June 2003

Homily for Pentecost Sunday - B - June 8, 2003
It must have been something
    for all those Parthians, Medes and Elamites, Cretans, Jews and Arabs
    from Mesoptomia, Judea, Cappodocia, Phrygia, Egypt and Libya,
it must have been something for all of them
    to suddenly understand what the Galilean apostles were saying,
    even though they were speaking in a language
    that these visitors to Jerusalem
    had never before spoken or understood.
But understand they did,
    because the Spirit of God
    helped them to hear and to comprehend
    in a way that had no natural explanation.
Of course now, the words of the apostles have been translated
    into just about every language there is.
There whole bible has been translated into at least 318 languages,
    while the Christian scriptures (the New Testament)
    has been translated into some 845 languages.
Here’s a list of 150 languages.
(Here I unrolled yards of computer printout with the names of 150 languages,
which I then draped over the altar, the word cascading over the Lord’s table.)
No, the Holy Spirit doesn’t have to exercise any divine power
    to help everyone on the face of the earth
    to hear and understand the word of God.
But perhaps there’s an even more difficult task
    to which the Spirit might address its energy and power.
Might the Spirit of God come again, to visit us,
    and let’s say, to visit us who all speak English;
might the Spirit of God come and with a mighty wind
    touch our hearts and our minds
    so that we might understand in a whole new way
        what others are saying to us,
    and that others might understand in a whole new way,
        what we are saying to them,
    and that in the process we all might find new wisdom,
        peace, tolerance, compassion, humility,
            and through all of this,
        that we might achieve a deeper understanding
            of what is true and what is false;
            what is good and what is bad;
            of what is real and what is imitation?
Is it not true that we often cannot understand
    those who speak English?
Is it not also true that those who speak English
    struggle to understand what we are saying to them
        even in their own native tongue?
Think, for a moment, of the groups the Holy Spirit might touch
    and bring about greater understanding...
How about Red Sox and Yankee fans
Democrats and Republicans
Husbands and wives who are always yelling at each other
Husbands and wives who never speak to each other
Bishop Lennon and Voice of the Faithful
Pro Life and Pro Choice activists
President Bush and Pope John Paul II on the war in Iraq
Parents and children, or brothers and sisters,
    who are always yelling at each other
        or who never speak to each other
The Catholic bishops of Massachusetts
    and the State legislature
Democrats and Republicans in Congress
Catholics and Protestants
Blacks and Whites
Liberals and conservatives
Me and myself
There’s still a lot of work for the Spirit to do,
    without even moving from one language to another.
I wonder:
    how many of us would be open to the Spirit’s touch
        if we knew that once touched by the Spirit
    we would hear the voice of those who oppose us
        with deeper understanding and compassion?
I wonder:
    how many of us would be open to the Spirit’s touch
        if we knew that once touched by the Spirit
    those who heard us would understand more deeply
        both the depths and the shallow places
            in our most strongly held convictions.
I wonder:
    are we really in search of the truth?
    or are we more interested in convincing others
        of what we have concluded the truth to be.
Inside and outside the life of the church,
    inside and outside the hearts and minds of us all,
the Spirit of God desires, deeply,
    to lead each of us to the heart of truth.
Two things are true about the truth:
    first, the truth often hurts;
    and second, the truth will set you free.
Are we ready for the truth the Spirit brings?
Are we open to it?
Do we want such truth to over over us
    in the flames of the Spirit’s presence?
God’s Spirit hovers over each of us, and all of us together,
    and over the church, and over all the peoples of the world,
as surely as that same Spirit hovered as tongues of fire
    over the apostles on that first Pentecost.
That same Spirit hovers over the table of our prayer, too,
    for it is the Spirit who comes to make our gifts holy
        and presentable to God.
It is in the Spirit food of this table that the greatest truth of all is revealed:
    Jesus is Lord,
        and we are his brothers and sisters.
What truth does the Spirit desire to speak in your heart? in mine?
What truth does the Spirit whisper that I do not want to hear?
What truth does the Spirit bring for which I long?
What truth must we be open to
    if we are to be truly counted among the brothers and sisters of Jesus?
May the Spirit of God touch each one of us
    and open us to truths we had not yet dreamed of.

Homily for Trinity Sunday - B June 15, 2003
So, has everyone read or heard of the alleged apparition
     of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a window with a leaky seal on the second floor of                                              Milton Hospital? This reminds me of a similar phenomenon several years ago
on a bank building in Clearwater, Florida -
and it’s not unlike a “frosty” image of the Mother of Jesus on the glass door of a frozen                                                       food compartment in a supermarket in New York, just a few years ago.
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that the official church has no comment on such images.
It’s a case of “the less said, the better.”
Now, I’ve only seen newspaper photographs of the window at Milton Hospital,
but a few days ago, a member of our parish drove her mother to Milton Hospital so that her                                             mother could see for herself.
Listen for a moment to the report the parishioner emailed to me.
She wrote:
     “You can see the image of what looks like Mary holding a baby.
     She does look like she’s standing on the clouds.
     But I think people are seeing it because they need to, not because Mary is really there.
     What was touching to see was the faith people have.
     They brought flowers, balloons and their rosary beads.
     People came who were sick in wheelchairs, and others who obviously needed some healing.
     It was mobbed.   People just need God.
     They want signs that God hasn’t forgotten them.
     They want signs of a better world.
     It’s all very harmless, but meaningful and touching
          in a way different than the image being ‘real.’”
There is much wisdom in my emailer’s words.
“People just need God...
They want signs to reassure them
     that God hasn’t forgotten them...   signs of a better world...”
The window at Milton Hospital probably points less to the Virgin Mary
     and more to how much “people just need God”
     and they need signs of God around them, whatever and wherever those signs might be.
And we have been hungry for those signs for a long time.
Recall the words we just heard Moses speak in the book of Deuteronomy:
     “Ask now of the days of old, before your time,
          did anything so great ever happen before?
     Did a people ever before hear the voice of God speaking from a fire?
     Did any God ever take a people to himself   by wonders and signs?”
“People just need God...
They want signs to reassure them that God hasn’t forgotten them...”
People are hungry for God, and hungry for signs of God,
     whatever and wherever those signs might be...
I received another wonderful email from another woman in the parish this week,
          and here’s what she wrote:
     “On Monday I was out for my daily walk,
          relishing one of the few decent days of this murky spring
     but still there was an almost overwhelming pall over me,
          for I was mourning the death of a very good friend...
     As I got about half way through my regular route,
          I could hear the voice of a young child who was singing.
     It made me smile to hear the obvious happiness and abandon
          this young person was showing.
     As I got closer, I saw a fairly new neighbor with her two kids,
          a 2 year old girl and her 4 year old brother.
     The little boy, I realized, was singing, with all his heart,
          "Halle, Halle, Halle, lu-u-ia".
     A sign from above on an otherwise introspective and sad day.”
A sign from above...    People just need God...
Are we not among the people who   “just need God,
     who want signs to reassure us that God hasn’t forgotten us?”
Are we not hungry for God? and hungry for signs of God
    whatever and wherever those signs might be?
Jesus spent much of the three years of his public ministry
   working signs and wonder so that the people might be reassured
     that God, in his mercy, had not forgotten them.
What signs is the Lord working today, in our lives?
Do we look for signs of God’s presence in our midst?
If some can find a sign of God on a bank in Florida, in a frozen food case in New York,
      and in a leaky hospital window in Milton,
then certainly we can find signs of God’s presence in one another,
     reassuring us that we have not been forgotten by God.
Indeed: YOU are the people,
          WE are the community whose faithful prayer
               taught a four year old boy to sing, “Halle! Halle! Halle!” -
          a little boy whose backyard song became a sign of God’s presence
               for a neighbor who “just needed God;
               who needed a sign to reassure her that in her grief, God had not forgotten her.
The two emails I received this week are signs of God, for those who need God,
     which I am pleased to pass on to you today.
We can quibble over the legitimacy of what people name as signs of God,
     but there’s no doubt that people are hungry for,
          will look for, and will find signs of God all around us:
               wherever and whatever those signs might be.
When, and where, and who are the signs of God in my life and yours?
When, and where, and how might you and I be signs of God’s reassuring presence
     for one another?
We are a people who “just need God, and signs of God...”
Hungry for God,
     let us go to the table where the Lord feeds us
          with the greatest sign of all:
               his presence in the sacrament of this altar.
Rev. Austin Fleming

Homily for Corpus Christi - B June 22, 2003

No small amount of effort
     goes into making our Sunday worship,
          (our weekly celebration of the body and blood of Christ)
     a reverent, gracious, prayerful moment of beauty,
     worthy of the God whom we praise here.
And yet, at the heart of this weekly celebration
     is a broken body, the body of a victim whose blood has been shed,
          and an innocent victim at that.
I’m referring not only to the large crucifix
     that hovers over our prayer every week,
but even more to the broken body of Christ
     we find in the eucharistic bread,
and to the new covenant sealed in Christ’s spilled blood
     which we find in the eucharistic cup.
Think of Michelangelo's great sculpture, the PIETA.
Think of the Mary, the mother of Jesus,
     holding the body of her crucified son in her lap and her arms.
Think of the pathos, the tenderness, the intimacy of that image...
That is what we do here, each week.
With tenderness, we hold the broken body of Christ close to our hearts,
     intimately, consuming his presence,
          in thanksgiving for his great love of us.
We approach the gift of the Lord’s brokenness
     in our own brokenness
          as individuals and as the whole church.
Our gathering here today, and very Sunday, is filled with:
     broken hearts,   broken memories,
     broken promises, broken spirits,
     broken relationships, broken bodies,
     broken hopes and broken dreams.
Is there anyone among us who does not bring some brokenness
          to the broken body of Christ?
We, the broken, come to the one who was broken for our sakes,
     to share in this simple bread broken in his memory,
          so that our brokenness might be healed.
So that his blood, shed for us,
     might transfuse our weakness and hopelessness
     and course through our veins with healing and vitality.
But the eucharist is no magic potion promising instant healing.
Rather, the eucharist invites us with our brokenness
     into the brokenness of Jesus.
And if we dare venture that close to his heart,
     then we will find that we have come to that place which is
          the heart of all mercy,
          the heart of all healing,
          the heart of our hearts.
Ours is a Lord who is no stranger to our pain or sorrow,
     no stranger to our hurt and brokenness.
His presence in the eucharist of this altar
     has for its purpose what was the work of the cross:
          the forgiveness of sins, the healing of broken hearts,
          and the promise of peace.
How much do we need the eucharist today!
How much do those broken in spirit -
     especially those whose spirits have been hurt by the church or its priests,
     those whose hurt makes it difficult and even impossible
          to come to the altar of eucharist - how much do they need this healing.
How much does the whole church stand in need of the healing the eucharist offers,
     in need of being transfused by the mercy and power of God.
How much does each of us with our own brokenness
     need to come to this place, this cross,
          this table, this sacrament - again and again:
               to be refreshed and revitalized
               by the gift of Christ’s body and blood.
At the heart of our Sunday prayer is the broken body of Jesus
     and the Spirit of Jesus risen among us,
     risen with healing in his arms and touch.
Pray with me as we go once more to his table
     that we will not be afraid to reveal to the Lord the brokenness we bring with us,
and that the Spirit of the risen Christ
     will open us to the healing offered to us in this sacrament.
-Rev. Austin Fleming

Homily for the Solemnity of Peter and Paul    -    June 29, 2003
“Upon this rock I will build my church,
     and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.”
There are some who wonder if the crisis in the church will “do the church in.”
Numbers are down, collections are down, spirit is down.
Was Jesus right?
Is it true that nothing, not even the gates of the netherworld,
     can prevail in victory over the church?
I think Jesus was right.
And I want to offer you some proof of that.
You know from our parish bulletin
     that several months ago Nancy and Scott Arsenault, of our parish,
          had triplets, namely: Audrey, Patrick, and Casey.
Since they already had Madeline, who’s about a year and a half old,
     the triplets raise the number of their children to four.
Today we will baptize the triplets at the 11:30 Mass.
This week, Nancy sent us a letter which I want to share with you.
We can consider it our fourth reading for this Sunday.
So................................

A Reading from the Letter of Nancy to the Church in West Concord

Hi Father Fleming,
I am sitting here in this heat,
     awaiting the midnight feeding of my constantly hungry triplets
     and I cannot stop thinking about how Scott and I
     never would have survived without help from so many parishioners.
We have been rescued by these folks so many times
     that we felt you should really know what has been going on
     in this crazy place we call home.
(In the following, to protect the identity of the very generous, I have changed the names Nancy gave me...)
Mary Brown, of course, has been unbelievable.
She is not my mother, nor are these her grandchildren,
     but she has been as dependable and as caring
     as any relative could have been to us, and more so.
She and her husband, Jim, are here at least 3 times a week
     for feedings that last two hours at times -
     sometimes at 11 P.M. one day and then back here at 6 A.M. the next morning.
Over the past few months,
   Jim and Mary have really struck us as being a couple
      who are true role models as marriage partners, parents, and Catholics.
Ginny and Bill Jones are also incredible.
Bill took Scott aside one night
     and told him that we should consider their home phone number
     our personal 24-hour hot-line - and he meant it!
Last night, Ginny came over in an emergency call
     to help us at 8:30 as all the kids were so hot,
     Scott was trying to install an air conditioner,
     and I had had a temp of a hundred and two for four days.
Ginny and another friend sent us all to bed
     and they stayed to do the 2 A.M. feeding.
Tonight Ginny and Bill and Mary were over here for hours,
     and they insisted that Scott and I leave the house and take a break!
And we did!
When all this began, Scott could not believe
     that any husbands would want to help us at all
and now he has so much admiration for men like Jim and Bill
     that he sees himself in a whole new light as well,
and now is suggesting that as soon as we are able,
     we will give back as much as these people have given us.
Emily Johnson and Bob and Susan Smith
     have made meals for us every single week for two months -
and after dropping off the meal
     they stay as long as we need them for the babies’ feedings -
          usually hours!
Margaret O’Brien feeds the babies two mornings a week at 6 A.M.
     on her way to work, as does Wendy Callahan.
Ann Rossi and her friends at Concord Green
     have been cooking all kinds of little treats
     which she drives over to us.
Cathy Long came before the babies were born
     and talked with me for hours about triplet birth problems
          and how to get through them -
     while she paid for a baby-sitter to watch her triplets!

And there’s Nancy Bond, and her daughter Rose Burns, a nurse in Boston,
     and her other daughter, 16 year old Donna who is now our
          "Mother's Helper" 3 days a week.
They are here every week -
     in fact, at least one of them is here almost every day.
They’re planning to try to give me and Scott a full day or weekend away.
These are just a few of the names, Fr. Fleming.
There are more.
And every one of these wonderful people has shared with us
     about how inspired they have been
     by the preaching, good example,
     and all the many opportunities for service and outreach there are
          in our parish.
It truly shows the presence of the Holy Spirit
     who works and lives in everyone.
A parish like ours fulfills a need for community and belonging
     and self worth that is so often missing in everyday life.
In our parish, without even trying,
     you can see God more clearly then ever before.
We are grateful for how openly we can all talk about our faith
     with all those who have come to help us.
Scott and I think it’s because we all believe
          and come from the same fabric within the parish - which helps so much.
Scott told me he drives to work at 5 A.M.
     and just thinks about these people, over and over.
He said he can't wait to tell the triplets
     all about each one who has helped us.
We can never repay these people,
     but as a family, we are going to start giving back
          as soon as we can
     and we will certainly teach our children that this is the way to live.
All of this shows what a great difference the church can make in one's life
     - despite what goes on in the greater world.
Anyway, sorry this has been so long - but the babies are still asleep!
This is the most “alone time” I've had since they've been home.
Scott and I both talked this evening and felt you really should know
     how far reaching the church support has been for us
     and how much we so appreciate it.
Thank you,
Nancy
Well, such is the life of the Catholic church in West Concord,
     in the parish of Our Lady Help of Christians.
Jesus was right.
In the end, nothing can or will prevail
     against the faithful, self-giving love of the people of God.
Structures may crumble,
     bureaucracies may fall,
          and the church will change -
and it will survive even its own worst failings
     through the mercy and power of God
     and through fidelity of its people.
Not even the gates of the netherworld
     will prevail against such faith.
It is into that church, our church,
     and into this faith, our faith,
that we will baptize the children of Nancy and Scott Arsenault:
     Audrey, Patrick, and Casey.

Rev. Austin Fleming