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07 Aug 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday’s first reading is replete with images that at one time or another have been used to represent the sacred: Horeb, “the mountain of God,” as well as a powerful wind, an earthquake, a fire—and, finally, the “tiny whispering sound” of God passing by Elijah. As the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks approaches, controversy is brewing over the inclusion of religious symbols in the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, especially one dubbed “the World Trade Center cross.” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg stepped into the controversy last Friday, defending the display of religious symbols, including the World Trade Center cross at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. In his weekly radio address Bloomberg responded to a lawsuit filed by a group of atheists seeking to remove the WTC cross display from the memorial. "A lot of people looked to religion for strength after the attack," said Bloomberg, who is named as one of the defendants in the suit filed by American Atheists. He also noted that other religious symbols, not only the WTC cross, would be on display at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. They include a Star of David cut from a piece of steel from the WTC rubble, a Bible fused with a piece of steel found during the recovery effort, and a Jewish prayer shawl. The iconic WTC cross, made up of two intersecting steel beams found intact amid the rubble of the attacks, was moved from the side of St. Peter's Church in Lower Manhattan, where it had been housed while the memorial was being prepared, and was installed at the memorial on July 23. President Barack Obama, former President George W. Bush, and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani will be joining Bloomberg this coming September 11 at a ceremony to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the attacks. Sources: Articles by Katherine T. Phan for Christian Post and CNN

michael bloomberg 911 crosses 911 memorial and museum world trade center cross american atheists symbols

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Funerals and death

Homilist resources for funerals - Prepare the funeral

It is natural to turn to God at times of crisis and great mystery, and death presents the greatest mystery of all. As the Second Vatican Council put it, "The enigma of the human condition has at its most baffling point the confrontation with death" (Gaudium et spes, no. 18). For Christians, death presents the ultimate challenge of faith. One of the hand, we face the stark and total reality of death and what seems like the extinction of life. On the other hand we believe we are created for eternal life. We long for union with God and we cling to a share in the imperishable divine life. In death Christians feel both sadness and joy, loss as well as gain. To help Christians deal with these paradoxes, the church's funeral practices provide language where ordinary words fail. Funeral rites connect the mystery of the Lord's death and Resurrection to the death of this particular Christian, and they renew and nourish the faith of the living in the Paschal Mystery. As the dead (and the mourners) imitate Christ in suffering, death, and grief, so they will imitate him in resurrection. In this way the life of the deceased is revealed as a Christian life. If celebrated at the funeral, the Mass, with its theme of promise amidst brokenness, brings all this to the fore. The funeral symbols of water, pall, and candle recall baptism as rebirth in passing from death to life by being buried and raised with Christ. Saint Paul wrote, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his" (Romans 6:3-5). In Christ, death is changed, and Christ shares his triumph over death with all of us. The dead not only imitate Christ in his dying and rising, but also imitate his life. In other words, funerals celebrate how the person lived as a Christian, as well their being born to eternal life. Funerals recognize the journey of the deceased--and of all of us--from life through death to fullness of life in God. The bonds forged in life are changed but not broken in death. The living share communion with the dead and enter into a new kind of relationship with them. In death the deceased are welcomed into the communion of saints in an ultimate way. In addition, funeral rites anticipate the longed-for reunion of all the faithful at the end of time. Funerals also: Offer closure and reconciliation. Funeral rituals reflect Christian, human values. In the rites, the mourning are consoled. In offering worship, praise, and thanksgiving to God, we also do so for the gift of the person who has been returned to God--who they were and what they did. The faithful say good-bye and commend the dead to God's merciful love; we return the dead to God and let them go back to God. Funerals are also a time of hope for reconciliation--that the sins of the deceased are forgiven, and that the mourners are reconciled with the dead and with one another. The living may also "reconcile" themselves to their human limits and to ultimate dependence on God. Symbolize the pilgrimage of faith. In moving between the principal rites--the vigil with the dead, the funeral liturgy, and the final commendation and farewell--the church as it were moves with the deceased in procession, being present to the deceased and the mourners and symbolizing the pilgrimage of faith. Reflect reverence for the body of the deceased. In Catholic teaching, mortal remains are a symbol of faith, because the body has been one with the soul. We invest the remains with what we believe about the person; they function in faith and liturgy in relation to the person whose living flesh and blood they once were. Among other things, the funeral homily can emphasize God's compassionate love as well as the paschal mystery proclaimed in scripture and active in the life and death of the deceased and in the lives of the members of those assembled at the funeral. The homily can console and strengthen mourners to face the fact of death. SOURCE: Committee on the Liturgy, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Reflections on the Body, Cremation, and Catholic Funeral Rites

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Homily stories

15 May 2016 - Solemnity of Pentecost, Cycle C

It’s not unusual that a parish lector might struggle with biblical names. The Philippians become the Philippines, and Thessalonians is “Paul’s letter to the Theologians.” Even—using an older translation of Genesis—the terrifying vision of Abram entering into a covenant with God includes a “smoking brassiere” that passes between the sacrificed animals! (The new translation has “smoking fire-pot” rather than brazier.) Words are inadequate to describe the Holy Spirit. Symbols include tongues of fire or a gentle dove. In Mark’s gospel, the Spirit is fierce and drives Jesus into the desert to be tempted. And in Acts today, the Spirit’s manifestation seems to be a tornado or earthquake that shakes the house. These metaphors are the imagination’s way of envisioning something of God for which there really are no words; it’s not so different from a poet’s struggle to articulate what love is. In the film The Postman (Il postino), Mario—an unschooled postman—befriends the famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Mario is desperately in love with a girl but hopelessly tongue-tied. He asks the poet for help, and the conversation turns to metaphors. Neruda explains: It’s “when you talk of something, comparing it to another. For example when you say, ‘the sky weeps,’ what do you mean?” “That it’s raining,” Mario says, and the postman gradually becomes empowered, knowing that words, even his simple ones, can reveal a deeper reality.

Authors Father Larry Janowski O.F.M.

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Homily stories

18 Oct 2009 - Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

There are many symbols that reflect our society, some for better and others for worse. The professional athlete is one of those symbols that seems to endure generation after generation. Children still look up to them. Wheaties still puts them on their cereal boxes. And all the sports channels give interview after interview. They become our heroes, to be emulated and imitated. What does it say, then, when athletes are found with corked baseball bats or steroids or illegal golf clubs? It tells us that we live in a society that condones winning no matter what the cost, the importance of being No. 1 over simply doing your best, that being guilty only happens when you get caught. And we shrug it off, saying that this is just the way things are. It is no wonder that young and impressionable people have become so incredibly competitive and the rest of us so jaded that nothing surprises us any more. The gospel of Jesus stands as a strong counterpoint to the message that is being given. The gospel tells us we must put others first, put their needs ahead of our own, not worry about who is No. 1. It was a radical message when Jesus first spoke it, and it remains so today in our competitive, win-at-any-cost society.

Authors Father Dominic Grassi

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