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COLUMNS
» Believe as you Pray
» Family Ties
» In Light of Faith
 
Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 8, 2008 (cycle A)
by Ann Ruggaber
A line from an article in America magazine caught my eye and held my imagination enough that I put it on my office computer’s signature line: “Parishes are meant to be hospitals for sinners, not showcases for saints.”
That saying reflects Jesus’ declaration in the gospel for the tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
We follow a Master who was most often criticized for the company he kept! Jesus talked to everybody - the handicapped whose affliction branded them as sinners in Jewish theology, tax collectors, prostitutes, and women.
Those whom he chose to be his closest associates were unlikely selections, and to them he entrusted the work of the Kingdom. Strange, indeed.
I for one find great comfort in that thought. It is good to remember as we approach the Lord’s Table, that Jesus had a penchant for sharing table fellowship with sinners!
It is also good to remember that those same sinners’ lives were changed forever by their contact with Jesus. Matthew, the tax collector, became Matthew the apostle.
Impulsive Peter, doubting Thomas, a woman with five husbands, fearful Nicodemus, and a thief on the next cross all became believers.
Women were the first heralds of the resurrection.
Yes, Jesus reached out to everybody, and if they chose to respond, their lives were never the same.
We might ask ourselves if we are willing to let the transformative presence of Jesus change our lives and our values. The choice is ours.
What a challenge that is for us! If we are to be his followers, we must adopt his approach.
All people are precious in God’s sight. Nobody is “more equal than others,” to borrow a line from George Orwell.
When we are tempted to put people into categories, to place more value on some than on others, to treat some with more deference than others, this gospel passage calls us back. “Mercy, not sacrifice,” says Jesus.
Through the prophet Isaiah in the first reading, God spells it out as well: “It is love that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than holocausts.”
The title of this column is “Believe as You Pray.” A corollary is “act as you believe.”
Jesuit author William O’Malley defines religion as “what you do about what you believe.” In other words, our worship and our life as faith communities must flow out of what we believe and pray.
It’s easy to say that we are one common humanity, all equally important and valuable. It is harder to live the reality.
We might ask ourselves who are the “prostitutes and tax collectors” in our lives whom we are inclined to ignore or turn away from our church doors.
God is present to us in and through all the people and events of our day. We live in a global society where we can no longer be oblivious to the suffering of the world.
If we would be Jesus’ followers, we cannot be unconcerned or apathetic about the plight of others. Our task and our challenge is to follow the example of Jesus, even as we admit that we, too, fall into the classification of sinners, who are humbly grateful that our God chooses to spend time with us and invite us to his table.
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War and motherhood
by Mary Hood Hart
“Motherhood is defined by life and love: war is shadowed by death and loss. Mothers take care; soldiers face danger.” — Anna Quindlen in her Newsweek column “The Warrior Returns”
There’s a story my children love to tell, a story that, in their estimation, sums up what they consider to be my overprotective maternity.
When he was a teenager, Jimmy told me that as a prank he and some friends moved a vending machine to block a doorway. Even though he shared this story after the fact (the deed had been done and no harm had resulted), I registered my dismay: “You shouldn’t be messing with vending machines. They can be dangerous!”
(I had known of a young man who was killed when a vending machine fell on him, after he and some boarding school friends had been rocking it.)
My children find my response to Jimmy’s encounter with a vending machine absurd. “Now she’s warning us against vending machines,” they say.
Add vending machines to Mom’s list of potential dangers: jaywalking, lack of sleep, any variety of motorcycle, and doing practically anything (except sleeping) without a helmet.
I don’t expect them to understand. It was not until I was a mother that I began to see the world as fraught with potential dangers.
It was in my earliest years of motherhood that I considered myself the barrier between my babies and toxins, electric shock, disease, sharp objects and choking hazards.
From their infancy onward, I took no risks with their safety, choosing never in a moving car to lift them from a car seat or, later, allow them to ride unbelted.
If I, their own mother, didn’t take seriously these precautions, then who would?
Did I go overboard? Possibly.
But with four little ones to care for, I considered a successful day one in which no serious injuries were recorded.
And, on the occasions when one of them endured a smashed finger, a contusion or a concussion, I was always grateful when the trip to the doctor or emergency room ended with our arriving home with the wounded child expected to fully heal. It could have been so much worse.
It is this sort of maternal protectiveness of which Quindlen writes: “Mothers take care; soldiers face danger.”
The same son whom years ago I warned against vending machines has chosen for himself the life of a soldier. At 17 years old, he entered West Point, and soon, at 21, he will be commissioned a 2nd lieutenant in the United States Army.
When Jimmy entered West Point in 2004, our country was at war. I would be lying if I told you I imagined we’d still be at war when he graduated in 2008. Yet so we are.
And so, as a mother, I face the reality that my son, after completing training in aviation, will likely be deployed to the Middle East.
In the past four years, Jimmy has already faced and overcome obstacles and challenges I can only imagine. I have tremendous respect for his military accomplishments and for his desire to serve his country.
This respect I feel for my own son extends to all the men and women in the military who work so hard and sacrifice so much in service to their country.
Moreover, my limited experience as the mother of a soldier, realizing the likelihood that I may one day be in their position, has prompted me to become more aware of and empathetic to mothers whose children serve, especially those who are deployed.
I have grieved for the soldiers who’ve been wounded and those who have died. They are not statistics; they are sons, husbands, and fathers.
As much as I find it painful, I force myself to look at the on-line eulogy pages of West Point graduates who were killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan. On these pages, I see their senior year photos in full dress uniform with saber, in the same pose, wearing the same uniform as my son. (He recently sent wallet-size photos of himself in uniform tucked in graduation invitations.) I see in their faces the same youthful promise and enthusiasm, the same bright-eyed confidence that I see in the face of my own son.
Beyond borders, my heart goes out to mothers everywhere whose children, whom their mothers have tried so hard to protect, have been harmed by war.
More from Anna Quindlen: “Sometimes everyone forgets that war is not a shout but a whisper: a folded flag, an empty bedroom, a woman who has lost that part of her life that made her feel most alive.”
At the U.S. Military Academy graduation, amidst the shouts of HOOAH and the joyous celebration, amidst the pride of accomplishment and the promise of the future, this mother will whisper a prayer.
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String attached
by Barbara Hughes
We’ve all received them — thank you letters from charities to whom we’ve sent contributions.
Typically, the first paragraph expresses gratitude for the gift received, the second explains the continuing needs of the organization and the last paragraph suggests gift amounts to insure that the work continues.
Then, tucked inside the carefully crafted letter is a self–addressed envelope.
It’s considered good marketing and we’ve all come to expect it.
So the other day when the phone rang and it was a representative from “Food for the Poor” expressing gratitude for a recent gift from my husband and me, I expected her thank you to be followed by a request for another donation. But it wasn’t.
Instead she asked me if I had any prayer requests and when I told her what they were, she asked if she could pray with me for the intentions mentioned. For the next few minutes, this woman, whom I had never met, prayed with me and the occasion became a moment of grace. At the end of the prayer, she thanked me again, offered her wishes for God’s continued blessing and hung up.
No requests, no strings attached or were there?
It’s not easy to ask for money. Thousands of organizations depend on and compete for discretionary dollars from generous people.
The steady stream of greeting cards, medals and rosaries, even coins attached to request letters attest to this reality. Often such techniques become a source of annoyance or inspire feelings of guilt more than generosity.
Consequently, the donation feels more like a payment than a donation.
The approach seems to defy the very reason we give, which is to help those who are in need. Some may consider the phone call to pray an inexpensive marketing tool.
I’ll admit that the next time I receive a request from “Food for the Poor” I’ll remember that phone call and stroke another check, not because of the prayer but because they seem to use donations wisely — no trinkets or gimmicks.
In a way we could say that Jesus made use of a similar marketing technique. He assured us that God’s generosity can never be outdone and that in return we will be rewarded a hundred-fold.
But like prayer, we have to take his promise on faith. The results are neither immediate nor tangible. Nor is it like paying an insurance premium that guarantees we’ll be taken care of in the next life.
The caller who broke into my day to pray reminded me that we all have something we can give. She was giving her time and in the process became an instrument of grace.
At times, our gifts may not seem like much, but generosity is about giving the best of what we have to offer with love and a joyful spirit.
It reminds me of St. Peter’s encounter with the crippled man outside the Beautiful gate. When the man asked for alms, St. Peter told him that he had none, but that he would share with him what he could and so he told the man “In the name of Jesus, stand up and walk.”
Imagine the man’s surprise when in response to his meager request, he was given a far greater gift, one he never even considered asking for.
Every day is filled with similar opportunities. Jesus told us that what we do for the least among us, we do for him.
Can you imagine handing Jesus a check so that he can eat, calling him and asking how he’s feeling and taking the time to be really present to him… or saying no when he asks for help?
And yet, we have it on good authority that that’s exactly what we do during the course of so many daily encounters. Mother Teresa of Calcutta told her sisters, “If our heart is pure and free from sin, then we will see God when we serve others.”
Giving is a great equalizer. It places the giver in solidarity with the needs of the receiver, and the receiver in turn becomes the face of God to the one who is giving.
When the giver recognizes the face of God during those sacred encounters, both receive. It is a reminder that everything is gift, all good things come from God and we are all in need.
In recent weeks, the face of suffering has been unavoidable. As villages crumbled and others were washed away, we are reminded that love knows no geographical boundaries.
Tears of survivors tug at heartstrings and hopefully at pocketbooks, for this too is the face of God. Such tragedies invite us to see Jesus in the least among us because if we profess to be Christian, there will always be strings attached.
We cannot separate ourselves from one another anymore than we can hide from God. And depending on our willingness to give, that can be either a little frightening or very reassuring.
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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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