Signed, sealed and delivered

from film Pay It Forward, courtessy of mission1226.wordpress.com

•      In the film based on the novel Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde, middle schooler Trevor McKinney becomes completely engaged in a project assigned by his social studies teacher Mr. Simonet, who tells his students to think of something creative that will change the world in a positive way. Trevor's project of paying a favor forward rather than backward for three people becomes a national movement, a kind of revolution that propels people into active motion, which generates profound change for the common good for thousands of people, like the effect of a stone thrown into a pond of water and watching the ripple effects.                                                                            The tragic outcome (no spoiler, you'll have to read the book or watch the film) does not snuff out the light that Trevor begins with an idea that he puts into action. Unknown to Trevor, his mother and his teacher, the light of healing, community and true charity grows like a sunrise lights the sky at the beginning of a new day, when the sky appears to be at its darkest point. One person, a young person who took his teacher's challenge to heart created change in the world. 

The Take Away: If we have been baptized as a Christian, a follower and a disciple of Jesus, we follow the Gospel beyond the significant signs of water, oil and prayers at our initial baptism and initiation into the Church - the people of God - to what we've all been called to be - the light of Christ for all people, to create positive change for the common good in the world."

Signed, sealed and delivered" may be the best acknowledgment for our mission in the world - to put on Christ, signed with the cross of Christ as baptized Christians, sealed with the grace that we need as baptized disciples that propels us into the real world of commitment and delivered to the community of the world for the common good of all people as the Light of Christ.                                             

Whatever, wherever and however we find ourselves engaged with the world, that's our mission. Be the Light, signed , sealed and delivered to be who we are in whatever way Christ calls upon us to be. Like young Trevor who took his teacher's assigment to heart, we're called upon as baptized Christians to do likewise - follow our teacher, take the Gospel to heart and create change in the world, one person at a time and bring them into the Light of Christ.                                                                                                     

I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice,
I have grasped you by the hand;
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant of the people,
a light for the nations,
to open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness. IS 42:1-4, 6-7

Signed, sealed and delivered. That's us. 

Night Prayer on the Solemnity of Mary, The Holy Mother of God

"And Mary kept these things, reflecting on them in her heart." Lk 2:16-20

The Priscilla catacombs contain the oldest known Marian paintings, from the early third century. Mary is shown with Jesus on her lap.The new year begins with the culmination of Mary's 'yes" to God's will for her on behalf of the human race. She is Theotokos - God's mother. Depicted here from the Priscilla Catacombs, Mary nurses Jesus from her own body after an exhausting labor and birth with Joseph's help in a borrowed hollow, surrounded and hallowed by the poorest of the poor. The unknown future must have overwhelmed them both.

Mary was asked to accept to be the receptacle of God made fully human for the life of the world. Joseph was asked to partner with her and accept his role as spouse and earthly parent.

Talk about mysterious. 

We begin a new year today. May we be as open to the mystery of our own lives as the mother of God who said "Yes" to an unknown future , as open and giving as her spouse, Joseph and as willing to be available when God calls upon us to undergo some unknown task whose outcome we may never know. We can only trust that our own 'yes' will bear fruit because God is with us always. 

Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of death. Amen.  

The 2nd Day of Christmas - building the muscle mass of faith

In the middle of my morning workout, my trainer of four years commented on the number of people that show up at the gym following days of feasting. "Despite their good intentions, people think that a couple of weeks of working out will somehow work like magic and they'll suddenly be in shape. In a month, all these new people will be gone and back to their old ways of eating and not exercising. The statistics show that 2 out of 100 people will stay faithful to workouts and make physical activity a part of their lives to see results in body and health. You have to become a disciple and stay faithful. Otherwise, people are wasting their time."

My trainer wasn't judging anyone but simply stating a truism that I've seen in the gym as well. The people I know by name show up every day or at least several times a week to work out. We're a community of gym rats who get one another. We talk every now and then about our personal lives, our particular workouts, discuss tips about food and workout routines. However brief or lengthy our encounters, we're all in the gym to work hard to build muscle mass, keep moving and sustain a healthy body.  

When vast multitudes show up around this time of year or when swim suit season begins, around April, regular gym folks do try to encourage people to stay when intermittent people become tired and feel as though they're not getting anywhere quickly. Many admit that they don't like physical discomfort and many of them just don't want to change their lifestyle habits. "It's too hard." "It takes too much time." "I don't like the pain; workouts hurt too much." A million excuses = 2 out of 100. 

Today, during my workout and as the sweat poured off my face, another 'new' gym client came to ask my trainer a question. I told my trainer to go ahead and talk to this person; I was working on a three-circuit of legs, chest and back and knew what to do. While I worked, I thought about the statistics my trainer quoted. "2 out of 100 people stay faithful." And then the metaphor really hit me in the middle of a bench press. 

How many of us will actually work hard as part of a daily routine to build the muscle mass of faith so we too can be "filled with grace and power and work great wonders and signs among people?" Are we gritty enough to be a faithful witness to the Gospel in concrete ways, without personal agenda so that God is always free to speak and work through us? Or will become one of the majority that falls by the wayside when our good intentions become just that after a few weeks of trying - just good intentions without action?

On this second day of Christmas and the Feast of St. Stephen, early Christian deacon and martyr, I wonder if only 2 out of 100 Christians will succeed in acquiring a new discipline and some of Stephen's zeal and courage for building new muscle mass of faith and contemplation action? Despite good intentions, how many Christians think that somehow a healthy faith just happens, kind of a wishing-makes-it so philosophy? Do we try to encourage people to stay with a faith community when intermittent 'visitors' become tired and feel as though they're not getting anywhere quickly? Building a faith life takes a lifetime of daily work and yes, it takes a village. Some people will admit to lethargy, dislike and fear for the 'discomfort' that faith often brings when building muscle mass. And too many just plain do not want to change their lifestyle habits; they're uneasy and afraid, the bottom line. 

After the merry-making and feasting ends throughout these 12 days of Christmas, will 2 out of 100 people be the only ones to stick to a routine of building the muscle mass of faith as a daily workout, not only for themselves but for the life of the world? Building the muscle mass of faith depends on the daily routine of a disciple sustained by supportive and encouraging community with really great trainers --- and just plain showing up faithfully to do the work. 

Everyone: ready, set, go......

December 24 - What Sweeter Music

http://bryandavenport.me/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/nativity-oil-painting.jpg

What Sweeter Music

Click to listen here)

What sweeter music can we bring
Than a carol, for to sing
The birth of this our heavenly King?
Awake the voice! Awake the string!

Dark and dull night, fly hence away,
And give the honor to this day,
That sees December turned to May.

Why does the chilling winter's morn
Smile, like a field beset with corn?
Or smell like a meadow newly-shorn,
Thus, on the sudden? Come and see
The cause, why things thus fragrant be:
'Tis He is born, whose quickening birth
Gives life and luster, public mirth,
To heaven, and the under-earth.

We see him come, and know him ours,
Who, with his sunshine and his showers,
Turns all the patient ground to flowers.
The darling of the world is come,
And fit it is, we find a room
To welcome him. The nobler part
Of all the house here, is the heart.

Which we will give him; and bequeath
This holly, and this ivy wreath,
To do him honour, who's our King,
And Lord of all this revelling.

What sweeter music can we bring,
Than a carol for to sing
The birth of this our heavenly King?

Music by John Rutter
Lyrics by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Advent, December 23 The great captor - loneliness

"No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor. The self-sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything, look down on others, those who have no need even of God - for them there will be no Christmas. Only the poor, the hungry, those who need someone to come on their behalf, will have that someone. That someone is God, Emmanuel, God-with-us. Without poverty of spirit there can be no abundance of God." Oscar Romero

One of the greatest gifts that I receive is found through my encounters with people who find themselves in the middle of suffering. A parent watching a son or daughter struggle through addiction and helpless but to be present to them and attempt to begin one more time to start fresh. Often, one or the other or both will ask for a prayer, to deliver a message of love to someone they love or simply to hold them because so many others have shunned them because of their situations. They tell me they feel completely alone. 

I encounter children in their mid-life years whose parents have become old, sick, forgetful, deaf, mute, blind, lame, resistant and afraid to die. In some encounters, they ask if I believe if God is real, present and question why a merciful God would allow such suffering. They plead for answers and for prayers. Often times they tell me that they feel so alone because other siblings, relatives and friends have failed to step in to assist or simply avoid them and stay away. I hold them in the moment so, for just a little while, they don't feel quite so alone in the world. 

And then there are the encounters in stores, where a kind word or gesture will spark a conversation between the people in long lines who openly share their stories with complete strangers. Wealthy, middle class or poor - there is no distinction of class, race and gender in these encounters. Such is the hunger for community that I find to be the greatest poverty, the biggest captor of all - loneliness.  

On this day before Christmas Eve, will you have an opportunity to do one small act of kindness that may alleviate even one person's poverty? How can you be a symbol of God-with-us as we approach the inconceivable nearness of God made human - Emmanuel? 

O come, O come Emmanuel

and ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear. 

Rejoice, rejoice! 

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.