(Go top)
ADVENT 1 - December 2, 2007
Letting it happen
By Father Pat Apuzzo
Is 2:1-5 ; Rom 13:11-14; Mt 24:37-44
When I first started in the seminary, back in the mid sixties, priesthood seemed so far away. There were 8 long years of study ahead of me. When you are only 18 years old, 8 years seems like a lifetime.
During my first year, while I was home for Christmas break, I read about a storefront ministry for troubled youth. It was right there in downtown New Haven, so I coaxed a local classmate to join me in checking it out. He thought I was crazy. We were only in our late teens ourselves, and we hadn’t taken the first course on how to minister. But, I won him over and we went to see the place.
We were no sooner in the door when a scraggly kid in his mid-teens spotted us and headed our way. “Are you guys priests, or something?” he said, “’Cause I’m a Catholic and I need help”. To this day, I can feel my friends elbow poking my in the ribs saying, “OK, it’s time to go”. Also to this day, I don’t know how he picked us out, because we couldn’t wear collars that soon. But he did.
He had left home and was living on the streets. He didn’t want money or food. He wanted us to drive him home and convince his parents to take him back. They had already refused him that, a number of times now.
The next day, there we were. His home wasn’t a house, but a castle. The driveway was longer than the street where I lived. His mom and dad were polite, but not very nice. Coming back home was out of the question, they explained. He had embarrassed them and ruined their good name. Even with all the perks of living in a mansion with millionaire parents, I quickly saw why he had left that place. Just a kid myself, none of my faltering words did any good. Soon enough, he and I were walking back to my car.
That’s why I got the courage to say what I was really thinking.
“Jeff just wants you to love him,” I shouted to the two statues standing in the big doorway. “I think you can at least work that out”. The father threw his hands at me, and went inside. The mother smiled and waved, but I thought I saw a little tearing.
That weekend, while I got ready to go back to school, Jeff called. His father had come to get him. Jeff was back at home.
Advent is not rushing to get ready for Christmas. Advent is learning to wait, with our eyes wide-opened. Advent is grabbing at opportunities instead of passing them by, blinded by our impatience that nothing ever gets here as quickly as we want it. Advent is long-term investing. It’s taking the time to turn a sword into a tool for peace. It’s refusing the quick fix that cocks the gun and just fires away. Advent is letting things happen at their own pace rather than pushing to get them started, over with and done.
You and I didn’t have to get that Advent wreath up and ready to use. Eva did that for us. We just have to wait and see what comes as, one after the other, each candle is lit and, finally, all of them are burning.
(Go top) |
(Go top)
ADVENT 2 - December 9, 2007
A bigger and better horizon
By Father Pat Apuzzo
Is 11:1-10 ; Rom 15:4-9; Mt 3:1-12
Earlier this week, someone emailed me a “Christmas letter from Jesus”. Whoever actually composed it, it’s right on the mark. In it, Jesus takes us to task for all the fuss over people destroying the true meaning of Christmas.
In the letter, Jesus reminds us that he wasn’t even born in December. As scholars now tell us, it was more like early spring. So, we can cool it with our squabbles over what to call this season. Of course, Jesus quickly adds that he appreciates us thinking about him at any time of the year.
The letter urges us to replace finger pointing with efforts that are more constructive. For example, why not write letters of hope to our soldiers away from home instead of protest emails about how everyone else should celebrate Christ’s birth. Or, instead of boycotting stores over what they call their Christmas catalog, spend a few less hours shopping altogether, and go visit a nursing home. The best of all – why not eliminate a whole lot of the gifts your children don’t need, and substitute them with a whole lot of time, some well thought out words and lots of long hugs to assure them that you and the Lord really do love them.
Advent calls us out of our ruts, always doing the same old things the same old way. So, while we gravitate to the comfortable scene of a child in a manger, the Church points us to the adult Christ whom John the Baptizer recognizes as a person consumed with a mission. Advent is a moratorium on our fondness for skirting and watering down the critical issues and for diluting our God-given ability to change what really matters. Advent is a time for setting off blazes - under ourselves, and each other, to stop moaning and start believing we can make a difference where it really counts. That is why we see John baptizing with water alone, while Jesus brings a baptism of spirit and fire.
Over the last month, my email box has been bursting with articles bewailing a recently released movie. This movie, the dire warnings insisted, will destroy our kids, drive them out of our churches and turn them against God himself. I decided to wait for the review by our own conference of Catholic bishops. When it came, it renewed my esteem for the way our Church can keep its head when others are losing theirs. Its advice to parents was simple and the point – instead of all the energy to ban the movie for the sake of youth, sit down with your kids and have a mature discussion with them about it.
Advent broadens our horizons. What we once wrote off as far-fetched – like actually talking truth with our kids; or out of reach – like peace that isn’t greed and force and violence in sheep’s clothing; or beyond our wildest dreams, like a world where leaders trust people to get along with each other – all of this becomes achievable with the coming of Christ. Jesus shouts hope and possibility where others spread panic and peddle fear.
Advent announces a new day – and rallies us to pledge our allegiance to it. The long night of ranting and raving, wringing our hands and shaking our fingers in complaint at everyone else is over. The dawn breaks with a fire that will not cease until all who feel barren come to realize what they can truly produce. This blaze will burn and burn some more, until all who have ever mumbled mumbled, “Oh no, I can’t, not me” will stand up and declare, “Oh yes, I can…just watch me and I will!”
(Go top)
|
(Go top)
ADVENT 3 - December 16, 2007
Hurry slowly
By Father Pat Apuzzo
Is 35:1-6a, 10 ; Jas 5:7-10; Mt 11:2-11
I had only been to Richmond once before I came back to be ordained a deacon. Born and raised in Connecticut, my only previous experience of Virginia had been in the DC–Northern Virginia area. Before finishing my seminary studies, I served as a youth minister at a parish in Mount Vernon, Virginia. I then completed my studies at Catholic University in DC.
My deacon assignment, which comes right before priestly ordination, was supposed to be in Danville, Virginia. Believe me, I absolutely had never been there before, and hardly knew where it was.
But, I never did serve in Danville. While I was packing up the last few things in my room at the seminary, the phone rang. My assignment had changed. The new bishop wanted me to be his secretary. With that one phone call, my entire life took a course, with experiences and opportunities that would never have even crossed my mind when I began studying for priesthood after High School, back in Hartford, Connecticut.
Not all my experiences since then were easy or even welcomed. For instance, it was no picnic being director of worship while people were at each other’s throat over brand new liturgical changes. Or, just starting as communication director a few months before sex abuse scandals erupted.
I was often thrown into tasks that were totally foreign, without the right skills, adequate tools or prior experience. Slowly, I learned to improvise, to invent, to stretch and to find lots of people to help.
Today’s liturgy seems to be asking us to go in two different directions at once, with an invitation to hurry up and slow down at the same time.
The prophet tells us to look at the misery and injustice all around us and realize that things are actually getting better. Paul tells us to sit tight and wait for things to change, but wants us to rejoice before they do.
When John asks Jesus if he’s the one, Jesus doesn’t give a resounding, “Yes”. He just sends the messengers to tell John, “Look, I’m jumping in where it counts, and things are starting to turn around”.
We look forward to Christmas as a time to be back in touch with family and friends. Today’s liturgy reminds us that it is also a perfect time to get back in touch with ourselves. It’s a time to let God help us restore our belief in ourselves and in one another, as Jesus comes and jumps into this topsy-turvy life with us. Jesus nudges us to throw away the crutches, and pull off the blinders, to stop hanging the crepe and start being young, and spry and alive again.
So, maybe our spiritual joints are a little creaky, our cataracts have grown thick, and we’ve been mourning so long we feel half dead in the soul. But Jesus is here. And we can rejoice - because Jesus will dance with us until our legs are sturdy again, and he’ll watch with us until we can see clearly again and he’ll bang on the doors of our tombs until we stir and stretch our tired bones and come back out into the light of day.
(Go top)
|
(Go top)
ADVENT 4 - December 23, 2007
God for us
By Father Pat Apuzzo
Is 7:10-14 ; Rom 1:1-7; Mt 1:18-24
“Are you ready for Christmas?” How many times have you heard that question over the past few weeks? You’ve probably been listening to it, or asking it, long before the Thanksgiving turkey was even thawed.
Once again, our liturgy today confirms that our Advent – ending this weekend, so close to Christmas – has not been about getting ready for Christmas. That’s why I’ve been taking every opportunity to challenge all the hoopla about “saving Christmas” from the “faithless hordes”.
Jesus didn’t come here to establish a holy day or a holiday. He did not invent Christmas. Even if he did, it's not like the Lord to demand credit for it. So, to use the cliché, what would Jesus say if he heard that we turned him into the reason for his coming among us?
Jesus came here for us. Christ is the long-awaited Emmanuel – God coming to be with the people. They called the child Jesus – a name that means God is here saving the people.
Let that be the truth we bring back into this season. Let it become not a slogan but a promise, to let the truth of God’s love penetrate our life; and a pledge, to encourage others to let that truth wrap them up in God’s love.
So, let’s change that question… are you ready for Christmas? Are we ready for Christ? Ready for him to come into our life to change us, transform us and replace the darkness around and within us with the light of hope?
(Go top) |
(Go top)
CHRISTMAS - December 24 & 25, 2007
We're worth it
By Father Pat Apuzzo
Isa 9:1-6; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14
A free gift. We have all learned the hard way what that means.
There is no free lunch. Nothing comes without a cost. Those are the anthems of our daily living. Read the fine print. There has to be a catch. That’s the gospel and creed for our day and time. No wonder it’s so difficult for Christmas to be itself in today’s culture.
So, let’s make an effort to give Christmas half a chance this year. I don’t mean with cute slogans or some big show of religious fervor. I mean, of course, by giving Christ a chance.
I saw a man on TV today. He took the secular symbol of Christmas – I won’t be more explicit because of the kids – and nailed it to a cross. He put it on his front lawn for all to see. That’s not the way to give Jesus a chance to do what he came here to accomplish. It’s just another sad attempt to spread the lie that violence and hostility are all we have left to trust.
Giving Christ a chance means seeing in the tiny arms of a newborn child, the mighty arms of God who yearns to embrace and love us for who we are. It means seeing ourselves reflected in the eyes of an infant, and recapturing there our identity as the objects of God’s eternal affection, the apple of God’s eye, the people in whom God delights and whom God cherishes above all else.
This gift did not come free to the giver. It was not purchased on a whim, or without great intent. The price tag was huge. But you and I will never pay the cost for it.
God has already paid it, in Christ. It was the highest price, the ultimate cost. God paid it in Christ because God believes we are worth it.
Let’s give Christmas a chance by letting that truth sink it. And let’s give Christ a chance this Christmas by finally starting to believe it.
(Go top) |
(Go top)
HOLY FAMILY - December 30, 2007
Hope in action
By Father Pat Apuzzo
Sir 3:2-6, 12-14 ; Col 3:12-21 or 3:12-17; Mt 2:13-15, 19-23
Some say Christmas ends at the stroke of 12 on New Year’s Eve. Others wait until Epiphany, on January 6. The old schoolers know that Christmas actually ends with the Presentation, on February 2. Unlike the Christmas season, the consequences of God taking on human flesh are here to stay.
The family of Jesus runs away to Egypt. We all have our ways of escaping, especially when fear or uncertainty cripples us, or when guilt, grief, or disappointment weighs us down.
God could call us out of this world, to some obscure place far away from our troubles. Instead, God joins us in our world, to live this life with us.
Joseph and Mary never settle in Egypt. They turn around, and come back home. They bring the Lord back with them.
Because of Christmas, you and I are not doomed to run and hide from life. We can turn and come back home, knowing that the Lord is at our side – to live this life through with us.
In January (12 & 13), we have our next parish retreat. There are two more after that as well – in April and then in June. These retreats are tools for getting “out of Egypt”, to tackle life’s burdens with the conviction to live through them with the Lord. Do yourself the favor of taking part.
Someone once asked a man, who was involved in the peace movement, how he maintained his hope in the face of so many set backs. “By doing hopeful things,” was his answer.
In a few weeks, one of our young adults is going to share with us his experience of foregoing his college spring break to go build houses for the poor. Today, Aly Loman, another college student of ours, is going to speak about young adults involved in similar volunteer ministries.
Our young adults are doing hopeful things, from which we can take new hope – and learn new ways – to turn around and come back home, knowing that the Lord comes with us, as one of us.
(Go top) |
(Go top)
ORDINARY 2 - January 20, 2008
Respect Life Sunday
Sharing our dignity
By Father Pat Apuzzo
Is 49:3, 5-6; 1 Cor 1:1-3; Jn 1:29-34
This Tuesday morning, about 50 of our parishioners will board a bus to Washington, DC for the annual March for Life. It will be my annual encounter with the sunrise, coming over to celebrate Mass with them at 7:00 am … or thereabouts.
Our 50 sisters and brothers, along with the thousands who will join them from around the country in DC, have a solid dedication to an imposing goal. They want to turn around a culture where abortion has become commonplace. They will tell you their objective is not to engage in academic arguments over abortion, but to change hearts about the sanctity of all human life.
These people are not alone in their quest. Or, they should not be. It is not for everyone to join in public demonstrations or protests. While the Church applauds such methods, rightly carried out, there is no requirement for all our members to take them on. There is, however, one choice we do not have as Catholics in promoting the dignity of life – the choice to do nothing at all.
Nowadays, we hear many references to the so-called doctrine of “separation of church and state”. Some claim it blocks church goers from getting involved in government affairs. Some church goers use it as an excuse for that choice I just mentioned – to do nothing to promote the dignity of life in our culture. They come to pray, not to hear about social issues. It seems they feel that’s their constitutional right.
Of course, government constitutions guide the affairs of government. They don’t make policy for how churches operate.
In truth, the 2nd Amendment keeps the government out of church affairs. That’s what it does, and that’s all it does.
When John the Baptizer points at Jesus as the Lamb of God, he is pointing at the obliteration of any distinctions between heavenly undertakings and merely earthly affairs. In Jesus, the two are blended, joined together as one. Jesus is the bridge between the sacred and the secular, where heaven weds with earth, where God and God’s people are reconciled together as one.
Our faith can speak volumes to the people of our day, to our culture and the ways of the modern world. It does not speak threats or condemnations. It does not speak of our superiority over others, or flaunt any endeavor in faith as greater than the rest.
It is a message to be lived… in our dedication to open the eyes of every human person to the dignity they share with all, to persuade others – not with our arguments or our logic – but with our faith in their goodness and our devotion to their ability to love.
There is no singular way to announce the message, and no one of us is exempt from passing it on. It is the good news… in whatever way we spread it. It is the truth that God is with us… in whatever way we make that known.
(Go top)
|
(Go top)
ORDINARY 3 - January 27, 2008
Flinging a wide net
By Father Pat Apuzzo
Is 8:23—9:3 ; 1 Cor 1:10-13, 17; Mt 4:12-23 or 4:12-17
I always love it when they ask golden agers their secret to a long and happy life. The answers are usually hilarious. While I’m not exactly an antique quite yet, I have my own prescription for living long and staying sane: Don’t go to church meetings.
At a meeting earlier this week, I heard an interesting solution to the priest shortage. Catholics should have more kids. With bigger broods, you won’t miss one or two going off to be priests. Think on that one.
On Friday, it was another meeting on the same topic. The solution there was even more intriguing: We’d have a surplus of priests if all our parishes starting having Mass in Latin.
Catholics are notorious for having pet projects. All by itself, there’s nothing wrong with that. But it can turn very sour, very quickly. If you’re not careful, you start believing that your cause has more value and demands more weight than any other endeavor. Right there, with that posture, a valuable undertaking degenerates into a classic scandal – a stumbling block, an obstacle – to authentic ministry.
We are obliged, all of us, to carve out a niche, where we can minister most effectively and with real passion. Yet, that niche should never become a shrine.
It’s significant that the term “zealous” – which can simply mean enthusiastic – is also a synonym for being a fanatic. Catholic fanatics – whether their cup of tea is the liturgy or social issues – end up tearing at the fabric of what it actually means to be Catholic. Catholic is a synonym for widespread, expansive and extensive.
When Jesus ambles along the lakeside and wanders through the city streets, he has his eye on colleagues and coworkers. This isn’t a commander recruiting an army, or a headmaster assembling his first student body. This is a man on fire with an unshakable faith in the summit of all God’s handiwork: humankind. He seeks partners and companions in empowering others, in being a light that amplifies their goodness and fosters their capacity for doing what is right.
We are those partners and coworkers with Christ in the world today. Our chore is not to rival each other or to drive a wedge. We do not set ourselves at odds in a mutual goal, trumpeting to the crowd, “Mine is the cause above all causes”, or, “This is the only way”.
We are colleagues and companions with Christ. It is not for us to diminish a spark of faith in any heart, but to whet the appetite for faith that burns in every human heart. It is not for us to select, exclude and divide – but to take the broad net from the hands of Christ, and fling it far and wide… to gather in, to bring together and to unite all that we can grasp, all that we are able to hold.
(Go top) |
| |
|
