Father, Son, and Spirit

One of the odd little things about being a Deacon is that I don't really set the homily schedule. That's appropriate, and I've never minded it -- the pastor should have the discretion to choose the times or feast days that require a particular word from the pastor. However, in my experience there are VERY FEW times when the pastor has really wanted to give the homily for Trinity Sunday! It's so very ... theological! I think that the reason I've wound up with the homily on this feast far more often than a random calendar pick would predict.

Here's my effort below. I was helped greatly by Fr. Tim's loan of a book, The Knowledge of the Holy, by A.W.Tozer, 1897-1963. (Here's a review I find helpful and accurate.) VERY theological, but interesting; and it got me "un-stuck."

Solemnity of the Holy Trinity (C), May 29, 2010

Good morning. This weekend we celebrate the solemnity of the Holy Trinity, and I’d like to begin this morning with a little short story that I first read 25 years ago, from a book called Song of the Bird, by a Jesuit named Anthony de Mello. It’s one of the books we have on the table in the sitting area in our parish office. You might happen to recognize this story, because I shared it in a homily once before, a long time ago; it’s entitled, The Formula.

The mystic was back from the desert.
“Tell us,” they said, “what God is like.”

But how could he ever tell them what he had experienced in his heart?
Can God be put into words?

So…he finally gave them a formula – so inaccurate, so inadequate –
In the hope that some of them
Might be tempted to experience it for themselves.

Instead…they seized upon the formula!
They made it a sacred text. They imposed it on others as a holy belief.
They went to great pains to spread it in foreign lands.
Some even gave their lives for it.

The mystic was sad. It might have been better if he had said nothing.

I thought of that story several days ago as I began to prepare for this homily. It probably wasn’t written with the dogma of the Trinity in mind, but I do think it applies very well. You see, in a few moments, we will say together the words of the Creed, the faith that we share as Christians. Those words were formulated centuries ago to try to express the mystery of God’s life, as found in the scriptures and experienced in the living history of the early Christian community. And as described in the story “The Formula,” it is absolutely true that real people fought and died over those words. In fact, it was the Roman Emperor Constantine who called together the Council of Nicaea in the early 4th century in order for the Church to settle once and for all the religious controversies that threatened the good order of the Roman Empire; and the creed we regularly say at Mass is what they finally came up with. You remember the words: … “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten not made, one in Being with the Father”… and of the Holy Spirit, who “proceeds from the Father and the Son. Together with the Father and the Son he is adored and glorified.”

Those theological words are important. But it is of course also true that the words are inadequate to describe the mystery of God’s life, just like in the story. Now, I don’t have any illusions that I can do better, especially in just our few moments today, but I’d like to offer three fruits of my prayer from this past week about the three persons of the Trinity, as we see them in our readings today. And I know… this is not “theology.”

Our first reading is marvelous! It takes us all the way back to the beginning, before the earth itself, before mountains or fountains, before sea or sky – and we find God’s Wisdom playing…playing on the surface of the earth… and finding delight in the human race. What a poetic reminder for us that all of this creation around us! ALL OF IT IS GIFT – from the vast universe that we are only the tiniest part of; to the mountains and waters that we enjoy in our area around Puget Sound; to the personal marvels of our own birth and growth, and our talents and abilities, even our heart, our hands, and our minds. ALL IS GIFT, FROM GOD.

Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to take these many gifts for granted, or regard them as something we have coming to us. And the acquisitive world that surrounds us can infect us, make us want more -- and cause us to forget what should be our most natural response to the good we enjoy, which is GRATITUDE; gratefulness; a sense of how lucky and blessed we are as children of a loving God we call Father. (How appropriate, isn’t it, that the word “Eucharist” means Thanksgiving?)

Our second reading is a letter from Paul about our faith in Jesus Christ, a faith that he says brings us peace and hope; a faith which enables us not only to endure afflictions, but to even “boast of our afflictions!” When I first read that I thought it was really odd that ANYONE would boast of afflictions; but in thinking about it more, I realized that there ARE some people who boast of their afflictions. Not that they do it as a sign of their faith, mind you, most often it seems like it’s in the hope of getting a little sympathy! But of course Paul is not really focusing on the boasting, that’s a bit of a distraction. He’s talking about a special kind of peace and hope that our faith brings us, and that’s something which can endure in the face of the greatest of difficulties. Jesus had that peace even in his darkest hour, and that peace was his last gift to his disciples.

In just a few moments we’ll life up our voices in prayer, by name, for people who right now are going through pain and sickness; and there are other parishioners besides these, going through other afflictions: depression, alcoholism, troubles in a relationship. And we will pray for healing for them, of course, but even more, let’s pray for their strong faith in Jesus, for their ability to trust, as he did, that God is with them always. Let’s pray for their deep peace and hope. I know I’ve told you many times before, from personal experience: it’s always humbling to be close to someone who has that kind of faith, during those hard times. I pray for that kind of faith for all of you, for me, and for those people we’ll lift in prayer.

Finally, our gospel reading, from Jesus’ last words to the disciples at the Last Supper, tells us of the coming of the Holy Spirit. God knew that even Jesus’ very own life would not be enough for us. We could not remember it all; we would not understand it all; sometimes we would not even believe it all. There would be times when we would feel alone, when we would hear other voices, many that would masquerade as “wisdom.” We would finally be tempted to find our own truth, follow our own path, rely on our own strength. This is the great temptation of our relativistic, individualistic modern culture.

And so the Holy Spirit has been given to us, as our gospel says today, to guide us to REAL truth. When we experience this Spirit, we find ourselves with a grace that truly comes from beyond ourselves. It might be that we will somehow find the right words to comfort someone who is hurting. Or we might experience a strength beyond our own that will help us to forgive someone who has hurt us deeply, and maybe even to do it in a way that builds a new beginning. Or we might inexplicably find the ability to admit we were wrong, and to tell someone we are oh, so sorry – and thus experience a consolation that we never dreamed possible. Or we might just suddenly experience an unexplainable clarity and peace about something that has troubled us deeply for a long time. Or we might find the freedom within to let go and give deeply of ourselves – humbly, generously, cheerfully, and gratefully. These are all signs of the presence of the Holy Spirit. It’s beyond US.

Our gospel finally brings it all together by saying that the Holy Spirit will glorify Jesus – in other words, when we experience the Spirit working in us in these ways, then we will understand in a deeper way the truth of who Jesus was and the glory that is the Father’s. I know that to be true in my own life, and sometimes I find myself serendipitously happy because of it! But we should always remember too the message of Pentecost – that the Holy Spirit is not given to us as a private grace, but rather is an outpouring upon all of the people of God, given so that we might as a community become the wind and fire of God’s love on earth.

I hope that was a bit more than just “a formula.” Amen.

Deacon Denny Duffell

What Good Does It Do?

Last weekend we held our closing retreat for our parish JustFaith program -- a dinner on Friday, with prayer and discussion, and an all-day gathering on Saturday. It was a beautiful day, and if the retreat hadn't been really meaningful to the folks present, I'm sure we would have had a few defections along the way, with people leaving to enjoy other pursuits. But we had a few of our retreat sessions outside, and the pace was very relaxed so that our retreatants could walk outside and enjoy the sunshine.

During one of the discussions the topic of nonviolence/peace came up, and one of our retreatants expressed the sadness that the world's military urges are so huge, well-funded, and seemingly popular that she felt a bit overwhelmed and hopeless about any efforts to move things in another direction.

I had read a very hopeful-in-spite-of-the-world column in the National Catholic Reporter blogs from Fr. John Dear SJ recently, entitled Marching for Peace in New York City, but I didn't have a copy of it (I have sent it to her since). He points out that that sense of hopelessness isn't new, and it shouldn't stop us. Excerpts follow:

I’m often confronted with the question, what good do these actions do? Why bother marching? What’s the use of singing? Does anyone really pay any attention to your leaflets, your unfurling of banners, your staged die-ins?

Such questions are misplaced, arising as they do from our culture’s obsession with command and control and effectiveness. I operate from another ethic, the one that calls us to speak out against the odds, to puncture pretenses, to break the unanimity.

Such was much of the busyness among the pages of the Acts of the Apostles, often read during our Easter and Pentecost seasons. Each day the apostles and the early community gathered near the Temple , in the heart of Jerusalem . And there they spoke out -- and faced arrest. Even though they seemed to make little difference. Even though the system barreled on.

But they had resolved themselves. They would “witness to the resurrection,” in their words. They would speak of the defeat of death. As for the chips, let them fall where they may.

Here’s Peter and one typical day in the Life: “‘God raised up his servant and sent him to bless you by turning each of you from your evil ways.’ While they were still speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the guard and the Sadducees confronted them, disturbed that they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. They laid hands on them and put them in custody ...” (Act 3:26, 4:1-3).

This is the story of the early church. In our own clumsy way, we tried to do the same. In Grand Central Station, in Times Square. We witnessed to the resurrection. Which today translates to mean: “No more nuclear weapons, no more wars, no more killing, no more violence. Stop planning the global crucifixion of Christ. The days of engineering society by Death are over.”

We who participated in these events were inspired to carry on, and in these cynical, despairing times, that in itself is a great accomplishment.

The Spirit, like the wind, blows where it will, and we never know the outcome of our witness. What we do know is our vocation -- to stand up, speak out boldly, and announce Resurrection to a troubled people mired in a culture of death.

I've gotten away from that kind of participation, though there was a time when both Joan and I were involved in demonstrations and civil disobedience at the Trident Missle Base, the IRS building in downtown Seattle, and other places. It does feel hopeless sometimes, but Fr. Dear's example of the early Church is a good one. I shouldn't feel like "my" action or protest is somehow going to change the world through the force of its purity of purpose! Someone at our retreat on Saturday quoted Mother Teresa: "We don't build the whole building, we lay a brick."

It's obviously not only true with activities against war and in favor of peace. It's true in working to help the homeless or in cooking at a free soup kitchen or working for just immigration laws. We do these things not because we expect we will overcome the world's problems in our lifetime.

Archbishop Oscar Romero put it this way: "The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. ... We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. ... We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker."

Identify Imaginatively With the Church?

I read a short but interesting article the other day in Commonweal magazine, the May 7th edition, by columnist Cathleen Kaveny, entitled "A Darkening." She began the article by describing a debate at Notre Dame between atheist Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza, on the question "Is Religion the Problem?" The event turned out not to be about the role of religion, but about the existence of God. Apparently she was not terribly impressed with the debate, though she seemed to acknowledge that Hitchens was the "more agile debater."

No, the thrust in her article was toward the believing community, and what might "pry Catholics loose from their faith." She felt that a much more effective assault on faith would be to "question the reliability of the community that mediates the identity of God -- the Church. If your computer network crashes, it doesn't take the Internet with it. Yet when the church crashes, many Catholics find that access to God has been permanently impared." You could see where this was going.

Ms. Kaveny goes on: "Many Catholics who survived the first wave of the crisis ... are now floundering. But why? On a purly intellectual level, nothing has changed. On an affective level, however, it's all becoming too much. The breadth and pervasiveness of the crisis darken our religious imaginations, and seep into our worship and prayer. ... The challenge posed here isn't at the level of logical analysis, but at the level of imaginative association and affective identification. That's why the evident involvement of the pope, the Vicar of Christ and the symbol of the Church's unity, in the transfer of priest-abusers hits many people so hard."

That caught my attention. My own religious imagination is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL to me; it's my imagination that offers me the way through which scripture comes alive, and it's the faculty that best enables me to know, love, and follow Jesus. Sure, I can study scripture and theology -- knowledge goes only so far. My prayer life uses imagination to place my heart and soul in the times and places in which Jesus spoke and acted. Mess with that, and you seriously mess with my entire spirit.

What I think Ms. Kaveny is saying is that the international scope of the sex-abuse scandal -- much more so than when it was seen primarily as an American problem -- has seriously damaged our ability to identify ourselves proudly and affectively as members of our Catholic community of believers. Well, of course!

Her haunting conclusion: "And effective response to the crisis will take more than truth commissions to find out what happened in the past and policy committees to protect children in the future. It will take the development of new ways of enabling believers to identify imaginatively and affectively with the Church." She's on to something, and this is worth some serious thought.

From AMERICA Magazine: Two More Takes on Sex Abuse Fallout

I enjoy America Magazine, a weekly Catholic magazine published by the Jesuits, and have subscribed for years. I even send them a donation from time to time, to support their work. Today I received their 5/17/2010 edition, and it has two articles with interesting takes on the Church's sex abuse problems.

The first, Of Many Things, is the regular "inside the front cover" article from one of the editors. This one, by Maurice Reidy, offered a viewpoint I had not heard before, one that sounded to me like someone suffering from classic depression:

"Some have reacted to the crisis with anger, others by leaping to the church's defense. Still others blame the media. I change the channel. It is not a response I am especially proud of. I wish I had the passion of my crusading colleagues. Yet I know I am not alone. We all deal with trama in different ways."

I'm sure he's NOT alone! Don't you think that perhaps there are a lot of us suffering from depression about this?

The second viewpoint is offered in a longer article, Pilgrim People, Part II. This one calls for a reformation of the Roman Curia -- and it mentioned several thoughts I've had myself:

"The renewal of the church must include the reform of the Roman Curia proposed by the Second Vatican Council and begun by Pope Paul VI. The interpersonal and institutional practices that blocked proper handling of abuse cases must be rooted out" ...
"There must be term limits for senior officials and rotation back to regular pastoral roles for secretaries and prefects of congregations, as there are for ministers in secular governments and for major religious superiors" ...
"In addition, communication and interaction between Vatican offices need to be improved...recruitment of personnel with listening skills and readiness to cooperate with others, not just their superiors, are ... necessary, as are leaders who encourage open communication both with their peers and their subordinates" ...
"Likewise, two-way communications must open up between bishops and the Holy See. In an age of globalizations, centralized church government has a special role to play, but overcentralization was a contributing factor to the dysfunction that has prolonged this crisis for more than two decades" ...
"Finally, the council called for laymen and laywomen to be given greater voice and to take greater part in church affairs."

Take a step...

"Clericalism and the Liturgy" -- Food for Thought

I do get behind in my reading, but today I finally got around to an article by Dominican friar Paul Philibert in this post's heading, found in the recent Celebration publication, a liturgical resource we use here at St. Bridget. Actually it was also reprinted in an NCR article from April 5th, which you can access here; unfortunately, this shows you how far behind I really am in my reading.

As a member of the clergy myself, I guess I find topics like this interesting... this one particularly so. I'm of course not the only one who's noticed a "new clericalism" that seems to be finding favor in recent years. The article notes many symptoms, "... from cardinals unpacking their 15-foot trains of scarlet silk ... to seminarians and young priests living full time in cassocks; from the disappearance of inclusive language in church texts and preaching, to the nearly exclusive focus upon clerical vocations in diocesan letters. These details are debatable; they vary from place to place. Far more significant is the underlying vision and practice of what goes on in the local church."

Fr. Philibert then notes three aspects of "an implicit popular theology of the church that appears to be widespread."
"In this popular theology, the priest represents Christ, while the people represent those to whom Christ ministered. However, I have yet to hear anyone echo the clear teaching of St. Paul that each of the baptized is an alter Christus -- another Christ -- and has a vocation to share the church's mission through an apostolic life in the ordinary world."
"In this popular theology, the ordained priest is understood to be the one who is active in the Eucharist ... while the people are sacramentally passive as recipients of the priest's sacred action ... This reduction of the laity to passive bystanders instead of active participants in Catholic worship is the most characteristic manifestation of clericalism."
"One additional aspect of this ... theology has to do with the Holy Spirit. It imagines that if the Spirit is bestowed on the faithful, it will come exclusively through the ministry of the ordained ... This ignores the rich teaching of Romans and 1 Corinthians that baptism gives the faithful the power to live and act under the impulse of the Holy Spirit and to be powerful witnesses to God's action in the world."

Fr. Philibert isn't describing anything that is as yet very well-developed as a theology, but it's clearly a trend. And it's not a trend that's arising from the people of God, although I acknowledge that some may welcome it; it's more of a "top-down" thing. I think I'm glad that as a deacon I'm on one of the bottom rungs -- good company. That's where Jesus hung out.

But where does this go from here? I committed myself to being a disciple a long time before I ever applied to be a deacon. Are we not really calling the laity to be full & active disciples? As a parishioner wrote to me the other day: "A funny thought I had this morning....what if that somewhat tired adage of Pray, Pay, and Obey transformed into Pray, Convey, and Portray (Christ)?"

A Mothers' Day PEACE

I usually am aware of my next "preaching date," and the scripture readings for the day. A couple of weeks ago, after my last scheduled homily, I looked up the readings for this past weekend -- Mothers' Day, as it happened -- and found the gospel of John, 14:23-29, in which Jesus gives the gift of Peace to his apostles. I knew immediately that I had to speak about peace, but I also know also that people are very conflicted about it, and that includes our parishioners. I didn't want to "preach to the choir," as the saying goes...

My personal history, which I've shared with parishioners on different occasions, is that I was a Conscientious Objector during the Vietnam War, and instead of spending a couple of years in battle, I spent four years in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. That changed my life -- no doubt as dramatically as spending two years in Vietnam may have changed my life.

Sixth Sunday of Easter(C), 2010, Mothers’ Day Weekend

Good morning. It’s again a pleasure to have the honor of sharing some reflections with you today. It’s especially an honor to share these words on Mothers’ Day Weekend. That’s right, it’s Mothers’ Day WEEKEND – Joan reminds me of that, every year!

I hope you recognized today’s gospel as coming from the night of the Last Supper, in fact from just a few minutes after Jesus stunned his apostles by washing their feet. As you just heard, in our passage for today, Jesus says, “Whoever loves me will keep my word,” and follows it immediately by saying these words that we hear every time we celebrate the Eucharist, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you,” and he then adds “Not as the world gives do I give it to you.”

And then it is but a few hours later that Jesus shows by his personal actions just how far this peace goes that he is talking about. For when they come to seize Jesus in the garden, Peter draws a sword and strikes, but Jesus tell him to put it away, and heals the ear. And when he is dying on the cross, being mocked by those who are torturing him, he prays, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

It was very clear for Christians in the early Church what those words of peace meant. For of course, those words went along with other clear teachings from Jesus about peace and love, such as in Matthew’s account of the Beatitudes, when Jesus says “Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God.” And just so there would be no mistake, Jesus went even further: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you; so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” And in Luke, Jesus puts it this way: “If you only love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them… Love your enemies…and you will be children of the Most High.”

I say again, it was very clear for early Christians what those words of peace meant, because for 300 years Christians refused to engage in war. For three centuries, no Christian teacher or author that we know of approved of Christian participation in battle, and involvement in the army even in peacetime was frowned upon. The early Church theologian Tertullian had pithy advice for soldiers who converted to Christianity: quit the army, or be martyred by the army for refusing to fight.

It should be obvious by now that I’m going somewhere with this homily, but before any of you turn me off – please, don’t. First, I’m not going to talk politics today. And second, there are people I love and honor here in our parish. I remember when Onny Tabares returned from Iraq – he was sitting right here in front, and we rejoiced that he got home safely, and could return to the classroom as a teacher. And I officiated at the wedding of Dan Bugbee and Jennifer Cross, and prayed very hard for Dan when he loyally served his tours in Iraq, so that he could return home safely. And I know there are many others in this parish… in our parish Hall you can see that lovely needlepoint with the Prayer of St. Bridget – it was made by Admiral Frank Helmer, one of our parish founders. I always stop and thank God when I see 90-year old Captain Earl Vanderwalker walk slowly and courageously and very determinedly to his seat right over there on the weekends.

These are good men! And yet, we cannot just erase the words of Jesus about peace, or deny the example of his life, and we should not try to water down or explain away his words somehow. Jesus said them and lived them, and the early Christians knew what he meant.

Today, I want you to just consider something else, and pray about it. That something is a myth, but it is not a Christian myth; it’s a very old myth that pre-dates Christianity. If you google the word “myth,” you will find that a myth is “a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero, with or without a basis of fact or natural explanation.” All of us here have read stories that embody this particular myth. We’ve all watched TV shows and movies that retell its storyline. Our children learn this myth from their earliest years, in their cartoons and comic books, and they play video games that teach them this myth. I first heard this myth given a name a couple of years ago in this book, “The Powers That Be," written by a theologian and scripture scholar named Walter Wink, and it’s called the “Myth of Redemptive Violence” and it is the real myth of the modern world. This myth enshrines the belief that it is violence that is redemptive (not the cross); it is violence and the threat of violence that protects us and saves us, and therefore it is violence that we must trust in. It is one of the oldest continuously repeated stories in the world, and this belief is so successful because it doesn’t seem to be “mythic” in the least.

Let me read you a simple example…this one’s from my childhood: Popeye and Bluto! “In a typical segment, Bluto abducts a screaming and kicking Olive Oyl, Popeye’s girlfriend. When Popeye attempts to rescue her, the massive Bluto beats Popeye to a pulp, while Olive Oly helplessly stands by and wrings her hands. At the last moment, as our hero oozes to the floor, and Bluto is trying, in effect, to rape Olive Oyl, a can of spinach pops from Popeye’s pocket and spills into his mouth. Transformed by this infusion of power, he easily demolishes the villain and rescues his beloved. The format never varies. Neither party ever gains any insight or learns from these encounters. They never sit down and discuss their differences. Repeated defeats do not teach Bluto to honor Olive Oyl’s humanity, and repeated beatings do not teach Popeye to swallow his spinach before the fight.”

Once you understand this pattern you can begin to see it endlessly. Nothing kills the hero, though for the first ¾ of the story he (rarely she) suffers a lot and appears doomed, until he miraculously breaks free, vanquishes the villain, and restores order. Examples for children would include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the X-Men, Transformers, the Fantastic Four, the Superman family, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Batman and Robin, Spiderman, even Tom and Jerry. Estimates vary, but the average child is reported to log roughly 36,000 hours of television by age 18, viewing some 15,000 murders. I hope that’s high – but whatever the numbers are, they’re huge. What church can even remotely keep pace with the myth of redemptive violence in hours spent teaching children or, frankly, in the excitement of its presentation?

And if you want to find adult movies, just look at most of the action movies or TV shows – Bruce Willis & all the Die Hard Movies, Clint Eastwood and Dirty Harry, Charles Bronson, all those John Wayne movies, and just about any western you’ll ever see. Hey, they’re all my favorites too, ask Joan!

It’s not that we don’t have our own Christian heroes that present better, far nobler and courageous values – we do! And it’s not that we don’t have plenty of examples, even in our modern world, where the power of love and nonviolence are stronger than violence – we do! In fact, I find it rather ironic to be giving this homily today on Mothers' Day weekend, because if mothers were in charge of the myths that we live by, they would be teaching us stories about understanding others, learning how to get along, and resolving our difficulties. And we would have a different world.

I’ve spoken long enough here today, and so I would like just to conclude with words from the beginning of our gospel that I find rather haunting in the light of all this: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.” Amen, and God bless you.

Deacon Denny Duffell, May 8/9, 2010