Hunker Down

30 years ago one of my sisters and two nephews and I went white water rafting.  We had been warned about an area downstream where there were a lot of rocks on the right.  We were told to paddle hard to the left.  We failed.  We decided  to stop paddling, hunker down, and hold on tight to some part of the interior of the raft.  We were bounced around as if we were in a pinball machine, but we made it through and continued on downstream.
The memory comes back to me now as the best way to deal with the current issues in our Church.  Stop trying now to change the course, hunker down, and hang on to what's interior, Love whom we sometimes call God.

Perspective

If you can keep your head when all about you

are losing theirs and blaming it on you....

Perhaps Rudyard Kipling's verse is the best advice in this crisis in the Church. Here are some things that might give us some perspective on the sex crisis:

Get to know a victim and listen to her/his story.  

Note that the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report says that since 2002 when most dioceses adopted very strict guidelines there has been a drastic reduction of abuse reported.

Notice that the same Jury reports heterosexual as well as homosexual misconduct.

Imagine how far, far more priests and bishops remain good pastors.

If you think this is the worst, read the history of the church.

We will serve YHWH

This is the sight that greeted me on my Monday morning walk.  August 20?  It just ain't right!

This Sunday we will be treated  to the only passage from the Book of Joshua that made it into the lectionary.  It's in the last chapter (24:1-2; 15-17; 18b.)  The tribes of Israel have settled in the "Promised Land" and things are at peace.  Joshua, Moses' successor, has grown old.  He calls the tribes together and asks them what gods they will follow.  "As for me and my household," he says, "We will serve YHWH (God's proper name that God gave to Moses.)  The tribes respond that it was YHWH who brought them out of slavery in Egypt.  "Therefore we also will serve YHWH, for he is our God."  Both this reading and the Gospel challenge us to make a counter-cultural choice to let God draw us into our Father's household.

Without Any Care

I don't know what these are, but I want them in my yard.  My neighbor has been dead for many years, but every year at this time, without any care, this bush grows and blooms bountifully.

In the middle of the last century Karl Rahner said that the Christian of the future would be either a mystic or nothing.  I think of someone who doesn't have to look to an institution to have a direct relationship with God, someone who sees God in every person and in every bit of creation and loves God there.  Did Rahner foresee times like these when we may feel without any care?

"Eternal Life" begins now.

This weekend, as we finish reading from John's chapter 6, Peter says to Jesus, "You have the words of eternal life." (6:68)  In John's Gospel when Jesus uses the phrase "eternal life," he's not talking about after we die.  Jesus shares with us his very own life here and now and forever.  When Jesus is talking with Nicodemus in chapter 3, he says, "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." (3:16)  Starting right now all we need do is surrender and Jesus lives and grow in us.

To Whom Shall We Go!

Oddly enough this is a sunrise reflecting in a north sky.

It is easy to feel disgust with the current reports of clergy sexual abuse.  Some are tempted to quit the Church.  They mistake the leaders of the Church for the whole Church.   The Church is really all the faithful.  Anytime things are too dark to see clearly, it is our love of God and of Jesus and of the whole people of God that enables us to hang in there.  Sunrise even in the north sky!
At one point some disciples stop following Jesus because they cannot accept his teaching.  Jesus turns to the apostles and asks the very painful question, "Will you also go away?" It is good old Peter who asks, "Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life. " (John 6:59-69) 
Really, to whom shall we go!

Father-centered Mass

Saturday's sunset.
As a boy, I thought the Mass was aimed at Jesus.  As we began using missals with the English translation of what the priest was saying and much later when the priest prayed in English, it became clear that Mass was aimed at the Father.  We unite ourselves to Jesus and offer ourselves wholeheartedly to the Father.

Unity of the Spirit

As scandal begins to rock the Church again it helps me to reflect on the unity that binds all of us together, good and bad.  St. Paul urges us to live in humility.  Any goodness any of us finds in ourselves is God's work.  That awareness creates in us a gentleness and patience with those who fall, as well as a deep concern for those who have been harmed.  "Support each other in love." (Ephesians 4:2)

Bread from Heaven

I started getting company on July 11 and haven't been here since.
I meditated on John 6:24-35 a few days ago.  Jesus uses the phrase "bread from heaven" as a symbol of himself and his teaching.  "The bread of God is the bread which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."  Love, whom we sometimes call God, takes on human flesh and and shares his life with the whole human race.  He feeds our minds with who and what he is .