A Letter to My Granddaughter

Dear Eliana,

Welcome to the family. We are all thrilled and excited. We promise to be there with you always, especially when you need us and even when you don’t think you need us. We will love you, support you, care for you even when you are an adult and go off on your own. But between now and then you have much to learn. You see, life is a journey. It is a journey we make not alone but in the company of others. The road of life is long and windy, with curves and potholes, ditches and dangers all along the way. As we walk that road together, there are rules of the road, which, if we keep them, with God’s help and guidance, and with the love and support of those who love us, will make us one and bring us safely home.

Those “Rules for the Road” were given to us thousands of years ago by God through God’s Servant Moses. Over the years they have become known as “The Ten Commandments.” You’ll learn all about God and Moses and Jesus as you grow up. For now, let me tell you about each of these rules, these commandments.

First Rule: God says to us, “You shall have no other gods but me.” In other words, Put everything in God’s hands first – first, not second or third or after all else has failed. Put everything in God’s hands first and somehow in some way all will work out. God will see to it.

Second Rule for the Road: God says to us, “You shall not make for yourself any idol.” In other words, Make sure that God is the only god in your life – not job, not money, not even family. They all may be important. They all are important. But they all come second and must never, ever rule your life. If they ever do, then you will run into ditches and pot holes and trouble. We adults have all run off the road because we made something or someone the ultimate in our life – even for a moment.

Third Rule of the Road: God says, “You shall not invoke with malice the Name of the Lord your God.” In other words, Watch your language. There’s an old saying that goes like this, “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” Eliana, that’s a lie. Words hurt. They hurt worse than any stick or stone or gun. You need to make sure that your words are always godly words. A question you might ask yourself before you open your mouth is “Would Jesus say what I am about to say?” If not, keep mouth closed.

Fourth Rule: God says, “Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.” In other words, Use the rest stops along the road. Take time to relax and take it easy every week. Make time. Rest and Relaxation are not sinful. Jesus always took time to get away, to pray, to think, to rest. So must you, especially when you think you can’t take the time. That is precisely the time when you will need to rest. Take time also to thank God for being God in your life, like on Sunday morning, at church, when Mom or Dad are not around. Rest stops along the road are vital for a safe and healthy journey through life.

Fifth Rule of the Road: God says, “Honor your father and your mother.”  In other words, Respect all authority. Your parents, your teachers, your bosses, the government, the police, even your God are not out to get you. They truly love you and want what is best for you.

Sixth Rule: God says, “You shall not commit murder.” In other words, Eliana, All life is sacred, from birth to death. Life is a gift from God. It is the gift of God to us. You must respect it, love it, honor it by taking care of your life, your body, your mind and by respecting the dignity of every human being. We are all children of God, no more and no less. Never forget that. No one of us is more important or better than another and neither are we less than any other person. We are all equal.

Seventh Rule: God says, “You shall not be unfaithful.” In other words, Love everyone you meet along the road.    We’re all on the road together. Love means giving and not taking. Love means never using another person for your own benefit, to make your journey easier. It is a fine line between giving yourself in love and using another for your own benefit. You must faithfully walk that fine line.

Eight Rule of the Road: God says, “You shall not steal.” In other words, Forgive and ask for forgiveness. We all make mistakes. We all hurt others and are hurt by them. That, really, is stealing, taking something that is not ours to take. That is called sin. When we sin, we must ask for forgiveness. When others sin against us, we must forgive.

Ninth Rule: God says, “You shall not be a false witness.”  In other words, Always tell the truth. Always. No more needs to be said.

Tenth Rule of the Road: God says, “You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.” In other words and very simply, Eliana, Greed kills. That is the last rule and perhaps most important rule. For greed puts money and possessions ahead of God so that they become our god. Greed leads us to say things to hurt others so that we can get the upper hand. Greed leaves no time for rest or prayer, has no respect for authority or for the other person. Greed can consume our life and will eventually kill us. Not a pleasant thought but a necessary reminder and a necessary rule for the road.

But you know all that right now, even as young as you are. For you see, The Rules of the Road are already written large in your heart and in your mind. All you have to do is keep them. That will not be easy at times. But you can because you will come to learn that if you walk the road together with all of us who love you, you will make it. You will be safe. Always remember that God is always with you all along the road of life, to lead you and guide you, to keep you safe and bring you home.

Have a wonderful and blessed life, Eliana.

Love,

Pap

 

IT’S TIME

As the Wisdom writer constantly reminds us, there is a time for every purpose under the sun. For all of my ministry I have been writing reflections to share with the people I was serving in the various parishes in the several dioceses I was privileged to serve. For the past fifteen years I have widened the audience, if you will, by putting them on Facebook. It has been an enjoyable ministry. But now is the time to  close down the keyboard and fully enjoy retirement -- not that writing these reflections was not a joy: it was!

The truth is that I have said what I said many times over if only in different words. The further truth is that living out our faith, which my reflections tried to help to better understand what that means for you and me today, really is not that difficult or theologically deep. Jesus always said it in very simple but profound words, mostly in short parables that prodded his hearers to deeply ponder his words. My hope is that mine did the same.

When I reflect back on what I wrote and what I continue to believe (and preach on when the occasions arise) is that following Jesus means that we are to be always ready to use whatever gifts with which we have been blessed – and we all have them – to the very best of our ability, with God’s always offered grace and strength, to seek and serve the Jesus we meet in every person we meet, especially those whom Jesus cared for the most: the last, the lost, the lonely and the least among us.

Jesus’ constant message was/is that what God expects of us and what we should expect and demand of ourselves is that we love God above all else and love everyone else as we love ourselves. If one of those loves – God, self, other – is out of skew, we fail. And the truth is that we fail every day in one way or another. But every day we pick ourselves up and start all over again. We’ll never get it perfectly, but all God expects of us and all we should expect of ourselves is that we never give up.

In many ways I will miss sitting down at the keyboard and thinking and reflecting and writing and sharing. Again, it’s been a joy. But there are countless others out there in cyberspace who have reflections to share and in better ways than I could or can. Search them out. I have my favorites. Find yours.

We can only become a better person, a better follower of Jesus, when we examine our faith, our daily words and actions. What we will discover, thankfully, is that we are really not as bad as we sometimes think we are or as good as we know we can be. That’s the challenge in being a Christian.

I know some of you but certainly not all of you but I pray for you daily. Please do the same for me. Until we meet again someday, God Bless you.

 

 

 

 

 

IT'S NOT OKAY NOT TO CRY

One of the blessings of my life is that when I was a child and I got hurt, whatever the hurt, and started to cry, my Mom never said to me, "Billy, big boys don't cry". She allowed me to cry because that is what my being, my inner self, told me I was supposed to do at that moment. I hurt. I was in pain and tears spontaneously started to flow. Mom didn’t try to find an excuse for me to stop the tears. They were a part of life.

They still are. Tears well up in our eyes and we can do nothing to prevent them from so doing. Yes, once we sense the tears, we may want to do all we can to stop the flow so as to pretend to all who might see them that we are brave and strong and can control our emotions. We may fool others but we cannot fool ourselves. Nor should we. Those tears arose because something deep inside us forced them to the surface. We did not will them even if we, in some sense of foolish pride, wished they had kept to themselves.

Tears of pain when we fall and get hurt, tears of joy over the birth of our child, tears of pride when the National Anthem is played at the Olympics, tears of sorrow at the death of our Mom: all these are spontaneous. They are natural and they should never be suppressed for any reason no matter how macho, how in control of our emotions we are supposed to be. If someone else is embarrassed because tears came to our eyes, that is that person's problem. If we are embarrassed by our tears, we should be ashamed.

The shortest verse in the Bible tells us simply that "Jesus wept". (John 11:35) Remember the story? Jesus' close friend Lazarus had died and Jesus came to mourn. Even though he knew what he was going to do, namely, raise Lazarus from the dead, at that moment his humanity and the emotions that are part of that humanity took over and he simply broke down and cried. That sad part in this incident is that many of those who came to mourn Lazarus looked at the weeping Jesus and instead of seeing a human being honestly overcome with grief, took him to task for not preventing Lazarus' death in the first place.

What was, and probably still is, even worse is that Jesus' raising of Lazarus got more attention than did his tears of compassion. Yet, for you and for me who want to imitate Jesus in our daily lives, the one way we can do so is to have compassion on the same people with whom Jesus was compassionate and for whom he shed many tears: the sick, the naked, the lonely, the imprisoned, those in need. We will not raise people from the dead, but our tears of compassion can raise us up to do something to help those very people find resurrection and new life in the here and now.

It is not okay to not have compassion on those for whom we should have compassion and for whom we should be shedding compassionate tears. It is not okay not to cry when in pain, whatever that pain may be. Those tears that well up in us spontaneously are a call to respond in a positive, humane and Christian way using whatever gifts God has given us to do so. Sometimes all we can do is let the tears flow. Sometimes we can do more.

Big boys don't cry? That's a lie. It's a sign of our bigness that we, male or female, can and do cry.

THERE ARE STRINGS ATTACHED

Over the years we all have been offered something with what the giver calls "no strings attached". The point the giver is trying to make is that if we accept their gift, there will be nothing expected from us in return. Of course, there is that cynic inside us that does not believe it for a minute. There is no such thing as a free lunch, we say to ourselves. Everything, it seems, comes with some kind of string attached. 

Sometimes in our cynicism we believe that gifts even from loved ones come with strings attached, strings that can seem like ropes tying us to the gift giver. We are expected to give a gift in return. The more this give-and-give back continues, the stronger the string becomes. It is part and parcel of our relationship with the one or ones to whom we have bound ourselves and who have bound themselves to us. It is life-giving and life-receiving for both. Neither would willingly let go of the string because each holds on for dear life, truly dear life. Sometimes it is only broken by death.

The same is true for any relationship we have, not just those that are one-to-one, friend-to-friend, spouse-to-spouse, lover-to-lover. It extends to parent to children, teacher to student, member of a community to a member of the community -- and vice versa in each of these instances. That invisible string that is often made manifest by visible gift-giving is the commitment each of us has to the other to do whatever it takes to make that relationship not only last but to grow even stronger.  But before any of that can happen, we need to be aware that such relationships do come with strings attached and that we welcome and accept those strings with every fiber of our being. That is not always easy to do.

We have all had those strings broken by the other and we have broken them ourselves. It has almost always, if not always, been a painful experience. It has been painful because both partners have expended much time and energy and love to make the relationship work even if the relationship was never meant to be life long, even if we knew it would be temporary when we first entered into it.

As a parish priest it has always been painful to break the strings of my relationships with the people I was called to serve even though I knew and they knew this relationship would not last forever or, perhaps, even for very long. But for however long it was going to last, and, again, none of us knew how long that would be when we entered into it, we grabbed the string and held on for as long as we could, each doing what we needed to do to keep it as strong as we could for as long as we could. And then when it came time to break the string and for us to separate, it was painful, but it was pain tempered by loving and lasting memories.

In the end, when the strings are broken because of circumstances in our control or out of our control, all we can hope for is that the pain that comes when the string is cut is softened by the love that still remains. In this life strings are always attached in any voluntary relationship. That is good and it is good for us and so we must do all we can to keep the string strong.

LEISURE

Many years ago I had to write an essay for a college English class in “The Quintessence of America.” Before I could even begin to write, I had to open my dictionary to learn the meaning of quintessence. I had never heard that word before. It means the “purist and most perfect form, manifestation, type, or embodiment (of a quality, etc.)”. I have no memory of what I deemed to be the quintessence of America.

What I do remember is the class when my professor returned our essays and commented on each as he was wont to do. When he finished commenting, he, thankfully, told us what he believed to be the answer to the essay question. It was a one-word response: “Calvinism”. The longer version is called “The Protestant Work Ethic.” He even admitted that in a Rodman Catholic seminary where I happened to be studying at that time, that ethic ruled our lives. In many ways it still does, mainly for the better, but not always so.

One of the main reasons why our country as a country has been and still is so great is that our work force is unconsciously ruled by that ethic translated into “an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.” Yet it is more than that, and that is the downside of that ethic. We are also told that “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop”. Thus, we should keep our hands to the grind wheel, be busy all the time. The corollary is that pleasure of almost any kind, if not every kind, is somehow somewhat bad and, thus, sinful. That almost but not quite means that even any form of leisure is somehow sinful. We may not believe that but, we in this country, often act that way.

Think about it: most people in what are called “Western” nations take six- to eight-week vacations, find time in the afternoon to relax and rest (called “siestas”), arrive at work later than we do and leave earlier. We work overtime and on weekends, take our laptops on vacation, are always connected to our cell phones and often do not take the vacation days allotted to us. The Protest Work Ethic rules and we allow it to rule, and, again, not for the better much of the time.

Several years later in my seminary education, when I was studying theology over 60 years ago, several daring theologians began writing articles on the theology of leisure. Imagine that: there might be a theological justification for leisure, for pleasure, justification that God would not oppose but would actually sanction! An idle mind may be the devil’s workshop; but a mind and a life that never rests or relaxes is even worse. Is it any wonder so many are so stressed out and then wind up doing harm to themselves, to their loved ones and to those around them?

We are now into the traditional vacation season of the year, a time when we are to vacate our minds and bodies and rest. That time is given to us for our benefit, for our health and well-being. If we allow that ethic that seems to control our lives to continue to do so, we will not make time for rest and leisure and we will be the worse for it and, again, so will all those who are part of our lives, wherever they are a part. The Creation Story at the beginning of the Bible reminds us that God took a day off at the end of his work. God rested. Why should we be any different?

TEN THOUGHTS FOR TODAY

One of the blessings of the internet is that friends send you stuff that they find interesting and that you might also. I found the following ten thoughts for today sent to me, by whom I do not remember, that I think deserve to be shared – with my reflection in italics. 

1. Prayer is not a "spare wheel" that you pull out when in trouble, but it is a "steering wheel” that directs the right path throughout. Prayer should be part of our daily life/routine even when it becomes routine. That’s the point!
 
2. Why is a car’s windshield is so large and the rear view mirror is so small? Because our past is not as important as our future. So, look ahead and move on.  We cannot undo the past. We can only learn from it by moving on. We can’t if we live in the past.
 
3. Friendship is like a book: it takes few seconds to burn, but it takes years to write. We need to cultivate friendships because., in this life, we need one another. We cannot go it alone no matter how much we sometimes think we should.
 
4. All things in life are temporary.  If all is going well, enjoy it; that will not last forever. If all seems to be going wrong, don't be overcome with worry, that can't last long either. Nothing in this life lasts forever even when, in bad times, we think those times will never end. They will. The only thing that lasts forever is our life with God in eternity, and nothing will beat that!

5. Old friends are gold! New friends are diamond! If you get a diamond, don't forget the gold! Because to hold a diamond, you always need a base of gold! We build upon old friendships because old friends will always be there for us, and vice versa.
 
6. Often when we lose hope and think this is the end, God smiles from above and says, "Relax, it's just a bend, not the end! There is always resurrection and new life. Always! Somehow in some way God helps us bring resurrection no matter how hopeless we think the situation is.
 
7. When God solves our problems, we have faith in God’s abilities; when God doesn't solve our problems God has faith in our abilities. God will not do for us what God expects us to do for ourselves; nor should God nor should we.
 
8. A blind person asked St. Anthony: "Can there be anything worse than losing eye sight?" He replied: "Yes, losing your vision!"  Without a vision, the prophet said, the people perish. So do we as individuals.
 
9. When we pray for others, God listens to us and blesses them, and sometimes, when we are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for us. We are in this together.

10.  Worrying does not take away tomorrow's troubles; it takes away today's peace. How often have we been obsessed, worrying about things that never happened?

ALL GOD CAN DO SOMETIMES IS LAUGH

There was a picture being passed around a while back, maybe still is, of a smiling, actually laughing, Jesus. I suspect many people were/are scandalized. How dare anyone dare a picture of Jesus laughing! With all the suffering going on all over the world to so many innocent people, the vast majority of them children, how could Jesus laugh? How, in fact, can any Christian laugh in such a world of so much suffering?

There is certainly nothing to laugh at in the face of suffering, especially suffering children. Jesus never smiled in such a situation. In fact, it angered him. In the 25th chapter of Matthew's Gospel Jesus warns us that we will be judged based on how we responded to those in need: the poor, the naked, the hungry, the sick. There is nothing funny about suffering. It is no laughing matter. Never was. Never is. Never will be.

There is, however, much in this life that is funny, for which we can do nothing but laugh. Just as tears flow spontaneously, so does a laugh arise spontaneously. When something strikes our funny bone, we laugh. It is just as difficult to suppress a laugh as it is to suppress a tear. We should try to do neither. We should do neither. While it is good to control our emotions, our feelings, they arise because of our God-given nature and they should be allowed to be made manifest.

If we can laugh, if we are allowed to laugh, so it is with God. As there are times when we can do nothing but smile, even guffaw with a hearty and loud laugh, so there are times when God can do nothing but laugh.  I have to believe that God indeed laughs. Thus, the closest we can visualize God laughing, I suppose, of a picture of a laughing Jesus. God laughs with us because God can do nothing else but.

Think about the times in our lives when we have done something so foolish that all we can do is laugh at ourselves. We wonder why we did what we did in the first place that made us look and feel so foolish. We may have even known ahead of time that we were walking into a situation where even angels would dare not go, but we went ahead anyway, and we came away looking like a fool. We were humiliated but all we could do was laugh right along with those laughing at us -- one such laugher being God.

God has to have a sense of humor. After all it was God who created us as we are: fallible, weak, sinful human beings who, on occasion, can and do make fools of ourselves. When we do so, God can do nothing but laugh at us and even laugh along with us. And while laughing, all God hopes for us in that we learn from our foolishness. That is all we can hope for ourselves.

We do learn, thankfully. As we grow older, we grow wiser. That does not mean we come to a point in our lives that we never make foolish decisions, commit foolish acts that can only be laughable in hindsight. God's Kingdom has not yet come. Until it does, we will keep God laughing and laughing at us, individually and collectively, until we get the message. Sometimes that's all God can do when it comes to our foolishness. For that we should be thankful and, someday, be eternally grateful.