All Saints day

All saints day; stained glass window
Photo was taken at Sacred Heart Parish, Reefton, New Zealand.

Billy O’Leary was seven and lived in a very small village miles from anywhere and anyone.

The village had a general store which sold just about everything, a small school, and a small Church.

Billy’s father was the teacher at the school, the only teacher, so Billy used to say his father was the Headteacher.

One day, Billy’s father had to travel to the city for business reasons and invited Billy to travel with him.

Billy was excited for two reasons; he had heard his parents talk of the city and yet had no idea where it was, and second, it meant travelling on the train, which Billy had never done.

The day arrived, and Billy presented himself at breakfast in his Sunday best. He and his father walked to the train station and duly caught the train.

Billy sat by the window and watched cows and sheep and corn and maize go whizzing by.

When his father had finished his business, he asked Billy if there were anything he would like to do.

Now, back at school, Billy, Fr O’Grady from the Church had talked to the class about St Brendan’s Cathedral and had shown pictures of St Brendan’s Cathedral, which was here in this city, and so he asked his father whether they could go and have a look inside.

So off they went.

Now St Brendan’s was a very, very, very old cathedral, built when in some countries there was still kings and queens and princes and princesses and knights in armour and ladies in waiting.

Inside, the cathedral was dark, cold and kind of spooky.

Billy was a little bit scared, and a shiver ran through is body, so Billy held his father’s hand tight as they walked around.

The walls inside were very high, and right at the top there were stained glass windows all the way around.

Each window had a saint’s name.

Some Billy knew; St Patrick, of course, the twelve apostles, and St Brendan.

Others he had never heard of, like St Finbar, St Brigid and St Cairan.

As he walked around looking at all the windows, an amazing thing happened.

Outside, the clouds broke, and the sun streamed through the stained-glass windows, and suddenly the inside of the church was bathed in light.

Billy let go of his father’s hand and walked confidently on his own.

The following day at school, Fr O’Grady from the town Church came to the school to prepare the children for the coming feast of All Saints.

He began by asking the children, “Does anyone know what a saint is?”

Up shot Billy’s hand, and he waved it about with enthusiasm.

Fr O’Grady could not help but notice the enthusiastic waving, and besides, there was no other hand raised seeking the priest’s attention.

“Yes, Billy do you know what a saint is? Tell us now.”

“Father,” spoke Billy with confidence, “it is someone who lets the sun in and lights up the whole Church.”

 

(If you want to you may spell the word either sun or Son!!)

31st Sunday of Ordinary time

It happens with a frequency that can be annoying!

As friends we are kicking the football around in the backyard, and, with a kick a little higher than usual the ball ends up in the tree!

Each of us can see it clearly and attempts are made to free it from the clutches of the branch; other balls are thrown to dislodge the ball.

No luck!

Shoes are taken off and hurled at the ball.

No luck!

The tree is shaken; however, its wide and strong trunk moves little.

The decision is made – one of us will just have to climb the tree, move gingerly out onto the branch, and prise the ball free!

But who?

They need be strong enough to climb the trunk, yet slight enough to ease out onto the branch! And of course, dumb enough to accept the possibility of the branch snapping and being hurled to the ground as a very likely consequence!

In our English language we have a saying, “going out on a limb”.

The Collins English Dictionary describes going out on a limb: “If someone goes out on a limb, they do something they strongly believe in even though it is risky or extreme and is likely to fail or be criticized by other people.”

While acknowledging that my search was by no means exhaustive, I did find an early print reference with a figurative meaning from the Steubenville (Ohio) Daily Herald newspaper, 1895:

“We can carry the legislature like hanging out a washing. The heft of the fight will be in Hamilton country. If we get the 14 votes of Hamilton we’ve got ’em out on a limb. All we’ve got to do then is shake it or saw it off.”

Since the expression dates back to at least 1895, that means it is 120 years old at minimum.

However, this Sunday’s Gospel hints for us that the saying may predate the Steubenville Daily Herald by many, many, many years.

In Luke 19: 1 – 10, we are introduced to a tree climber, Zacchaeus, who, if we take the Collins Dictionary at value, we may well have discovered someone “going out on limb”!

They do something they strongly believe in

It is risky or extreme

If it fails, it is likely to be criticized by other people

And all because “he wanted to see Jesus!”

[Oh, and Zaccahaeeus while you are up the tree, would you mind fetching our ball . . . please!]

30th Sunday of Ordinary Time

On many occasions unknowingly, and on other occasions quite knowingly, Christian prayer has become a contest.

    • Have I chosen the right place?
    • Am I in the right posture?
    • How often?
    • For how long?

Each becomes part of the criteria for prayer efficacy.

This Sunday’s Gospel (Lk. 18: 9 – 14), which in the Gospel I use most often has the heading, ‘The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector’ is a story remembered by many of us – one up the front, the other down the back!

The Pharisee begins his prayer as a contest, “God, I thank you I am not like. . . . .”, and immediately the Pharisee’s prayer is about himself.

Christian prayer is not something we do – an activity.

Rather it is a relationship with another, and for those in a relationship, you will be aware that what happens is a matter of initiative and response, first by one and then the other; and in those moments of exuberant joy, there is a syncopation that only lovers know.

If I am engaged in Christian prayer because I have to, in order to be good and acceptable, then I am not engaged in Christian prayer!

There is a story told about a Jewish farmer who did not get home before sunset one Sabbath and was forced to spend the night in the field, waiting for sunrise the next day before being able to return home.

Upon his return home, he was met by a rather perturbed rabbi who chided him for his carelessness.

“What did you do out there all night in the field?” the rabbi asked him.

“Did you at least pray?”

The farmer answered: “Rabbi, I am not a clever man. I do not know how to pray properly. What I did was to simply recite the alphabet all night and let God form the words for himself.”

When we come to celebrate, we bring the alphabet of our lives.

Our psyches go up and down.

Sometimes we feel like singing and dancing.

Sometimes there is a spring in our step.

However, we have other seasons too – cold seasons, bland seasons, seasons of tiredness, pain, illness, and boredom.

If prayer is lifting of heart and mind to God, then clearly, during these times, we ought to be lifting something other than song and dance.

If our hearts and minds are full of warmth, love, enthusiasm, song, and dance, then these are the letters we bring.

If our hearts and minds are full of tiredness, despair, blandness, pain, and boredom, then those are our letters we bring.

Offer them and allow your God to construct them into words!

29th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Many will have heard of, and quite possibly read, some of the work of British author Lewis Carroll (1832 – 1898).

His work “Alice in Wonderland” is on many schools’ library shelves.

Carroll also wrote a sequel to this book with the title “Through The Looking Glass”, in which Alice walks through a mirror (looking glass), and to her surprise, everything is back to front.

“I find this most confusing”, Alice keeps saying.

In the ‘through the looking glass’ world,

    • running keeps you stationary,
    • walking to where you want to go means you walk backwards and
    • chess pieces are alive, as a fairy tales.

I find this most confusing.

Today’s Gospel from St Luke (Lk. 18: 1 – 8) is the story of the persistent widow and the recalcitrant judge.

For most of my life I assumed the judge represents God, and the persistent widow represents me, and throughout the country, I can well imagine that preachers will be urging people to be faithful, persistent, and perhaps even aggravating in their prayer!

This Sunday, I invite you, like Alice, to step through the “Looking Glass” and take a journey where everything is back to front!

Stepping through the ‘looking glass’ we find everything ‘back to front’; the persistent widow represents God, and the recalcitrant judge ourselves!

Once reversed, the characters take on a whole new perspective.

The widow is seen as a God-like figure, and then the message of the parable becomes very much clearer.

Go on, have a go, reread the parable from ‘behind the looking glass,’ remembering, “to walk to where you wish to go, you have to walk backwards!”

Humour  aside: our English translation has the judge say to himself, “because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.”

The original Greek reads, “lest she give me a black eye by continually coming,” literally meaning to strike the face below the eye.

It comes to mean “brow beat,” but it also carries the connotation of shame, just as our expression does.

The judge will grant her justice lest he be shamed in the community.