What is our new CTR “Joyful Communion Prayer Service” planned for Sunday, Nov. 22nd at 2PM? (Answer submitted by Parishioner Shannon Carlson)
On the surface, Joyful Communion is a no-shush, meaningful inclusive prayer service for persons of all abilities and all ages. It is a shortened (roughly 20-minute), lively, interactive and joyous prayer service centered around music, instruments, prayer, bible stories (acted out) and the teaching of simple life lessons.
On a deeper level, this ministry was created to enrich the spiritual lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities as well as to create a prayerful environment in the church where all who attend are encouraged to be themselves without fear of being “shushed.”
The idea of inclusion is one that works to benefit all people and the very premise recognizes and honors the fundamental value and dignity of each person. There’s a saying that is passed around that says, “It takes a special kind of person to care for a person with a disability.” I believe it is rather the opposite. I believe it takes a person with a disability to inspire people to be that special kind of person. Inclusion allows us to realize that we are all fundamentally alike in many ways, regardless of our abilities or disabilities, but also gives us more insight of the very unique strengths those with these challenges have. These strengths allow them to make very valuable, meaningful contributions to the church and its community.
Everyone should be welcomed and fully included into a faith community of their choice and have a meaningful way to participate, lead, serve and build relationships with people in similar and different situations in this community. Joyful Communion will not only provide this opportunity, but will provide our parish with the opportunity to become more aware and accepting of people of all abilities. This lesson is carried from our faith communities and into our daily lives. The impact of this has far reaching implications, not only for our church and people with disabilities, but for our entire community.
Our monthly Joyful Communion Prayer Services will be open to people with or without disabilities and to all faith backgrounds. Families with small children may also prefer the more casual, no-shush style of prayer.
Many volunteers are needed to launch this new venture with a strong start. If you are interested in getting involved please email Shannon at carlsonshannon1234@yahoo.com and/or attend our upcoming planning meeting on Sunday, July 12th at 1PM in the library. Your support and prayers are deeply appreciated. Mark your calendars!
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Crazy Catholic Question #39: Atrium
What is going on in room Luke 1 back by the library?
We are VERY excited for our summer program ready to launch on July 13th! Our Office of Family Ministry staff has been working extra hard, burning the midnight oil, and feeling energized and without question propelled by God’s Spirit in our preparation to work with our children in the year ahead. We ask our CTR community to keep all our kiddos in your prayers as we begin a new year of Faith Formation. This year our theme is “Prayer and Parables.” Our goal is two-fold: to further develop our children’s prayer life and invite them to ponder some of Jesus’ most profound teachings from Scripture: the Parables.
Our presupposition is that even the youngest of our little ones have a prayer life; a connection and awareness of God in their lives. God is present to them in their deepest being and they are more than capable of developing both a conscious and intimate relationship with God. This summer we hope to provide materials and lessons that nurture this relationship with God and deepen the prayer life that they already have and also build on that relationship by introducing (or pondering anew for our older kids) the Parables that Jesus told us.
To aid in these goals, we are incorporating bits and parts of a Montessori-based, contemplative approach to the religious formation of children, rooted in Sacred Scripture, liturgy, and respect for the child's rich relationship with God called “Catechesis of the Good Shepherd” originally researched and developed in 1954 by Dr. Sofia Cavalletti & Gianna Gobbi.
Central to this CGS method is what is called the “atrium”: a sacred, prepared space containing beautiful homemade, “hands-on” materials that focus the child's attention on key scripture passages or liturgical moments. If you haven’t had a chance, sneak-a-peek at room Luke 1 near the library…though still in its infancy, the development of this type of atrium is what we are working towards. This method of instruction and design of curriculum has been very well-received this past year at our “Parent/Child” retreats that are part of our sacramental preparation programs here at CTR. We were delighted (and a little surprised) to discover that even the parents found the material and presentations engaging and spiritually nourishing! So, in response to this positive feedback from parents, little by little, we have been integrating and building child-size materials that Montessori professionals traditionally call “works” for our Catechists to introduce and our children and parents to explore throughout the year ahead.
We are looking for adults from our community who would be interested in taking the formation courses for catechists. These courses provide an in-depth look at basic child development along with the child’s spiritual development. Catechists leave the “retreat-like” 90-hours of training with a new, fresh richness in the arenas of child development, pedagogy, and theology…as well as a unique experience of “receiving” the Good News for oneself. There is a summer intensive course being held June 22-26 at Gesu Parish near UDM in Detroit. The training costs $200 (we may have some scholarships available). It is not too late to register for this summer course if you are feeling called to support the children of our parish in this way (Yes, you read it right…it starts THIS Monday!). The training is also offered one Saturday each month during the school year. Please contact Lisa Brown at dre@ctredeemer.org if desiring to enroll.
For a fantastic article on CGS visit:
http://americamagazine.org/issue/667/article/faith-child
We are VERY excited for our summer program ready to launch on July 13th! Our Office of Family Ministry staff has been working extra hard, burning the midnight oil, and feeling energized and without question propelled by God’s Spirit in our preparation to work with our children in the year ahead. We ask our CTR community to keep all our kiddos in your prayers as we begin a new year of Faith Formation. This year our theme is “Prayer and Parables.” Our goal is two-fold: to further develop our children’s prayer life and invite them to ponder some of Jesus’ most profound teachings from Scripture: the Parables.
Our presupposition is that even the youngest of our little ones have a prayer life; a connection and awareness of God in their lives. God is present to them in their deepest being and they are more than capable of developing both a conscious and intimate relationship with God. This summer we hope to provide materials and lessons that nurture this relationship with God and deepen the prayer life that they already have and also build on that relationship by introducing (or pondering anew for our older kids) the Parables that Jesus told us.
To aid in these goals, we are incorporating bits and parts of a Montessori-based, contemplative approach to the religious formation of children, rooted in Sacred Scripture, liturgy, and respect for the child's rich relationship with God called “Catechesis of the Good Shepherd” originally researched and developed in 1954 by Dr. Sofia Cavalletti & Gianna Gobbi.
Central to this CGS method is what is called the “atrium”: a sacred, prepared space containing beautiful homemade, “hands-on” materials that focus the child's attention on key scripture passages or liturgical moments. If you haven’t had a chance, sneak-a-peek at room Luke 1 near the library…though still in its infancy, the development of this type of atrium is what we are working towards. This method of instruction and design of curriculum has been very well-received this past year at our “Parent/Child” retreats that are part of our sacramental preparation programs here at CTR. We were delighted (and a little surprised) to discover that even the parents found the material and presentations engaging and spiritually nourishing! So, in response to this positive feedback from parents, little by little, we have been integrating and building child-size materials that Montessori professionals traditionally call “works” for our Catechists to introduce and our children and parents to explore throughout the year ahead.
We are looking for adults from our community who would be interested in taking the formation courses for catechists. These courses provide an in-depth look at basic child development along with the child’s spiritual development. Catechists leave the “retreat-like” 90-hours of training with a new, fresh richness in the arenas of child development, pedagogy, and theology…as well as a unique experience of “receiving” the Good News for oneself. There is a summer intensive course being held June 22-26 at Gesu Parish near UDM in Detroit. The training costs $200 (we may have some scholarships available). It is not too late to register for this summer course if you are feeling called to support the children of our parish in this way (Yes, you read it right…it starts THIS Monday!). The training is also offered one Saturday each month during the school year. Please contact Lisa Brown at dre@ctredeemer.org if desiring to enroll.
For a fantastic article on CGS visit:
http://americamagazine.org/issue/667/article/faith-child
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Crazy Catholic Question #38: Parable
What is a parable?
We teach our little ones in faith formation that a parable is “a story with a mystery.” Jesus told many, many parables, and there is really no right or wrong way to understand them. They are stories that we can listen to and chew on for our whole lives and never really fully comprehend or come to the end of, so to speak. We hear one such parable this weekend.
Jesus says “What is the kingdom of God like? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”
For the Israelites of the first century there was a great disconnect between their identity as God’s chosen people and the reality in which they were living. Over a few centuries they had gone from the great heyday of national power under Kings Solomon and David to a brutally conquered nation, split and under occupation several times over, and during Jesus’ time, of course, they were under Roman occupation.
Jesus would have grown up with the language of the “kingdom of God” which his family and friends, and all of the Jewish people of his day envisioned as a place of triumph and power. An image often used of this imminent kingdom, found many times in the Old Testament, is that of the “Great Cedar of Lebanon.” These enormous trees would be comparable to the great red woods we have in California – towering some 300 feet or more.
So our Jewish ancestors dreamed of God’s kingdom as a time in the future when God’s chosen people would tower and rule over all nations, just like the image of the great cedar, well-known in Jesus’ time and culture as the greatest of all trees.
In light of this, Jesus’ metaphor is really very surprising and jarring because it turns the whole “Cedars of Lebanon” image on its head. The mustard seed wasn’t highly prized at all. In fact, on the contrary, it was something of nuisance. You didn’t dare plant it in your garden or it would crowd out all the other plants and literally and take over.
In fact the rabbinical law of the day that identified holiness with order and sin with disorder had very strict rules about what you could plant in a household garden and a mustard seed was one of the most forbidden things to plant because it caused such great disorder and upheaval - it grew fast and choked out anything growing around it.
So the first-century hearers of Jesus’ parable here would have known that the person planting the mustard seed in his garden was doing something illegal! Jesus is actually beginning his vision of the kingdom of God with someone breaking the law!
And the rest of Jesus’ story just continues to mystify. Some translations call it a tree, but what grows from a mustard seed is actually more of a shrub. It grows only about 4 feet high and isn’t a particularly attractive plant. Many people regarded it as a bit of a weed.
So (much to the horror of the first people hearing this parable, I’m sure) Jesus has literally cut the “Great Cedar of Lebanon” image of the Kingdom of God down to the image of an annoying, short bush, planted illegally in someone’s backyard garden that causes great upheaval and disorder when it grows…(?)
Scripture scholar CH Dodd defines a parable as “a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life that arrests the hearer by its vividness or strangeness and leaves the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application so as to tease it into active thought.” So, a parable is a kind of riddle designed to both confuse and instruct….a story with a mystery!
We teach our little ones in faith formation that a parable is “a story with a mystery.” Jesus told many, many parables, and there is really no right or wrong way to understand them. They are stories that we can listen to and chew on for our whole lives and never really fully comprehend or come to the end of, so to speak. We hear one such parable this weekend.
Jesus says “What is the kingdom of God like? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”
For the Israelites of the first century there was a great disconnect between their identity as God’s chosen people and the reality in which they were living. Over a few centuries they had gone from the great heyday of national power under Kings Solomon and David to a brutally conquered nation, split and under occupation several times over, and during Jesus’ time, of course, they were under Roman occupation.
Jesus would have grown up with the language of the “kingdom of God” which his family and friends, and all of the Jewish people of his day envisioned as a place of triumph and power. An image often used of this imminent kingdom, found many times in the Old Testament, is that of the “Great Cedar of Lebanon.” These enormous trees would be comparable to the great red woods we have in California – towering some 300 feet or more.
So our Jewish ancestors dreamed of God’s kingdom as a time in the future when God’s chosen people would tower and rule over all nations, just like the image of the great cedar, well-known in Jesus’ time and culture as the greatest of all trees.
In light of this, Jesus’ metaphor is really very surprising and jarring because it turns the whole “Cedars of Lebanon” image on its head. The mustard seed wasn’t highly prized at all. In fact, on the contrary, it was something of nuisance. You didn’t dare plant it in your garden or it would crowd out all the other plants and literally and take over.
In fact the rabbinical law of the day that identified holiness with order and sin with disorder had very strict rules about what you could plant in a household garden and a mustard seed was one of the most forbidden things to plant because it caused such great disorder and upheaval - it grew fast and choked out anything growing around it.
So the first-century hearers of Jesus’ parable here would have known that the person planting the mustard seed in his garden was doing something illegal! Jesus is actually beginning his vision of the kingdom of God with someone breaking the law!
And the rest of Jesus’ story just continues to mystify. Some translations call it a tree, but what grows from a mustard seed is actually more of a shrub. It grows only about 4 feet high and isn’t a particularly attractive plant. Many people regarded it as a bit of a weed.
So (much to the horror of the first people hearing this parable, I’m sure) Jesus has literally cut the “Great Cedar of Lebanon” image of the Kingdom of God down to the image of an annoying, short bush, planted illegally in someone’s backyard garden that causes great upheaval and disorder when it grows…(?)
Scripture scholar CH Dodd defines a parable as “a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life that arrests the hearer by its vividness or strangeness and leaves the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application so as to tease it into active thought.” So, a parable is a kind of riddle designed to both confuse and instruct….a story with a mystery!
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Crazy Catholic Question #37: Face-to-Face
Why is our annual Parent Orientation important?
We have our FINAL PARENT ORIENTATION
meeting for our summer program coming up next week, Monday, June 15th at 7PM. Even though I’m relatively new to this job, there
are some patterns I’m noticing. Each
time we hold one of these “Orientations” I get one or two parents who express
some frustration about having to attend this meeting every year in order to
register their child for our faith formation program. I would like to briefly share why we think
this meeting is important….
First, what this meeting is NOT. It is not our effort to make your life more
difficult. It is not just another hoop
to jump through. I have three kids and I
get it…life is busy. Our intent is not
to coerce or frustrate but rather to have at least one opportunity (about one-hour
in length) each year to meet with parents face-to-face to discuss the faith
development of our little ones because, YOU, the parents are BY FAR the primary
catechists of your children.
Coming from 16 years of University
Ministry, I can tell you there was not one single college student who was
involved who didn’t have at least one prayerful parent who talked with them
about his/her own personal faith life…NOT…ONE.
In short, everything we do here in our Faith Formation program is a
waste of time without the foundation already being set at home.
At our last orientation meeting I
invited parents to share with one another who taught them to pray. Afterwards I asked for a show of hands “Who
in this room was taught to pray by a parent?”
Virtually every hand went up…
So, we think of ourselves in the Office
of Family Ministry as your “Support Staff.”
We are here to support you, the parents, in your challenging work of appropriating
our faith to your children. Our goal is
to “tool you up” so that even in the blur of our daily lives we manage to fit
in a little discussion about Jesus.
If you spend just 5-minutes a day
fostering your child’s spiritual life in some way (dinner & bedtime prayer pretty
much cover it), you exceed our annual 30 hours of formal catechesis by a long
shot AND you will be more infinitely more effective than we could ever be. A strong faith community is of course
essential in forming our children in the faith, but we have no doubt that the
parents are the captains of this team.
This year our theme is: Prayer & Parables. Our goal is two-fold: to further develop our children’s prayer life
and encourage them to ponder some of Jesus’ most profound teachings from
Scripture; the Parables.
Our presupposition is that even the
youngest of our little ones have a prayer life; a connection and awareness of
God in their lives. God is present to
them in their deepest being and they are capable of developing both a conscious
and intimate relationship with God. Our
hope is to provide materials and lessons that nurture this relationship with
God, deepen the prayer life that they already have and build on their understanding
of God’s dream for our world by introducing (or pondering anew for our older
kids) the Parables that Jesus told us.
This year, to assist our working
parents we are partnering with a couple local childcare centers to offer
aftercare for our kids. PLEASE INVITE YOUR FRIENDS AND
NEIGHBORS! Our summer program is not
restricted in any way to just Catholics and/or CTR folks. Quite the opposite! It’s a fantastic way to invite new families to
our parish!
For a great article on passing on the
faith to our kids visit: http://www.uscatholic.org/articles/201301/show-me-way-how-can-parents-pass-faith-26739. Send
your "Crazy Catholic Questions" to dre@ctredeemer.org or read past
columns at: http://crazycatholicquestions.blogspot.com
-
Lisa Brown
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Pentecost Reflection from final week at St. John Fisher
Here is the final reflection offered with love and gratitude to my St. John Fisher Faith Family on Pentecost a week before leaving to begin my new job at Christ the Redeemer.
If you would rather view and listen to the video, click this link. The Gospel reading begins at minute 19:10 and the reflection starts at minute 20:30: https://www.dropbox.com/s/apsht9dyb0002yi/Pentecost%20homily%20a2014%20Opening%20Song%20to%20Prayers%20of%20the%20Faithful.MPG?dl=0
From time to time we all experience big events in our lives that change things…that change everything. We might call them “Before and After” moments. They are the experiences that we refer to like “Before we had children” (that’s a big one) or “After Mom died." "Before the illness" or "after graduation." It’s a way in which we pinpoint a certain era of our lives. When I was a little kid it was always “Before and after the divorce of my parents." I’ve often heard Fr. Jerry talk about “before and after” his brother…. “Big John” died.
These moments are the game changers in our lives that make us reevaluate everything we have known up to this point through the lens of this one, new, BIG, life event.
From our readings today, I imagine the apostles talked among themselves about how much life changed not only before and after Jesus’ death, but also “before and after that really wild, weird experience in the upper room.” Before this really wild and weird experience in the upper room, we read often in the scriptures that the few remaining followers of Jesus were always hanging out together “behind locked doors”….
For the 50 days following Jesus’ death they locked themselves in remote, hard to find places and spoke in whispered tones, scared of being discovered and connected to their former rabbi and leader Jesus, who was now of course the condemned and executed criminal Jesus…and fearful of suffering a similar fate for their association with him.
After Jesus’ death, the apostles laid very low and felt very confused and frightened about the future. But After this really wild and weird upper room experience this same handful of people leave the upper room full of courage and zeal to establish what remains the most prevalent belief systems and spirituality in the world, even now over 2000 years later.
This experience of Pentecost was indeed a very big game changer. So big that all but one of the apostles leave this upper room to die martyrs deaths due to their tireless preaching of the gospel. And the preaching took hold…and that is why we call this feast day the “Birthday of the Church.” We may never be sure what actually happened in that upper room, but one thing is for sure…something very, very significant happened…..Something crucial to our being here in this place, breaking bread and talking about Jesus centuries later.
My most recent Before/After life event is what my family simply calls “the fire.” We had a defective dryer that had an electrical short that sparked a fire in our basement and in the blink of an eye we found ourselves in a hotel room two days before Christmas, smelling of smoke without a change of clothes, a toothbrush or a single wrapped gift for our girls, at the time ages 8, 5, & 1. We left our soot covered, flooded house in such haste, my Lauren had on only one boot. Our entire world was flipped upside down and we were displaced for over 8 months.
Like a mighty rushing wind you blew into my family’s life at this time of crisis and fear and gave us hope. The Christmas gifts for the kids poured in. Endless bags of clothes. All the prayers, hugs and kind words of support in the cards, emails and facebook messages were an outpouring of the Spirit that genuinely healed us. Our agape young adult community sprang into action and within 24 hours we had a decorated tree and a hotel room full of wrapped Christmas presents for the girls to open on Christmas morning.
You all did for us what no one person, no one family, could have ever done. What no insurance company could ever provide. Every word, every gift, every hug embodied God for us. Embodied love for us. For me this experience is not only Before/After the Fire….but Before/After I realized the real power and significance of being church.
It’s like your parent is a doctor or a nurse, and you know this your whole life, but then one day a real emergency happens and you see your parent do some amazing and very impressive things to save the patient. And you are simply blown away! You always knew your parent was a great doctor or nurse, but you had never seen them in action! This is how I feel about the fire and your care of my family. For me it was the “Before and After” of knowing what the church could be.
I knew in theory that we - as the body of Christ, the church - was the healing, generous, restorative presence of God…I had spoken about it right here many times, but I had never seen it in action….at least not from the receiving end. It was for me a great moment of clarity of the great power we hold and wield. My kids may not know the creed quite yet, but they will never forget that experience of church….and I thank you for that…
Pentecost lies at the intersection of mysticism and mission and the result is community. This wild, weird experience that the disciples are trying to explain in our scriptures today was certainly a mystical experience of God. Difficult to explain, but nonetheless real. (One of our great theologians Karl Rahner once said that “the Christian of the future will be a mystic or nothing at all”)
In the wake of Pentecost, a community of genuine sharing was born. The early church did as a collective what no one person or one family could do and they understood that a non-negotiable, essential aspect of the gospel was insuring that everyone had enough food, clothing, and medical care….all their basic needs met.
The early disciples knew that church wasn’t set of beliefs that you talked AT people but a community of believers propelled by the vision that Jesus entrusted to us, believers in his promise that compassion can change the world and who know that our togetherness is the greatest remedy for all that fills us with fear. What brings us here each week is that we all share this vision of all that could be! Of all we can be for one another. And it propels us. It missions us. It forms us as disciples.
The heart of the good news is that we are not alone. This is the good news that everyone heard in their own language as the disciples preached it – because it is our universal human dream. The vision of a world where God is present, love wins, everyone has what they need and no one dies alone or is left out in the cold full of fear.
Ron Rolheiser writes “Community is not, first of all, nor necessarily at all, a shared roof, a shared city, a shared task, or even an explicitly shared friendship. It’s a shared spirit, a shared way of life.
Before Pentecost, the disciples were physically together under one roof, clinging to each other, but they were not living in real community. After receiving the spirit, they were never together again under one roof or in one city, but they now were in community.
Community, family, intimacy, these are constituted first of all by living in the same spirit, Christ’s spirit…charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness….When we (do our best to) live within these, we are in deep intimacy with all others who are also (striving to live) within them, irrespective of the separation that distance and time can cause.” (Rolheiser)
T.S. Eliot once said that home is where we start from. For the last 16 years, I have not just worked here….this has not been just a job, but a true home. And as I leave, I recognize that I have received infinity more than I have given.
You all prayed with us at our wedding, celebrated the birth and baptisms of each of our three daughters, fed us at this table and ministered powerfully to us in our pain. We have shared deeply, and I suspect that all the other staff members who are leaving, especially Augie and his family after 34 years of service here, sense that underneath all the smiles and hugs and lovely words of gratitude and encouragement there is, nonetheless, a sincere sadness.
Though we will all be around from time to time, we will never have THIS time again…we are saying goodbye to this shared experience….we will never be together quite like this again….
“But we also know that true community, is first and foremost a shared spirit that need not be lost when death, distance, and commitments break us apart.”
Anyone who has asked me lately how I’m feeling about going to this new job at the new place, I’ve replied that there really should be a word for feeling both elated and terrified. The feeling I’m having is what I imagine jumping out of a plane would feel like…And I imagine as the disciples left that upper room, though filled with the Spirit and sure of their mission and calling, I like to think they felt a little elated and terrified too. You all have probably had this feeling too, because all of us in some way or another is being missioned and sent from this place and leaving through the servants entrance to take the Spirit of this beautiful community with us where ever we go.
And I bet that the disciples knew as they left that upper room that though they would never share this time or space with their friends again, that they would always be church…
WE will always be church…..
If you would rather view and listen to the video, click this link. The Gospel reading begins at minute 19:10 and the reflection starts at minute 20:30: https://www.dropbox.com/s/apsht9dyb0002yi/Pentecost%20homily%20a2014%20Opening%20Song%20to%20Prayers%20of%20the%20Faithful.MPG?dl=0
From time to time we all experience big events in our lives that change things…that change everything. We might call them “Before and After” moments. They are the experiences that we refer to like “Before we had children” (that’s a big one) or “After Mom died." "Before the illness" or "after graduation." It’s a way in which we pinpoint a certain era of our lives. When I was a little kid it was always “Before and after the divorce of my parents." I’ve often heard Fr. Jerry talk about “before and after” his brother…. “Big John” died.
These moments are the game changers in our lives that make us reevaluate everything we have known up to this point through the lens of this one, new, BIG, life event.
From our readings today, I imagine the apostles talked among themselves about how much life changed not only before and after Jesus’ death, but also “before and after that really wild, weird experience in the upper room.” Before this really wild and weird experience in the upper room, we read often in the scriptures that the few remaining followers of Jesus were always hanging out together “behind locked doors”….
For the 50 days following Jesus’ death they locked themselves in remote, hard to find places and spoke in whispered tones, scared of being discovered and connected to their former rabbi and leader Jesus, who was now of course the condemned and executed criminal Jesus…and fearful of suffering a similar fate for their association with him.
After Jesus’ death, the apostles laid very low and felt very confused and frightened about the future. But After this really wild and weird upper room experience this same handful of people leave the upper room full of courage and zeal to establish what remains the most prevalent belief systems and spirituality in the world, even now over 2000 years later.
This experience of Pentecost was indeed a very big game changer. So big that all but one of the apostles leave this upper room to die martyrs deaths due to their tireless preaching of the gospel. And the preaching took hold…and that is why we call this feast day the “Birthday of the Church.” We may never be sure what actually happened in that upper room, but one thing is for sure…something very, very significant happened…..Something crucial to our being here in this place, breaking bread and talking about Jesus centuries later.
My most recent Before/After life event is what my family simply calls “the fire.” We had a defective dryer that had an electrical short that sparked a fire in our basement and in the blink of an eye we found ourselves in a hotel room two days before Christmas, smelling of smoke without a change of clothes, a toothbrush or a single wrapped gift for our girls, at the time ages 8, 5, & 1. We left our soot covered, flooded house in such haste, my Lauren had on only one boot. Our entire world was flipped upside down and we were displaced for over 8 months.
Like a mighty rushing wind you blew into my family’s life at this time of crisis and fear and gave us hope. The Christmas gifts for the kids poured in. Endless bags of clothes. All the prayers, hugs and kind words of support in the cards, emails and facebook messages were an outpouring of the Spirit that genuinely healed us. Our agape young adult community sprang into action and within 24 hours we had a decorated tree and a hotel room full of wrapped Christmas presents for the girls to open on Christmas morning.
You all did for us what no one person, no one family, could have ever done. What no insurance company could ever provide. Every word, every gift, every hug embodied God for us. Embodied love for us. For me this experience is not only Before/After the Fire….but Before/After I realized the real power and significance of being church.
It’s like your parent is a doctor or a nurse, and you know this your whole life, but then one day a real emergency happens and you see your parent do some amazing and very impressive things to save the patient. And you are simply blown away! You always knew your parent was a great doctor or nurse, but you had never seen them in action! This is how I feel about the fire and your care of my family. For me it was the “Before and After” of knowing what the church could be.
I knew in theory that we - as the body of Christ, the church - was the healing, generous, restorative presence of God…I had spoken about it right here many times, but I had never seen it in action….at least not from the receiving end. It was for me a great moment of clarity of the great power we hold and wield. My kids may not know the creed quite yet, but they will never forget that experience of church….and I thank you for that…
Pentecost lies at the intersection of mysticism and mission and the result is community. This wild, weird experience that the disciples are trying to explain in our scriptures today was certainly a mystical experience of God. Difficult to explain, but nonetheless real. (One of our great theologians Karl Rahner once said that “the Christian of the future will be a mystic or nothing at all”)
In the wake of Pentecost, a community of genuine sharing was born. The early church did as a collective what no one person or one family could do and they understood that a non-negotiable, essential aspect of the gospel was insuring that everyone had enough food, clothing, and medical care….all their basic needs met.
The early disciples knew that church wasn’t set of beliefs that you talked AT people but a community of believers propelled by the vision that Jesus entrusted to us, believers in his promise that compassion can change the world and who know that our togetherness is the greatest remedy for all that fills us with fear. What brings us here each week is that we all share this vision of all that could be! Of all we can be for one another. And it propels us. It missions us. It forms us as disciples.
The heart of the good news is that we are not alone. This is the good news that everyone heard in their own language as the disciples preached it – because it is our universal human dream. The vision of a world where God is present, love wins, everyone has what they need and no one dies alone or is left out in the cold full of fear.
Ron Rolheiser writes “Community is not, first of all, nor necessarily at all, a shared roof, a shared city, a shared task, or even an explicitly shared friendship. It’s a shared spirit, a shared way of life.
Before Pentecost, the disciples were physically together under one roof, clinging to each other, but they were not living in real community. After receiving the spirit, they were never together again under one roof or in one city, but they now were in community.
Community, family, intimacy, these are constituted first of all by living in the same spirit, Christ’s spirit…charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness….When we (do our best to) live within these, we are in deep intimacy with all others who are also (striving to live) within them, irrespective of the separation that distance and time can cause.” (Rolheiser)
T.S. Eliot once said that home is where we start from. For the last 16 years, I have not just worked here….this has not been just a job, but a true home. And as I leave, I recognize that I have received infinity more than I have given.
You all prayed with us at our wedding, celebrated the birth and baptisms of each of our three daughters, fed us at this table and ministered powerfully to us in our pain. We have shared deeply, and I suspect that all the other staff members who are leaving, especially Augie and his family after 34 years of service here, sense that underneath all the smiles and hugs and lovely words of gratitude and encouragement there is, nonetheless, a sincere sadness.
Though we will all be around from time to time, we will never have THIS time again…we are saying goodbye to this shared experience….we will never be together quite like this again….
“But we also know that true community, is first and foremost a shared spirit that need not be lost when death, distance, and commitments break us apart.”
Anyone who has asked me lately how I’m feeling about going to this new job at the new place, I’ve replied that there really should be a word for feeling both elated and terrified. The feeling I’m having is what I imagine jumping out of a plane would feel like…And I imagine as the disciples left that upper room, though filled with the Spirit and sure of their mission and calling, I like to think they felt a little elated and terrified too. You all have probably had this feeling too, because all of us in some way or another is being missioned and sent from this place and leaving through the servants entrance to take the Spirit of this beautiful community with us where ever we go.
And I bet that the disciples knew as they left that upper room that though they would never share this time or space with their friends again, that they would always be church…
WE will always be church…..
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Crazy Catholic Question #36: First Year
How was your first year of ministry here at Christ the Redeemer?
With Confirmation last week and all our Faith Formation classes having drawn to a close lots of folks are asking me, “So, how was your first year?” In a word – Spectacular! You all have built a remarkable church here over the past 35 years and I am deeply grateful to be a part of it! Thank you SO much for your sincere and affectionate welcome – and your understanding and patience while I’ve been learning “on-the-job” this year.
My family and I have been spiritually refreshed and edified by the extraordinarily kind and loving community here at CTR and by the stunningly beautiful and moving liturgies that are so thoughtfully prepared. (Holy Thursday! Wowza! My kids were terribly behaved that night, but I was so prayerfully mesmerized I hardly noticed…my apologies for those who sat near us).
It has been a true honor and joy to work alongside the absolutely incredible CTR Staff – I could not have dreamed up a more compassionate, dedicated and supportive group of colleagues….not to mention exceptionally talented and flippin’ fantastic at the work they do! Thanks to Nancy, Marilyn & Crissy for getting all us "newbies" off to such a terrific start AND a HUGE shout out to our Office of Family Ministry staff: Maryalice, Ann, Karen, Michele, Deb & Lisa – I can’t count the number of times you pitched in and bailed me out this year when my kids were sick or I didn’t have a clue of all that needed to be done given my naiveté, or because I simply bit off more than I could chew. A million thanks….make it a trillion.
Sue, thanks for your generous encouragement and for putting up with my delinquent bulletin articles (BTW, I think this one is going to be late too) and Dawn & Christi for their steadfast care and support. Karen & Lisa, gratitude for your inspiring and faithful hard work to keep what is most important – caring for the poor – before all of us in such creative and meaningful ways. I promise, next year my family will volunteer more often! Mari, thank you for your gentle, “sisterly” guidance and beautiful music! Thanks to Derek, Brian, Mike, and Andrew who are so agreeable even in the face of the most ridiculous, last-minute maintenance requests and to our Education Commission chair Dave Zande for his humor and care!
Deep thanks to Fr. Joe for giving a rookie a chance, being forgiving of my blunders and bad memory and for being supportive of virtually every crazy idea I brought into your office this year. It is such a tremendous gift to work for such a creative, brilliant intellect and “artist-in-every-medium” (including liturgy) Renaissance man like you. God was indeed very lavish in pouring out the gifts on you…thanks for sharing them so freely.
Another word for this year would be “BUSY!” Lord have mercy, I am READY for a vacation! I’ve been joking with our staff that I am officially “Jesused-out!” but Jesus knows that like most humorous comments of this nature, it’s only half a joke. I’m desperately in need of a light-hearted beach read, some bad television AND some very intentional and focused FAMILY TIME! My deepest gratitude to my husband Kip, and my daughters Lauren, Audrey & Vivienne who have tolerated my late nights, disorganized mornings, lousy slap-dash meals, and my distracted and more often than not cranky-momma-self this year. Thank you for understanding how important this year was to me and for all your love and support.
The song “Good to Me” by Audrey Assad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKosVfAEUPE) expresses exactly how I’m feeling about this grace-filled first-year here at CTR. I heartily thank God for such great people to “be church” with….and if God wills and you’ll have me, I’d like to stay for many years to come.
With Confirmation last week and all our Faith Formation classes having drawn to a close lots of folks are asking me, “So, how was your first year?” In a word – Spectacular! You all have built a remarkable church here over the past 35 years and I am deeply grateful to be a part of it! Thank you SO much for your sincere and affectionate welcome – and your understanding and patience while I’ve been learning “on-the-job” this year.
My family and I have been spiritually refreshed and edified by the extraordinarily kind and loving community here at CTR and by the stunningly beautiful and moving liturgies that are so thoughtfully prepared. (Holy Thursday! Wowza! My kids were terribly behaved that night, but I was so prayerfully mesmerized I hardly noticed…my apologies for those who sat near us).
It has been a true honor and joy to work alongside the absolutely incredible CTR Staff – I could not have dreamed up a more compassionate, dedicated and supportive group of colleagues….not to mention exceptionally talented and flippin’ fantastic at the work they do! Thanks to Nancy, Marilyn & Crissy for getting all us "newbies" off to such a terrific start AND a HUGE shout out to our Office of Family Ministry staff: Maryalice, Ann, Karen, Michele, Deb & Lisa – I can’t count the number of times you pitched in and bailed me out this year when my kids were sick or I didn’t have a clue of all that needed to be done given my naiveté, or because I simply bit off more than I could chew. A million thanks….make it a trillion.
Sue, thanks for your generous encouragement and for putting up with my delinquent bulletin articles (BTW, I think this one is going to be late too) and Dawn & Christi for their steadfast care and support. Karen & Lisa, gratitude for your inspiring and faithful hard work to keep what is most important – caring for the poor – before all of us in such creative and meaningful ways. I promise, next year my family will volunteer more often! Mari, thank you for your gentle, “sisterly” guidance and beautiful music! Thanks to Derek, Brian, Mike, and Andrew who are so agreeable even in the face of the most ridiculous, last-minute maintenance requests and to our Education Commission chair Dave Zande for his humor and care!
Deep thanks to Fr. Joe for giving a rookie a chance, being forgiving of my blunders and bad memory and for being supportive of virtually every crazy idea I brought into your office this year. It is such a tremendous gift to work for such a creative, brilliant intellect and “artist-in-every-medium” (including liturgy) Renaissance man like you. God was indeed very lavish in pouring out the gifts on you…thanks for sharing them so freely.
Another word for this year would be “BUSY!” Lord have mercy, I am READY for a vacation! I’ve been joking with our staff that I am officially “Jesused-out!” but Jesus knows that like most humorous comments of this nature, it’s only half a joke. I’m desperately in need of a light-hearted beach read, some bad television AND some very intentional and focused FAMILY TIME! My deepest gratitude to my husband Kip, and my daughters Lauren, Audrey & Vivienne who have tolerated my late nights, disorganized mornings, lousy slap-dash meals, and my distracted and more often than not cranky-momma-self this year. Thank you for understanding how important this year was to me and for all your love and support.
The song “Good to Me” by Audrey Assad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKosVfAEUPE) expresses exactly how I’m feeling about this grace-filled first-year here at CTR. I heartily thank God for such great people to “be church” with….and if God wills and you’ll have me, I’d like to stay for many years to come.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Crazy Catholic Question #35: Authenticity
How can we support and encourage our young people to engage more deeply in our faith?
There was a terrific opinion piece in the Washington Post this past week entitled “Want Millennials back in the pews? Stop trying to make church ‘cool.’ Here are some highlights:
“In the U.S, 59% of people ages 18 to 29 with a Christian background have stopped attending church. Asked why, 87% say they see Christians as judgmental, and 85% see them as hypocritical. A similar study found that “only 8% say they don’t attend because church is ‘out of date,’ undercutting the notion that all churches need to do for Millennials is to make worship ‘cooler.’ For a generation bombarded with advertising and sales pitches, young people can sense when there is more emphasis on marketing Jesus than actually following Him. Millennials are not disillusioned with tradition; they are frustrated with inauthentic, slick or shallow expressions of religion.”
The author of this op-ed piece, a millennial herself, closes with this quote “What finally brought me back, wasn’t lattes or skinny jeans; it was the sacraments. Baptism, confession, Communion, preaching the Word, anointing the sick — you know, those strange rituals and traditions Christians have been practicing for the past 2,000 years. The sacraments are what make the church relevant, no matter the culture or era. They don’t need to be repackaged or rebranded; they just need to be practiced, offered and explained in the context of a loving, authentic and inclusive community.”
This past Monday we had our final evening of formation for the 67 teens from our community who will celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation this weekend with Bishop Cepeda. Long time CTR parishioners John & Maggie Williams came in to share a bit about their story – how they listened in prayer and journeyed with God in founding “Bakhita Village” – a shelter and school for young girls in South Africa.
With just a simple power point and some photos of the girls who live and learn at Bakhita, they had our teens full attention. They explained how these girls were living in the most dire of circumstances – no food, no shelter, no education or opportunities whatsoever, some girls were only 12 years of age and taking care of 4 or more siblings because their parents died of AIDS (which 1/3 of the adult population suffers from in that region) and left them orphaned. John & Maggie encouraged our teens at this important time of decision making in their young lives to think on these realities. They invited them to dream a bit about how they might help to alleviate the suffering of others and make the world a more just and equitable place...to really listen to where the Holy Spirit is leading them to share their gifts and charisms as they prepare to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation.
Pope Francis writes “Performing acts of love towards our neighbor is the most perfect external manifestation of the Spirit’s inner grace. Mercy, bearing the misfortunes of others, is the greatest of all the virtues in terms of moral action. Mercy IS God’s justice.”
John & Maggie shared with humility and great joy how they heard God in the suffering of the children in this small village and discerned through prayer and trial and error how they could help. They said “We aren’t saving the world...we are just doing our small part to make the lives of at least these 28 girls better.”
Authenticity does not need to be “marketed.” The Gospel of Jesus speaks for itself, more through our loving actions than our words. John & Maggie witnessed the Gospel to our teens on Monday and closed with two simple ways we all can live a more just life: 1. Share. 2. Don’t waste. Among our teens listening intently, you could have heard a pin drop.
There was a terrific opinion piece in the Washington Post this past week entitled “Want Millennials back in the pews? Stop trying to make church ‘cool.’ Here are some highlights:
“In the U.S, 59% of people ages 18 to 29 with a Christian background have stopped attending church. Asked why, 87% say they see Christians as judgmental, and 85% see them as hypocritical. A similar study found that “only 8% say they don’t attend because church is ‘out of date,’ undercutting the notion that all churches need to do for Millennials is to make worship ‘cooler.’ For a generation bombarded with advertising and sales pitches, young people can sense when there is more emphasis on marketing Jesus than actually following Him. Millennials are not disillusioned with tradition; they are frustrated with inauthentic, slick or shallow expressions of religion.”
The author of this op-ed piece, a millennial herself, closes with this quote “What finally brought me back, wasn’t lattes or skinny jeans; it was the sacraments. Baptism, confession, Communion, preaching the Word, anointing the sick — you know, those strange rituals and traditions Christians have been practicing for the past 2,000 years. The sacraments are what make the church relevant, no matter the culture or era. They don’t need to be repackaged or rebranded; they just need to be practiced, offered and explained in the context of a loving, authentic and inclusive community.”
This past Monday we had our final evening of formation for the 67 teens from our community who will celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation this weekend with Bishop Cepeda. Long time CTR parishioners John & Maggie Williams came in to share a bit about their story – how they listened in prayer and journeyed with God in founding “Bakhita Village” – a shelter and school for young girls in South Africa.
With just a simple power point and some photos of the girls who live and learn at Bakhita, they had our teens full attention. They explained how these girls were living in the most dire of circumstances – no food, no shelter, no education or opportunities whatsoever, some girls were only 12 years of age and taking care of 4 or more siblings because their parents died of AIDS (which 1/3 of the adult population suffers from in that region) and left them orphaned. John & Maggie encouraged our teens at this important time of decision making in their young lives to think on these realities. They invited them to dream a bit about how they might help to alleviate the suffering of others and make the world a more just and equitable place...to really listen to where the Holy Spirit is leading them to share their gifts and charisms as they prepare to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation.
Pope Francis writes “Performing acts of love towards our neighbor is the most perfect external manifestation of the Spirit’s inner grace. Mercy, bearing the misfortunes of others, is the greatest of all the virtues in terms of moral action. Mercy IS God’s justice.”
John & Maggie shared with humility and great joy how they heard God in the suffering of the children in this small village and discerned through prayer and trial and error how they could help. They said “We aren’t saving the world...we are just doing our small part to make the lives of at least these 28 girls better.”
Authenticity does not need to be “marketed.” The Gospel of Jesus speaks for itself, more through our loving actions than our words. John & Maggie witnessed the Gospel to our teens on Monday and closed with two simple ways we all can live a more just life: 1. Share. 2. Don’t waste. Among our teens listening intently, you could have heard a pin drop.
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