Thoughts on Memorial Day

This post was originally published on Memorial Day 2015:


My wife and I went to Mass on Memorial Day and our priest told a story in his homily about a man he knew that grew up without parents.  The man's name was Matt.  Matt led a lonely life and it seemed that everything he did or tried was met with a closed door.  He joined the military and eventually was deployed into active service in Afghanistan.  On return home to the US while on leave, he seemed bitter and distant to the priest and others who knew him.  His demeanor had changed now that he had been exposed to the brutality of war.  Upon his return to Afghanistan for another tour of duty, he fought bravely for his country, but this time he was killed by enemy fire and returned home to the US again, but this time he returned in a flag draped coffin.  He was given a proper funeral Mass and burial service, and this time he went through an open door, a door which led to heaven.  At this point the priest got choked up and everyone could see that he was very moved by this story.  The story of a person he knew personally, who had fought and died for his freedom as an American.  A person who was not loved by many people on this earth, but was loved tremendously by God.  We often don't think of the thousands of people, real people, real human beings, who lost their lives for this country, when we think of Memorial Day.  We tend to think of the patriotism and the flags, but we quickly turn to thoughts of summer time, BBQ's and time off from our jobs to be with our families and enjoy a day off.  When you think about people who were touched by a soldier who gave his life, it gets personal.  We live in a great country because of people like Matt.

Scott

Thoughts on summer

Summer

For many people, summer has a lot of different parameters as far as when it begins and when it ends. For children, summer begins when school lets out for the year.  When I was a kid, that meant sometime in June, but now it means late May.  This past school year, my son was done for the year on May 22nd, and my two college girls were finished on May 8th!  For people who work for a living, Memorial Day weekend kind of marks the beginning of summer, a time when the temperatures are warmer and the local swimming pools open up.  Of course, if you go by the calendar, the official beginning of summer is on June 21st with the summer solstice.  If the weather doesn't cooperate, most anyone else will have to admit that by July 4th, Independence Day weekend, we are definitely into summer.  For a few, summer doesn't begin until you take your vacation from work and go on a trip out of town. 

People who have children in school will most likely agree that what we think of as summer, the time off between when school ends and when it begins, has definitely moved from a Memorial Day to Labor Day time period to a late May to early to mid August time period as schools nation wide have adjusted their schedules over the last 20 years or so.  For many folks, once the calendar flips over to August, vacations are over and you are buying back to school supplies and thinking about school starting again.  But really, summer is only about half over because it doesn't really end until Sept 21st. So when is summer to you?  I guess it really doesn't matter, unless you make calendars.  Enjoy the warm weather and time off of work.  Slow down and enjoy the enjoyment!

Scott

Thoughts on Pentecost

This Sunday the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Pentecost, a feast that’s often overshadowed by Christmas and Easter. Yet Pentecost is not just an appendix to Easter; it’s the fulfillment of the Paschal Mystery.

Just as Easter celebrates the passion, death, and resurrection of the Incarnate Son of God, so Pentecost, fifty days later, marks the completion of that saving work through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The risen Lord bestows his Spirit upon the Church gathered in the Upper Room around Mary, and upon the Church of every age.

Christ does not abandon his disciples. He does not leave his Body without the Spirit of Truth. Through the Holy Spirit, the Church continues his mission: proclaiming God’s saving truth about the human person and authentic human community, offering the sacraments of salvation, and forming a communion of faith and charity that anticipates the communion of saints in heaven.

The Spirit enables the Church to confess Jesus Christ as Lord. St. Paul reminds us that “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” In ancient Israel, the word “Lord” named God himself. So to say “Jesus is Lord” is to confess that Jesus is truly God, and that God has revealed his face in Christ. Through Pentecost, we come to know that the one God who creates in love is the same God who redeems in Christ, the very truth we profess in the Creed.

Each Sunday, as the Church rises at the Creed to profess the Faith, this mystery is renewed. People of every language and nation proclaim in unison that there is one Faith, one Lord, one Baptism. Thus, the confusion of Babel is healed. What was separated and divided by human pride is reunited and reconciled by the gift of the Holy Spirit.

And so the Church prays with hope in that same Spirit who gathered what was scattered at Babel:

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful, and kindle in them the fire of thy love. Send forth thy Spirit and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth. Amen.

-Fr. Richard Hermes, S.J.

Thoughts on peace

 

The Source of All Peace

From: Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit

Do not give up working for peace. Always remember that the peace for which you work is not of this world. Do not let yourself be distracted by the great noises of war, the dramatic descriptions of misery, and the sensational expressions of human cruelty. The newspapers, movies, and war novels may make you numb, but they do not create in you a true desire for peace. They tend to create feelings of shame, guilt, and powerlessness, and these feelings are the worst motives for peace work. Keep your eyes on the prince of peace, the one who doesn't cling to his divine power; the one who refuses to turn stones into bread, jump from great heights, and rule with great power; the one who says, “Blessed are the poor, the gentle, those who mourn, and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; blessed are the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and those who are persecuted in the cause of uprightness” (see Matt. 5:3-11). See the one who touches the lame, the crippled, and the blind; the one who speaks words of forgiveness and encouragement; the one who dies alone, rejected, and despised. Keep your eyes on him who becomes poor with the poor, weak with the weak, and who is rejected with the rejected. That one, Jesus, is the source of all peace.

Reflection Question: When you engage current events, are you more likely to feel powerless or motivated to work for peace?

“Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them.” - Matthew 15: 30

Thoughts on interuptions

 

God's Preparations in the Interruptions

From: Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

A few years ago I met an old professor at the University of Notre Dame. Looking back on his long life of teaching, he said with a funny twinkle in his eyes: “I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted until I slowly discovered that my interruptions were my work.” That is the great conversion in our life: to recognize and believe that the many unexpected events are not just disturbing interruptions of our projects, but the way in which God molds our hearts and prepares us for his return. Our great temptations are boredom and bitterness. When our good plans are interrupted by poor weather, our peace of mind by inner turmoil, our hope for peace by a new war, our desire for a stable government by a constant changing of the guards, and our desire for immortality by real death, we are tempted to give in to a paralyzing boredom or to strike back in destructive bitterness. But when we believe that patience can make our expectations grow, then fate can be converted into a vocation, wounds into a call for deeper understanding, and sadness into a birthplace of joy.

Reflection Question: In what ways might you resist both boredom and bitterness in this season of your life?

“Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” - Deuteronomy 4: 6

More thoughts on the Ascension

 

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

Matthew 28:16–20

Friends, today is the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord. After his resurrection, Jesus continued to appear to his disciples for a time—the standard biblical frame of forty days—and then stopped. The Ascension of Jesus signals the definitive end of these postresurrection appearances and the commencement of Jesus’s operation from the properly heavenly sphere. It is crucial to remember, however, that this distantiation by no means amounts to an abandonment, but rather to an even more intense form of intimacy. To move into heaven, or the divine manner of existence, is not to move to another place but to that arena of existence that stands outside of space. Paul Tillich refers to God’s Überräumlichkeit (over-spacedness), and he insists that this transcendence to any particular space implies the capacity to be present to every space. This is what we mean when we say that God is “everywhere.”  Therefore, to say that Jesus has “ascended” to that sphere of existence is not to say that he has “gone away.” It is to assert, if I can adopt a military metaphor, that he has journeyed to a higher point of vantage, where he can see the entire field of battle and direct operations more efficaciously.  Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on the Ascension

 

Sacred Scripture reveals to us that Jesus appeared to the Apostles and spoke to them about the kingdom of God for forty days after His Resurrection (Acts 1:3). Then, forty days after the Resurrection, the Lord ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. For this reason, the Church has long celebrated the Ascension of Christ on Thursday, forty days after Easter, which is indeed today.

The Ascension is often overlooked but in fact, it is a key part of the Creed, central to Christ’s saving work, and the Second Glorious Mystery. With the intercession of Our Blessed Mother to aid us, we would do well to take some time and ponder the significance of this great event. Despite our failures and weaknesses, God Almighty is so good and gracious that the divine Word humbly took on human flesh and dwelt among us. The great mystery of the Incarnation not only reveals more about who our Savior is, but it is also how our humanity is most perfectly joined to God’s divinity via the hypostatic union. Thus, Jesus truly is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and no one goes to the Father except through him (John 14:6). This divine work of drawing humanity to God is even more deeply fulfilled when the risen Jesus, who is both fully God and fully man, ascends entirely, including bodily, into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. In doing so, human nature has now perfectly entered Heaven and we can now dare to hope to someday join as members of Christ’s Mystical Body where He, our Head has already ascended to. As beautiful as this ascent of human nature into Heaven is, there is still more to marvel at. The Church in reflecting on the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus is the true High Priest, who has ascended, and who has and will assuredly continue to intercede for us before the Father. We have every reason to hope for salvation with such a perfect High Priest and Intercessor. Thus, while we continue to live in a world plagued by sin as Our Lady of Fatima warned, no matter how bad things become, we must never lose faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who intercedes on our behalf. Rather, let us heed our Blessed Mother’s advice, contemplate the mystery of the Ascension by praying the Rosary, and keep our hearts centered on the Lord. In the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Christopher P. Wendt International Director Confraternity of Our Lady of Fatima

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