Watching my watch

As many priests do these days, our pastor serves two parishes.  He is seventy-five years old and recently eliminated one Mass from the weekend schedule leaving four to be celebrated.  When it comes to Holy Days of Obligation, he likes to schedule a morning Mass at each parish one hour apart, plus a Vigil Mass and another on the Holy Day evening. 

 

Considering the seven-mile drive between the parishes and his penchant for long homilies, the second morning Mass seldom starts on time.  On the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, Father had an 8 AM Mass at our parish and a 9 AM at our sister parish that I attended, something I wouldn’t normally do but for some scheduling conflicts of my own.  I arrived about 8:55, knowing the Mass would likely be a few minutes late beginning.

 

Everyone sat in the pews waiting patiently.  By 9:10, still no priest.  I noticed several men, myself included, glancing at their watches.  I found myself getting a little perturbed, the same feeling one gets sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office well past the time of the appointment.  Doesn’t he value our time?   Why does he schedule a certain time when he knows he will be late?

 

Then, I came to my senses.  I looked around the church.  The average age of those in attendance was probably mid-seventies.  Here I was sitting in front of the tabernacle in the presence of Our Lord.  Instead of taking advantage of the opportunity to pray, I was thinking of what else I could be doing rather than waiting on a tardy priest.  Truth be known, I had nothing better to do.  What better is there to do than be in the presence of Our Lord?  I suddenly felt foolish.  

 

I wish I could say I spent the next few minutes totally focused on the tabernacle in conversation with Jesus.  I did make the attempt, but I glanced at my watch again when Father rolled in at 9:17 and again at 9:20 when Mass actually began.  What I got was a lesson in patience and humility.  Who am I to think my time is more important than anyone else’s, especially that of a priest?  I want to remember this next time I have to wait on anyone, be it a priest, a doctor or service in a restaurant.  Maybe they have a reason for being delayed.  Give them a break.  It’s okay.  Sure my time is valuable, but despite Father’s tardiness, I was only about twenty minutes late getting back to my recliner.

Magisterial mayhem

The outspoken Bishop of Tyler Texas, Joseph Strickland, was removed from office by Pope Francis after he refused to resign at the request of the Pope on November 9.   Bishop Strickland had been critical of Pope Francis in his social media posts.  Nonetheless, outright removal of a diocesan bishop is an unusual occurrence.  

 

Bishop Strickland may have sealed his fate when he publicly referred to Pope Francis’ “program of undermining the Deposit of Faith.”  That is a serious allegation, one better made inhouse behind closed doors rather than social media.  While Strickland may have justifiable concerns about the Pope’s stance on some moral issues, airing those concerns can cause needless divisions and polarization among Catholics.  

 

We trust the Holy Spirit to guide the Church to all truth in matters of faith and morals.  Even if Pope Francis should express ideas that would seem to challenge certain Catholic long-held beliefs, we should remain confident that his opinions are not infallible declarations. 

 

Bishop Strickland has a conservative following on social media that extends far beyond the boundaries of his former diocese.  Similar to the political climate in our nation right now, the Church has its conservative and liberal factions.  Some may call it traditionists and modernists. The traditionalists may call it orthodox versus heterodox.  I doubt that Pope Francis intends to undermine the Deposit of Faith.  I believe one can be orthodox and still explore conservative or liberal theological opinions.  This may be where Francis and Strickland clash.  

 

So, I blame both sides for this public dust up.  Strickland should have kept his problems with Francis out of social media and Francis should have handled his disciplinary actions privately. To Strickland’s credit, during his November 11 interview with LifeSiteNews, he encouraged those upset by his dismissal to pray for the Pope and not to leave the Church.  Meanwhile, the rest of us are left to wonder if we should be taking sides. 

 

That's an Order!

A few weeks ago, I was beginning to think we would not have anyone in our RCIA class this year.  There were no prospects on the horizon.  I was disappointed but also somewhat relieved that I might get a little break after doing this for a number of years.  Nevertheless, I posted an announcement on the sign in front of the church inviting people to explore the Catholic Faith and that classes would begin soon.  

 

Fast forward to the present and we have six people attending our weekly sessions.  That may not sound like a large number to most people, but for our small parish, it’s a record!  Calls began coming into the parish office from a variety of people from various backgrounds and circumstances.  We have a young mother who was baptized Catholic, but never raised in the faith.  We have a married couple, the wife who was raised Catholic some sixty years ago but fell away, and her husband who was raised Lutheran but has not practiced.  We have a widow who was raised Methodist and now has a grandson who is a Catholic priest.  We have a woman with a Baptist background who has many questions.  And we have a young college-age woman who has no faith background at all.  

 

I have never considered myself a good teacher and having to facilitate a group with such diverse experiences is especially challenging.  My wife has been a public school educator for some fifty years so I recruited her to help me.  She has never taught religious education, but she certainly knows how to organize a lesson plan better than I do.  Between the two of us, we hope to meet the needs of everyone in the class. 

 

One of the problems we face is how to make our sessions interesting for everyone involved when their faith backgrounds are so different.  Some are quite familiar with Jesus and the scriptures while others have very little knowledge of God at all.  We risk boring some or losing others.  I encourage everyone to stop me and ask questions at any time.  It is easy to assume someone is familiar with certain terminology when in fact they may not be.  

 

Although I have worked with RCIA for many years, I have never done it the same way twice.  It has been a constantly evolving process depending on the needs of those in the group, resources available, and my own experimentation.  Last year, I used the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  I might have done the same thing this year but I suddenly found copies hard to come by.  I did find a couple of used books on Amazon, but I needed six.  What I did have in abundant supply was Trent Horn’s book Why we’re Catholic.  Using it as a starting point for the inquiry phase is working well so far. 

 

Even the name of the program is actually different now.  RCIA, the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, is now called OCIA, the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults.  This was apparently done to improve the English translation from the Latin word Ordo.  Aside from the name change, there is really no difference for us working in the trenches.  In fact, we tend to continue using the old term since it is common in much of our materials.  Old habits are hard to break.  

Matthew 16:13-20

 

The Gospel on the 21^st Sunday in Ordinary time  (Year A)  August 27, 2023

 

Mt 16:13-20

Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi and
he asked his disciples,
"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" 
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 
He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 
Simon Peter said in reply,
"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 
Jesus said to him in reply,
"Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. 
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. 
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. 
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. 
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 
Then he strictly ordered his disciples

to tell no one that he was the Christ.

 

In a world that rejects much of which the Catholic Church teaches, this is one of my favorite gospels because it tells us precisely where the Church gets her authority to speak for God.  Whenever our pastor speaks on Matthew 16:13-20, his emphasis is usually on Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Much of his homily consists of talking about various misconceptions about who Jesus was.   All well and good, as they say, but as an amateur apologist, I always feel like he is missing an opportunity to explain why it is imperative that we listen to and obey the teachings of the Catholic Church.

 

Today the Catholic Church is one of the few remaining institutions that takes a strong moral stand on the tough issues such as abortion or same-sex marriage.  A devout Catholic firmly grounded in the faith has no trouble accepting those beliefs.  We call these non-negotiables.  Yet, many non-Catholic Christians and even some Catholics, acquiesce under social pressure.

 

When it comes to seemingly less stringent teachings or disciplines imposed by the Church, many Catholics turn a blind eye.  Eating meat on Fridays during Lent, or using artificial birth control, or missing Mass every Sunday are all sins that many Catholics do not take seriously.  That brings me to the question that is answered in Matthew’s gospel.  Why should all Christians obey all of the teachings of the Catholic Church, even those that may seem inconsequential?

 

Matthew’s gospel documents Jesus giving Peter, the first Pope of the Catholic Church, the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  As an analogy, I equate this to someone giving a babysitter authority over their household while being away, telling the children to do whatever the sitter says to do or not to do.  If the sitter says go to bed, you go to bed.  If the sitter says you can have a snack, you can have a snack.  The sitter is given complete control and the parents back it up.  

 

A parallel passage from the Book of Isaiah was also read at Mass on the same twenty-first Sunday.  A steward over the household named Shebna has his authority taken away and given to another named Eliakim.  “And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open.” (Isaiah 22:22).  The job of the steward is to act as the prime minister, ordering the day to day operation of the kingdom.  The message seems clear that God-given authority is to be taken seriously.

 

Jesus is not someone who would say something and not really mean it.  He is the incarnate man of His Word.  He granted earthly authority to Peter and His Church, and therefore, we should all be listening to what the Church tells us.  When someone says to me, “Do you really think God would send me to hell for eating a hamburger on Friday or missing Mass to play golf on one Sunday?”, I remind them that the fall of man happened because someone ate a piece of fruit they weren’t supposed to eat.  God sends no one to hell.  We go there by the choices we make. 

 

Yes, we fail at times.  God is merciful.  That is why He gave His Church authority to forgive sins.  (John 20:23).  When judgement day comes, don’t be the one standing before Our Lord saying, “Gee, I didn’t think you were serious about that!  It didn’t seem like a big deal to me!  I didn’t know you were going to bind us to EVERYTHING the Church said.”  Listen to the Church and beware.

 

 

 

A Periodic Self critique

I first began writing these little monthly blogs in September of 2002.  I am sure my thoughts and ideas over the past twenty-one years have been repeated many times over the years.  Today, I decided to reread some of my early postings, many of which I don’t even remember writing!

 

The first thing I noticed was the length of my articles.  They are generally much shorter now than they were twenty years ago.  Am I running out of things to say or am I just getting lazy?  I may have been more passionate in my fifties than I am now in my seventies.  Have I mellowed in my old age?  My thought processes have slowed for sure.  

 

When this all started, I hoped it to be an evangelizing tool for friends and acquaintances on a local level.  Even though I have little evidence of positive results, I am not discouraged.  My hope has always been that someone someday might go through all of these monthly messages and edit them into a little book for publication.  I have no illusions that my message is unique in any way.  I do believe there may be some interest in local authors however.  Several people in our little town have had books published and some will read them out of curiosity.  

 

If you just hand someone a book on Catholic apologetics, you are probably going to get a cool reception if the person is not open to exploring the subject matter.  If you offer a book on the same topic written by a local acquaintance, they are more likely to give it a read.  That sums up my reason for doing this.  Everything I say has been said better by others worldwide.  But, there may be a couple of thousand people within a few miles of me who might be curious about what that guy they have seen around town wrote about.  If it has an impact on one person, maybe it is worth the effort.  

 

My grandmother, who died in 1962, wrote little poems that were published in a local newspaper and a tiny booklet.  Those writings are her legacy.  She speaks to me today in those words she put on paper long ago.  I see the world she knew in her time.  I envision someone reading my writings many years from now, learning about my faith experience in the early twenty-first century.  

 

I do wonder what form literary distribution will take sixty years from now.  Up until recently, I collected Catholic audio CDs to distribute to anyone willing to hear them.  Now, CD players are becoming rare.  Most car manufacturers no longer include them.  Digital downloads are the current trend, but not easy to hand out on the street corner.  I live knowing the possibility no one will ever see what I have written, or that it will have no positive impact if they do.  

 

Even so, doing this is also good for me personally.  It takes a certain amount of discipline to keep up the monthly routine.  I need to spend time thinking about my faith and deciding what to say.  Sitting quietly before the Blessed Sacrament once a week helps develop topics and organize thoughts. At times, my enthusiasm wanes.  Maybe I really am getting lazy or numb to the world.  It is easy to throw up my hands and think why bother?  I can’t be responsible for everyone’s soul.  But, there is always that chance that one of my descendants down the line will be cleaning out an attic and find something I had written many years ago about the Catholic faith.  Just maybe it will plant a seed that takes root a hundred years from now.  God only knows.  

 

 

Prepping for Final Exams

Yesterday (July 11), we celebrated the Memorial of Saint Benedict.  Coincidentally, I just read a prayer attributed to Saint Benedict that was printed the Holy Hour, a meditative book published by Word on Fire that I use during Eucharistic Adoration at my parish.  The author of the prayer pledges to do the Lord’s will in all things, and goes on to list the many ways he intends to honor the pledge.  

 

Among those listed, he promises to honor all persons, and not to do to another what he would not want done to himself.  Sitting in front of the Blessed Sacrament after I read this, I started thinking about how I treated a few people when I was a youth.  Young people can be downright rude at times, and looking back, I realize I may have said some things that hurt my friends and fellow classmates.

 

I was never what would be considered a bully, but there were a couple of boys that I likely insulted because I didn’t particularly like them hanging around.  Reflecting on this some sixty years later, I realize they could have been outcasts who were just looking for friendship and acceptance.  The fact that I might have been rude to them haunts me now.  I can remember once making fun of one boy’s weight.  Another tried to befriend me and I basically ignored him.  

 

I am reminded of the Movie of Your Life evangomercial put out by Catholics Come Home that depicts people watching moments of their lives being shown on a movie screen as we might envision happening on judgement day.  The time will come when I have to relive those moments when I disrespected someone unjustly.  Trying to right those wrongs today is impossible.  Of the two individual incidents that I remember, one of my victims is no longer alive and the whereabouts of the other is unknown.  I also wonder how many others I may have hurt that I don’t remember.  I can only ask God for forgiveness now. 

 

At the time, I did not realize or care that I was being hurtful.  Now, at age 72, I have to ask myself if I am hurting anyone now.  I speak poorly of others at times, not to their faces, but still say things that should be left unsaid.  Is there anyone reaching out to me today that I am not responding to?  Is there someone I know who needs my help, but I tend to avoid?  Are my actions or inactions in accordance with the Lord’s will?  These are all questions we should ask ourselves from time to time.