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COLUMNS
» Believe as you Pray
» Family Ties
» In Light of Faith
 
Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A, April 13, 2008
by Genevieve McQuade
Security gates abound! Nowadays, many planned communities have them.
Military bases, power stations, and airports have them, controlling entry and exit, perhaps charging a fee. Identification might be required.
Then there’s the rampant necessity for passwords (to be changed periodically besides) whether online or not. Using credit and debit cards, logging on to accounts or preferred websites, or retrieving medical records can be quite the challenge to one’s patience, if not memory.
It’s all about “security.”
Do you feel excluded, irritated, overwhelmed, hindered, forgetful, or resigned? Yet we routinely pay such penalties for protection in our “corrupt generation” (Acts 2:40).
If you aren’t accustomed to automated barriers and dislike having alphanumeric secrets, what’s your reaction?
In John’s gospel, Jesus identifies himself as the gate to the sheepfold. Jesus is not only our shepherd but also our security. Our baptismal holiness gives us an unchanging ID, the gift of admission. Marked for life, we have clearance to enter his sheepfold.
Jesus becomes our passageway. We’ve no secret code to key in, no electronic barrier to delay us, no expenditure.
I recall lyrics from a favorite hymn: “Enter in …I am free to enter in.” It’s about the liberty we enjoy at our Eucharistic worship, with right of entry into Jesus’ sanctuary. The song alludes to the contrast of times when no one but the Israelite priests could enter the Temple of Jerusalem.
Just once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the lone high priest could go into the Holy of Holies, the temple’s innermost sacred chamber. He was the intermediary set apart with sufficient holiness by his function to offer sacrifice on behalf of the Israelites.
Participating in Eucharist is just such an extraordinary privilege for a worldwide multitude – on any day! Our Shepherd has called us by name to repentance into his flock. We are free to approach the altar of worship at Mass in response.
This entry is far more than a secure or exclusive residence or sheltered parking spot for our soul. When we enter his sheepfold, we “receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is made to … whomever the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38–39).
That promise grants us a verdant pasture of dynamic life: “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). Life thrives in the security of this inspirited sheepfold. Jesus paid the price for our safety, bearing “our sins in his body upon the cross, so that rescued, we might live for righteousness,” for by his wounds we have been healed (1 Peter 2:24).
We are welcome to enter the sanctuary to offer ourselves along with our priest. We have true security there because our Shepherd guards our souls. Considering our benefits, do we give insult to the one who “returned no insult” by deliberately limiting Mass attendance to a bare minimum and undervalue the abundant life offered? (See 1 Peter 2:23, 25.)
Do we habitually exit before the recessional hymn is sung, or even while our community is still receiving the Body and Blood of our Gate and Shepherd?
Do we routinely “corrupt” our worship by hurrying off to presumably higher priorities?
Instead, let us listen for our Shepherd’s voice. Tend to him in awe, with gratitude and patience.
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Trying to avoid surprises
by Mary Hood Hart
I’m not a fan of surprises. My family knows better than to plan a surprise party for me.
I prefer to be involved in planning events, not because I’m a skilled event planner, but so that I can have some idea what to expect.
Likewise, I find hurricanes less threatening than tornadoes. Hurricanes, while often fierce, can be tracked and anticipated. The sudden onset of a tornado makes the storm most frightening.
My attempts to avoid surprise extend to even the most dramatic of events, my death. I’ve often thought that, if I could choose how I die, I would prefer to have some knowledge of my impending death, so I could make preparations, spiritual and temporal.
Regardless of my preference, however, life doesn’t accommodate those of us who hate surprises. Indeed, surprise is unavoidable.
From small surprises (an unexpected guest) to big ones (an unexpected pregnancy), we discover life is beyond our control. Indeed, no matter how carefully we plan, we delude ourselves if we think we can anticipate what each day will hold.
Raising four children taught me about surprises. I discovered early on that my best plans were easily derailed.
Counting on lunching with some fellow mothers while the kids are at school? Not today. A phone call from the school nurse alerts me to a sick child who needs me right now.
Planning to call it an early night after a long day at work? Not this night. I remain awake to ensure a teen-ager’s home by curfew.
Expecting to take a family trip? Not when the stomach flu hits the family on the eve of departure.
From sudden sickness to accidents to public tantrums, living with children forces us to live with surprise.
But it’s not just parenthood, of course, that brings surprise. Simply being human makes us vulnerable to unexpected events.
A trusted friend betrays us.
We lose a job.
We become seriously ill.
A loved one dies suddenly.
None of us, no matter how careful we are, no matter how much we plan and prepare, is immune to sudden change. And, sometimes, that change, that surprise, is devastating.
Indeed, some events are impossible to prepare for. They are too traumatic. When we hear of someone enduring a horrible experience we often say “I can’t begin to imagine…” And we can’t.
Yet we discover that in life’s cruelest moments, when we are tempted to despair, we find hope in the most amazing, the most significant surprise of all.
In John’s Gospel we encounter a grieving woman arriving in the pre-dawn hours to discover a heavy stone has been removed from the tomb of the one she mourns. She suspects the body has been stolen, and runs to her friends to enlist their help. They run back to the tomb, enter it and are surprised to find burial cloths rolled up inside.
Encountering the empty tomb, they are surprised, uncertain. At first they expect the worst.
Yet subsequent encounters with the risen Jesus reveal to them a new way of seeing, of thinking, of believing. It’s likely they thought, “This is not at all what I expected. This is too good to be true.”
At the darkest time in their lives, their eyes and hearts and their imaginations were opened to a radical possibility.
And so are ours. Christ’s triumph over death is the last, the greatest, surprise.
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The joy of relationships
by Barbara Hughes
It started with a phone call from my niece who was planning a visit with her family to Washington D.C. Since they were so near, they hoped they could come for a visit.
They live in Michigan and it had been years since we had seen one another. Much to my delight, she also contacted her sister and a brother who lived in the Carolinas and thus a mini family reunion was born.
Although the gathering was fairly impromptu, things came together with minimal effort and before we knew it, there were 15 people gathered around our dinner table. Reminiscing, sharing stories amid throngs of laughter made for a celebration that will long be remembered.
Coming together required shifting schedules and some extra travel on their part but everyone agreed it was worth the effort.
Still, none of it would have happened if Patty hadn’t initiated it. She was the catalyst that made it happen and the next day when good-byes were exchanged, everyone was grateful that she organized the gathering.
It’s a reminder that relationships require time and choices. Whether it’s with family, friends or God, if we value the relationship, we will make time. And when we do, we look back and feel good about the effort made.
It’s easy to get caught up in the business of life. Crowded calendars, endless to-do lists, be they at work or at home, vie for our attention.
While most activities are good in themselves, it’s important to stand back every now and then and ask ourselves, “One week, one month or five years from now, will it matter if this task remains undone? In the grand scheme of things, how important is this particular activity or event?”
Not every task has the same level of importance and so prioritizing is essential. Good people with good intentions often overextend themselves and when that happens the first to suffer are the people we care about the most.
When we know that we are loved, it’s easy to excuse our misbehavior.
“They’ll understand” or “After all, I’m doing this for their benefit” are frequent rationales.
But work and the way we spend our time can become a form of idolatry. Unless our activities flow from our relationship with God, our priorities get skewed.
When we don’t take time to feed our spirit, whether through recreation or prayer, relationships with God and the people we love tend to suffer.
A priest friend of mine was fond of saying, “If you’re too busy to pray, you’re too busy.”
As a spiritual director, one of the most common laments I hear is: I don’t have time to pray.
Many busy people regard a prayer in the car or in the shower or when they collapse in bed at night sufficient.
While those can be good times to pray, if that’s the only time you find time to talk to God, your relationship with the One who loves you more than you will ever know is bound to suffer.
How would you feel if the only conversation you had with your spouse or the people you love most took place when you were preoccupied with some other task?
I remember one such occasion when one of my sons, who was only three years old at the time, vented his frustration by shouting, “Mom, you’re not looking at me.”
He had been trying to tell me something that he found very important and I was too busy preparing dinner to give him my full attention. It was one of those moments when I felt humbled by the wisdom of a child.
Whether it’s a family reunion, a conversation with a spouse, a parent, or a friend, or time with God, devoting quality time to others lets them know they are loved and in the process we become more loving. It’s a way to let people know we value our relationship with them and that we consider time spent with them sacred.
Reverencing relationships helps us see the goodness in people. Just as prayer opens us to the holiness of life, so making time for others opens us to the presence of God in each person, a presence that is too easily taken for granted.
“The God in me recognizes the God in you” is more than a cliché, it’s a reality.
But that recognition only comes to life when we seize opportunities that present themselves during the course of life. Typically, it requires setting aside my agenda. It may entail extra work and sound like an inconvenience.
The first inclination may be to resist as we weigh the effort required. Ignoring those opportunities may seem inconsequential, but those are pivotal moments!
We can either seize the opportunity or ignore it. One leads to joy, the other to regret.
Those are the times we need to ask “One week, one month or five years from now, will it matter?”
The answer helps put things in perspective and opens us to the grace of the moment.
And where there’s grace, there’s God and where there’s God there is joy in relationships.
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Copyright © 2008 The Catholic Virginian Press. Articles from Catholic News Services, including Fr. Dietzen’s column, may not be reproduced due to copyright considerations.
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