Father we bless you for your love, we thank you for this night, we gather together in your name, Father you know our needs, our fears, we ask that you disarm us, that you will put us at ease, to help us to look to you, knowing that in your love we have the medicine that we need here tonight for whatever pain that is in our heart. Help us to see the esteem that you have for us tonight, Lord. We ask that this reading, these words, will come to us as a gift. Help us to open them, to break them open, to make them intelligible, so that we may be able to rejoice in seeing the work that you are about to perform, so that your promise will deliver us. Father we make this prayer as we sing, "O Lord send forth your spirit, to renew the face on the earth".

Tonight, I’d like to read St. Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians which was read last Sunday, the Feast of the Holy Family.

Because you are God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, cloth yourself with heartfelt mercy with kindness, humility, with meekness and patience. Bear with one another. Forget whatever grievances you have against one another. Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you. Over all these virtues put on love which binds the rest together and makes them perfect. Christ’s Peace must reign in your hearts, since as members of the one body you have been called to that peace. Dedicate yourselves to thankfulness. Let the word of Christ, rich as it is dwell in you. In wisdom made perfect instruct and admonish one another. Sing gratefully to God from your heart in psalms, hymns, and in inspired songs. Whatever you do, whether in speech or in action, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Give thanks to God the Father through Him. You who are wives be submissive to your husbands. This is your duty in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives. Avoid any bitterness toward them. You children obey your parents in everything as the accept full way in the Lord, and fathers do not nag your children, lest they loose heart. The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

The danger with this reading is that we will hear it moralistically, as though this is something we have to do on our own. If that’s the case, then this is bad news. Because then it is simply. You do this, or you do that, or you do the other thing. My word, the problem is that nobody can do this. What we have to realize is, is that St. Paul is speaking to a community that has already heard and accepted and experienced the kerygma. What is the kerygma?. It’s the announcement of what Jesus Christ has done for us. That He entered into death. That on the third day, having submitted Himself totally to the Father, trusting Him to make sense out of it. God the Father turned it all around by raising Him to life. Establish Him in power so that Jesus Christ’s could empower us to do precisely these things. You can only cloth yourself with mercy, once you have experience the spirit of Jesus Christ. Once you have believed that He has been raised and empowered to change you, the one who believes that Jesus Christ can change your heart can accept this announcement. The Holy Spirit begins to find a dwelling place in him, and that spirit begins to gestate within him a new heart. Patterned after the heart of Jesus Christ. A heart that knows that the Father loves me. Just as I am. That has a confidence in God as a father, and is looking to Him and Him alone for love. Who has experienced that love. Who has experienced the forgiveness of his sins. The one who has experienced the forgiveness of their own sins, can have a heart felt mercy for the others then. Because look what God has done for me. Look how He has forgiven me. Once you have experienced that, you can never be judgmental towards the others. All you can do is give them mercy too, out of gratitude for what God has done. You see everything changes once you receive the spirit of Jesus Christ. Once you can believe that He has loved you to the point of loosing His life for you. The sign that I believe is that there was gratitude in my heart. If that gratitude is not there, the reality still has not dawned on me. I’ve not been able to really hear this announcement. And this is why the problem is very often. We hear these words, but we hear them as something we have to do, a burden. Then we collapse. We’re looking for the husband to love me, and when he doesn’t, we can’t give him forgiveness. We’re angry, we’re making demands, we want to be loved. This means that I still have not yet experienced in a way that will change me profoundly, the love that God already has for me. His love is enough. It is this love, which takes me and heals me.

We live now in a very neurotic age. An age in which wives cannot be submissive to their husbands. Why? Because all they have experienced in the past were husbands who were controlling. When you do not have the experience of God’s love, you’re looking for love from other people. Which means you want to control them so you can control how you are loved. It’s made you start to squeeze the life out of other people. And this is why women go crazy, see, because they have husbands who are possessive, dictators, who do not have the spirit of Jesus Christ. The husband who has the spirit of Jesus Christ is the one who can love like Jesus loves. He can loose his life for the wife. Now if your husband is loosing his life for you, he’s renouncing his own interest, always for you. Then it is easy to be submissive. What does it mean to be submissive. It means that, when you think one way and he thinks another you have one vote, and he has two. (laughter) Now, what does this mean, it means that the husband is the head of the family. Which means that, you see, he has to take responsibility, somebody has to make a decision around here. Now if you disagree with that, you need to tell him that, that’s your job as a wife. It is to give him your view so that he can have more data, but at the same time, not to emasculate him by trying to be head of the house because then you become a competition for your husband. What we have to understand is, that men and women are equal but they are not the same. They’re complimentary, their roles, their functions in the family are not the same. They are to be complimentary. Children need a father and his love. They need a mother and her love. They are not the same. Fathers cannot be mothers to their children nor can mothers be fathers to their children. If you do not have one or the other, something will be missing. What God was able to supply, but that means that something is still missing. What the Lord wants to do is to give us that same confidence, in God that we are able to enter into the cross, just like Jesus did, for the wife it means to be able to accept the judgment, the decision of a husband. Not trusting that he is so smart, but looking to your father and saying father, I know that you can turn everything, even this disaster, to my good. And accepting it, without complaints, without second guessing. Truly being supportive. Loving the husband as he tries to be head of the house. And it’s the same for the husbands, the husbands are to be the support of the wife, they’re there so that she can have someone to depend on. We live in a culture, where the great sin is that men do not take responsibility, for the family, to be head of the house. Which means they do not take responsibility to pass faith to the children. Husbands are to be the bishops of their families, for a family is an "ecclesiola," a little church. The suffering of women in America very often is the fact that they cannot depend on their husbands. There is a vacuum, and they have to fill a vacuum.

Fathers, do not nag your children. Yes, you have an authority over your children, which means you have the authority not to try to make them good, but to teach them what is right and what is wrong, what works and what doesn’t, and then to supply consequences to teach that there are consequences for what they decide. This is what discipline is all about. The kids have to make themselves good. They have to take the responsibility to get themselves to do right, and they have to learn that there are consequences for not doing right. They only learn it when you as a parent do what you said you were going to do, without being nasty. The first time they will try you, the second time, they will try you again. Eventually, if you stick to your guns, they will say: "Hey, he means it." Things will work out because you’re not taking from them their autonomy. Therefore, you do not have to nag them. When you nag them you’re trying to make them good, which is a disaster. The authority of the father is to praise his children. Children grow on praise. This is how parents can give life to their children, by looking for the opportunity to praise them. Praise the wife! Every time you sit down to the table, whoever did the cooking, they need a praise. Everyday, someone needs to be praised. This is the way that children grow. Tonight, in this reading, if you have heard anything that has put things in a different context for you, in your own life, that has spoken to you in one way or another, I invite you to make an echo.

The reading tonight is from the Gospel of Mark.

Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.

You know, when Jesus would come on the Sabbath to the synagogue there would be all these sick people and He would heal them. In which case the synagogue leaders would become very upset with Him. Because He was not keeping the Sabbath as they understood it. It is very easy to have a very judgmental attitude towards Jesus when the person being cured is somebody else, and you’re okay. But, the moment that it’s your little daughter that is sick, and whose dying and you can’t do anything about it, then that changes everything. Now, we don’t know whether Jairus was the same official or not. All we know is that he came to Jesus at a moment of great crisis. Why does God allow these things to happen? If the girl was not sick, he would never have discovered a need for Jesus. So that things that we call bad, God calls good very often, because He is able to get a foot in the door. He is able to give somebody a different perspective. And this is what happens with Jairus. He has the idea that we have to get to the house before it’s too late, because he thinks that while there’s life there’s hope. He does not understand that Jesus is Lord not only of life, but of death. So that he’s hurrying Jesus to the house before the child dies, only to suddenly have Jesus stop in the middle of this narrow little street, because somebody else has another problem and this other person has a flow of blood. She has a menstrual flow, which according to mosaic law, rendered her perpetually unclean. Because of this she is embarrassed and she’s an unclean person. The unclean are not supposed to have anything to do with the clean. So what does she do? She tries to be sneaky with her situation. I’ll just touch his clothing, from one of the little booths on this narrow little street. As He’s passing by she reaches out to touch and she’s cured. But Jesus stops and He looks around. "Who touched me?" They all think He’s crazy because everybody’s touching Him. He’s being jostled on every side. But He won’t budge. It’s as if the whole focus just focuses on this woman, His focus.

In the meantime Jairus is going crazy. Cause he’s looking at his watch, if he had a watch. He’s losing valuable time. Finally this woman comes forward. What Jesus does is to tell her it’s not simply because she touched. There’s nothing magical about His clothes. It was her faith that allowed her to be cured and Jesus always connects the miracles with faith. What we have to understand is that happiness is not in good health. Happiness is in being able to love like Jesus loves. Today, if happiness were health, say you’re cured, but tomorrow you could have another disease. You could have another problem. It is not in taking away the cross, it is being able to discover that in the cross God is there to turn everything to my good and therefore I do not have to be afraid of death. And at that point the people come to tell him that she’s dead. The girl is dead, so it’s too late. Nice try. And Jesus says to Jairus, who is beside himself now, -he’s despondent- "Fear is useless, what is need is trust." Which is what faith is. It is to be able to trust yourself to God. It is to be able to trust yourself to His plan for your life. With that they go to the house. The miracle, the cure, the raising of the dead is to tell Jairus, "Look, I am not Lord simply of the living, I am the Lord of death itself." Because He was raised from death, Jesus Christ entered into death to destroy death. To destroy our death. This is why Jesus Christ comes as the one who can turn everything around, even the most hopeless situation. The only thing that is needed is trust. Fear is useless. What is needed is trust. "I will not abandon you. No matter how hopeless the situation seems. How many times we have fallen. What is needed is trust."

If in this reading you have heard anything that speaks to your situation, I invite you to make an echo.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Tonight if in this reading you have heard anything that puts a joy in your heart, I invite you to make an echo.

Spiritual Growth Meeting -- Luke’s Gospel -- Temptations 3/8/95

In Mark’s gospel, which Luke is revising, when it comes to this section, all it says is "the spirit led him out into the desert where he was tempted." What both Matthew and Luke had done is to add this section, which is really a catechesis in the old church on what temptation is all about. And it’s built on the temptations of Israel in the desert. Each of the three responses of Jesus is taken from Deuteronomy. It really quotes and the whole point of the conversion, cause this is really meant for the catechists at lent, and for us, is that we have an answer for the devil whenever he comes with his temptations. The devil is not a very inventive fellow, his temptations are always the same. And they are the basic temptations of money, which is the bread, the dough; power and the one where you throw yourself off the pinnacle that’s notoriety and popularity, affections. You want to be the Messiah, fine go ahead, but do it the easy way. You want to be acclaimed. Everybody will really think you’re great. Just jump off the temple. The papers will be there taking your picture. The one who survives jumping off the temple. This is the affections.

Now the response to the first one is not on bread alone does man live, but in every word that comes from the mouth of God. The temptation here is the devil comes to press the panic button. When you lose your job, when the finances are in jeopardy, he says to you: "Look, you are going down the tubes, you have to use your power to save yourself. Turn these stones into bread. Be God of your life, otherwise you are a fool."

The second temptation is the one to look to power for security. The answer Jesus gives is "You shall do homage to the Lord our God, Him alone shall you serve." This means that God alone has to be my superior. Real security comes - not in having power over others, - not in domination. Security comes when God has domination over me.

In the third one, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test, because it is very easy to try to in a sense push God, manipulate Him, show me you love me, set up conditions. Now, to pass to faith is to be able to wait on God so that God can save you when He wills at the time He wills.

If in these readings you have heard an answer of Jesus that puts in a light your own situation, I invite you to make an echo.

Our reading is the gospel from last Sunday.

Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.

This gospel has a women who is the identified sinner. What we have to understand is you can never commit adultery by yourself. There was somebody else involved. Not only one body but several people. There was her husband to begin with. Whenever there’s an adultery, it’s because somebody is looking to be loved. You don’t go out down the street looking for love if it’s already there at home. Can you imagine, where was the husband as this crowd was dragging her to Jesus to stone her? He must have known. Who was the one that brought her to the Pharisees in the first place? There were a lot of hidden hands behind this whole thing. This whole scene was orchestrated and the truth of the matter is that everybody involved in the whole thing is a sinner. The husband, the paramour, people in the crowds. Each one had his own sins.

Participant: But she was the one condemned, right?

She was the identified sinner, the scapegoat. What you have to understand is scapegoats have a function. And their function is to deflect attention from everybody else. So everybody else goes by unnoticed. The spotlight lands on her. That means everybody else is in the shadows. That’s the purpose, the function of the scapegoat. It has another function. In order to maintain the myth of the innocence of everybody else, the system, any system, when there is a problem, looks around and says, who’s the problem, they want to identify somebody. Cause that draws the attention on that person and identifies them as the one who is wrong and the system says -- you’re guilty. You’re a sinner. Which means everybody else then sort of is absolved. Now, the problem with that is, if you are innocent, that means you’re not part of the crime, you’re not part of the dysfunction. It means that you are then powerless to do anything about it. Only to the extent that I am willing to say I am part of this, that you gain power, you lose your innocence, but you gain power. And what is the power? The power is the power to do something about the situation. To change it.

One of the reasons why problems have no solutions is that people are not willing to accept the handle that they have to bring about the solution. You can’t change other people, all you can change is yourself. If you are innocent then obviously the problem is in somebody else. But if the problem is between us, if we all share in it, that means that the conversion comes, the change comes, when somebody begins to accept responsibility and it really doesn’t matter who it is. If you want this to introduce change you have to have somebody who is part of the system begin to take a stand, without being nasty, and without being distant. You cannot affect a change in a system if you are distant from the system or if you are condemning the system or you are conflictual with the system. Condemnations don’t work. The only thing that works is love. To be in contact with the system without condemning them, by accepting them as they are. Because what that does is, it robs them of an excuse to be mad at you.

Now, the reason why people have these little closets in which they keep all of their remembered hurts from the past is because they want to be able to have something to hit you over the head with, when the occasion arises. In other words, to identify you as the wrong one. You are wrong because.... They have to have a reason to be mad at you. They cannot be mad apart from a reason. The process needs an issue if it is to function and therefore, just as a little insurance, we carefully wrap up all of the past wrongs and save them in grandmother’s lace in order that, in case I can’t think of another thing, I can always go to the closet and bring them out. So they’re lovingly cared for in order to keep the turmoil going. The pot boiling. The craziness growing. But if you can have somebody who is able to take a stand and let them throw tomatoes at you and then taste them, (everybody laughs) eventually they’ll run out of tomatoes. They’ll run out of issues. This is the whole point of pleading guilty. Now, they’re trying to triangle Jesus into this situation. And of course what he does is, he puts little doodles on the dirt, He looks around and says "The one who is the first without sin may cast the first stone." He starts to doodle again. Nobody knows what He’s doodling. One by one they began to slip away, because what happened? They were put in touch with their sin. He’s saying to them, "Hey, we’re all of the same sins." And to the extent that they can be made aware of that, that awareness takes away the anger because the conscience begins to beat them up and they begin to see their reality and they slink away and Jesus is left alone. It’s one of the great scenes where He is almost joking because the question is, "Where have they all gone?," as of He didn’t know. He knows perfectly well where they went. In a sense he’s poking fun at them. "No one condemned you. Nor do I. Go and sin no more." It is when you can be in touch with the system, a friend to both. He accused nobody, did not take a side, then the system began to right itself. The craziness begins to go away.

This is what love does. It takes a stand but does not judge. It is in touch with the anger of the people, accepts the anger, accepts the judgment of the others and gives forgiveness, in order, in a sense, to be a gift to the others. This is what a suffering servant is. This is the way Jesus Christ works, the one who took on the sins of the other. When the others blamed him, He did not defend himself. They threw a charge at Him and he let it hit him. He did not duck. He did not throw back a countercharge. And in the end, when you do that, people suddenly see what they’ve done, and they begin to return to sanity. This happens without defending yourself. God defends you. The others begin to see their sin and they begin to see the love that you have, in accepting the other, in accepting whatever it is. They begin to see, hey, what a gift you are! This is what God wants to make of us. A gift to others!

If in these rambling ideas you have heard anything that has spoken to you in this gospel, I invite you to make an echo.