Holding a Secret

Joel 2: 12-18; Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18

I believe this comes from something like Alcoholics Anonymous or a group like them who help those with addictions; they say that “you are only as sick as your secrets.” Addicts understand that idea because they know when things are held secret within, it often leads to destructive behaviors in the outside world. But we all understand secrets. People tell us things that they want to be kept secret and we tell others. We also know what it’s like when others share our secrets and we experience being violated by people we trust and so there is all this stuff associated with secrets; we feel it gives us some kind of power over others and that it often does make us sick.

And yet, during this season of Lent, it is in those secrets that God wants to meet us, within the secrets of our hearts that we want no one else to know. Three times we hear in today’s gospel about secrets: “Your Father who sees in secret will repay.” “Your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” “Your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.” In the very places that we feel vulnerable, that make us unlovable, that even God would not love us, that’s exactly where God wants to meet us and heal us, in the secrets of our hearts. If you read the entire text of Matthew, as he presents his version of the “Our Father” he even says that God already knows what we need and God already knows this stuff anyway, but it is us who have to confront and own-up-to those secrets within our hearts and souls.

Joel tells the people in the first reading that it is a stripping bare…we have to get rid of all those things that stand in the way, those externals, by rending our hearts, our anger, our addictions, so that we can begin to invite God into those very places He wants to go. Through prayer and fasting we begin to strip ourselves of all those things so that we can be loved in those very places that are wounded. It’s no wonder that Lent is so many weeks because it often takes that long for us to get to that point that we can let it go and the secrets can begin to be revealed and brought into the light for healing and redemption. I believe that if we allow ourselves to do that, the almsgiving will follow…we will experience that love of God like never before that the only thing we will want to do is share it with the poor and others.

My friends, as we enter into this Lenten season, we are invited to enter into those secret places within our hearts that make us sick on a spiritual level and begin to bring God into those places. He wants to meet us in those secrets so we can know and experience the redeeming grace, forgiveness, and the love that He desires for us.

Always Hope

Isaiah 43: 18-25; Mark 2: 1-12

“We have never seen anything like this.”

While visiting Haiti two weeks ago, some of the time that we spent was an opportunity to reflect on Catholic Social Teaching. If you only get your understanding of social teaching from TV or Catholic media, you’ll never get the richness that is really there! One of the observations that was made by the group was, that, despite the sufferings that the people of Haiti have endured, even everything with the earthquake of two years ago…the observation is that there is still no despair. That is not often the case even here in our own country. Even Mother Theresa, who spent her life working with the poor of Calcutta, recognized that there was a greater poverty here in the US and that is a spiritual poverty. And so despite all of this, there is still hope. The people of Haiti flock to the church on Sunday and not just for an in-and-out service that we’re used to, but for two hours, because they find hope in things beyond medicine and technology, they rather find it in the Lord. They find it in this Eucharist. They find it in Christ and will do what they need to do to seek out that Christ.

The same is true of the paralytic in today’s gospel and the four men that carry him to Jesus. They very well could have given up and lost hope when they arrived at Jesus’ house and found the crowd so large. Keep in mind that we are only in the second chapter of Mark’s gospel and the crowd has already grown so large and will continue to grow until He makes it to the cross. But rather than giving up and losing hope, become a person of despair, they do what they need to do to seek out Christ and receive healing; so they climb to the roof, rip the roof off, crossing any boundary necessary, lower him in, just to be in the presence of Christ. What faith Jesus exclaims of the five of them!!

The same is true in today’s first reading from Isaiah. Once again this prophetic voice needs to be a message of hope for the people. After years in the desert and experiencing exile, and also knowing their history of the Exodus, you could imagine that they began to lose some hope and beginning to despair and doubt. But Isaiah tells them today…stop! Stop dwelling on the past, stop holding onto what was because God is trying to lead you to something new through the suffering. Don’t lose hope and stop complaining about it all; don’t become the victim of your own suffering!

They are good readings to reflect upon as we prepare to make this transition from Ordinary Time into Lent this week…we need to begin to ask ourselves, are we ready to enter into this experience? Not with lost hope and sad faces because it’s Lent and we have to sacrifice, and we have to give something up, and we have to confront our sinful ways…No, rather, Christ is inviting us into the suffering of our life and meets us there to offer us hope in the midst of it all. Are we ready to enter into those uncomfortable places of our lives, to break down any boundaries, like the paralytic in the gospel today to seek out the true source of our hope, the Christ, so that we too may make that prayer our own: we have never seen anything like this! That’s what God invites us into within our own lives and into this coming season of Lent.

Sacred Space

Deuteronomy 18: 15-20; Psalm 95; Mark 1: 21-28

As you know, I was out in New Mexico last weekend and spent six days in the desert on a Native American Reservation. If you’ve never done it, you should make it part of a list of things to do at some point. The four times that I have gone out there now and I always reminded of one thing, and that is the need for silence and space around my heart. There are so many voices that vie for our attention day-in and day-out, that the only way we will hear and recognize the voice of God as the Psalmist tells us today, is to find that space and that silence around our heart. If we don’t, our hearts become that hardness that the psalmist writes of, “If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts.” The link between these readings today is that voice that speaks with authority. The Lord speaks through Moses saying that there are consequences if we choose not to listen to the voice of God speak and act upon it; he says death is the price. In reality, that death is the hardness that we hear of in that psalm…our heart grows hard to where all we hear are all those other voices, which swallow up the one that speaks with authority in our hearts. We have to believe that many in Jesus’ time, certainly the religious leaders, had those hardened hearts as well; they didn’t recognize the authority that he spoke with because they also could not find it within themselves. It’s what we seek and requires hard work on our part, to create that space, that sacred space, that frees us to hear that voice speak to us so that we can be those prophetic voices raised up in our world. That silence doesn’t have to just be here in a church but simply going for a walk outdoors. The readings provide us the opportunity to find that place in our own lives that allows that space, that sacred space to grow so that our hearts don’t become hardened and we too may be open to the voice of God speak.

A Small World

This is another post from my experience in the desert of New Mexico…

.

Have you ever had the experience that your world has gotten too small? When you “wake up” and you look around at all the “stuff” that has accumulated that there is no longer space to breathe; you want to tell yourself, “It’s all fake.” It’s not necessarily a bad thing, as we might think, but you realize that the world has gotten too small and God is calling you to something bigger in your life; the reality being, a bigger heart and a deeper soul. Of course, to make that cross to the other side, you realize a river stands in your way, not as an obstacle, but as a doorway into the bigger and wild world we call adulthood. Yet, it seems harder and harder to make that journey into the deep waters to the other side because the world wants us to believe the message that you don’t need to grow up, as a matter of fact, don’t grow up. Once we step into the water and begin the journey across, though, there is no turning back; we must say good bye to the old and enter into the dark world of unknown where God waits to speak, as a matter of fact, where it is God actually calls us. Believe it or not, it is the descent into hell that Jesus takes that we too are called to make, not in a bad way as we have made it out to be and something to be afraid of, but into the depths of our being where we can begin the transition from that small world into something bigger, and greater, than what we have become so accustomed to for so many years. At times, the world has seem much smaller to me; listening to politicians and even Church leaders at times, words seem empty, because deep down, the call from God is to leave all of that behind, make promise to be true to that soul call, and then live it faithfully into a world that reaches beyond the boarders of heaven and earth to the sacred that is a part of all.

Sandia

The river calls
from the base of Sandia.
And yet, claws, tight-fisted into rock,
trying to reach life, an old life,
a life that can no longer be,
a life that was never yours.

The more you fight and claw and fear,
the louder the call of the river.
Descend the peak, despite its
death-like appearance to the west,
it is there that you are called.

Come down! come down out of the mountain for
the river calls; the river calls your true name,
the name you were created to be.

If you can only see what I see; where you see death,
I see the reddish hues of the sunset on the Sandia;
I see the bosque, waiting to initiate and lead;
I see and hear the river that gives life.

No, not that river you see; but rather,
the river that flows and rushes beneath.

Come down! The river calls your name;
the river calls you to a new home,
more splendent and fruitful than what you have known.
Come down from the Sandia to the rio, for this,
this, will be your next home.

Radical Simplification

Did you know, that, during your entire life, your soul (God) is preparing you for a moment in time when it all falls apart?!? Yes, you read correctly, preparing us for that moment when it all falls apart, when home is no longer home, the things we thought were relevant no longer are, sometimes even people in our lives, preparing us for the great descent that so often scares the hell out of so many, that they choose not to accept the call. Of course, it is only after the fact that we begin to see how our previous experiences all fit into this descent and that the descent is really about finding God! So, we choose to stay where we are, with what we know and have been told we are, only to find out that it isn’t real; we become masters at what is not the true self. Yet, all of it, prepares us for that moment when we can let it go, begin the descent, and initiate the process of radical simplification. It is that stage in our lives where the whole world becomes our cocoon and we the wanderer, being called to a spiritual adventure like none other…

Unlike a caterpillar, though, who knows that it was always created for something more, we think we are is what we have been told, what we have heard, how we were mirrored in the development of our ego; and then one day, an awakening! It no longer makes sense, cocoon happens, and we begin to “see” who we really are, and what we were created to be. We may live believing that we have been called in one way, but when one chooses to seek the descent, there is no turning back, only a downward progression in order that our butterfly, or whatever it is we truly are, breaks forth and rises into the wellspring, finally becoming what we were created to truly be and do through the delivery of our soul.

Womb

Can you feel the rhythm?
No, not of the melody that
draws us outward,
but the rhythm and the beat of
the drum,
of the heart,
of the womb,
drawing us to center, drawing us to soul.

And not only male and female
as God created us,
but the earth,
the trees,
all living beings,
coming together as one,
through the beat of this drum.

Bosque

O how the heart longs to be…
open, sparkling, wild and free.

Naked you stand in the sun,
warm and glistening,
only needing to be.

You dance and breath,
shadow the earth with branches so bare,
I am left to wonder,
is there life out there?

O how I long to be…
alive and free,
like the bosque tree,
only needing to be.

Tebow-time, well, maybe

1 Samuel 3:3-10, 19; John 1: 35-42

Now I have to preface this homily by saying that this sounded much better in my head a few days ago than it does this Sunday morning…but how about that Tim Tebow? See, now you know it sounded better until he ran into the Patriots last evening! Anyway, I happened to catch a story on CNN this week where they were talking about Tim Tebow and why this fascination with him. One person had said because he’s good looking, another that it was because he cries on camera (not sure what that has to do with football), and then the last person seemed to make the most sense. He said, “It’s because everyone has told him that he can’t.” I’m like, that’s it! Everyone has told him that he can’t do this, he won’t succeed; every expert out there say no way, and yet, he has. He has been able to block out all those negative voices that say you can’t, won’t, don’t, never, etc, and follow the higher call to do the impossible. He has been able to do the impossible by listening to that greater voice.

The same is true for young Samuel in today’s first reading. He’s new at all of this and doesn’t quite understand what this voice is and who it is that is calling him. He goes back and forth with Eli trying to make sense out of all of this, and after three times, it finally begins to click that this is a greater voice that is calling out. What Samuel doesn’t know is that when he finally responds to it, God will also ask the impossible of him. He is going to have to confront Eli and his house for their immorality and their unjust lifestyle and God is upset with all of it. Samuel, in responding to the call, this higher voice, will confront the impossible. You have to believe, and we know for sure if you continue to read this passage, that he begins to doubt, the negative voices start to take over, he questions, and like us, will need to discern all these voices and respond openly to the voice of God speaking and the gift to be able to do the impossible.

Same thing for the disciples as they are first called. Today’s reading from John is a little different than the “call” readings we are used to. Typically we are used to hearing about the fishermen out in the boats and dropping everything to follow Jesus. There is more of a curiosity in today’s gospel from John. You see, Andrew and his brother are devout followers of John the Baptist which we hear at the first part of this reading. They too will need to begin to discern where it is that they are being called. Jesus doesn’t tell them to just drop everything to follow, he rather simply says, come and see; come and see what I am all about; come and see what this is all about. It won’t be long until the negative voices start to take hold of them as well, though, when they come to a realization of the impossible task that Jesus calls them to. This call will take them right into Jerusalem and the Cross and the voice of God will seemed drowned out by all the negativity, but discernment will happen and they will follow him to the impossible.

The same is true for each of us, as disciples of Jesus. We really are no different than Samuel, that Andrew and Peter, or even Tim Tebow for that matter, in that we too sometimes need to discern all these voices that vie for our attention. Unfortunately, it often seems like the negative ones are the loudest in our lives, and yet, if we find the quiet, we will begin to hear the greater voice and the higher calling of our God to even do the impossible in our lives and world.

Journey of the Magi

Isaiah 60: 1-6; Matthew 2: 1-12

In 1930, T.S. Eliot published a poem entitled The Journey of the Magi. In that poem, Eliot tries to convey the story of this gospel through the eyes of these Magi journeying to find the Christ child. He writes of the challenges they would have faced on this journey because it wasn’t just about crossing a street. These magi had to travel miles and miles and days to seek the Christ…the weather conditions, the soreness of their feet, the challenges with the animals, the wondering whether this is all worth it, doubts, questions, and everything else they would have encountered. But in the end, what Eliot comes to realize, because it is really a poem of his own faith journey in finding the Christ, is that birth and death are but two sides of the same coin. He comes to the realization that in order to truly see who this Jesus is, the Christ child, something must die. He must first let go of his old way of life, thinking, anything that prevents him from seeing the Christ. Is it not the same for these magi, for Mary and Joseph, for the Shepherds…when the encounter the Christ child, something changes and they can’t go back to “business as usual.” Their lives are changed; things are let go of and birth happens.

The same is true for the people Israel to whom these prophetic voices have spoken to in our first reading throughout Advent and Christmas. They find themselves at the point where they are again entering the promised land…what they have waited for and what they’ve wanted, and yet at that moment, they don’t know if they’re ready. They have become comfortable with exile, they had become comfortable with the exodus, they become comfortable with war and violence that they don’t know if they’re ready to give it up. God is inviting to something new, the new home, and they’re comfortable. So what Isaiah tries to convey is that you no longer have to live in darkness; you no longer have to live with this dark cloud over your head; God is calling you to this new birth, but first they must let go of the old way of life.

We see that with the Magi as well. By our terms, they would probably be considered “new age”…not Jewish or Gentile, yet something was drawing them to seek out this Christ. What they come to find is not only the Christ child, but the Christ within. At the end of the reading we hear that they leave by a different route. After an experience of the Christ, you can’t go back to the old way of life, it sets you on a different journey. Before they enter that house and see Mary and the Christ child, they must first let go of their old way, their life of astrology, their old way of living. Something dies before this birth takes place. When they finally meet the Christ child, their eyes are opened, epiphany happens, and life is changed forever.

As we come to the end of this Christmas season, we too are given the same invitation to this journey of faith, but before we can truly see beyond this Jesus and see him as the Christ, we must first let things go; our old way of thinking, our negativity, even relationships that have gone astray, those things we hold onto out of fear as Herod does in today’s gospel. As much as the Magi have experienced the Christ, Herod is still not there…he is comfortable with the fear, with the violence, and he will do anything in his power to prevent others from the experience and does. God calls us beyond that life and to encounter Him in this child. When we can begin to see the Christ in this child, then we can begin to see the same mystery that unfolds in this Eucharist where bread and wine become the Body and Blood of that Christ. God invites us to experience this birth, to see this Epiphany, but first an invitation to let go, to let the past die so that this birth can become a reality in our lives and world.