Gospel, Homily and Coffee

“You’ll shoot your eye out!” A classic line, prediction in our culture.  Parents are prophets, are they not? At least in some fashion. You parents can see a situation and assess, and make a prediction: “Don’t do that or you are going to hurt yourself?; He/She is not nice, don’t come crying to me when he/she breaks your heart….” Prophets see a situation, make observations and then call out the probable consequences and can provide a different way to act. Prophets have a degree of wisdom and insight. Now prophets are not just doom and gloom. Prophets, especially religious ones and in our Jewish/Christian tradition, actually want to lead people to security, to joy; ultimately to God. They declare a way to avoid one path, so as to choose another. Think of Parenting again. Those prophetic warnings to kids really comes down to teaching kids about actions, consequences and how to choose. And they can mature into healthy stable adults. As we ourselves continue to mature though, who ...

Where’s Waldo? We remember those books; the funny looking dude with glasses, hat and striped shirt hiding in plain sight amid a crowd of others. Our task was to find him, to recognize him amid all the other people. It teaches attention and concentration; and frustration!!!!!!! At times we can all get into a too comfortable position in life and become numb to our world, our reality. We do not truly see what is around us. We all notice the snow on the mountains when it first happens, but by January we become “meh” about it.  We can also get overwhelmed by situations that wear us down, and we become less able to see the positive around us.   We can fall into the trap of thinking God is not here with us. God is not working with us. God is not in our world. We can think this as we get confronted in the news by all the bad news; gun violence again and again; earthquakes, wars, drought, the divisions.  Where's God? This thinking is not sinful, but it is also not help...

I remember very few homilies, even my own, but one I do remember at least partially, was one Fr. Mike gave in the 90’s while Pastor of Our Lady of Wisdom, and while I was an unemployed geologist. He mentioned that he had been approached by someone needing assistance and all Mike had left was $20 in his wallet. Mike considered it, and gave his last $20 to the person. The next day in the mail there was a card from someone he had known, and they wrote that they thought of him and included in the card $20. Parents, your faith and loyalty and perseverance in raising your children is amazing. Decades you work to instill values, virtues, habits into those kids. Repeating lessons, being good examples, hoping that something gets through… And getting frustrated. Yet, one day you watch them, maybe as teens or young adults and they do something that just blows your minds. They live those values. All that work, all that effort, all that patience and anger, finally it comes to fruition. I ...