Jim Mahoney's Blog - Sacred to Etc.

September 11, 2016 - We Remember Again - and it was just yesterday

It does not seem like fifteen years have passed since the most terrible thing happened to our nation. Time moves so quickly and yet so slowly. I am baffled, then, aware how many children know about 9-11 only from their history books. It is difficult to explain what it meant if you did not experience it. I came across the homily I gave on that night. We did not know how many had died. We had many parishioners still not home. But every single family on our lists was called to come to church and to pray. The Church was jammed on that Monday night. On Friday for another Mass, it was even more crowded. I came across the homily I gave on the night of 9-11. Somehow thoughts came at me that night from every direction and memory. I was a lot younger then. Today, I am less younger, more tired, sadder, and realize even more my need for God. The homily seemed to be of some help to people that night. Clearly our world has changed - and, not always for the better. We have to pray more. We have to cherish more. We have to recognize our intense need for God. The choices in this upcoming election have me scared for the world. I wonder if we are really safer fifteen years later. Even more reason to pray.

Homily given on the night of September 11, 2001 at Corpus Christi

I have little to say in this homily because there is too much to be said – and too little meaning that is convincing.

Tonight we come to be connected with God – in a world filled with deliberate sin and arbitrary suffering. Evil is a real presence in the world, often seeming as powerful as good. What can we do about it? What can God do about it? Does God care?

There are days and times when no words seem to come – when we do not even have the strength to ask “Why.” This is one of those days and times – when we come as a family, as a community – to hold each other, to listen through each other’s tears, to somehow connect with each other’s fears, and to cling desperately to the God who clings to the Cross – the God who knew evil – and dared to tell us words impossible to hear today about eternal life and hope.

Tonight – we connect with the Cross – our Church’s symbol of a monstrous act – and, somehow, the pathway to grace and life. The presence of God on the Cross compels us to give an answer to the most haunting question of our lives: how do we trust, how can we trust – in a world filled with deliberate sin and arbitrary suffering. Evil is a real presence in the world, often seeming as powerful as good. What can we do about it? What can God do about it?

God is suffering love. Tonight we need to recall the ancient, but disquieting gut-wrenching truth about our faith that God suffers with us. The Precious Lord takes our hand and leads us safely home. The world and our lives are scary and frightening. The implications of today have scarcely begun to be realized.

In the simplest of phrases, God needs us very much tonight. God needs each one here to comfort and reassure the person next to you now, or living next to you, or someone you know, or the stranger who looks so scared. If and, God forbid, when – people we know hear devastating news – God needs you to be there. This is why we come tonight. This is how we act as disciples. Tonight – this is what it takes to be close to God and each other.

In a world and on a day when nothing makes sense – the only thing that may make sense is that Jesus on the Cross has come down from that Cross to embrace us – and to tell us that he is with us, that he will pull us through – probably not over the short run or the middle run, but the ultimate run.

For those who were killed, we pray that despite their violent entry into the life beyond death, they now will know the peace and love of God always.

For those who were injured, we pray so strongly for healing.

For those who are missing and all who are waiting – this is why we have come tonight. This is what being a parish, what being a church, means - - - - we wait with you, we rejoice when you get word of someone safe, and we wait with you until you learn what has happened.

I believe that Jesus sobbed and sobbed today – as he does every time that evil seems to triumph and good people are hurt. No God who loved as Jesus does can do anything other than cry – and neither can we.

I ask you tonight – to bring the crying God, the suffering God, and the healing God to each other and all those who are affected by today’s tragedy. Bring the healing God to help bind up our wounds, to bring us through the effects of a monstrous evil – a monstrous evil afoot and loosed in the world since the original sin – and wherever people without respect for human life gather.

I don’t believe that the ancient Greeks knew a great deal about God in relationship with us, but they knew so much about suffering. Aeschylus wrote: “Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in the midst of our despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

The Body of Christ in our world was ripped apart today. Now we need Jesus to help put our souls and psyche back together again. We cannot do this alone – we can only do it with God – and not as the God of glory – but the God who was crucified – the God who knows what it is to suffer and feel insurmountable pain and grief – that is the God we need – and this is the God who does not abandon us today – the God that you and I must bring to so many as we emerge from today.

Religion is about connections – with God and each other. Make those connections tonight – and tomorrow – and for those who have suffered tragedies – continue to make them in a week, a month, a year – for as long as you know them. People who have a tragedy have a permanent loss – they need permanent friends and permanent support. Do not forget that connection in the days and weeks and even years to come.

Tonight – we come not to do that which is happy – but rather to do that which we do best – to receive Jesus, to bring Jesus to each other, to defiantly remind each other that if God did not abandon Jesus on the Cross, God will not abandon us. And we must not abandon good people everywhere.

 

Sunday, September 4, 2016 - - Why did Mother Teresa of Calcutta capture the world's attention?

I am sorry about the unplanned hiatus from my weekly blog. One of the difficult things in my life are funerals, especially for those whom I have known well and for many many years. There have been so many this summer and within the past two weeks that it just leaves me sapped. So - going to tough it out and get back into the practice.

A few hours ago, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was canonized a saint by Pope Francis. She captured the attention of the entire world in a way that few others have in the history of the Church. I had forgotten until this morning the special connection that Mother Teresa and Princess Diana had. Here were two icons for our world - one an icon of popular culture - the other a person who commanded the fascination of the world for doing the most wonderful good things in behalf of the poor. This editorial cartoon captured the sentiment of the world at the time of their deaths (coincidentally on the very same day):

 

 

There was a genuine connection between Mother Teresa and Princess Diana.

 

The passing of Diana overwhelmed the coverage of Mother Teresa's death. Today's canonization gives it some perspective once again.

Deacon Greg Kandra, one of the best, balanced, and more thoughtful Catholic bloggers today, identified these reasons why Mother Teresa was so important to our world and Church. Here are some excerpts from his blog which is found on www.aleteia.org.:

It is a life that was profoundly radical. - I think she was the first saint who understood the power of celebrity, and used it brilliantly.

First, she is a saint for all who doubt.....She addressed God in her journal: “I am willing to go through this for all eternity even if this is for your pleasure or if others can benefit from this, if it were possible.' She persevered—loving God in spite of feeling that he didn’t love her.

Secondly—and this might surprise you—she could be considered a patron for managers and business leaders. Jim Towey was her lawyer for a number of years. He recently described for The Wall Street Journal her extraordinary leadership skills.  “Coca-Cola pays millions and millions of dollars to figure out how to operate in all the countries of the world,” Towey explained, “and yet Mother did it and invested nothing.” And she knew how to get things done. Visiting Beirut in 1982, she volunteered to take in mentally and physically handicapped children whose hospital had been bombed. Red Cross workers were stunned by her energy and efficiency....,“She saw the problem,” a worker said, “then fell to her knees and prayed for a few seconds, and then she was rattling off a list of supplies she needed —diapers, plastic pants, chamber pots. We didn’t expect a saint to be so efficient.”

Finally, she is a patron for all who feel unwanted or forgotten.

Because poverty is everywhere—and not just physical poverty, or hunger, or sickness.

“The biggest disease today,” she once said, “is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for and deserted by everybody.”

The victims of that disease could live down the block. They could even live in your own house.

When she won the Nobel Peace Prize, a reporter asked her, “What can ordinary people do to bring peace to the world?”

And she replied very simply: “Go home and love your families.”

What does it mean for the Church to canonize someone a saint? Simplest answer - - we believe that we can be safe in praying to this person as a true friend of God. My favorite definition of a saint is: "a saint is a sinner who keeps trying." Not one saint was perfect. Sometimes they fouled things up spectatularly. But they kept trying - and did good - and loved God and their neighbor. May you and I do the same.

St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us.