Time to Propose

What’s so great about being Catholic, anyway?

Have you ever been asked that?  Have you ever asked yourself that?  Most days, it would be hard to try to come up with just one thing, there are so many.  

My first answer would be the Eucharist: the real presence, body, blood, soul, and divinity, of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Word become flesh, who dwells among us.  It’s no metaphor; we know where He is, and we know what He’s for.

After that, the list gets crowded and a bit jumbled.  The Pope – and this Pope; Mozart and Michelangelo; Lent (yes, Lent!) and Easter.  Votive candles, the Rosary, backyard shrines to the Blessed Mother, and Mardi Gras.  And Catholics! Sure, that includes novelists and composers and astronauts and war heroes but it also includes YOU.  Yes, YOU are one of the Church’s star attractions.  Aren’t you?    

I could go on and on – but I don’t have to tell you that.  The real question is, how would you answer?  And now, to make it even more challenging, this is the real question: who is it in your life just now that wants to know?

There’s got to be someone who knows you and really wants to know, what’s so great about being Catholic?, but is afraid to ask.    So in addition to your needing to have an answer, you need to give that someone the answer without waiting for them to ask the question.

It is that time of year again when we start huddling in the rectory meeting room with folks who want to know just that – what IS it about being Catholic? And is “it” for me?  We call it RCIA, which stands for: the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults.  And it does move toward the sacraments.  However, in the beginning, it really is simply inquiry, that is, all their questions.  And since people hesitate to ask these questions, they need YOUR help to find their answers.

This is an important inquiry to pursue, because everybody knows our story is not all great, at all times, and in all ways.  There’s a reason for that, too: human nature.  The Church is made up of people, and people are marked by original sin, and original sin by definition means that there are flaws.  For example, I am a flawed priest – but that doesn’t mean it would make sense to equate my flaws with the Sacred Priesthood.  

In fact, sin is why we need the Church.  Being sinners is what makes us eligible to be members!  We have Sin, and we have sinned, so we need forgiveness.  Forgiveness is what the Church exists to give, to make Christ’s saving sacrifice, his once-and-for-all death on Calvary, available to everyone who needs it.  And since “who needs it” is precisely everyone, that is who the Church is for.  That’s why she is called Catholic (universal); she is for everyone, because she has what everyone needs.

So think about your answer – what is so great about being Catholic? – and then share it with a few people in your life (friends, neighbors, co-workers, spouses) who may not know that it is a very legitimate question and that the answer is very much worth finding.  Explain to them how they can bring their questions to this year’s RCIA, which starts soon.  

Then point them in our direction: contact Norma or me here at the rectory, or Jasmine Kuzner in the Religious Ed office.   Tell them to use the phone, a letter, email, voicemail, text, tweet, or smoke signal.  We are eager to answer their questions, because that’s one of the things that’s great about being Catholic.

Monsignor Smith

 

Where to look

Some nights it's hard to find people to hang out with.

There I went, reading the paper again.  Will I never learn?  I do my best to avoid the worst of the pot-stirring and muck-raking, and what is presented as “human interest” stories these days is usually neither.  But from old habit, I like to know what is happening; and if I poke around sharply enough, I can often discern what I need to know.  So as I prowled gingerly midst the produce of the infotainment mongers, I saw the story.

The crux of the matter was how important it is for couples to have friends that are couples; and subsequently how difficult it has become to form such friendships in our fractured and frenzied society.  I confess to having skimmed it, but details of one couple’s efforts were presented, including using an app (of course) and offering free concert tickets (no takers).  They’ve “struck up conversations with other couples at sports bars, street fairs, and farmers markets.”  I my mind I could see their futile efforts, and wanted to weep.

What I really wanted to do was reach through the pages and shake them by the shoulders, and tell them, Go to church!  It sounds self-serving, but quite the contrary: the people with whom you share an openness and attentiveness to God are already more open and attentive to you.  So, presume generosity and proffer generosity, and amazing things will happen.      

It is possible, even easy, to go to church and meet and know nobody there.  However, there is no easier or better place to break out of the isolation.   Compatibility builds on commonality, and if you do something with somebody with whom you already share the Faith, you will find the path opening before you.  If you simply pay attention, over a few weeks it is not hard to pick out somebody who interests you or attracts you, somebody whom you admire.  And while striking up a conversation after Mass is not a zero-risk situation, it is unlikely to go too very badly.   

If you listen closely, people are always asking for someone to join them, to show up for things, to help with projects.  Sign up to help, join a reading group, come out when there’s a call.  You might not meet your new best friends there, but you might meet someone who knows who your newest friends will be.   

We do have a lot of young adults and families, new parishioners who arrive with no connections in the community and no reason to be here save their academic or professional pursuits.  From what I see as I meet them at the doors, they are delightful and fascinating; YOU are delightful and fascinating.  You should get together!  

The is no restriction according to age, either; young people aren’t the only ones who are open to new and life-giving relationships.  Church is one of the few places left in our society where all ages meet and mingle, almost as if they all had something to offer one another!  Catholic Mass (at least here) is one of the least stratified and least segmented gatherings that happens; people here differ in every possible way from one another, yet share the one thing that matters most: the way, and the truth, and the life.  

So, please, I beg you, do not let yourself be another statistic or demographic event, much less one of the sad wanderers on the planet trying every electronic aid to meet people.  Show up, sign up, and pipe up; take delight in one another, and you will find how much others delight in you.  It’s not called communion for nothing.

You won’t find that in the paper. 

Monsignor Smith

 

The best you share

Friends you haven't met yet

When you are with a buddy every day, you are less likely to notice any changes in them.   But a friend you see only once every few months, or every few years, that is a different story; the first thing to draw your attention is what is different from what you remember.  Those changes help us realize how much time has passed, and how we, ourselves, might have changed too over the same time.

But what about our friends that do not change?  No, not those people who seem to be unchanging, but rather our friends that are not people.  

The past week I have been spending time with my friends that are books.  I have been going through my shelves looking at them and deciding which ones to contribute to our upcoming Great Catholic Book Swap.  I did not want to have a book sale, or just to donate them to some book dealer in order to find their new home, but rather to have this event so that we can all share our friends with one another and thereby increase the life and reach of the friendship.   

There are many that I will hang on to, of course.   They are keepers, largely because I need them for reference or at least reminding.  Meanwhile, I have found a few books, maybe a boxful, that do not qualify for our Swap, but I plan to give to the local friends of the library shop.  They are good books too, but needn’t be shared within the household of the faith.

And there are some books that I have that I will not share, because they are not good books; they are not helpful, or maybe even not truthful, and would not build up the Body of Christ.  I may have to find some other path for them.

But the books I have assembled for the Book Swap are good books, truthful books.  Some are books I admire, but never really ‘hit it off’ with them.  Some are books that I really enjoyed, and even often used, but no longer fit in to my reading and learning.  Some are books that are just so good they deserve someone who has never had the experience and will treasure them.  And they all, every one of these books, fortify the faith and enhance the understanding.

As I moved through the books, separating them into stacks with different destinations, some I held back because of their sentimental attachment.  Some were given me as gifts and I still treasure the giver.  Many had inscriptions that marked the date and occasion, some long past.  But as I moved deeper into the process, I went back and moved even those books into the stack that I would share through the Swap.  

They are friends, after all.  What are friends for, but for sharing?   Just this last weekend I had two priests to dinner who had not met one another.  I was a good evening, and I am convinced that they will happily and fruitfully see one another in future, maybe even often.  That was a delight, for me and them.

Passing on a book, a good book that is a good friend, is a way to increase the friendship.  Passing on a good book that manifests and reveals the Faith is a way to increase the friendship that we share with Jesus.  As I send these books along, I am convinced that they will happily and fruitfully help people see Jesus and be with Jesus in the future, maybe even often.  

Consider joining in this sharing of friends and friendship that is our Catholic Book Swap.  Nothing rewards the passage of time like making new friends; and nothing satisfies the love of old friends like seeing them newly met, newly appreciated, and newly loved.

Monsignor Smith

 

Eyes on me!

Do not forget the clamor of your foes, the daily increasing uproar of your foes.  (Psalm 74)

The Psalmist cries out against the din of destruction that is raised all around him.  Can you blame him?  There is an awful lot of noise, people making noise, voices and speeches that coalesce into a clatter and roar that surrounds us in what they call, without irony, The Age of Communication.   

All the voices, all the stories, have messages of urgency, stories of menace.  There is some variety among them, depending on the inclination of the agencies, but they share a common desire to rile us up and leave us quivering.  

This morning I checked all the outlets for some news story on today’s weather, our weather.  Last week everybody was writing about it, talking about it – the first hundred-degree day in seven years!  This week nobody mentions that we have another day that is ten degrees cooler than average.  Why isn’t that news?  Is it too – oh, I don’t know -- delightful?

It is as if somebody, somewhere daily decides what you and I are supposed to be excited about, what we are supposed to be frightened about.  Everything else is not acknowledged, not discussed.  But they definitely want you and me to be excited, and to be frightened.

How different is our Lord.  He takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain and is transfigured before them because he wants them not to be frightened.  Yes, the same Jesus who admonishes Be not afraid, actually provides a help in fulfilling His admonition.  Now the voice of God booming out of a bright cloud might not be YOUR idea of a calming influence, but that is precisely what Jesus intends to provide by giving his disciples.  This is my beloved son, the Father reminds (yes, reminds, for they knew that already).  Along with the dazzling, radiant glory of His only begotten Son revealed before their eyes, the experience is astonishing, but also provides what they need to calm down and persevere – that is, keep doing what they are doing.  

It is an amusing trope that being instructed to calm down! has never, ever calmed anybody.  Are you shocked to learn that Jesus knows this, and uses a different method?   He reveals His identity and His glory to fortify the disciples to withstand the fear that would come when they witness His passion and death.   He gives them what they need NOT to be afraid.  

This year, the Feast of the Transfiguration falls on a Sunday and displaces the Sunday Mass, so we have a second opportunity in one year to bask in the Divine assurance.  The first opportunity, occurring every year, is on the Second Sunday of Lent.  Jesus is giving us what we need NOT to be afraid, which is, reassurance of His identity and His glory.  If everything else seems to be falling apart (which it truly is) and every good effort seems to fall flat or be foiled (and they are) and even those whom the Lord Himself has called and charged with His Good News are showing more selfishness and foolishness than faith (yawn -- again?); if things are really this bad, shouldn’t we be afraid?

No.  Not then, not now.  He’s got this; he’s God.   His victory is already won, His glory is everlasting.  

But THE NOISE.  Is it getting to you?  Is it weakening your resolve, or simply distracting you from what you know you are about?  Do you feel the fear?

Yes, it looks bad – but then, it always has.   Tear your eyes away from the catastrophe du jour and daily direct them instead at the face of Jesus.   He will show you what you need to see.  Go up the mountain.  Do not pass go, do not collect $200, just go:  straight up the mountain to God in prayer.   Be with Him; listen to Him; look at Him.   He is God; He loves you; and He’s got this. 

Then, let the Psalmist go on with his complaint.  But you, and I, can and should forget the clamor of (our) foes, the daily increasing uproar of (our) foes.  

Monsignor Smith