which depending on the group you’re with means “Department of Agriculture” or “Department of the Army” or “Dead On Arrival” or “Dead or Alive” as in “wanted dead or alive.” I had some knee pain a week ago and so went to our parishioner Dr. Paul Spezia who is an orthopedist. When there, I heard him say to the attendant that I had OA, and I asked what OA stood for. He said, “Osteoarthritis,” and I was glad to know that he wasn’t suggesting that I attend an Overeaters Anonymous group.

I have here a bag of M&Ms. Do you know what the Ms stand for? Mars and Murrie, Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie, the inventors of M&Ms. Several years ago in a previous parish, it was the Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus, August 6, and as part of the homily I distributed to the folks little bags of M&Ms. I told them that I hope they’d enjoy the candy inside but that what I really wanted them to do was to keep the empty bags and to put them somewhere where they would see them every day because the feast of the Transfiguration called us to be aware of the “Marvels and Miracles” that surround us each day, particularly the marvel and the miracle of God’s love and the various forms of that love we experience each day.

The sad news for all of you today is that I am not going to do the same; I am not going pass out packets of M&Ms today as part of this homily, but I would ask that you note bags of M&Ms when you see them through- out this new year because, in a sense, this is what every new year calls us to do, to see, Marvels and Miracles.

Today we heard these words from St. Luke’s Gospel, The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart. Again, note that Mary today is described as having kept all these things, having treasured all these things, and reflecting on them in her heart. She feasted on the Marvel and Miracle of the birth of her Son, the birth of our Redeemer who was honored by the shepherds and by what they’d been told by the individual angel as well as the multitude of angels singing God’s praises, and I wonder how much she had to draw upon those treasured thoughts as she heard the rumors as her Son began his preaching and especially how much she had to draw upon them as she watched his Passion from the foot of the As we face this new year, we are also called to do as Mary did, keeping, treasuring, reflecting on these Marvels and Mysteries in our hearts too.

Besides keeping the letters M&M in our minds and hearts this year, I think we also need to keep in mind two other letters: H&H, not H&H Glassworks, a company that installs glass doors here in St. Charles, and not H&H Trailers, a company that sells trailers in Iowa. The H&H I’m talking about would be Hunger and Humility, “hunger” as in hunger for God, and “humility” in the sense of being open to the presence of God in our lives. Without a “hunger” for God, God becomes a “take it or leave it” option for us, rather than the One who gives us ultimate meaning, the One whom we can’t live without. Without “humility,” the presence of God becomes like a thunderstorm on parched land where the rain runs right off rather than sinking in. With humility, we welcome God as a spring shower who refreshes us and enables growth to take place in us.

These are the keys to our living this New Year: M&Ms standing for “Marvels and Miracles,” that is, keeping, treasuring, and reflecting on the Marvel and Miracle of God’s love for us and H&H standing for “Hunger and Humility,” that is, throughout this new year, always fostering our hunger for God’s presence in our lives and humbly welcoming him into our hearts each day.

The Feast of the Epiphany: 1/4/15: 10:00 AM and 12:00 Noon

The English poetess Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived and died a long time ago, born in 1806 and dying in 1861. One of her best known poems contains is this line: Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God, But only he who sees takes off his shoes; The rest sit round and pluck blackberries. She is referring here to Moses who at the burning bush took of his shoes in the presence of God. Her words are a wonderful testimony to the real presence of God in and through ordinary things, ordinary things calling us to also take off our shoes in God’s presence as Moses did.

Her words came back to my mind recently when I read an article entitled “Everyday Sacraments” in America magazine, which is published by the Society of Jesus in the United States. In this article which is about her mother’s last 48 days on Earth before death, the author, Angela O’Donnell, writes: Most of us live our daily lives immersed in the ordinary. Beset by tasks and responsibilities, we accomplish what we can, often by rote and without much thought or deliberation. These habits of daily-ness enable us to function, practically speaking, but they can also blind us to the extraordinary nature of our own lives. In his book The Catholic Imagination, the (late) Rev. Andrew Greeley reminds us that Catholic tradition offers human beings both a deeper and a more expansive vision of life: “Catholics live in an enchanted world, a world of statues and holy water, stained glass and votive candles, saints and religious medals, rosary beads and holy pictures. But these Catholic paraphernalia are mere hints of a deeper and more pervasive religious sensibility which inclines Catholics to see the Holy lurking in creation. As Catholics, we find our houses and our world haunted by a sense that the objects, events, and persons of daily life are revelations of grace.”

When we use the term “holy ground,” we often think of special places like cemeteries, famous basilicas, beautiful shrines, and the like. However, if we restrict our thoughts to such places when we think of places where the presence of God can be found, aren’t we running the risk of sitting around and plucking blackberries rather than taking our shoes off, as Moses, did in the presence of God?

A long time ago I remember a rabbi I knew talking about a wonderful prayer he found right next to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. The Wailing Wall is all that remains of the Jerusalem Temple which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD so retaining wall is, therefore, considered by the Jews as being the holiest site in all of Judaism. It surprised my rabbi-friend when he found a prayer right outside of the public restrooms right next to the Wailing Wall because that prayer was a prayer thanking God for the openings in the body which enable us to live. Years and years later, I had the chance to visit Jerusalem and the Wailing Wall and to find that prayer outside of those restrooms. I took a photo of it and had Fr. Sean Martin translate it for me from the Hebrew. The prayer goes this way: Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of all that is, who formed mankind in wisdom and created in him all manner of openings and cavities. It is manifest and known before the throne of your glory that, if any one of them were ruptured or blocked, it would be impossible (for us) to live and stand before you. Blessed are you, Lord, who heals all flesh and are wonderful in your works. That prayer and its placement made me realize that the term “holy ground” doesn’t apply only to beautiful shrines and special churches but to even places like restrooms, basketball courts, telephones, automobiles, kitchen tables, the marriage bed, key boards, the bed of a sick friend, and a limitless number of other places. This, in fact, is what the feast of the Epiphany reminds us of, the word “Epiphany” meaning “manifestation.” Jesus was made manifest, shown, made present to the Magi in a way that surprised them, in a way they could have missed because it was so common and ordinary. But isn’t Jesus also manifest, shown, made present to all of us in ways that we can easily overlook as well?

I happen to have here one of the Magi from our Nativity scene from the lawn in front of our church. I have this particular statue here because it is always falling down. Its base is narrower than the other two Magi so, if there is the slightest bit of wind, this one winds up looking like this. Last week was a bit windy so it was always lying face down which irritated me, but then I thought, when the Magi appeared, doesn’t Matthew describe how they prostrated themselves before the child Jesus? In a sense then, this one is only anticipating that action of falling down in worship before Jesus before the other Magi could do it. So I left him down like that, and, when I put him back out there after Mass, I’m going lay him down like this again so that he can be a reminder for us to also prostrate ourselves before the presence of God wherever we find him because aren’t all situations potentially epiphanies? Isn’t all ground potentially holy? Aren’t we all always being called by God, as Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes, not to sit round and pluck blackberries but to take off (our) shoes because Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush (is) afire with God?

The Baptism of the Lord: 1/11/15: 7:00 and 8:30 AM (Fr. John Kerber here at 5:00)

I always find it reflect upon how, from our perspective, things are so much more primitive in previous ages.

For example, when we turned from the year 1999 to the year 2000, I remember watching a “NightLine” program in which the announcer Ted Koeppel talked with a historian about the switch from the year 999 to the year 1000. The historian said that the first thing you’d notice in the year 999 was smells, odors. No one bathed, there were no sewage systems, no trash removal; everything was thrown into the gutter. He also said that, in villages you’d see a predominance of men and children because so many women died in childbirth. He also said that very few people traveled from their native cities and would spend their whole lives there, never venturing away from them, because it just wasn’t safe. He also said that spices were very important to people in the year 999 because they had no refrigeration or preserving their food so they’d have to eat what they had, even if it was rotten because that’s all they had. They’d use spices to kill the taste of that rotten food so they could at least get it down.

However, one doesn’t have to back to the year 999 to see how life is so different now. Some years ago I was talking with our parishioner Agnes Lott who just celebrated her 93rd birthday. Agnes grew up in the 1930s on a farm south of O’Fallon off Highway N just west of Highway K. Agnes said they had electricity but had no indoor plumbing. Her dad plowed behind a horse. When they wanted chicken for dinner, they just went out and wrung one of the heads of the chicken in their barnyard. Then Highway K and N were both dirt roads, and she and her siblings walked to Assumption School twice a day, a distance of 4 miles each way. When it snowed, they just walked in the tire treads of the cars that had gone by earlier that morning. Or let me take you back to life when I was growing up in the middle 1950s. I remember my parents having a 40 call limit telephone, meaning that you could only make 40 calls a month and that each call more than 40 was an extra charge, and they were on a party-line, meaning that you had to share that one line with two to four other families. When I was growing up in the mid-1950s, there was only one television station, only one! Most airplanes were propeller driven. There were no computers, no color TVs, no internet, no email, no microwave ovens, no cell phones, no interstate highways, and laundry was usually dried by hanging it on a rope in the backyard with clothes pins. We live in a very different age than the year 999, or the year 1930, or even the year 1955, but how often do we think of the so-called miracles

interesting to see how we

The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time: 1/25/15—for Terry Borgerding, 7:00 and 8:30 AM

The “apostles to be”: what did they see? Being shrink-wrapped The Pale Blue Dot

Text:

(the same homily on 2/1/15 also??)

Passion Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday or Easter Sunday homily????

Subject: Father Kapaun------

---WELL WORTH WATCHING!!!!!!!

This is the American ethic I love...

Every once in a while someone like Father Kapaun comes along, but not very often.

Also go to

Easter Sunday homily—

Mayor Cermak taking a bullet for FDR?

Trinity Sunday for next year (2015)?????

Triangle, tripod, tricycle, Triceratops all meaning “three”—three angles, three feet, three wheels, three horns. This feast of Trinity is about three being one, but this Trinity involving God is illustrated by another trinity, a trinity of songs that illustrate the Trinity found in God. The first song of this trinity of songs comes from the hand of the Beatle John Lennon, All you need is love, All you need is love, All you need is love, love, Love is all you need. The second song of this trinity of songs was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that there's just too little of. What the world needs now is love, sweet love, No not just for some but for everyone.

It might seem irreverent to link works by John Lennon, Burt Bacharach, and Hal David to the divine Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but isn’t that what we believe about the Trinity, that love is at their core? Aren’t today’s readings saying the very same thing? Doesn’t Jesus say as much in today’s Gospel by St. John…. Doesn’t St. Paul say as much … Doesn’t St. Paul say as much when he writes in his letter to the Roman… Doesn’t St. John say as much in his first letter when he writes, God is love….?

But Lennon’s All you need is love and Burt Bacharach’s What the world needs now is love, sweet love are only two of the trinity of songs that link us to the divine Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There is yet the third song of that musical trinity, and it’s Johnny Lee’s Lookin' for love in all the wrong places, Lookin' for love in too many faces. So too, when looking for the perfect, faithful, total, complete love that is found in the divine Trinity, so often we find ourselves lookin’ for that love in all the wrong places. We expect to find that …. love that can only be found in the Trinity in too many faces. We look for that same perfect love in our seeking perfect marriage, in the perfect job, in having the perfect body, in wanting the perfect professional team, in perfect friendships. Priests themselves can also look for that …. love in wanting perfect parishes, perfect parishioners, perfect ministers, perfect committees, but expecting that type of perfection too is lookin’ for that love in all the wrong places.

Do I mean that we are doomed to samples like at the grocery store. The story goes that man went to Chicago, saw the sign, crossed over the city limit and left thinking that he’d seen Chicago when only he’s seen the sign and not the real Chicago. Don’t make the mistake of confusing the signs for the real thing.

What the World Needs Now; All You Need Is Love; Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

Starving for love—God presents us with a feast but we’re satisfied by eating garbage

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
1967 Magical Mystery Tour John Lennon

What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It's the only thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No not just for some but for everyone