The Power to Choose

One spring afternoon a five-year-old was helping his dad replant some irises along the side of a sunny fence. A neighbor joined them for a few moments. Our young lad pointed to the ground. Look Daddy! What’s that? This dad stopped talking with his neighbor and looked down. A beetle. Our youngster was fascinated and pleased with the discovery of this fancy, colorful creature. The neighbor lifted his foot and stepped on the insect giving his shoe an extra twist in the dirt. That ought to do it, he laughed. The shocked boy looked up at his father, waiting for a reason. That night, just before he turned off his light for bed, our young man whispered to his father. I liked that beetle, Daddy. His father whispered back, I did too. My friends, we have the power to choose.

We have the power to choose how we will respond to every living thing that crosses our path. We have the power to love one another or not.

I am grateful to God daily for the gift of serving as his priest for thirty years. Ministry is a choice and we all have been ordained by the Good Shepherd to serve in many ways. I am aware how well each of you is serving in the following ways…

Parents respond to their daughters who suffer grand mal seizures. A nurse listens to her patient who attempted suicide on a psych unit. A social worker helps an angry child learn to find calm. The NICU nurses offer comfort to their cancer kids. Others bath a bedsore patient. A college student listens to a friend’s tale of family tensions. A retired person volunteers to bike hundreds of miles for a charity. A college student with bone cancer helps change a tire of a patient in my office parking lot. Professors and neighbors are cooking crock-pots of chili to feed hundreds of Brockport students during exam week. Ordinary, non-spectacular, run-of-the-mill behavior. But love has been chosen. These people “have laid down their loves,” have “died to self.” In short, they have loved as Jesus did, which means they chose to pay the cost.

Authentic love costs. It cost parents, nurses, professors, students and Jesus. The banner at my first Mass said: “This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you.” Well done, my friends.

Lord, I promise to continue to pray for all my Sonshine Friends who daily lay down their lives for their friends. My Anniversary Blessing upon you all for good health, wealth and happiness. May this blessing dissolve all negativity in your life and find only peace.

Blistered Hands

I was working in the garden in my iris bed. Last year, these flowers did not bloom. I was told to check for bores that get inside the root and destroy the flower. Digging through the soil was a chore that soon left blisters on my hands. The soil was hard, rocky and filled with roots from the nearby maple tree. The irises needed room to breath and I had neglected to turn over the soil and add compost which would help the irises to grow once again.

In the tragedy of Virginia Tech, how should we respond? What is the wisdom we need to gleam after this violence which simply brings to my mind the “meanness in the world.” I had witnessed this meanness in NYC after 9/11. Everyday, “meanness” smothers life. It might be more violence in Iraqi, or genocide in Darfur, or the death of an infant in NICU.

How shall we respond to meanness in our world? I would say mostly with a challenge. To do more to help the suffering. To speak up against intolerance. To organize. To protest. To write letters. To make a difference.

One thing we are good at as pastors, rabbis and pastoral ministers is knowing how to use words. Personally, I prefer to use visual images. A Virginia Tech or a Brockport or RIT student might ask how to deal with the heartbreak that “meanness” causes in the world. It might be the heartbreak of losing a family member – like your grandfather or for a patient of mine—her grandson.

I say, remember your loved ones. Remember their stories, remember their smile . . . And help those who suffer now, people you don’t know. By helping them overcome their suffering, and you will overcome your own.

Sometimes students want to know which “meanness” should they pick among the many causes in the world. Choose one, choose any one, then, inevitably, that will lead to others. For each “meaness” think of the tears the person left behind such as the parents of those who died at Virginia Tech or in NYC on 9/11, or in Sudan.

Jesus said: “I have come to bring you peace.” Many people might scream at God after such “meanness” and ask where is your love? Why is there so much suffering in the world?

I think our role in life is to go around the world and collect these tears and bring their cause to the world.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who suffer from the “meanness” in their life. Help us to choose a cause: a CROP Walk, or cooking dinner for students during Exam Week or helping our local migrants, or serving food to the poor, or praying with parents of their dying child. Pour out your healing salve to anoint our “blistered hands” which hurt from digging through the meanness in the earth. Help us to grow with Your compassionate love.

Something Beautiful

Last night, I thanked our college students for coming to Mass on such a “cruddy night.” A storm warning predicted lots of snow in April, and it was damp and raining and just plain miserable.

After the resurrection. the friends of Jesus were most likely feeling cruddy. Locked behind closed doors, they stumbled around for answers. Thomas appears to be feeling the worse holding a grudge against Jesus that he failed to keep his promise to make them leaders of his kingdom. Rather, their leader died in shame.

How many grudges do you hold against God because things have not gone your way? We remember only the cruelties of being mocked in school, or ridiculed by others, the dishonesty of colleagues, the insensitivity of our partner, the ingratitude of our children.

Then Jesus comes knocking at our door, or rather simply comes inside the room filled with a bunch of miserable, cruddy feelings. “Peace be with you,” he says and next proceeds to tell Thomas to touch him so that he might believe. Actually, the real miracle you might have missed is that Jesus forgives us when we blame Him for all our troubles. “I come to bring you peace.”

Did you know that God is trying to shape you. To do so He must remove from you all that does not look like Him—the cruddy parts of our life like impatience and grudges. Created in His image, we have a lot of baggage that needs to be removed. I speak of the things that separate us from the Lord.

Peace comes in “giving the problem" to Him. It is indeed true that God is shaping us from one image to another. In fact that is what He says. "I am changing you from one image to another." Sometimes the effects of the chisel hurts - but the results is "something beautiful"

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who are feeling rather “cruddy” on a stormy morning. Sometimes we think no one appreciates or understands our efforts. By your “divine mercy” let us be transformed into “something beautiful.”

What Is Your Easter Grass?

One Easter morning a mother learned that God cares about all the seemingly unimportant details of our everyday lives. We often think of praying to God when our lives are turned upside down by a tragedy or a problem that we will never be able to fix. But God cares about the little things too.

Easter was one day away and she had yet to fill the Easter basket for her children. She got the eggs, and some small goodies, and then remembered. Easter grass! She didn’t have any! The stores were all out. She had waited too long. She returned home feeling really bad because she wanted a special basket for her children.

She prayed, "God, what am I going to do?" In her distress, and still trying to figure out how to make their basket look “grassy” she couldn’t go outside and cut some real grass because there was an inch of snow on the ground. There was a knock on the door and there stood the neighbor’s boy, with a plate of Easter cookies.

He said, "My mom thought you might like some cookies." Mom thanked the lad and her eyes popped out and filled with tears. Not so much because she had a plate of cookies, but because underneath the cookies, on the plate, were a pile of green Easter grass!

She believed she saw God smile as she took that grass and excitedly put it into her children’s basket, and filled it with chocolate treats.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends on this Easter snowy morning that says you care about the little things in our life. My image shows a real pair of mourning dove eggs in their nest protected inside the spruce tree outside my window. I pray that these eggs hatch safely from their fragile nest. For I believe that Easter is everyday because God cares about supplying Easter grass when there is none and helping my little mourning doves hatch safely. What is the Easter grass in your life? And know that God cares. A Blessed Easter!

Am I a Donkey or a Jackass?

The donkey that Jesus rode into Jerusalem was a gift a faith from some unknown farmer. Heaven knows this poor farmer could have been too busy working his land but it was his generosity and faith we need to imitate.

A donkey was a very big thing in those days. It was the equivalent of a SUV’s, RAM truck and a John Deere tractor all in one. As the SUV it moved people around a to do their shopping, as a truck it was used to carry heavy loads, and as a tractor it was used in cultivating the land. Add to this the fact that the donkey had never been ridden means it was brand new and had a very high market value.

Let me remind you that each of us has got a donkey that the Lord needs. Sadly, our response might be more in the line of a stubborn jackass.

Sometimes I get the impression that God wants me to give him something and sometimes I don't give it because I don't know for sure, and then I feel bad because I've missed my chance. Other times I know he wants something but I don't give it because I'm too selfish. And other times, too few times, I hear him and feel honored that a gift of mine would be used to carry Jesus to another place. And still other times I wonder if my little deeds will make a difference in the long haul.

In a profound meditation, Deacon Larry asked our students and faculty to reflect on three things Jesus said during his Passion. The first words were: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Then later he said to the thief on the cross, “This day you will be with me in Paradise.” And finally, hanging on the cross: “Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit.”

All of us have a donkey. You and I each have something in our lives, which, if given back to God, could, like the donkey, move Jesus and his story further down the road. However, too often we behave like a jackass. We gossip about others, or tell lies, or behave in crude ways and when we get caught we can’t sleep or eat. It is at that moment Jesus comes to our jackass and says: “Father, forgive them…”

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who feel the pain and loneliness of guilt and shame in our “jackass moments.” Help us to see the donkey inside which belongs to him. Our gifts are his as the donkey was his. So, what is the name of your donkey? The Lord has need of it.