Immigration, immigration. What's a Deacon to do?

As a person who grew up with strong politically conservative views my opinions on immigration (legal and illegal) were quite strict. It seemed to me that migrants were just going to be a burden on our economic, governmental and social structures. As a lawful society we should simply round up these "illegals" and get them shipped out - and do it quickly.
But then something happened that I didn't expect. Through my ministry in the jails, detention centers, homeless shelters, and prisons I started meeting some "illegals" face-to-face. Their stories are much different than the stereotype I had in my mind. I thought they just came to the United States to take jobs from our people, to take advantage of our health-care, and become a drain on our welfare systems. The reality (at least for most) is quite different. Many were brought here as infants or young children with their parents. They have lived here most of their lives and really have no connection to another country. Their parents came here to escape a severe poverty and economic situation that left them no opportunity to even feed their children. Most work in menial jobs and are paid in cash at a wage that is much below the minimum. If they are caught they are held in jail and then (usually) deported to their home country. Often this leaves their spouse and children here with no means of support.
I guess the point I am trying to make is this: The problem is NOT a simple one, it is a HUMAN one and therefore demands a humane response - especially from the Catholic Church and from all Christians. Certainly, we should do our best to know who is entering our country and what their intentions are and that's the job of the people hired to regulate the borders.  But just as certainly we need to realize that ALL persons in the world are our brothers and sisters in Christ regardless of their migration status and that's our job. In the Catholic Church we call this the principle of Solidarity. Obviously, these people need help and assistance and an understanding response from us.
At this time of year it may be beneficial to remember that Mary and Joseph had to flee from their home country and enter a foreign land to protect Jesus from an unjust ruler. We can assume they found people willing to take them in and give them a helping hand. In assisting or denying the "strangers among us" today we are saying "yes or no" to Jesus, himself (Mt 25: 31-46). 
I realize that this is an emotional and political hot button issue. Please leave your thoughts in the comments section.

How to get a horse back to pasture...

I had an experience last summer while on a mission trip that taught me a great lesson. I was working on a horse farm with a bunch of kids. We were to cut weeds, trim trees and pull this horrid parasitical vine out of the trees. The one thing we were NOT supposed to do was leave the gates open and let the horses out. The second day we were there one of the kids left a gate open to a pasture that had only one horse in it. I knew we had to get this animal back without telling the owner so we decided we could push it back in. It was only standing about 10 feet from the gate so we thought it would be easy to give him a few hard shoves and then quickly close the gate. Two big teenage football players and I could not move this horse even one inch. As we tried to force this big animal by brute strength something amazing happened. The granddaughter of the owner, a little girl of about 4, pulled a handful of grass and clover and stood in front of the horse. It followed her back into the pasture and she closed the gate. Wow, did I feel foolish!
For years I have been trying to get certain people to re-engage their Catholic faith. These are persons who have no hostility toward the Church or God or anything like that. They simply have grown into a lifestyle that does not include the practice of prayer, faith, Mass, etc. Despite my best efforts I have had little or no luck in "pushing" them back into the Church. Then Pope Francis wrote a document entitled "The Joy of the Gospel". It is a lengthy piece but the message is clear - you lead people to (and back to) the Church by the JOY and PEACE they see in your life. Certainly, you may need to witness with words at times but the chief way of attracting others to a life of faith is the witness of your life.  
It makes me wonder what I am holding out to persons who are away from their faith. If what I show them is force and bullying they are going to resist with all of their might. If I show them that they are missing out on a life of true joy maybe they will hurry back on their own.

Live this day in the peace and love of this Holy Season. You never know who might follow!

Advent Waiting

Advent, for most of the Church's history, has been a time of quiet, Holy waiting. You don't have to go too far back in time (maybe 100 years) to find an era when people treated Advent with the reverence it deserves. Advent is a time to wait. But we don't like to wait for anything in our culture today, do we? We have grown so accustomed to having what we want, when we want it, that we don't want to wait for anything anymore. That's because we see waiting as boring, frustrating and empty. In reality, the opposite is true, but we need to learn to wait rightly. Waiting rightly is a source of  peace, joy, and fulfillment. It gives a perspective on life that will never be seen in the anxiety and tension of our "get it now" culture.
I am around a lot of people who are forced to wait. I visit teenagers at the local detention center who are waiting - for their court appearance - for their mother to visit them - for a phone call from anyone. I have been visiting one young person who has been locked up for 4 years. She has to wait all of the time for the next hearing date, the next judge's decision or for a phone call from her lawyer. I visit people in the hospital who are waiting for a visit from their doctor - hopefully with good news. I see people in the nursing home who are waiting for a visit - from anyone. I pray with people in hospice who are waiting, waiting, waiting - to die. The funny thing is that most of these people, in hind-sight, say that the waiting was a very good thing for them. They tell me that they needed that time in "suspended animation" so they could order their own lives more rightly. They tell me they needed that time to finally learn how to pray.
Please, please, please use this Advent Season to wait. Wait for God in the stillness this season was designed to give. He might just surprise you and show up.

Are you a contender?

In Genesis 32:23-33 we hear of  Jacob's "match" with the Lord. The text says that they wrestled until the break of dawn. When the divine being saw that it could not prevail it struck Jacob's hip so that the hip socket was wrenched. When it was all over Jacob was given a new name by God - "Israel", because he had contended with and prevailed over both divine and human beings.
As I have read commentaries on these verses I have learned that not all the "scholars" are in agreement on whether or not this was an actual event or just a story. For me, I think both are true. Jacob likely did have a divine altercation because that seemed to be his way. He was always scheming to make things come out for him as in his theft of the paternal blessing from Esau. But the story also has great allegorical value. Which of us has not contended (wrestled) with God? What shall I do with my life? How shall I best serve God and others? With whom shall I spend my life? Where shall I go? Or should I stay? All of these big questions and countless others often put us in a "wrestling match" with God. Should I do what I want? Should I take a different path - one that is more difficult but seems to be where God is calling me?
In my own life, mostly over the past few years, I have contented with God. Should I be a Deacon? That question took me six years to answer in the affirmative. As I look back, I see that God was patiently waiting for me, persistently calling me. Should I leave my job and work full time for the Catholic Church? Maybe when I'm 60 or 65 was the answer I usually gave to that question. But the nagging response I received from God was "Why wait? Why not give me and the Church some of the youth you have left?" So I did. Then it was suggested that I visit the kids at the Juvenile Detention Center. No ministers were going out there on a regular basis but I felt wholly inadequate and ill suited to the work. After him-hawing around for several weeks I gave it a try. I've been visiting kids there now for almost four years and found great blessings in the ministry.
What about you? Have you, are you, wrestling with God? Submit and see what God has in store for you. You won't look back. You won't regret it.

I need to see, I gotta know!

The story of Lot and his wife leaving Sodom is the subject of the first reading for Mass today. Such an interesting story of God sparing Lot and his family for their righteousness but then telling them to NOT look back as they leave the city. Every time I read that story there is a little part of me that hopes Lot's wife will make a better choice and be spared but, of course, that never happens. She looks back and is instantly turned into a pillar of salt. How sad.
The question I have to ask myself is this - would I be any different? I think I would be greatly tempted to look back and I'll bet you would, too. Our culture is one of the most invasive, newshound, gossip-seeking and "dirty laundry" cultures ever. We want to see into everyone's life - especially if they are famous and see what's going on. Is their marriage failing? Were they arrested? Are they back on drugs? What about their kids?
In my humble opinion, 24-hour news is the worst thing that ever happened to GOOD news reporting. Now there are many competing TV stations that have to fill all of that time with some kind of "news". Things that NEVER would have made the 30 or 60 minute news program of old are now front and center on CNN, MSNBC and FOX. The type of reporting that is done is most often geared to raising emotional responses rather than on giving an unbiased account. Don Henley had it right in his 1982 song "Dirty Laundry" when he quotes the newsman saying "I could have been an actor, but I wound up here". The reporting is mostly about drama and very little about substance. These networks are all vying for high ratings so that they can attract more advertisers and charge more for each ad.
So, what do we do about it? QUIT WATCHING! I stopped watching TV news fifteen years ago and I don't miss it a bit. I get the little news I need from the internet and the radio. Reading it on a website leaves almost all of the hype out and I am free to assess the stories and research them on my own. Give it a try, give up the dirty laundry before you (your soul) turns into a salt pillar.

Can We Start Over?

This past weekend I was at a youth conference in Denver called "Steubenville of the Rockies". What a great time we had listening to great music, wonderful speakers and powerful liturgies. The host, Chris Padgett, told a great story about one of his children that I would like t share with you here.

This is the way the drama played out between Chris (the Dad) and his 4-yr old:

Chris: Son, you had better finish your dinner.
4-yr old: No response - just lots of fiddling around

5-minutes later:
Chris: Son, You NEED to finish what's on your plate. You haven't even touched it and the rest of us are done!
4-yr old: More fiddling around

5-minutes later:
Chris: Son, I mean it! Your mother put a lot of time and effort into preparing this meal, you had better have your plate completely cleaned off in two minutes!
4-yr old: Spinning in chair, fiddling around.

2-minutes later:
Chris: That's it! You are going to bed right now. You will not be joining the family in prayer time and you will not get dessert. March yourself upstairs to your room right now!
4-yr old: Crying and screaming and going to bed

A few minutes later:
4-yr old (through tears): Daddy, daddy...
Chris: WHAT!!!!!
4-yr old: Daddy, can we start over?
Chris (through tears): Yes son, we can.

What a great illustration this is of our relationship with God. It doesn't matter how many times we goof up, we can always "start over" in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. If it's been a while since you have taken advantage of this sacrament of love and healing, please do so. All you have to is ask God "Can we start over?". God's response will be "Yes, my beloved child, we can".

Your True Self

 

If you read the St  Michael Parish bulletin this past weekend this is the same article.

Your True Character...

Most of us would agree that it is easy to be gracious and benevolent when all is going well in life. Those are the times when we are quick to smile and glad to lend a hand to almost anyone. Wouldn’t it be nice if that was the way life was all of the time? But that’s not the way it goes for most of us. Stuff happens all of the time. We might get ill, experience mistreatment, or just have a genuinely bad day. How are we in those circumstances? Still quick to smile? Still ready to help? Probably not.

In the Mass readings for last Tuesday, Tobit has that type of an experience. He is a righteous man doing his best to fulfill all of the Jewish laws even though he has been exiled to a foreign country and many of those practices are illegal. When one evening, through a strange experience he goes blind, Tobit changes dramatically. Suddenly, he is irritable, angry and hard to live with. Finally, his wife says to him “Where are your charitable deeds now? Where are your virtuous acts? See! Your true character is finally showing itself!” (Tobit 2:14)

As you may know, Jean Stapleton of “All in the Family” fame, died recently. She tells the story of when she was passed over for an acting job early in her career that she really wanted and didn’t get. Instead she was given a smaller, insignificant role. Prior to being passed over, she had had great respect for the director of the play. When he chose someone else for the part she wanted, Jean became angry and hateful. She had horrible thoughts about the man and hoped that God would get him back for the horrible injustice that he had perpetrated against her.

But then she picked up her Bible. She wanted to look up verses with the word “justice” in them so that she could prove to herself how God was on her side. In her concordance, the word “judge” was just in front of “justice” and she felt compelled to read about that first. This verse from Isaiah’s prophecy was the first listed: “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our king, he will save us” (Is: 33:22). When she completed her reading, she felt cut to the heart. She realized that her “true character” had come out and she was ashamed. She knew that she had reacted badly and she needed to pray to God and ask forgiveness. She says “The anger immediately disappeared. The next day at rehearsal I was no longer driven by the ambition to play the larger role.”  The irony of the story is that the woman who had been picked for the big part didn’t work out and Jean got it anyway. But she knows she wouldn’t have been considered if she had remained angry and sullen.

What about you and me? How do we react when things suddenly don’t go our way? Maybe someone is promoted to a job that we wanted, maybe we get into a “fender bender” or someone cuts us off in traffic or cuts in front of us at the grocery store checkout line. What will our “true character” look like when it comes out? Will it be one of anger and vengeance? Or will we let the Lord be the judge and lawgiver and thereby free ourselves to react in peace and charity? I pray that all of us can respond  in accord with the grace of Jesus Christ and pass on a blessing instead of a curse.