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The inner word

15 May 2011 - Fourth Sunday of Easter; Good Shepherd Sunday, Cycle A

As a preacher and perhaps a pastor, you know a little something about shepherding. Examine that role: Do my sheep know me? Can I call my sheep by name? How confident am I that I'm leading them toward God and green pastures? What more could I do to make myself worthy to lead them? Who shepherds me in my work? Do I trust that person? What could I, he/she, or we do together to improve our relationship? Do I really believe Christ knows my name? When do I hear him calling me?

pastor sheep Trust

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Exploring the word

07 Feb 2016 - Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

The past can be a poison pill, a capsule of regret: for what we did, for what we failed to do. We should have taken that job. We should have fought harder for that relationship. When we dwell on yesterday, we revive old injuries and refresh old anger. My parents never supported me. The system was against people like me. We remember words that were said and can’t be unsaid. I shouldn’t have called him a liar! They said I was a quitter, so I became one. Or we relive old victories, longing for what was and can’t be again. I had such beautiful hair. Back then, everyone knew I was going places. Too often, living with the past comes down to living in the past. If we take this poison pill each new morning, it paralyzes the present, and dissolves the future in a haze of nostalgia. So we must refuse it. We have to create a new habit. We have to reestablish the spirit we had as children, what’s known as beginner’s mind. Clean like a blank page. Open and receptive and eager to learn something new, to go in whatever direction becomes available. This is how it was for Simon Peter that day at the lake. The Sea of Galilee was also called Gennesaret, “Lake of the Garden of Riches,” because it was surrounded by fertile land and a prosperous community that inhabited nine major towns. People who worked hard did well around there: fishing, farming, stonemasonry, or carpentry. But Peter wasn’t doing so well that day. A whole night given over to fishing and yet his nets were empty in the morning. He must have been tired and disappointed. Then a preacher from over in Nazareth asked to use Peter’s boat as a platform from which to teach. Why not? It was certainly no use fishing with it. Peter could have hunkered down in his boat that morning, closed down his heart, and surrendered himself to his failure the night before. He could have relived every hour—every useless throw of the net—every wrong decision made: location, direction, bait. He could have blamed his wife for sabotaging his attitude—or perhaps his sick mother-in-law, whose condition distracted him. He could have taken that poison pill marked “yesterday” and let it kill his spirit. Then Jesus asks him to take the boat out again and lower the nets. If Peter was focused on yesterday, he would never have done it. If past failure was huge within him, he wouldn’t have the courage. But Peter said no to yesterday, and yes to today, placing all his hope in Jesus. It was a good decision! Related scripture links Foot-washing: John 13:1-15 No one can see God: Exod. 33:20; Judg. 13:22 Saint Paul’s call story told elsewhere: Acts 9:1-9; 22:3-16; 26:4-18; Gal. 1:11-24

Authors Alice Camille

the past Simon Peter

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Brazilian rancher convicted of nun’s murder

18 Apr 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The psalmist expresses gratitude this Sunday that the Lord "did not let my enemies rejoice over me." A court in Brazil has sentenced a rancher to 30 years in prison for ordering the murder in 2005 of U.S.-born nun Dorothy Stang over a land dispute. Stang had lived for decades in the Amazon region advocating for the rural poor and opposing deforestation. The much-delayed process of convicting her killers became a test of Brazil's ability to tackle widespread impunity from such crimes in the region. Vitalmiro Moura, 39, was given the maximum sentence Monday after a jury in the Amazon port city of Belem found him guilty of hiring a gunman to kill 73-year-old Stang. A member of the Sisters of Notre de Namur, Stang was born in Dayton, Ohio but was naturalized as a Brazilian citizen and devoted nearly 40 years of her life to helping landless peasants threatened by loggers and ranchers. Locals affectionately called her "the angel of the Amazon." Moura had received the same sentence previously but it was overturned in 2008, a decision Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had called a "stain" on Brazil's image abroad. A retrial was ordered after it was determined that jurors had ignored evidence pointing to Moura's guilt in reaching their verdict. Stang's murder became a symbol of the often-violent conflicts over natural resources in the vast Amazon region. The Land Pastoral Commission, which monitors conflicts over land in Brazil, says 365 people were murdered in such disputes between 1999 and 2008. Commission spokeswoman Cristiane Passos welcomed the judgment but said the government and justice system need to pay more attention to violent conflicts over land as the problem still claims many lives. "It's still far from the end of the violence," Passos said. Source: An article by Peter Murphy for Reuters and dorothystang.org

murder dorothy stang brazil land amazon vitalmiro moura sisters of notre de namur land pastoral commission cristiane passos

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Your mission, should you choose to accept it

28 Apr 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

As this Sunday’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles demonstrates, Paul and Barnabas were the quintessential evangelizing missionaries, logging thousands of rugged miles in their tireless effort to bring the good news to new lands and peoples. Pope Francis wants the same missionary spirit to permeate the church today. “Mission” he notes, “is key to ministry.“A church that does not go out of itself, sooner or later, sickens from the stale air of closed rooms,” he said in a letter to his fellow Argentinean bishops gathering in the city of Pilar for an assembly he would have led had he not been chosen to lead the worldwide church.Pastoral ministry should always be missionary and its ministers must be courageous evangelizers not afraid to go out "into the deep," the outskirts of existence, to bring the "sweet and comforting joy" of faith to people today, the pope said.Pope Francis went on to concede that at times, like anyone else, in going out the church risks running into accidents. But he added “I prefer a thousand times over a church of accidents than a sick church.”Francis said that the church typically suffers from being self-referential, of only looking to and relying on itself. He spoke of a “narcissism that leads to a routine spirituality and convoluted clericalism” and prevents people from experiencing the sweet and comforting joy of evangelization.The pope concluded his letter with a special greeting to the Argentinean people and a fraternal embrace for his fellow bishops, asking them to pray so that “I do not grow proud and always know how to listen to what God wants and not what I want.”Homily hint: Pastors worldwide report positive responses from their congregations to the pope's refreshing candor and warmth. Might the church be experiencing a moment of new opportunity, a time for a renewed sense of mission and outreach within our own communities and, in the spirit of Paul and Barnabas, beyond? Source: An article by Emer McCarthy for Vatican Radio

church Pope Francis ministry mission catholic church pastoral ministry

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Pastors hope to shepherd young people from crime

06 Oct 2013 - Preaching the News for Sunday

God gives us "a spirit . . . of power and love and self-control,” says the reading from 2 Timothy this Sunday. Leaders of the black community of Montgomery, Alabama, working with the police department and local churches, hope to inculcate those values in troubled youth by way of Operation Good Shepherd, a publicly funded Christian outreach ministry that puts Christian pastors on crime scenes to counsel and pray with victims and witnesses.Police claim the program is a way to regain trust in the community, but there's another motive, which they openly acknowledge: They believe a stronger sense of religious faith and the values associated with religion will reduce crime.Billy Irvin, a popular Christian radio preacher, took the pulpit at Montgomery's City Hall to kick off the program in late August. He talked about a documentary he had recently seen about young, wild elephants running amok which were tamed by an older elephant.“Once the older elephant was introduced to the pack, the younger elephants had somebody to look up to,” Irvin told the crowd. “They had someone to guide them. And that's what our youth needs: someone to guide them. Without that, how will they know about moral structure?”So far this year 39 people have been murdered in Montgomery, the vast majority of them black. With a population of only 200,000, those numbers make Montgomery among the most violent cities per capita in the country. If the pace keeps up, 2013 will be the city’s most violent year in four decades.“What we want to do is combine the religious community and the Montgomery Police Department and we want to unite those as one,” said Cpl. David Hicks during an interview on Irvin's Christian radio program. But it’s not entirely clear that the program is legal from the constitutional perspective of separation of church and state.When asked why he thinks a program like Operation Good Shepherd could work, Montgomery Police Chief Kevin Murphy said he didn't know but hoped it would. “Look, I'm not a criminologist. But if we can sow some seeds today, we might see the fruits tomorrow. It may not be soon. Might be a few years down the line. But just like we lost our moral foundation years ago and are now feeling the effects, we can sow the seeds for tomorrow.”Homily hint: Though the causes of crime are many and complex, more than a few young people have turned their lives around after being exposed to the Good News in one form or another. Sometimes they only need something bigger to believe in that brings meaning and purpose to their lives. Be a bearer of Good News. Source: An article by Ray Downs for The Atlantic

crime operation good shepherd montgomery alabama pastors billy irvin david hicks kevin murphy

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Cast out caste mentality, pope urges prelates

22 Feb 2015 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus stretches out his hand to heal an outcast—the man with leprosy. In a powerful sermon based on this gospel last Sunday, Pope Francis signaled his desire to push ahead with historic reforms, saying the Roman Catholic Church must be open and welcoming, whatever the costs. Preaching to a group of Catholic church leaders including 20 newly installed cardinals, Francis also warned the hierarchy not to be “a closed caste” but to lead in reaching out to all who are rejected by society and the church. Homily hint: The Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Canadian priest who works with the Vatican communications office, tweeted that “more than anything I’ve heard from (the pope) today’s homily is his mission statement.” Consider quoting from the pope’s groundbreaking homily in your own sermon and posting the entire text on your parish website. For more information on Pope Francis’ homily, see: Full Text of Pope Francis' Homily at Mass with Cardinals; Pope Francis to church: Don’t be a closed caste or afraid of outcasts.

Pope Francis pastoral outreach marginalized

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Things aren’t what they used to be

Short essays about observed trends in Roman Catholic life - Pastoral trends

Describing one’s own time as one of breakdown and collapse is a consistent and characteristic mistake in social and church commentary. It’s similar to the tendency of the older generation to describe the next in disparaging ways, and in both cases it may spring from the relative age or point of view of those making the critical observation. As we get older, we look around and see that the world we once knew is no longer there and that in fact the illusion we once had of its permanence is just as gone as the illusion we once had of ourselves being somehow exceptions to the way of all flesh. It is helpful to be able to see the source of our illusion and to know that it results from the degree to which we so often highly esteem our contexts and values. But that breakdown is not the point. A focus on breakdown carries with it a certain mythical element: Once there was a time of perfection or near perfection, and now it is all lost. Any careful examination of history shows that not to have been the case; one is far more likely to describe the present time as decline or crisis or transition because one is experiencing those things, than because it actually is. Just consider how well-used terms such as decline, crisis, or transition have been throughout history! There is a theological problem here. The Christian is not called to look only toward the past but to the future as well, to the advent of the Reign of God that is both now, in our time, and not yet. The Christian is called to see God’s providence in the present, not as having been spent and dissipated in the past. We can’t have it both ways. Which will it be? © 2012, Bryan Froehle.

Authors Bryan Froehle

past future

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Who's listening?

22 Feb 2009 - Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Everyone on TV is pretty,” a little girl was overheard to say one day. And the same is true in magazine ads, in movies, and on billboards. They are young and healthy and physically attractive. They define the way people “should” look and feel and be. Yet few of us fit that profile, and even those who manifest the physical characteristics may still bear wounds and worries within. Within the community this week will be people who feel a stigma about their physical infirmities—a disability, advancing age, chronic illness. There will be people who feel that their condition is somehow “their own fault,” even if there was nothing they could have done to prevent or avoid it. They still feel a sense of guilt or shame. And in the community will be people who have a hard time believing the Lord’s promise in Isaiah: “Your sins I remember no more.” And the continuing worry about their sins has them paralyzed, trapped in the past. They twist the words of the old Nat “King” Cole song to “Unforgivable, that’s what you are.” Jesus has a healing word for each of them.

guilt shame jesus Healing trapped in the past

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Exploring the word

22 Feb 2009 - Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

The man was serious: “I carry the memory of that night in me like a sickness,” he told me, shuddering. He was talking about a terrible choice he’d made long ago: what he’d done, what he’d failed to do—and how it affected people he loved, his career, his sense of himself. And though the years piled up, the sickness of his moral failure remained fresh and close. It weighed on his body and his spirit like a ball-and-chain. By contrast a story is told of Saint Philip Neri about a night the saint spent praying in the catacombs of Rome. Suddenly a flaming ball of divine origins appeared before him, which Philip consumed like the prophets of old who devoured the word of God. The powerful intake exploded in his chest and left a swelling under his skin the size of a peach. After his death doctors discovered that whatever had happened to Philip that night had enlarged his heart to twice its size, breaking two ribs to accommodate the transformation. You can ascribe that story to legend, but the contrast remains stark: It makes a difference what we swallow, whether it’s regrets about the past or divine graces. One makes us sicker, weaker, leaves us scarred. The other provides what Philip Neri had: boundless joy, a lively excitement for living, a generous love for his fellow human beings that could scarcely be contained. Philip used to walk up to strangers on the street and say, “So, friend, when shall we begin to do good?” Witnesses attest that people found Philip frankly irresistible in his good-humored freedom—hardly the dour face of sainthood they expected. Isaiah urges us to let go of the past: After all, God does! God seeks to do something new with us, but we can’t receive this transformation unless we open ourselves to the divine way, as Philip did, a way destined to widen the pathway of love in us. We are burdened with sin and weary with our crimes against love; so is God, Isaiah insists. God would like to forget the past and create a better future. But for that, our cooperation is needed. When Jesus encounters the paralytic, he forgives the man his past life, all of it. It seems at first like a peculiar choice. The man can’t walk, can’t move. His life is at a standstill and he has come to Jesus for his body to be set free. Jesus sets his spirit free, instead. Everyone in the room seems confused, disappointed. The religious leaders are even offended. Jesus knows well that he’s already performed the greater miracle. But to prove the one, he obligingly performs the other. Our sins are forgiven. Where will that knowledge take us? Related scripture links Sins of the fathers: Exod. 20:5-6; Jer. 31:29-30 New heart, new spirit: Ezek. 11:19 New creation: 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:1 Forgiveness of sins: Psalm 130:4; Luke 1:77; 1 Col. 1:13-14 Catechism links Salvation: CCC 430; 1421; 1441; 1484; 1500-1502 Taking offense: CCC 574-576; 587-591 Newness: CCC 711-716

Authors Alice Camille

Saint Philip Neri regret forget the past sin paralytic Forgiveness

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Homily stories

22 Feb 2009 - Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Those of us of a certain age remember with a twinge of laughter and horror Secretary of State Alexander Haig claiming he was in charge when Ronald Reagan was shot. In that one frantic moment, Haig threw all thoughts of legitimate constitutional succession to the wind. In any successful organization authority and the chain of command are very clearly delineated. People need to know who’s in charge. Not only because that’s where the buck stops, but also because that’s where the buck gets generated. We want to know who’s calling the shots and making the rules, and who’s next in line. We want no surprises. No overthrows or coups or grabs for power. To the scribes in today’s gospel it appears that Jesus is pulling an Alexander Haig and seizing authority illegitimately, but the reverse is actually true. Jesus is commanding the authority that was rightfully his through God but that had been temporarily hijacked by overzealous subordinates. So what does it mean to say Jesus is in charge? It means that we have a future filled with hope with no remembrance of our past mistakes. Who wouldn’t want such a boss?

Authors Patrice J. Tuohy

Authority Hope Alexander Haig ronald reagan past mistakes

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