Sept-Dec

Homily for Holy Family Sunday, December 29, 2002 - Year B

There are, of course, all kinds of families:
    families of origin, nuclear families, extended families,
    the church family, troubled families, happy families.
    adoptive families, families of different faiths, struggling families,
    separated families, divorced families, step families,
    single parent families, families with gay parents,
    families with lesbian parents, small families, big families,
    growing families, parish families, close families, distant families...
    “his” family, “her” family...
And you can be sure of this:
the families you THINK are perfect, are pretty much just as crazy as yours.

What all this means is:
    - all families have problems
    - all families need healing
    - and all families need God’s help
One of the greatest joys of my ministry in this parish has been the conversations I’ve                 had with a number of families, old and young, but younger ones in particular,             conversations in which parents have told me what a real and significant difference faith             and relationship to our faith community has made in their individual and family life at home.

In fact, I received a number of Christmas cards, acknowledging gratitude
for what Our Lady Help of Christians parish has meant in the lives of our families
        - especially in this past troubled year.

Faith makes a difference. Worship makes a difference.
Faithfulness to worship makes a big difference!
Praying with the parish family offers support and hope
for individual families and individual family members.

In many real ways,   the parish IS family to some of our older parishioners
who find their community and friendships within the larger parish circle.

In a very real and important way, you are MY family, and you ARE my home.

The parish family is meant to be a place of safety, compassion, community, nourishment, prayer and worship.
The parish family is meant to be a haven, a harbor, a place where one feels at home              with God and with other believers.

And just as the parish families nourish individual families, so do individual families nourish           the parish family by their presence, their involvement, their work,   their prayer,                    and their charity.

The security of parish family life has been shaken to its core by the news of this past year
and the revealing of stories about our church family which have hurt us deeply.

Our church family is very much in need of prayer and healing as we learn from the past
and make new paths into our faith family’s future.

The altar is our family table.
We go there because our brother, Jesus, invites us there to sit down with him                          and to share the family supper which the eucharist is.

Let us pray at the Lord’s table this day
    that the parish family will will continue to grow
    and to welcome and nourish its individual families
    as Christ welcomes and feeds each of us at this table.

- Rev. Austin Fleming

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Homily for Christmas 2002

There was a certain danger about the birth of Jesus,
    in God’s venturing into time as we know it,
a danger that the One who is beyond all time, who is eternal,
    for whom yesterday and now and tomorrow are all one
a danger that God, in becoming one like us long ago,
    might one day in the future be forgotten,
        or remembered only as an historical curiosity.

Indeed, there are people in our lives
    whom we only remember on their birthday or at Christmas,
and of course there are those who only remember Jesus
    on Christmas which is his birthday.
The was a danger in God’s coming among us as a poor child,
a danger that Jesus, like other poor children,
        might be taken for granted,
            get lost in the shuffle, or be abandoned.

And how tragically we have learned in this past year
    how easily children can be taken for granted...

There was a danger in the pure unity of humanity and divinity in Jesus,
    a danger that we would prefer his divinity to his humanity
        and place him, like a statue, on a pedestal
and somehow miss the whole point
    that it   is   in his humanity
    and in our relationships with one another
        that we will most easily discover his presence among us.
We bow to what has been cast in plaster
    and are numb to his shoulder pressed tight against our own
        in a crowded church or in the press of crowds at the mall.

There was a danger in Jesus being born
    in obscurity, in poverty, in confusion, in fear, in homelessness -
a danger that we would sanitize all of that,
    make it warm and glowing,
        and not come to understand that in all ages, including our own,
    Jesus continues to reveal himself especially
        among the marginalized, the poor,
            the frightened and the homeless.

There was a danger in Jesus’ being born
    in a time when the world was at peace,
a danger that we might come to think that peace is his work,
    and not understand that the crafting, the making
        and the keeping of peace is our work
            entrusted, especially, to us who believe in him,
            who follow him, and who celebrate his birth.
There was a danger in God becoming one like us in Jesus,
    a danger that we would not “get it,”
    that we would misunderstand, that we would turn it inside out,
    that the season of celebrating his birth would become,
        as Dickens wrote,
        “a time of want felt keenly by the poor
            and a time of rejoicing for those with plenty...”
    ...all upside down, backwards and inside out...

Listening to a radio talk show early this morning
    I heard one caller, an atheist,
        complain about all the Christmas hoopla
        through which he was expected to live at this time of year.
A subsequent caller took the atheist to task
    reminding him of how important Christmas is for the retail economy
    and that without it we would be in danger
        of even deeper fiscal trouble.
Nonsense!
Take away Christmas
    and we will find another reason for the season of spending,
another reason for spending too much money
    on things that are passing, things that do not last,
        and very often on things that do not matter at all.

So much of our Christmas celebration does not depend on Jesus at all
    and, in fact, has little to do with Jesus.

And therein lies the blessing in all the danger.

If we are willing to contemplate seriously and prayerfully and honestly
    the danger of how God chose to come among us
we will find a well spring of grace in what is left
    when pare away all that we have done
        to hide the dangerous beauty of our God taking flesh
            and choosing to live among us, and even within us.

This past year our own faith tradition,
    especially in the archdiocese of Boston,
has had cause to examine carefully how dangerously careless
    how tragically thoughtless we can be
    in living with, touching, the incarnate presence of God among us.

I hope, I pray that we have learned that in the mind and heart of God
    the offer of grace is always in the now, and just ahead of us,
        and is offered to free us any ways in the past
            when we have put the institution before people,
                prestige before honesty,
                    and favor before law.

How much we need, this Christmas,
    to contemplate the innocence,
        the purity, the vulnerability of the Christ child
and to know that every time we care for a child
    we care for Christ himself,
and every time we care for Christ,
    we care for our very God.

We need, this Christmas, to ponder the blend of humanity and divinity
    in Jesus, born of Mary, born of the Spirit, born for us.
And we need to remember that his divinity touches our humanity
    but still leaves us as servants of his truth and gospel.
Though the church is the body of Christ,
    it’s humanity is ever in need of Christ’s divinity
        to guide us, to shape us, to mold us into the body
            he has created and called us to be.
Our own creations are plaster models,
    what Jesus calls to be within us and among us
        is the very life of Emmanuel: God with us.

And we need to ponder this Christmas morning
    that Jesus continues to be born among us
and that there is still no room at the inn for him,
    there is too often no place at the table for him,
        and his welfare is continually shadowed
        by the history and threat of violence, abuse and war.

The blessing in the danger of how God chose to come among us
    will be discovered by those ponder the story of his birth
        as prayerfully and honestly as they know how.
Otherwise, we are left with Christmas card versions
        of what it meant for God to visit us, his people,
            and to make his home among us, and within us.

Jesus was born in a cave or a stable where animals were kept
    and he was laid in a manger, a feed box.
Those who speak French don’t miss the play on words here:
    when you say manger with a French accent, it is “manger”
        which means, “to eat.”

Come then, this morning and live dangerously!
Live on the edge of the truth of the gospel story
    of the birth of Jesus.
Come to the table, the feedbox,
    of the one who invites us to lay down our lives
        for our neighbors, especially for the poor,
            as he laid down his life for us.

Come and eat at the table of blessing, and raise the cup of rejoicing
    for our God has been born among us
        and in the danger of his coming there is blessing for all.

Rev. Austin Fleming
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Homily for Fourth Sunday of Advent - B                           December 22, 2002

About a month ago, in my letter in the bulletin,
    I invited you to respond to this question:
        “What continues to draw you to Mass at Our Lady Parish
        at a time when many Catholics have decided
        not to worship with the church on the Lord’s Day?”
I have received nearly 100 replies to that question,
    the greatest response I’ve received to anything in the last 8 years.

In the responses I received there was the recurring theme
    that people are faithful to Sunday worship in our parish
    because they find here a family, a community,
    in which the scriptures are preached in a compelling fashion,
    in which outreach to the poor enjoys a high priority,
    in which the praise of God is offered up in beautiful music,
    in which the company of other believers
        offers support and encouragement,
    and in which the table of the Lord offers the gift of the eucharist.

The family, the community people find in our parish
    is like the house or the household of faith
    in today’s first scripture.

To the people of Israel God promised a household of faith
    to which he would be faithful
    and in which he would fulfill his promises.

In Jesus, the doors of that household are opened even wider,
    inviting in all who would answer the call of faith.

In the gospel today, we read how Jesus took up residence
    in the “house of Mary’s womb.”
It is either fascinating or predictable - or both! -
    that God should choose to enter our lives
    by confining himself,
        the One to whom all power and might belong,
    by confining himself to the intimacy of a woman’s womb,
    and by nestling himself against the nourishing warmth of her breasts
        once he was born of her body.

We read that
Mary, the mother of Jesus,
    was startled and frightened by this prospect
but we, perhaps, have come to take it for granted,
as we sometimes take Jesus for granted.

The danger in our God’s coming among us as a poor child is that,
    like so many other poor children throughout history,
        he might get lost in the shuffle,
            forgotten and abandoned, taken for granted.

The image of “house” is not only in the scriptures.
In one of our favorite seasonal classics we read,
    “T’was the night before Christmas and all through the   -   house -
        not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse...”

We all hope that Saint Nicholas will visit our house...
In fact, we are willing to reform our lives
    in preparation for his coming:
“He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake,
He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake...”

In anticipation of the gifts St. Nicholas might bring to our households,
    we are willing to work at being “good for the sake of being good...”

Not just on Christmas, but every day of the year,
    Jesus wants to visit our house:
        the house of our parish,
        the household of faith,
        the house of our family,
        and the house of our own hearts.

Every day of the year,
    Jesus wants to confine himself to the womb of our hearts
    and to nestle himself warmly and close to us
    in an intimacy that may at first startle and frighten us
    but an intimacy which is meant only to bring us peace,
    and to nurture in us a deeper hunger for his presence.

Over the next few days we will be making our homes ready
    to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Bethlehem means “house of bread”
    and we are gathered in the house of God’s people right now
    to share in the bread of his house, and the cup of his table,
    with which he nourishes us, his household, his family of faith.

May the food we share at this table
    open our hearts to his being born within us, and from us.

Rev. Austin Fleming

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Homily for Third Sunday of Advent - December 15, 2002
Isaiah 61:1-2a, 10-11    1 Thessalonians 5:16-24    John 1:6-8, 19-28

Rejoice always!
So writes St. Paul.

Always?
Well, that’s what Paul counsels us.

How about this week just past -
    should we rejoice over the resignation of Cardinal Law?
I, for one, do not take any joy in his resignation.
I do find some measure of relief in his leaving, and the events of the past week do give me       some hope that we have taken an important step down a long path of healing, reconciliation, justice, compassion, and much needed change.

But I do not rejoice in the cardinal’s resignation. In fact, I know that I need to be careful in these  angry times not to nourish bitterness or resentment in my heart - something that tempts me often  these days.

Rather, I need to look at myself, at my own life as a Christian and as a minister of the gospel,
and, as St. Paul also counsels us,
        “to test everything:
            retaining what is good,
            and refraining from what is not.

If we are learning anything from the current events in church life it is this:
        that in preaching the gospel there must be:
        no tolerance of arrogance; no appetite for control;
        no thirst for power; and no secrets kept
        to hide from the larger church what is very much the business of the larger church.

Rather, there must be a fostering of humility; a surrender of control that tries to manage the people of God rather than minister to them;
a relinquishing of power that it might be shared with the powerless;
and a transparency that strips away anything that covers what must be held up to the light of      the gospel message.

I say all of this as much of myself and the ministry of our own parish as I say it of Cardinal      Law and, now, Bishop Lennon and the Archdiocese of Boston, as I say it of the Pope and       of the whole Roman Catholic Church.

Isaiah the prophet was delighted simply to have good news to bring to the poor,
    to have healing to bring to the brokenhearted,
    to be able to proclaim liberty to those who were held captive,
    release to those who where shackled,
    and the promise of God’s favor in the lives of the whole people.

John the Baptist was thought by many to be one more crack pot announcing the coming of the Messiah. Only those who understood his call for repentance took him seriously;
only those who understood that in their own hearts there needed to be cleared a road,
a path along which the Messiah might make his way into their lives.

The joy in Isaiah’s heart and the rejoicing that Paul tells we should do - always -
is a joy which does not depend on yesterday’s news or today’s stock market,                             or tomorrow’s weather.
Rather, it is a joy that survives the worst of times and lifts us up in the best of times.

Joseph Campbell, of public television fame, spent his life studying the world’s religions.
He summarized the goal of all faiths and mythologies in these words:
    “to participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.”

To participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world...

That is, to confront and reach out in healing to the sorrows around us
    confident that sorrow will not have the final word, that despair will not win out,
    that the deepest of wounds can be healed.

As we approach Christmas this year we do so mindful of much sorrow,
of damage done to souls, and of faith shaken and rocked.
We must look and pray for that deeper joy, the joy that helps us wade into the waters             of the world’s sorrows trusting that we will not drown in them and that, indeed, we can       reach out in rescue to those who have lost the joy that saves us from despair.

Our church, like all faiths, is meant to help us participate joyfully in the sorrows of                       the world. And in these days, we need God’s grace to help us reach out to the sorrows of the abused, and to participate joyfully in a faith shaken by the sorrows of its own story.

Isaiah promised the people of Israel a healing and liberty they thought to good to be true.
St. Paul calls us to a kind of joy which many may think has passed them by.
John the Baptist calls us to a repentance that roots out what inhibits the deepest joy
and clears a path for the joy that only God can give us.

Each time we celebrate the eucharist we participate joyfully in the suffering and death of     Jesus, and through Jesus, we participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.

May the healing and favor he offers us in the sacrament of this altar nourish in us a deep joy and a healing peace we can offer to those whose sorrows have become our own.

Rev. Austin Fleming
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Homily for December 8, 2002 - Second Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11 2 Peter 3:8-14 Mark 1: 1-8

What a week this has been!

I’d like to address some of what has happened in the past week, but I know that many parents are concerned, justly so, about the issues I address publicly in my preaching within their children’s hearing.

So! I’m going to speak to the boys and girls here this morning and invite the grown-ups to read between the lines.

Boys and girls, I want to tell you about a wonderful bishop who lived a long time ago. In fact, he was born in the 280. Now, this is the year 2002, so you can see how long ago this bishop lived. He was born on the Mediterranean coast and he was the bishop of Myra. This great bishop’s name came from two Greek words: laos and nike (pronounced nee-kay). You may not know what laos means but if I pronounced nike as an English word, it would sound like nigh-kee. So, how many of you are wearing Nike shoes? Do you know what the name of your sneakers means? It means, in Greek: victory! And laos means, in Greek: people! Nike-laos: victory for the people! And those two words come together and make this bishop’s name: Nicholas! So Bishop Nicholas name means, one who is victorious with and for the people.

Bishop Nicholas is a patron saint of sailors because on a voyage at sea once a terrible storm threatened the lives of all aboard the boat. In the middle of the story times, the crew, very much afraid, came to Bishop Nicholas and asked for his help. So Bishop Nicholas prayed with them right through the storm, until the sea grew calm. His prayer had rescued the sailors from their time of danger.

Bishop Nicholas is also the saint from whom we trace the origins of Santa Claus. Our name, Santa Claus, is a contraction Saint Nicholas! If you say Saint Nicholas one hundred times, really fast, by the time you get to 100, Saint Nicholas will sound like Santa Claus.

Bishop Nicholas was, himself, an orphan who had a special love for children, and a very special love for poor children. The story is told of a very poor family who had no money at all. The parents were so poor they were considering selling one of their children to get some money so that they could feed their other children. Bishop Nicholas heard about this and he feared, rightly so, that the child would be sold into the abuse of prostitution. So, in the middle of the night he went to the house of this family and threw a bag of gold coins through the window. In fact, he did this three times to be sure that the family had enough money and would not have to sell their children

On the third night, the father heard the coins spill on the floor and he ran out to see who was helping his family. He saw Bishop Nicholas but the bishop asked the father not to tell anyone where the money he came from - he was only interested in keeping the children safe. Caring for the poor, all of the time, was something Bishop Nicholas was known for.

Sometimes I wish that Bishop Nicholas would still come and throw bags of gold coins in our windows! But every year at Christmas, in the middle of the night - (here, I held up a large, stuffed, red and white Christmas stocking) someone comes and fills our stockings with gifts, reminding us of that good bishop who wanted to keep his good deeds secret, under the cover of night.

Perhaps you’ve never seen a bishop. Well, a bishop wears a funny hat! (Here, I held up a bishop’s miter, white with read trim and decoration.) Now, it took a few hundred years I’m sure, but slowly and surely, the bishop’s miter morphed into - (Here, I held up, next to the miter, the traditional Santa’s cap, also conical in shape, red and white in color) - Santa’s hat!

A bishop carries a shepherd’s staff which is called a crosier. Now Santa doesn’t carry a staff, but shepherds do, and good bishops are like shepherds, who guide and protect their people through stormy times, and who rescue them from danger. Remember today’s first scripture? Isaiah the prophet wrote of the Lord coming like a shepherd who feeds his flock, who gathers the lambs in his arms, carrying them and leading them with great care. The good bishop, like Bishop Nicholas, is the shepherd who wins victory for his people so that they can find comfort and forgiveness and peace.

We have a custom in our parish, that on the Sunday nearest St. Nicholas Day, December 6, we give out candy canes. The candy cane can remind us of the shepherd’s crook, with which the shepherd leads and guides his sheep to comfort and to victory.

Of course, the real shepherd of us all is not any particular bishop but it is Jesus! And if you turn the cane upside down, it becomes a J which is Jesus initial. Someone even told me after the 7:30 Mass that if you turn the cane on its side, it looks like the runner on a sleigh - and we know who arrives in a sleigh!

I hope all of the boys and girls here today, from 6 to 60, will take a candy cane home with you today to remind you of good Bishop Nicholas, and of Jesus who is our shepherd and whose birthday we are preparing to celebrate.

We go to our shepherd’s table now, the table of Jesus, where he not only invites us to be close to him - he truly gives himself to us in the sacrament of his body and blood. Like a shepherd Jesus feeds us and guides us. He stays with us through the stormy times. He ransoms us when we need to be rescued, and he gathers us into the pure love of his arms, into the sweet tenderness of his embrace.

Rev. Austin Fleming

Homily for 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time - November 3, 2002
Malachi 1:14b--2:2b, 8-10 1 Thessalonians 2:7b-9, 13 Matthew 23:1-12

Malachi, the prophet, speaks for the Lord
and curses those whose failures in ministry
have abused and scandalized the people
and caused many to turn away from the faith.

In the gospel passage, Jesus comes down heavy on religious leaders
who do not practice what they preach;
who burden others without lifting a finger to help them;
and who enjoy exalting themselves,
taking places of honor and accepting signs of respect
of which they are no longer worthy.

Certainly these passages hit home for us in the fall of the year 2002.

These scriptures are a clear indictment of priests and religious leaders
who abuse their office, their people
and the sacred trust that is theirs as ministers of God’s grace.

But sandwiched between the condemnations in Malachi and Matthew,
we find St. Paul writing to the Thessalonians
and offering us respite, consolation, hope,
and a very different image for ministry.
Recall the soothing words that we just heard in the second reading:
“Brothers and sisters:
we were gentle among you,
as a nursing mother cares for her children.
With such affection for you,
we were determined to share with you... day and night...
not wanting to burden any of you...”

Perhaps if we more often imaged ministry in the terms Paul uses here,
we would be much better off in the life we share as God’s people.

“We were as gentle among you
as a nursing mother cares for her children...”

Imagine how it would be were this our primary image for ministry,
for priestly service...

“We were as gentle among you
as a nursing mother cares for her children...”

A nursing mother is the source of her child’s nourishment;
she is food for her child,
her breasts are the table at which her child feeds,
and she is the waiter who serves at that table.
A nursing mother must be available, round the clock.
A nursing mother must respond to insistent cries at inopportune times.
A nursing mother does for her child
what no one else can do in quite the same way.
A nursing mother gathers the one she serves to her breast
and knows an intimacy unlike any other in human experience.
Nursing is not always convenient, or comfortable, or easy or pleasant,
but in the giving and the taking there is, as St. Paul puts it,
an “affection” born of the determination
“to share oneself with another”
as only a mother can share with her child.

How very much the church, whom we often image as our mother,
how very much the church needs this maternal image of ministry
especially when the images of
paternity, power and position,
have been found so devastatingly wanting.

These ancient paternal images
need to be reinterpreted, reformed and redeemed
if they are to continue to serve us in any meaningful fashion.
And at the same time,
we must, as the church, find new ways
to lift up maternal images of ministry and of priestly service:
images of nourishment, intimacy, fidelity and vulnerability.

As a nursing mother is food, table and waiter for her child,
so is the priest called to be the same for God’s people.

This three-fold image of being food, table and waiter
is not my own invention.
It comes from the 14th century,
and as you might guess, it is the genius of a woman,
St. Catherine of Sienna, who wrote this prayer:
“I shall clothe myself in your eternal will,
and by this light I shall come to know
that you, eternal Trinity,
are table and food and waiter for us.
You, eternal Father, are the table
that offers us as food your only-begotten Son.
He is the most exquisite of foods for us,
both in his teaching, which nourishes us in your will,
and in the sacrament we receive in holy communion,
which feeds and strengthen us...
And the Holy Spirit is indeed a waiter for us,
for the Spirit serves us this teaching
by enlightening our mind’s eye with it
and inspiring us to follow it.
And the Spirit serves us charity for our neighbors
and hunger to have as our food.”

We go now, to share that meal where the Lord, like a nursing mother,
is food and table and waiter for us.
May the food we share at this table,
the food the Lord serves us which is his very self,
may this food nourish us to be more faithful ministers
of his teaching
and of that communion we are all called to live
“as gently as a nursing mother cares for her child...”

- Rev. Austin Fleming

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Homily for 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A - November 10, 2002

Wisdom 6:12-16 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 Matthew 25:1-13

This past week, President Bush said, I think a lot of people are saying, Gosh, we hope we don't have war. I feel the same way. I hope we don't have war.

I hope this can be done peacefully. It's up to Saddam Hussein, however, to make that choice.

Today's scriptures provide a rich context in which we might consider just who should make the choice about our having a war with Iraq. Should it be Saddam Hussein? Should it be President Bush? Should it be the United States Congress? Should it be the Security Council of the United Nations?

Indeed, should ANYONE be empowered to make a choice that we should have a war?

We'll come back to this question in a few moments...

As the commercial world gears up for it's annual sales bonanza, (some stores are already decorated for Christmas!) the church year is winding down to its end with reminders of that time when everything will end and Jesus, the bridegroom, will come to take us, his bride, home to that reign of peace that has no end.

The scriptures today remind us that those best prepared for the time when the Lord will return are those who have allowed Wisdom to embrace and fill them, those who have truly asked to see life, humanity and the world as God sees them.

In the scriptures, Wisdom is almost always imaged in the feminine and the proof of having received her gift is that she gives us a vision of life as God sees it, a vision unimpaired by the cataracts of our selfishness, our arrogance, our pride and our greed.

Through God's eyes we see that the world belongs to God, it is on loan to us, entrusted to our care and into our hands. And we will be held accountable for what we have done with and to creation. In God's eyes love is a law, not an option and that law of love makes demands on us, particularly when we have more than we need while others go without even the most basic necessities of human life.

This is how God sees things and wisdom is seeing things as God sees them. Foolishness is pretending that our vision is 20/20 and that God needs bifocals.

The first Christians believed that Jesus, the groom would return soon to meet his bride, the church, and to take her home with him. As we saw in Paul's letter today, the first believers saw that Jesus, like the groom in the parable, was long delayed in his return: in fact, some 2000 year later, we still pray at each Mass, deliver us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

That leaves us in the position of the 10 wedding attendants the five wise and the five foolish, in today's parable. While you and I wait for the Lord to come, what are we doing?

Are we seeing things with Wisdom?

Are we looking at life through God's eyes?

Do we ask for, do we even want the wisdom to see as God sees?

Do we pray for the wisdom to see as God sees?

to judge as God judges? to forgive as God forgives?

to love as God loves? to live as God calls us to live?

... Back now to the question I raised at the beginning of my homily:

Who should be empowered to make a choice that we should have a war? Is it not curious that as we debate this week the possibility of war in the middle east, that the gospel of Jesus has, as its primary image,

a comparison of:

who has the OIL?

who needs OIL?

and the consequences of running out of OIL?

Indeed, some things just never change!

Who should be empowered to decide whether or not we have a war.

President Bush? Saddam Hussein? Congress? the United Nations?

Certainly we must add Wisdom to that list of candidates. And what would Wisdom tell us? How would she advise us on war in the middle east? How does she see the nations of the world? What does she want for her children? What does she ask OF her children? Will she come and find us with our oil lamps burning brightly, rejoicing that the the Lord, our groom, has come for us, his bride? Or will she find us in the dark, with blood on our hands and grief in our hearts.

In the Hebrew scriptures we read that Wisdom builds a home for her children and sets a table where she feeds them. In the Christian scriptures, the Jesus is our wisdom, and like Wisdom, like a mother, he gathers us, the household of his love, and feeds us from his breast, with the sacrament which is his body, and with the milk which is his blood.

And let us pray, then, and hope that we don't have war, that this can be done peacefully as it will be if we allow nothing less than the Wisdom of God to be the one who makes the choice.

- Rev. Austin Fleming

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Homily for 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year A - November 17, 2002

Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6 Matthew 25:14-30

A few weeks ago, a group of Canadian Catholics spoke in opposition to the church’s rule about celibacy for priests. This group of Catholics is concerned because in their part of Canada there are parishes where Mass is only celebrated three of four times a year, and they claim that one very significant reason for the drop in vocations is the celibacy requirement.

This vocal group of Catholic Canadians wants change in the system, and they see the celibacy rule as one of the first things that needs to be changed.

Who are these Canadians?

The group I refer to consists entirely of the Roman Catholic bishops of the seven dioceses comprising the northern two-thirds of Canada. They made their case in October at the annual meeting of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Unlike the third man in the parable in today’s gospel, these bishops have not, out of fear, dug a hole in the ground, to bury, for safe keeping, what was entrusted to them.

No, these are bishops who want, desperately, to take what they’ve been given and to make it into something more than they originally received.

These are bishops who see that their people are hungry - hungry for the eucharist - for the food of the Lord’s Supper which they are being denied, in large measure, because the Roman Catholic church has chosen to say that the question of a married clergyis simply not open to discussion.

In the meantime they, and we, are told to pray for vocations.

You know, I’ll bet that the third man in the parable who buried his one talent in a hole in the ground actually did some praying about it after he buried it.

He acknowledges that he knew his master was a demanding person,and that even as he dug the hole he was afraid of what the master might think. I’ll bet that as he dug he prayed, that something good might come of his fear. But rather than do something fruitful and beneficial with what had been entrusted to him, he BURIED it, for safe keeping, and prayed about it.

How much has the leadership of our church buried for safekeeping? How much has our leadership failed to work with the realities of our time, to trade, to invest, to bring to harvest the heritage entrusted to them? How much of our heritage as Catholics is drying up in OUR hands, yours and mine, because we have allowed it to be buried out of fear? How much does the silence and the inaction of millions of Catholic people make them complicit in the burial of spiritual treasures that we may one day find ourselves unable to pass on future generations?

Last week our American bishops met in their annual fall session. The news reports showed us a hotel ballroom filled with men seated at long conference tables. All men - everyone in a Roman collar. No women at all were given a voice or a vote. No lay men, either. Not a married person in the bunch; not one parent among them.

The majority of the membership of the church in the United States, the baptized, lay faithful, had no say in what was traded, what was invested, what was preserved or what was buried at the bishops meeting this past week.

Unlike the Catholic people of northern Canada (and many other parts of the world as well) we take it for granted that Mass is celebrated here, in this church, not four times a year, but four times EVERY WEEKEND.

We take it for granted that the same thing happens just a few miles away at St. Bridget’s in Maynard, at St. Elizabeth’s in Acton and at St. Bernard’s in Concord center.

But the time will come, in our life time, when three priests will be available to serve the five parishes of the Concord Cluster, and eventually fewer than three for the five parishes. And then, because some things will have been buried, out of fear, we, like our brothers and sisters to the north, will no longer be able to take the frequency of Sunday Mass for granted.

Before the Master returns, before fear and a desire for safekeeping bury the sacraments out of our reach, too, before we lose what has been entrusted to our care, we need to let our voices be hear. In prayer? Yes!

But not just in prayer, in protest, too, speaking out like the Roman Catholic bishops in Canada.

May the food of the Lord’s table which is readily available to us now make us as wise and productive as the woman in the book of Proverbs and may we, like her, be praised at the city gates because in our safekeeping we did not allow anyone to bury our spiritual gifts but, like faithful, loyal servants, we saw to it that they were traded and invested and nurtured to a ripe harvest for the mission of the Catholic church which you and I love and for the sake of the world our church is called to serve.

Rev. Austin Fleming

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Homily for Solemnity of Christ the King - November 24, 2002

Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17 1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28 Matthew 25:31-46

About once a month,

the company that prints our Sunday bulletin

sends us a sample copy of the bulletins

from another dozen-or-so parishes

to provide the parishes they serve with new ideas.

Our monthly sample arrived this week

and I was taken by the letter one pastor wrote to his parish

in which he roundly condemned two incidents of anti-Semitic graffiti

at a local synagogue and a public school

in the city his parish serves.

He wrote of his absolute horror and disgust

and condemned these actions as

deplorable acts of hatred and bigotry.

He wrote that no follower of Jesus Christ could ever condone or excuse

this type of scandalous behavior.

I was less taken, however, by another paragraph in the same letter

in which the same pastor wrote:

Thanksgiving is fast approaching

and it would be nice to remember those less fortunate than ourselves during this time of celebration.

What’s wrong with that statement?

These words: It would be nice..

In the Christian scheme of living,

remembering those who are less fortunate than we

is not a matter of being nice.

No.

As Jesus says so pointedly in the gospel today,

caring for the poor, the sick and the marginalized

is much more than a matter of being nice.

But rather, caring for those in need

is the work on which our eternal salvation hangs.

If we take this truth for granted,

we do so at our own peril.

It was two weeks ago when I saw on television

the first of the Christmas shopping ads for this approaching season.

I groaned out loud when I saw it.

And then, I thought,

How sad that I should groan at the approach of Christmas!

But it’s not Christmas that I dread,

It’s all the stuff AROUND Christmas

stuff that steals our time,

drains our emotions,

empties our checking accounts,

touches our most sensitive memories and hurts,

builds unattainable expectations,

and leaves many of us feeling, on December 26,

depleted, deflated and despondent.

I believe it would be fair to say that about 95% of what we identify

as Christmas and Christmas spirit has little to do with Christ whose birthday we celebrate.

Do I sound like the Grinch?

I don’t mean to, honestly!

I have no desire to take away whatever is good and joyous

about the ways in which we celebrate this season.

My JOB, however,

is to take us at least one step beyond believing

that we can, as Christians, be satisfied with thinking that

it would be nice to remember the less fortunate

during the coming holidays.

My job is to remind us

that how we respond to those in need

is the ONLY standard Jesus proposes

as the measure against which he will judge us

as fit or unfit for eternal life.

This week we will celebrate Thanksgiving,

a day on which our nation pauses

to be grateful for what we have.

But will we even take a breath

between the turkey and the pigskin

to sit and ponder, and to thank God for,

all that they have?

How will we call ourselves, our families and our friends,

this Thanksgiving,

to name what we are grateful for?

How might these coming weeks, the holidays

be a time for us

to seek out the lost in our families and neighborhoods;

to reach out to those

who have strayed from our families and church;

to heal those whose feelings we have injured;

to feed the hungry;

to welcome the stranger and newcomer;

to clothe those who dress in rags;

to reach out to the sick and those in prison?

To ponder these needs and to respond to them

is more than something nice to do.

is precisely what the Lord expects of us

who bear his name as Christians.

The word eucharist actually means thanksgiving.

Our weekly table of eucharist, then,

is a weekly thanksgiving celebration.

Here, in the bread and cup of the Lord’s supper,

the Lord reaches out to us in our need

precisely to heal us,

to be with us, satisfy our hunger and slake our thirst,

to comfort us,

and to nourish us for doing the same for him

as he lives among the least of our sisters and brothers.

Rev. Austin Fleming

*********************************************************************

Homily for Solemnity of Christ the King - November 24, 2002

Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17 1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 28 Matthew 25:31-46

About once a month, the company that prints our Sunday bulletin sends us a sample copy of the bulletins from another dozen-or-so parish to provide the parishes they serve with new ideas.

Our monthly sample arrived this week and I was taken by the letter one pastor wrote to his parish in which he roundly condemned two incidents of anti-Semitic graffiti at a local synagogue and a public school in the city his parish serves.

He wrote of his absolute horror and disgust and condemned these actions as deplorable acts of hatred and bigotry. He wrote that no follower of Jesus Christ could ever condone or excuse this type of scandalous behavior.

I was less taken, however, by another paragraph in the same letter in which the same pastor wrote: Thanksgiving is fast approaching and it would be nice to remember those less fortunate than ourselves during this time of celebration.

What’s wrong with that statement?

These words: It would be nice..

In the Christian scheme of living remembering those who are less fortunate than we is not a matter of being nice. No.

As Jesus says so pointedly in the gospel today, caring for the poor, the sick and the marginalized is much more than a matter of being nice. But rather, caring for those in need is the work on which our eternal salvation hangs. If we take this truth for granted, we do so at our own peril.

It was two weeks ago when I saw on television the first of the Christmas shopping ads for this approaching season. I groaned out loud when I saw it.

And then, I thought, How sad that I should groan at the approach of Christmas!

But it’s not Christmas that I dread, It’s all the stuff AROUND Christmas; stuff that steals our time, drains our emotions, empties our checking accounts, touches our most sensitive memories and hurts, builds unattainable expectations, and leaves many of us feeling, on December 26, depleted, deflated and despondent.

I believe it would be fair to say that about 95% of what we identify as Christmas and Christmas spirit has little to do with Christ whose birthday we celebrate.

Do I sound like the Grinch? I don’t mean to, honestly! I have no desire to take away whatever is good and joyous about the ways in which we celebrate this season.

My JOB, however, is to take us at least one step beyond believing that we can, as Christians, be satisfied with thinking that it would be nice to remember the less fortunate during the coming holidays.

My job is to remind us that how we respond to those in need is the ONLY standard Jesus proposes as the measure against which he will judge us as fit or unfit for eternal life.

This week we will celebrate Thanksgiving, a day on which our nation pauses to be grateful for what we have. But will we even take a breath between the turkey and the pigskin to sit and ponder, and to thank God for, all that they have?

How will we call ourselves, our families and our friends, this Thanksgiving, to name what we are grateful for?

How might these coming weeks, the holidays, be a time for us to seek out the lost in our families and neighborhoods; to reach out to those who have strayed from our families and church; to heal those whose feelings we have injured; to feed the hungry; to welcome the stranger and newcomer; to clothe those who dress in rags; to reach out to the sick and those in prison?

To ponder these needs and to respond to them is more than something nice to do. It is precisely what the Lord expects of us who bear his name as Christians.

The word eucharist actually means thanksgiving. Our weekly table of eucharist, then, is a weekly thanksgiving celebration.

Here, in the bread and cup of the Lord’s supper, the Lord reaches out to us in our need precisely to heal us, to be with us, satisfy our hunger and slake our thirst, to comfort us, and to nourish us for doing the same for him as he lives among the least of our sisters and brothers.

- Rev. Austin Fleming

Homily for October 6, 2002 - 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 5:1-7 Philippians 4:609 Matthew 21:33-43

I think of parents who tell me of the loving care and self-sacrifice with which they raised their children, but their children have grown up and rejected their parents’ values and faith and often seem unaware of how much mom and dad sacrificed for their happiness and well being...

I think of all the stories of the men and women whose lives were taken on Sept.11th. I think of all the carefully made plans of young families, and the near retirement hopes of older ones, all snuffed out like so many candles in a strong wind...

I think of those whose good, honest lives are interrupted by infidelity in relationships, or serious or chronic illness, or death, and how their hopes and dreams are littered on the shore, washed there by the tides that sank their ship of dreams...

I think of a church and its people whose centuries of work and faithfulness now yield a vintage of sour grapes, leaving so many so thirsty for a sip of something sweet and satisfying...

I think of Isaiah’s friend who tended his vineyard with great care, but still the crop was wild and sour...

I think of the landowner in Jesus’ parable who carefully planted and cared for a vineyard, but others robbed him of his share of the harvest...

Both Isaiah and Jesus tell us in these scriptures that God, who is the vintager and landowner in these stories, that even God knows the heartache of unappreciated sacrifice, of broken dreams, of dashed hopes, and of good work snatched from hands calloused by the harvest and effort...

The saddest stories I hear as a pastor are the stories of disappointment told to me by those whose hearts have been broken, by those whom they loved the most, those for whom they sacrificed the most, those for whom they hoped and dreamed the best.

And so it is with God. We are God’s choice vines. We are God’s vineyard. We are God’s land. We are God’s crop and we are the harvest.

And too often, we are barren vines, we are dry land, we yield a wild, sour crop...

Too often: we are the ones who take the Lord’s healthy crop and allow it to spoil on the vine, or we hoard the harvest and keep it for ourselves, or we waste it without so much as a grateful nod to its source.

Still, the heartbroken vintager in the scriptures does not altogether give up on the land or the vines but rather looks for a way;

- to make fertile ground of us

- to harvest from our failures a sweet crop,

- to urge us to share and distribute that crop justly

and to yield a vintage as fine and full bodied as our God had hoped and dreamed for us. How does the vintager do this, even after the tenants kill his son when he comes?

How do parents keep open the doors of their hearts even when their children have shut them out? How do those stunned or crippled by infidelity or tragedy or illness open their eyes to yet another day? How is it that we continue to gather here as the Catholic community with the bitter taste of wild grapes still so fresh upon our lips?

Perhaps the words of St. Paul to the church at Philippi, and to us, provide the key to an answer to these hard questions.

When Paul counsels us, as he did in the second lesson today,

“Have no anxiety at all...

the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds...”

such advice may seem too pious or not equal to the painful realities some of us bear. But Paul writes further...

“Think about these things: think about what is true, what is honorable, what is just, what is pure, what is lovely, what is gracious, what is excellent and worthy of praise.”

“Keep on doing what you have learned and received, what you have heard and seen in faith – then the peace of God will be with you...”

This is exactly how the Lord deals with us

- when we are dry land

- when our vines are barren

- when we refuse to share the harvest justly

- when we yield a wild crop or sour vintage.

God never fails to love what is good within us, even when we fail, even when we ourselves may fail to see what there is, within, to love.

Good parents do not stop loving their children, even when their children disappoint them deeply, even when others may fail to see what there is to love.

We learn to live with and rise above the limitations that hurt, tragedy and illness visit upon us. When others may have no understanding of the source of our courage, our strength and our hope.

We look to what is true and honorable in our faith and in our church and we cling to that, and to our God and to each other as we live through this sour season. Even while some may be unable to see at all what it is that draws us together this morning. There is never a Sunday morning in our parish when this place is not home to disappointed hearts, broken hearts, hearts tired by failed hopes and wearied with broken dreams.

And there is never a Sunday morning in our pa