Year of Gratitude

 

I walked into Holy Mother of the Rosary Cathedral on Christmas morning to prepare for Mass. When one of the choir members came up to thank me for a homily I had preached six months ago in the summer. She shared the gospel message was difficult for her to accept and practice. Jesus was teaching the need to forgive our enemies. Easy for Our Lord, but she had a falling out many years ago with her sister. She could not remember the details why they had not spoken to one another, but she had been really hurt by her sister’s remarks.

 

Then a God moment occurred. She prayed about forgiveness and struggled with how she was going to find a way to talk to her sister again. But a moment happened in which she had contacted her sister and she found to courage to share how she had been hurt in the past. To her relief, her sister did not explode with emotion, nor deny her past actions, but actually said that she was sorry. I shared that’s how the grace of the Holy Spirit works. When the moment comes, the Lord nudges us to let go of our past resentments and provides the grace to give courage and the words that bring healing and peace. Mass didn’t even start yet and I already received a Christmas gift.

 

Another grateful moment occurred when my next door neighbor’s water well starting working again. Yes, it took a well digger and plumber many attempts to get her water running back into her home. Once the new pumps were in place, there were several frantic calls to unplug the clogged lines loaded with mud, then a fearful call that there was no hot water but that got repaired and the final ironic call came that her shower faucet was leaking. A new shower head and handle took care of that problem. But there was this God moment when I asked the neighbor, “Maggie what’s it like to have water back in your home again. ”With a big grin on her face, she folded her hands, looked up with a twinkle in her eyes, and said, “it’s wonderful to take a shower again.”

 

Oh, yes, let me add that I am grateful that I have water coming into our home, but prayers are needed for the other 99 local residents whose wells have gone dry. My town has declared a state of emergency and a tanker with water from the state emergency department is on loan for people to pour into their dry wells. The town supervisor is working hard to reallocate funding to bring water to these families. However, the construction won’t start till August.

 

As we begin a new year, I might suggest that we take five minutes at the end of our day and pray: “what am grateful for today?” My green tea for breakfast, feeding Mittens our outdoor kitty in his igloos, nursing Carmella, a recused outdoor kitty recovering from a major illness in our patio converted into an ICU unit for sick kitties, for that well digger and plumber, for all my Sonshine Friend for 24 years sharing Jesus love for us.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that we pause throughout this new year and express our prayerful gratitude for all the beautiful gifts You bring into our daily lives. We are truly grateful for being children of God.

 

Gifts of Patience and Peace

 

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, no. Another pair of underwear, no. Another video toy, absolutely not. No, what I really need is when my computer or TV crashes, someone like Santa’s elf magically appears and connects me back online.

Last week, I am watching a program on our TV and instead of sound, I get this humming, thumping sound. Annoying to say the least. So I called Spectrum and customer service reboots the system, but again, no sound just this low humming, thumbing sound. If you go online and look for help, I learned that this happens all the time. It appears our machines are having a meltdown. Online, there are tutorials how to reboot, like simply unplug the TV, the tuner, the computer for 60 seconds and it will magically come back on. No this did not work.

Now I am coming unplugged. I have no patience, not knowing what to do to repair this technology. Interesting, I can help a neighbor get water back into her home, or assist my wife to rescue another abandoned kitten. I can help comfort and support a mother of three children whose husband was murdered this past week, but I don’t have a clue what dial to turn to get the darn audio to work on the TV.

So I scheduled an appointment with a tech to come to the house thinking that he most likely will say it’s not their problem, and I need to buy a new $1,000 TV. I didn’t sleep well that night and prayed for a miracle. The following morning, impatient and moody I went to work and on my way home I would fuss with the controls to try to repair. However, to my surprise and delight, the sound “just came back on.” That was a gift, but what was the lesson God was trying to teach me

God was teaching me the difference between worldly waiting and faith-filled waiting.

One of my good friend’s was recently diagnosed with a pulmonary condition that could eventually be life-threatening. After the initial diagnosis, he had to wait a month to see a specialist and get his many questions answered. Then there were numerous tests scheduled to determine the cause, severity, and subsequently, the treatment. Between each test, there was a waiting period before he received the results. He had to admit that those waiting periods were harder to go through than the medical tests! All in all, it took four months from diagnosis to beginning treatment.

During this time, he had several projects to complete, and one project in particular turned out to be quite a blessing. He had agreed to develop an Advent prayer service for his parish. As he prayed for inspiration, images of the very first Christmas and the faith-filled people of that time kept resonating with him. He was inspired by their trust in God’s promise of a Savior. They and their ancestors had lived in hope. Theirs was a faith-filled waiting. Their faith assured them that God’s promise was heartfelt and certain. Even when they doubted, God sent them people whose trust in God could bear fruit: the prophets, John the Baptist, Mary and Joseph. They trusted. They waited. They followed God’s will. They lived in hope for all of us. And their waiting bore fruit for all of us.

This insight of faith-filled waiting changed his perspective on his medical situation. He could see how those four months of waiting were a holy time given to him to accept his illness, educate himself about it, and share his anxiety and hope with others in his life. Most importantly, it gave him time to pray for a deeper faith and trust in God’s will. God was teaching him, as God had been teaching me, through the example of our spiritual ancestors, how to wait, not in our way—we get upset, grumpy, impatient, but in a faith-filled way. And just as the faith-filled waiting of the people of that first Christmas bore fruit, my lesson in faithful waiting also bore fruit. Waiting and hoping in faith has brought him and myself to a deeper trust in God and God’s will for me. It has freed me to accept this journey and to pray that it will bear fruit.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshone Friends on Christmas morning. Waiting in a worldly way can bring anxiety and fear. Faith-filled waiting bears the fruits of patience and peace. That’s my gift for all of you this Christmas morning, the gifts of patience and peace. May our waiting bring us closer to God. And may we continue to be blessed with faith-filled waiting throughout the new year.

Poinsettia Prayer

 

Many people enjoy decorating their homes or offices with poinsettias during the holiday season. Poinsettias, or flores de Nochebuena, are associated with Christmas on the basis of a Mexican story about a girl who wanted to bring a gift to Jesus at Christmas Eve services but lacked the means. On the way to church, she grabbed some weeds from the roadside to bring to Jesus. However, when she entered the church to make her offering, they blossomed into poinsettia flowers. This tale reinforces a common Biblical theme of God’s tender and protective care for those who are poor and the special love that God has for people whom the world sometimes forgets. The story also reminds us that no matter who we are, God loves and appreciates our offerings, no matter how “poor” those gifts may be.

In Advent, I try to pray regularly. Sometimes my prayer time is full of a beautiful kind of silence in which God is present. Other times my mind is so preoccupied with what I need to get done that day that it would be fair to say that my prayer is full of weeds rather than flowers. I may find myself saying a few words to the Lord and then being pulled off into distractions stemming from the tasks of the day ahead, or perhaps I simply feel restless. How I’d like to get rid of the weeds of distraction! Where are the flowers of consoling and tender silence?

The story of the poinsettia, however, reminds us that God appreciates our gifts, however “weedy.” Perhaps God can even transform those gifts into “flowers.” Simply by showing up to prayer, no matter how well the experience of prayer goes on our end. Even offering my distractions to God is something that I can let God embrace. Those few moments of quiet may well be just the moments that God needs to enter into my heart so that I am a little more patient or compassionate with my equally busy family or friends.

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends during this Advent Season. Like the girl who offered what she had to God, we also can offer whomever we are in any particular moment to the Lord. Our prayer is enough, and we are enough, for it is God who takes our prayers and transforms them in ways hidden even to us.

 

Mary--Reach the Unreachable Star

 

My friends in Las Vegas will be celebrating a wonderful feast this Tuesday in honor of the Blessed Mother. The feast of Gaudalupe is a story about a woman of great faith and courage.

In 1531 Juan Diego, a native Mexican, was walking to Mass when the Blessed Mother, dressed as an Aztec princess, appeared to him. She spoke to Juan Diego in his native language and sent him to the bishop of Mexico with a request to build a church on the site. When Juan Diego told the bishop, he demanded a sign before he would believe the story. The Blessed Mother told Juan Diego to pick roses on the site. Although it was December and freezing, roses were in full bloom. Juan Diego gathered the roses in his tilma, a cactus-cloth cape. When he shook them out in front of the bishop, an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was imprinted on Juan Diego’s tilma.

 

 

 

In the musical “Man of La Mancha,” when Dulcinea asks Don Quixote what it means to “follow his quest,” he responds by singing “The Impossible Dream.” Mary, who awaited the birth of Jesus some 2,000 years ago just as we do this Advent, could have written the song. She certainly lived it.

 

Imagine how young Mary—probably no more than 15 or 16 years old—must have felt upon receiving the news that the impossible was about to take place within her, that she would give birth to the Savior. How could she tell her betrothed, Joseph? What would her family think? Who would believe her?

 

“Do not be afraid, Mary,” the angel says to her. “Nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:30, 37). We know the rest of the story. The impossible was indeed made possible, not only at the birth of Jesus, but in the many miracles he performed, and most of all at his Resurrection. If God could accomplish all this, imagine what God can do in your own life. Advent is the season for imagining what is possible, for dreaming new dreams, for hoping beyond hope.

But it is also the season when hope can be hardest to find, dreams hardest to believe. The days draw short, the nights are long and the air turns. Expenses may loom at a time when resources are scarce. Separation, grief, loneliness, and depression are no strangers to the season. Hope may be in short supply during this time. We need Mary’s inspiring example of courage and trust in the face of uncertainty more than ever.

 

Mary can’t guarantee us a smooth ride, however. Look at her own difficult journey: first, she had to travel to Bethlehem late in her pregnancy (Luke 2:1–6). Have you ever tried riding a donkey? Now imagine doing so nine month’s pregnant! Later, she had to flee to Egypt with Joseph and the baby when their lives were in danger (Matthew 2:13–23).

Nor can Mary promise us a season free of anxiety and worry. Imagine how she must have worried about what was ahead for her beloved child as his messianic destiny was revealed to her, first by shepherds who left her pondering the news in her heart (Luke 2:16–19), then at the Temple by the prophet Simeon, who spoke to her of the sorrowful times ahead: “A sword will pierce your soul too” (Luke 2:22–35).

 

What Mary can offer us is a remarkable and inspiring example of courage in the face of adversity, patience in the face of uncertainty, and hope beyond hope that the impossible is indeed possible.

 

Mary stood with her son as he was crucified (John 19:25–27); she stood with his fearful followers who huddled after his death (Acts 1:13–14). She knew that the story wasn’t over yet. And she was right.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends, our story isn’t finished, either, no matter what challenges or wounds burden us this season. All things remain possible with God. This is the miracle of Advent. We can once again dream the impossible dream—and reach the unreachable star.

 

 

 

Time to Know Your Deepest Longings

 

 

One day on a winter's walk in the woods I came face to face with a deer. Our town is in the midst of a water crisis. Over 60 homes and farms wells have gone dry. The stream I was walking along was mostly frozen over. I had stopped at a place where the swift current of the stream broke through to the surface and swirled around in eddies before it disappeared back under the ice.

 

As I sat for a while watching and listening to the gurgling water, a deer quietly appeared. We stared at one another for a few moments and, sensing I was no threat, the deer moved to the edge of the water and drank deeply.

 

I recalled the words, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.” I had been experiencing a kind of winter in my soul. There were few signs of life, and the Spirit of God seemed to have become frozen over within me. Somehow, I was drawn to this external image of my internal longing—flowing water finding a way to bubble up from beneath solid ice.

 

Like everyone else I had been caught up in the busyness of Christmas preparations. Though we had lit the Advent candles at home and I had tried to pray, I needed more. I needed time to really allow my sense of longing to swirl up and become clear to me as it did on that winter's walk in the woods. I knew then that I needed a closer relationship to God and that I had to stop just going through the motions of my prayer life. My longing, once acknowledged, turned out to be an invitation to live with a deeper awareness of God's presence and care all around me.

 

What are you longing for? What is your heart trying to tell you? The gift God offers this first week of Advent is the invitation to explore your inner longings. The Church, through our Advent customs, and even the weather of the season itself support such inner work. During the first week of Advent, give yourself time and space to contemplate what you are truly longing for in life. Know that this is the season when your longings will lead you to the Christ Child, in whom the hopes and fears of all the years are known and responded to with generous love.

 

Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends, as individuals and as a community, we are longing for your presence. My neighbors water shortage makes life very difficult. How can we say God is present when so much seems to be unstable? However, I am grateful when I heard this week several corporate companies are bringing bottles and gallons of water to be distributed to the community. I pray and ask your prayers that the state legislators who are meeting this week in Albany hear the cry of my Bethany residents and release funds to bring water to the community.