The Ministry of Being A Lector

I forget the question.  But this morning I found myself defending my reason for going to two different Bible groups.  The simple answer is because I "lector".  I read the Bible readings at Mass to the congregation.  Don't you think that anyone who proclaims the Word in public, should be deeply in love  with scripture?  I love the Word.  I never tire of learning and discussing scripture.  I belong to two Bible groups.  One is not even in my parish.  That one is Bible sharing, in which we read the coming Sunday's readings, some commentary, and then share our interpretations.  My parish has a Bible Study that follows a Little Rock Scripture Workbook.

As a lector I hope to not just read the words written down on the page. I aim to convey my own understanding of the word of God that is inside my heart.  Also, I hope my life gives witness to my faith experience.  I need to thoroughly digest the readings and make them part of my faith.  I need to experience the meaning of what I read.

Do I succeed?  I pray that I do.  Pray for me.

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Prayer for the Bethany Community

The Bethany Community is the group of Catholics inside MCI Norfolk.

Lord, You have made the Bethany Community a church of followers of Your Son, Jesus Christ.  Please make our group a parish, a family
of one mind and heart in love with You.  Grant that our good lives be an example to everyone in our camp, and everywhere.
    Guide our chaplain, priests who minister, the Dominicans who pray and serve us, and the police staff who work here, the graces to see Your work in us, whom have come to know and love You.

     We ask Blessed M. Jean-Joseph Lataste, O.P., to intercede on our behalf.  Please acknowledge the intercessions of Our Lady of Mercy, our patroness, and Pere Lataste.We ask this through Jesus' name.  Amen.

   

Gang Violence

After the door shuts and the footsteps died, I still stayed hidden.  I wasn’t taking any chances.  These kids would beat me to a pulp.  They had chased me all the way from school, across the tracks, even into the church, where I managed to jump out a window just in time.  They saw me though and followed me. 

I don’t think they were sure exactly where I went, in this abandoned factory.  They could very well split up and watch all the exits.  I think I’ll just stay put for an hour before I peek out.

They want me to join their gang.  I’m trying to avoid all gangs, although affiliating with one would protect me from the others.  Oh, I just want to be left alone.  Why can’t they let me be?

Whoa…I must have dozed off.  I’m lucky I haven’t suffocated to death.  It’s darn hot in this crawl space.  For sure, it’s safe to sneak out, now.

Wow, it’s dark.  My cell phone tells me it’s seven o’clock.  I better call my grandmother and tell her I’ll be home soon.  I wish we could afford to move out of this neighborhood with all its gangs.  I hate it here. 

Bang!

I’ve been shot.  “Help me.  Somebody…help”,  I cry out after the door shuts and footsteps fade away.

Baptism, Confirmation and Reconciliation

I have a[ guest blogger today.  It is Mr. Paul Hanlon, o.p.   He writes on Baptism, Confirmation and Reconciliation.

Baptism, Confirmation and Reconciliation are woven into our lives.  We are baptised and confirmed only once yet we continue to receive the gifts and live out these two sacraments all the days of our lives, with reconciliation as our spiritual health care.

In addition to the gifts of the Holy Spirit that the Catholic Church cites, CCC 1830-32, we should recognize two other gifts, courage and the freedom to speak of God. [Courage is the virtue that we all need if any of the other virtues are to flourish.  The courage to speak belongs to every Christian by virtue of our baptism, not just a select few.]  [The greatest injury to this Courage, this Freedom, is silence, if you are spiritually silent in action and word, you are in a sense, Dead,] and "the dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any that go down into silence."  Ps 115:17

Baptism is a one time sacrament with many long-lasting gifts.  Confirmation is a one time sacrament with a life-long duration.  The time given us to grow in faith and understanding, both necessary for our journey and part of our daily lives, through faith we gain understanding and from understanding our faith is strengthened. [Confirmation growth should include a deep understanding and respect for words and actions.  What you say can build up or tear down, instill confidence or the lack of it, you can build community or division, fasten friendship and trust or breed hatred and suspicion.  In short, words are so powerful they themselves elevate speaking to a moral act that carries a responsibility with it.]  Confirmation empowers us to look at our lives and actions objectively to assess our progress

Timothy Radcliffe, op sees [Progress as, "Not merely forward movement, the ground covered or the achievement.  Progress must include what you leave in your wake.  If the person, place or situation is the same or worse after you have been there, where is the progress?]  [James Mawdsley wrote, "Mankind is one body.  We cannot move forward except together.  We cannot leave parts of our body behind.]

[Courage refuses isolation, it cannot be selfish or solitary.]  It demands community and it is in community that we find the strength and support to persevere.  [Jesus, Who persevered always, did not give up when they taunted Him 'Come down from the Cross', not even the devil or our ingratitude could make Jesus give up doing God's Will.]

Had Jesus come down from the cross we would have no salvation and no Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Reconciliation heals our wounded relationship with God, community and others, it corrects our course that we can continue on to our ultimate goal.

If the gifts of courage and freedom to speak of God are born in baptism, matured in confirmation and life, then most assuredly they are healed, strengthened and fully realized through reconciliation.  At some point [courage may demand that we lose what is genuinely good for the sake of what is better.]
Do we, with patient endurance, suffer quietly an injustice or injury done to us?  Or do we embrace courage and forgive?  Can you?  Can I?  Can we cut off the price tag of forgiveness.  It is costly; it cost us, not the person being forgiven.  Forgiveness means that justice may not be fulfilled.  It means relaxing our death grip on the pain we feel.  It means letting go completely.  Can we not count the cost to us but rather see the benefit to the other?  As you have done for others, so it shall be done for you.

          Baptism grafts us the branch to Jesus the vine.
          Confirmation nurtures the branch to maturity.
          Reconciliation is the necessary pruning that keeps us healthy spiritually.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their true image.

Bracketed text sources:
What is the Point of Being a Christian?  Timothy Radcliffe, O.P.
Sing a New Song  Timothy Radcliffe, O.P.
What is the Point of Being a Christian as quoted by James Mawdsley
What is the Point of Being a Christian? Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. quoting St. Catherine of Siena
CCC 1830-32  Gifts/Fruits of the Holy Spirit

Thanks Be To God for Confession

What God wants is a confession!  He never gets it.  If only Adam and Eve had asked for forgiveness, how different history might be.

The saga continues.  Adam and Eve’s son, Cain, kills his brother, Abel.  Again, God Who knows everything, asks, “What have you done?” (Gen. 4:9)  And Abel doesn’t confess. He has the hutzpah to respond, “I don’t know, am I my brother’s keeper?”  (Gen. 4:10)  All the way to the end of the encounter, Cain is UNrepentant!  Again, God is blamed.  Cain tells God that “My punishment is greater than I can bear!”  (Gen. 4:13)  Cain isn’t saying “Woe is me;” he’s telling God that He’s not being fair.  Then he goes on to castigate God for taking away his way of making a living (Gen. 4:14) and forcing him to be a wanderer on the earth.  Like his parents, Cain is defensive, resentful and full of self-pity…everything but confessing.  He won’t say he’s sorry.  He refuses to acknowledge his sin and confess which is exactly what God is asking.

Throughout the Old Testament, God never wearies of inviting the people to confess. When God makes a covenant with Moses, there are rules and regulations.  See the Book of Leviticus, (5:5-6) and Numbers (5:5-7).  The Hebrews had to confess to their priests, and then they sacrificed as penance.  It was a ritual—read Leviticus and Numbers.   (1 Kgs. 21:27) (Neh 9: 1-2)  “The Israelites … stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.”

So confession is a fact.  However although the Israelites confessed, God did not give the Levite priests the power to forgive, until Jesus, the Son of God, in John 20: 21-23.  All pardon for sins comes from God.  But Jesus left our priests, who stand in Christ’s place when in Confession,  the means to absolve. 

Jesus, Himself, forgives as in the case of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1–11) and the woman who anointed his feet (Luke 7:48). Jesus exercised this power in His human capacity as the Messiah or Son of man, telling us, "the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins" (Matt. 9:6), which is why the Gospel writer himself explains that God "had given such authority to men" (Matt. 9:8). 

Since He would not always be with the Church visibly, Christ gave this power to other men so the Church, which is the continuation of his presence throughout time (Matt. 28:20), would be able to offer forgiveness to future generations. He gave his power to the apostles, and it was a power that could be passed on to their successors and agents, since the apostles wouldn’t always be on earth either, but people would still be sinning. 

God had sent Jesus to forgive sins, but after his resurrection Jesus told the apostles, "‘As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’" (John 20:21–23). (This is one of only two times we are told that God breathed on man, the other being in Genesis 2:7, when he made man a living soul. It emphasizes how important the establishment of the sacrament of penance was.) 

Please think of confession as going to a doctor to get well.  Confession is not a courtroom.  You are not judged.  There is no jury, no judge, only you and God.   The confessional is a doctor’s office.  You are going to get spiritually well.  The doctor will give you medicine.  And you need to renew your prescription to stay spiritually healthy.  Confession is long term therapy.  It is the medicine of mercy.  Thanks be to God.  

God loves us so much that He gave us this means to stay close to Him.  Unlike Adam and Eve when God asks us, (Gen 3:9) “Where are you?”  We can whisper , “With You, Lord, with You.”

Own Up

Confession has been around as long as mankind has been around.  Where there is man, there is sin, and so the need for confession, penance, and reconciliation.  Consider Adam and Eve.  God is God, and as such, knows everything.  Why does he interrogate Adam and Eve?  Is He a cop in an interrogation room?  No because He already knows the truth.  He knows what they’ve done and why.  Right?  He’s God.  He wants them to confess their sin.  He begins with open-ended questions that gently invite explanation (Gen. 3:9) where are you?  (as if God doesn’t know?)  Who told you that you were naked? (Gen. 3:11)  Have you eaten of the tree I commanded you not to eat?  What is it that you have done? (Gen. 3:13)

Note that the first thing Adam does it blame someone else.  Don’t we all do that?  And the first person he blames is God.  “The woman that You gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate” (Gen. 3:11)  Do you know people like this?  They blame God for giving them those drunks for parents, for putting them in that neighborhood,…

What God wants is a confession!  He never gets it.  If only Adam and Eve had asked for forgiveness, how different history might be.