MY GREAT EPIPHANY

Growing up I was a huge Pittsburgh Pirate fan, fanatic, really. Still am. If the Pirates are playing on the west coast late at night Pittsburgh time and I have to make one of the trips we older people have to make in the middle of the night, when I return to bed, I have to check ESPN on my phone to see what the boys did. I can’t help it. If the won, I am delighted. If they lost, I now take it in stride with a shrug. Not much I can do about it.

My shoulder shrug is the result of a great epiphany in my life. Before that time I would almost take it personally if the Pirates lost. Silly, I know. But what can I say? It was what it was. That epiphany moment came around 3:00 in the afternoon of Sunday, October, 17, 1971. I was sitting alone in the rectory watching the final game of the World Series between Pittsburgh and the Baltimore Orioles. It was the bottom of the night, Steve Blass was pitching and the Pirates were leading 2-1.

All of a sudden, for whatever reason, the thought struck me: “Bill, the Pirates are going to win or the Pirates are going to lose; but you still have to get up tomorrow and say 7:00 Mass.” My life was not going to change because the Pirates won or the Pirates lost. But, of course, my life did change. I finally put baseball and my love for the Pirates in perspective. Prior to that it was sort of out of kilter.

Now I grant that my Pirate Epiphany was no big deal in the grand scheme of things. Baseball, after all, is only a game and a passing fancy. There are millions of people who could care less what the Pirates or any baseball team does just as I could care less about soccer over which billions of people go crazy. But many of them will someday or already have had the same epiphany about their favorite soccer team as I did about the Pirates.

It is easy to lose perspective. We wrap our heads and whole bodies around some, in the long run, unimportant thing – athletic team, political issue, television show, whatever – and our life gets skewed. The more important parts of our lives get a little messed up because of it. It affects our jobs, our relationships and even our health at times. And unless and until we get a handle on whatever it is that causes us to loose perspective, our life remains out of balance.

Sad to say, that is even true about our religion. There are those who get so wound up in having to save the world for Jesus or Allah or Yahweh that the rest of their life and their relationships take a very back seat. It is easy to fall victim to someone or something that wants to take control of our lives – religion, drugs, alcohol, work, etc. – and eventually does, so much so that we do not know how to regain control.

I am thankful I had that epiphany way back then even if it was over a really trivial matter. But over the years it has reminded me to stop and reflect on a regular basis if there is something that wants to or is already trying to take over my life. What about you?

THE LUCKIEST PEOPLE

Luck.  Dumb Luck. Lucky shot. Lucky girl. I’m outta luck. If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all. We hear it. We say it about ourselves and about others. Luck comes in two ways: good or bad with no in-betweens. But what is luck anyway? I once heard an athlete responding to someone who claimed that his team was lucky that “luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.” He’s correct.

We may be in the right place at the right time when some sudden good fortune comes our way; but if we are not prepared to deal with that sudden good fortune, it will pass us by. So when the lucky break comes our way, we had better be prepared to make the use of the opportunity presented. If not, we have no one else to blame but ourselves. Bad luck comes because we were not prepared.

We look around, usually in envy, and conclude that “some people have all the luck.” Who are those people and why are we not one of them? Well, in fact, we are even though we do not realize it. We don’t because we tend to think that the results of luck are some kind of material or financial success, being renowned in society. Yet some of these people we deem lucky are miserable. While their success may bring rewards, it is not the rewards they really need or maybe even desire.

No, the luckiest people are, as the song says, the people who need people. That should be all of us, but, sadly, it is not. We all need people. But too many people go through life not realizing that what is missing in their lives, what worldly success does not bring, are people who love them, care for them, are there for them no matter how successful or unsuccessful they are.

Deep in our soul we search for that one person. We, as the song says, “hunger and thirst” for someone to walk with us through life. And when we have found that person there is “no more hunger and thirst.” Until we come to that realization, until we have found that person or persons, we will wait for what we deem as luck to come our way. And yet, when it does, we discover it is not what we are really looking for or what we need. And so we keep searching.

So how does preparation meeting opportunity come into play here? It’s on both ends. Sometimes we are the on needing someone or some others to walk our journey with us and sometimes we are the person another is looking for. As with luck, it is happenstance. We never know when that opportunity will arise. But it won’t arise if first we fail to understand our need and the other’s need, their and our hunger and thirst, for another companion in our lives.

My guess is that we have that person, those people, and others have found us. My further guess is that we just don’t realize just how lucky we are

WHEN THE CAR BREAKS DOWN

There is a story about a traveling salesman whose car breaks down in farm country. There are no motels around and so he is forced to ask a poor farmer and his family to put him up for the night. They do so gladly. They share their meager meal and show him where he can sleep in the hayloft of the barn. Before leaving the stranger for the night, the humble host says, "If there's anything you think you need, just tell us what it is and we'll come out and show you how to get along without it."

           

The farmer’s message to the travelling salesman is very simple: the more clutter we add to our lives, the more cluttered our life becomes and we begin to lose focus. We begin to lose sight of what is truly important and valuable. We begin to believe that we cannot possibly live with less now that we have learned to live with more. And if by happenstance we are forced to live with less than with what we have become accustomed, we verge on panic.

           

Okay, maybe I exaggerate a bit here. Maybe. But my point, or the one I want to make, is that our life of faith is very much like the rest of our life. The lived life is to be simple. We do not really need much to live and even live well. Creature comforts may make us more comfortable but they do not guarantee that our life will be easier or even better or more satisfying. All they guarantee is that our life will be more expensive to maintain and the more we have the more expensive it will become.

           

The same is true, in a way, when it comes to our faith. The more we add to our life of faith and the more we demand in the way or explanation or understanding, the more complicated our life of faith becomes. That does not mean that we should not want to understand what we believe and why. It is simply to say that, to paraphrase the farmer, the Holy Spirit will say to us whenever those questions arise, "If there's anything you think you need to understand, just tell me what it is and I'll show you how you can get along without understanding."

           

Take Easter as an example. We believe in Easter, in what happened, in the resurrection. Do we understand it? Not in the least. Oh, sometimes we think we do, but we really do not. The most we can say about Easter, as we say this Sunday and all throughout the Easter season, is "Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia." In truth, the only thing we can really say with any understanding is "Alleluia!" Any more clutters what we believe and what we understand about Easter. But we say more anyway because we seem to want to say more.

           

We should resist that temptation as it only gets us into trouble. That is not to say that we should not try to understand our faith, that we should not understand Easter or the Easter message. It is simply to say that we should not think the more we understand the stronger our faith will be. It is simply to say that as in life, so in faith, less is, more often than not, more.

           

Happy Easter -- or better: Alleluia!

HOLY WHOLLY, WHOLLY HOLY WEEK

As we enter into Holy Week, we try to imagine what happened: the glorious procession into Jerusalem; the intimate gathering in the upper room where Jesus gave his farewell talk to his followers, washed their feet and fed them with the Eucharist; the brutal crucifixion and death; and then the glorious triumph of the resurrection, it is easy to be overwhelmed.

           

It is also easy to be intimidated by it all.  Jesus did so much for us because he loved us. We do so little, it seems, in return. When we compare our good deeds to Jesus's great deeds, we come out on the short end. It's almost a holier-than-thou relationship, and we know who is holier than us.

           

But we are not asked to compare our deeds, however good or even not-so-good, with those of Jesus. Jesus was Jesus and did Jesus's thing, if I may be so colloquial. We do our thing.  Jesus was called to be Jesus and do what he was called to do. You and I are called to be who we are and do what we are called to do, whatever that calling may entail.

           

Jesus lived his life to the fullest, a life of love, of love of God, neighbor and self. He gave his all in living out this love. He gave his life. Holy Week is a stark reminder of that life,

that love, that giving of that life in love. But Holy Week is also a reminder for us that we are called to do no less: to give our life, to live our life in love of and for others. Holy Week is not a time of comparing our life to Jesus's. It is a time for examining our life.

           

People saw in Jesus someone remarkable. He was so not because he could heal the sick or even raise the dead. He was remarkable because he actually lived out in his life what he asked others to do in theirs. Jesus was wholly holy; his whole life was one of holiness of life. He was holy wholly as well; his whole being was holy. Maybe that is why they wanted to make him their king. If our leader is wholly holy, maybe we will be too.

           

The disciples saw in Jesus not only someone who could lead but someone whose leadership was based solely on a ministry of service: servants wash the feet of the master. Servants do the difficult deeds, carry the burdens, even die on the cross. Servants, not kings. Servants are wholly human.

           

From a distance we see the same. Holy Week allows us, asks us, to go back in time, to become part of those events, to see what others saw, to ask the same questions others asked. Holy Week allows us to take the time to examine how closely our life reflects the life and love of Jesus -- reflects, not repeats. We are not to be born-again Jesus's.

           

We are called to be holy wholly, holy wholly people. We are called to live the holy life of a child of God, to be wholly human. We fail to be holy all the time, of course. That's because we are not God or God's Son. It is because we are wholly human. But that does not mean we should not try to be wholly holy and holy wholly. Holy Week is a good time to examine how wholly holy we are or can become in and through Jesus who showed us how.