Church of The Holy Spirit

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, Nov. 1, 2009
Solemnity of All the Saints

What does it mean to be holy?

Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14 1 John 3:1-3 Matthew 5:1-12a

All humans basically look at the same things. People of faith simply see those things from a different perspective than those who have no faith. Jesus' earliest followers imitated him long before they worshipped him. Initially, Jesus' disciples didn't have faith in Jesus; they shared the faith of Jesus.

Especially during today's celebration of All Saints, this is a tremendous insight. Our biblical authors have a unique definition of holiness. For them, to be holy doesn't imply a sanctimonious bearing – hands folded eyes heavenward. In scripture, a saintly person is someone who's "other": an individual different from those around him or her. Matthew's Jesus demands we become perfect as God is perfect.

Part of our mission on earth is to imitate God's holiness. If we do so, the otherness of God we attempt to copy during our stay on earth will continue to amaze us when we step into eternity. "We are God's children," the 1 John author reminds his community. "What we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

One of the things that makes heaven heavenly is that our experiences there will be other from the ones we have on earth. The beatitudes were deliberately chosen by Matthew to introduce his Sermon on the Mount. Matthew chooses this mountaintop location because, as a good Jew, he's reminding his readers that just as Yahweh gave Moses the Torah on Sinai's summit, so Jesus delivers his laws from a similar but unnamed site.

As we listen to Jesus' demands, notice how often he begins with "You have heard it said … But I say to you . . . " In each case, the "you have heard it said" refers to one of the 613 Mosaic Laws. The "I say to you" conveys the new Christian interpretation of that particular law.

For instance, "You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil" (5:38-39). The sermon consistently asks us to practice a more stringent morality than what Jesus' contemporaries practised. Even among their fellow Jews, Jesus' followers were other.

It's against this background of otherness that Matthew's beatitudes originally took shape. The evangelist asks his community to see something most people never notice. In each of the eight blessed instances, those who share Jesus' faith take a few steps beyond external appearances and reach an unexpected insight.

Matthew tells us Jesus deliberately began his public ministry with the announcement, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" In the Hebrew scriptures, the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven doesn't refer to the place in which most of us are hoping to spend our eternity. On the contrary, it almost always is the term the sacred authors employ to describe God working effectively in our lives right here and now.

Jesus was convinced that God is present to us, that we need only reach out a hand to touch God. God is much closer than arm's length. Yet, Jesus insists, to experience such a presence we must first repent – go through a 180-degree change in our value system. Our faith forces us to turn things upside down, to look at reality from a completely different perspective.

Not only in the first beatitude, but throughout the seven others, Matthew's Jesus tells us how to achieve the repentance necessary to perceive God's kingdom. It's no accident that he begins by zeroing in on poverty as the kingdom-opening first step. Matthew softens Jesus' demand by adding "in spirit" to the original "Blessed are the poor" statement we find in Luke. Yet he still presumes that by acquiring the faith of Jesus we'll eliminate our passion for wealth. Once that desire is under control a whole new world opens up to us.

An experience of God's presence, which we once thought was reserved for eternity, is taking shape right here and now. When Jesus refers to those "who mourn" he's speaking about people who "mourn to see evil reign on earth." Holy people are gifted to perceive evil in situations in which others only see harmless culture, traditions or customs. Their comfort will come from their determination to eradicate such evils.

In a similar way, "they who hunger and thirst for righteousness" are individuals who are continually searching for God's will in their lives. As we heard six weeks ago, Isaiah's song of the suffering servant begins with the words, "Morning after morning Yahweh opens my ear that I may hear" (50:4).

True disciples hit the floor every morning with their ears open. Followers of Jesus are expected to listen, not memorize. They're always alert to what God's pointing out today that God didn't point out yesterday. Their alertness is the only thing that brings them true satisfaction on this earth. Such a God-seeking mindset also opens the door to peacemaking. It breaks down the us/them personality so embedded in humans.

Probably the characteristic of Jesus that most disturbed his contemporaries was his knack for erasing the line distinguishing the ins from the outs. Jesus regarded everyone as in. God's view of creation shows no us or them. Those who work at imitating God's everybody in holiness can't help but develop into peacemakers. They gradually begin to notice the stuff of God that lies at the heart of who they are. They become subjectively what they already are objectively: God's children.

It's clear from both the last beatitude and the reading from Revelation that everyone who strives to develop into a biblically holy person in this world is going to run into opposition. Those who choose to see reality from God's perspective will always be "persecuted for the sake of righteousness." They, like the apocalyptic author of Revelation, will simply have to hang in there until the "time of great distress" is over Each of us experiences his or her unique distress. The holy children of God can never stop being holy.

That all our beloved dead, especially

TUESDAY, Nov. 3
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Deceased members of the Nidoy and Austriaco families

WEDNESDAY, Nov 4
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Frank Topping

THURSDAY, Nov. 5
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Giuseppe Pierri

FRIDAY, Nov. 6
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Nelson and Diniz Raposo

may know the refreshment, rest, and peace of God's heavenly kingdom . . . that all those who grieve may know God's comfort and consolation . . . We pray . . . .

FOR THE SICK, ESPECIALLY FOR

All those who have asked for our prayers . . . for healing for the sick . . . for courage for those in pain . . . for those in hospitals, nursing homes or confined to their homes by illness or infirmity . . . for those who feel forgotten . . . We pray. . . .

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, Nov. 8, 2009
How Much Do I Trust God?

1 Kings 17:10-16 Heb 9: 24-28 Mark 12:38-44

"Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon." (Luke 4:24-26).

Jesus said this, and the message seems clear. God sent Elijah to a foreign land to take care of a starving widow instead of to the many Jewish widows in his own country. But the actual story seems much different.

In the First Reading, Elijah does not help feed the Zarephath widow and her tiny son at all. Instead he demands food from her! She has "only a handful of flour" in her jar, she says, and "a little oil" in her jug. She was collecting wood to cook the very last meal she and her young son would ever eat. After that they would die of starvation and thirst. In effect, Elijah was wanting their last meal for himself. Worse still, Elijah was following God's instructions in making this demand (see 1 Kings 17:1-9).

The Lord had told Elijah to go to Zarephath of Sidon, where he had designated a widow to provide for Elijah in the famine and drought. Was Elijah supposed to help the widow, or was the widow supposed to help Elijah? In either case they were both starving, dying of thirst, so what could either of them do? Answer: Elijah wins. When he demands water from her the widow turns on her heel to get the last little bit of water she had. A great spirit!

But as she went, Elijah shouted after her to bring him bread too! "I want it, give it to me." The widow goes to do his will. But God has a trick up his sleeve. Elijah calls out to her as she goes, "The God of Israel says, ‘The jar of flour shall not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, until the day when the Lord sends rain upon the earth.'" God will keep the vessels full until the drought is over. Our widow has only these puzzling words to rely on. But rely on it she does. She bakes the tiny bit of bread, in front of the wide eyes of her son, and takes all of it, every bit of it, to Elijah.

Does this story make sense? No. Is there an answer? Yes. This widow knew God so well that she trusted in his goodness even in the face of impending death. Her last act would be one of charity. This is the real meaning of faith, to release your own control of things. When the chips are down, let go and let God. Even in your last extremity. And so, after all, God had sent Elijah to help the widow, not rob her. But she had to trust first.

In the Gospel, the second widow illustrates the same faith, putting her own last two pennies into the collection box. Jesus sees it happen and sees the depth her faith. I suppose the question now turns to you and me. How much do we trust God? Or the other hand, how much trust do we place in fear?

Something to think about!

6-year old Calvin is holding a plate out to his mother. She is busy dividing up the one piece of pie left from yesterday. Calvin shouts "I want the last piece of pie! Don't divide it up. Give it all to ME." Sound a bit like Elijah?

Mom says, "Don't be selfish, Calvin." The boy answers, "So the real message here is ‘be dishonest?'" His mother freezes for a moment, then hands the whole piece of pie to him.

That all our beloved dead, especially

TUESDAY, Nov. 10
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Anna Fung

WEDNESDAY, Nov 11
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Michael and Martha Virgilio

THURSDAY, Nov. 12
St. Josaphat
8:30 a.m. - † Nelson and Diniz Raposo

FRIDAY, Nov. 13
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Edward and Cecilia Pierri

may know the refreshment, rest, and peace of God's heavenly kingdom . . . that all those who grieve may know God's comfort and consolation . . . We pray . . . .

FOR THE SICK, ESPECIALLY FOR

All those who have asked for our prayers . . . for healing for all those who are sick . . . for courage for those in pain . . . for those in hospitals, nursing homes or confined to their homes by illness or infirmity . . . for those who feel forgotten . . . We pray. . . .

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, Nov. 15, 2009
Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Daniel 12:1-3 Hebrews 10:11-14, 18 Mark 13:24-32

Jesus said to his disciples: "In those days after that tribulation the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken" (Mk 13:24-25). There are times when the world unravels. Who hasn't had this feeling? "I'm falling apart! This is beyond me! My heart is broken! I feel betrayed by everything! Nothing makes sense anymore! Life is upside down!"

Jesus had a cosmic image for this. In the gospels, he talks about how the world, as we experience it, will someday end: "The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give forth its light, stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken." When Jesus says this, he is not talking as much about cosmic cataclysms as of cataclysms of the heart. Sometimes our inner world is shaken, turned upside down; it gets dark in the middle of the day, there's an earthquake in the heart, and we experience, in effect, the end of the world as we've known it.

But, Jesus assures us too, in this upheaval, one thing remains the same: the word of God, God's promise of fidelity. That doesn't get turned upside down and, in our disillusionment, we are given a chance to see what really is of substance, permanent, and worthy of our lives. Thus, ideally at least, when our trusted world is turned upside down we are given the chance to grow, to become less selfish, and to see reality more clearly.

Christian mystics call this "a dark night of the soul" and they write it up as if God was actively turning our world upside down and causing all this heartache deliberately to purge and cleanse us. John of the Cross, the great Spanish mystic, puts it this way: God gives us seasons of fervour and then takes them away. In our seasons of fervour, God gives us consolation, pleasure, and security (sometimes with considerable passion and intensity) inside our relationships, prayer, and work.

As a gift from God this is meant to be enjoyed. But, John tells us, God will, at a certain point, take away the pleasure and consolation and we will experience a certain dark night, namely, where we once felt fire, passion, consolation, and security, we will now feel dryness, boredom, disillusion, and insecurity. For John of the Cross, all honeymoons eventually end. Why? Why would God do this? Why can't a honeymoon last forever? Because eventually, though not initially, it blocks us from seeing straight.

Initially all those wonderful feelings we feel when we first fall in love, when we first begin to pray deeply, and when we first begin to find our legs in the world, are part of God's plan and God's lure. The passion and consolation we feel help lead us out of ourselves, beyond fear and selfishness. But, eventually, the good feelings themselves become the problem because we get hung-up on them rather than on what's behind them. Honeymoons are wonderful, but, on a honeymoon, generally we are more in love with being in love and all the wonderful energy this creates than we are in love with the person behind all those feelings.

The same is true for faith and prayer. When we first begin to pray seriously, we generally are more in love with the experience of praying and what it's doing for us than we are in love with God. On any honeymoon, no matter how intense and pure the feelings seem, those feelings are still very much about ourselves and not about the person we think we love. That is why, sadly, many a warm, passionate honeymoon eventually turns into a cold, passionless relationship.

Until we are purified, and we are purified precisely through dark nights of disillusionment, we are too much seeking ourselves in love and in everything else. Therese of Lisieux used to warn: "Be careful not to seek yourself in love, you'll end up with a broken heart that way!" We'd have less heartaches if we understood that. As well, before we're purified, most of the tears we shed, no matter how real the pain or loss, say more about us than they say about the person or situation we are supposedly mourning.

In all this, there's both bad news and good news: The bad news is that everything we feel as precious will someday be taken from us. Everything gets crucified, including every feeling of warmth and security we have. But the good news is that it will all be given back again, more deeply, more purely, and even more passionately in terms of feeling. What dark nights of the soul, cataclysms of the heart, do is to take away everything that feels like solid earth so that we end up in a free-fall, unable to grab on to anything that once supported us.

But, in falling, we also get closer to bedrock, to God, to reality, to truth, to each other, beyond illusions, beyond selfishness, and beyond manipulative love masquerading as something else. Clarity eyesight comes after disillusionment, purity of heart comes after a certain kind of heartache, and real love comes after the honeymoon.

That all our beloved dead, especially

TUESDAY, Nov. 17
Weekday
8:30 a.m. † Doug Lancefield

WEDNESDAY, Nov 18
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Chong Family, deceased

THURSDAY, Nov. 19
Weekday
8:30 a.m.- † Lillian Deveau

FRIDAY, Nov. 20
Weekday
8:30 a.m.- † Lorna Spinner

may know the refreshment, rest, and peace of God's heavenly kingdom . . . that all those who grieve may know God's comfort and consolation . . . We pray . . . .

FOR THE SICK, ESPECIALLY FOR

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009
FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING

Daniel 7:13-14 Revelations 1:5-8 John 18:33b-37

"Everyone who belongs to the truth, listens to my voice"

Even in the best of times for royalty, kings have been associated with opulence, money, and reckless appetite. Think about the series that is wildly popular today, depicting a Tudor court revolving around a very powerful and strangely obsessed king who was yet a ruler of England par excellence.

Today's readings show us a strange king who has used words such as service and who talks about truth and a kingdom ‘not of this world . . .' A strange king, to be sure. In the fourth Gospel's account of the Passion, all of our expectations of kingliness are reversed. The king-servant, who washed his followers' feet, is strangely grand and noble, yet only in his quiet vulnerability and the utter truth of his being. He does not muster armies or amass territories. He just invites, relying on nothing other than our hearts' response.

In answering Pilate, Jesus says that his kingdom is not of this world. It is a kingdom not fought for with old means of warfare. Rather, it testifies to truth. It will not kill for the truth, it will die for it. If Jesus is king, he will be a suffering king. He will not demand ransom. He will be ransom. He will win, not by spilling the blood of others, but by offering up his own.

Over the centuries Christians have had trouble with this new kind of king, so much have we hungered for the earthly assurances of conquest and control. But it is equally true that the centuries have seen men and women who recognized in Jesus a kingliness that summoned nothing less than the loyalty of a free human heart. Something was unlocked in them when they discovered a lord of life whose ambition was not to dominate humanity, but to save and serve it.

In the meditation on the Two Standards in Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises, we are first presented with the picture of a false king, mounted on a throne of fire and smoke, inciting terror, mustering forces of tyranny to snare all peoples in chains of riches and massive pride. Christ, on the other hand, standing in a lowly place on the great open plains, is a sovereign, beautiful and bright, who draws men and women into a life of liberation. They will be freed of all false securities, whether spiritual or material. They will be a legion of humility, armed only with truth.

It is this king who in Ignatius's Exercises, before the great meditations on Advent and Christmas, asks of us not quivering fright, but union of hearts. He wants us to enter into his life, as he desires to enter ours. He has come to be with us so that we might be with him. Rather than obsequiousness, this king demands love, the "earnest desire and choice" to be together with him, no matter what. The human heart will never outgrow its longings for such a promised friend and rule. Something deep rises from within us in the face of its beauty. It awakens a long-lost ache to give everything away, if the cause is only good and true enough.

We need not appreciate the images of lord and king. But the godly realm we celebrate on the feast of Christ the King is an alternative kingdom – heavenly, majestic, and worthy of trust. It is a kingdom, indeed, not of this earth, yet brought to earth in the Word of God made flesh. Ignatius Loyola would have us ponder such a kingdom before we imagine the mystery of the Incarnation. We see at a distance our fragile world of broken promises and broken hearts. We behold sin, our own included, amid the manifold glimmers of grace. We hope.

So long as human flesh survives, the longing for this alternative kingdom of redeeming love will endure. That is why we will always be ready for Advent.

That all our beloved dead, especially

TUESDAY, Nov. 24
St. Andrew Dung-Lac
8:30 a.m.- † Sister Benedicta D'Souza

WEDNESDAY, Nov 25
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Mary Waychison

THURSDAY, Nov. 26
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Paul Fung

may know the refreshment, rest, and peace of God's heavenly kingdom . . . that all those who grieve may know God's comfort and consolation . . . We pray . . . .

In Praise and Thanksgiving . . . especially on Friday Nov 27th and always . . . We pray in thanksgiving and for the increase of all that makes our lives delightful: for loving companions and human conversation; for all occasions of celebration with good food and drink; for music and art and poetry and all manner of expression of what is divine; for true worship among truth-seeking people; for minds to muse and hands to hold and hearts to reach out to others . . . We pray.

FOR THE SICK, ESPECIALLY FOR

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, Nov. 29, 2009
FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Jeremiah 33:14-16 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2 Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

"To You, O Lord, I Lift my Soul!"

Why do we have Advent? "I don't know, it always just comes along," or, "I don't know, no one ever told me." I have heard these questions and others a number of times. Especially this one: if Christ has already been born, what is this Advent waiting about? Have we forgotten about his birthing?

Strangely that is part of the answer. It has to do with his birth into our hearts each year. Our hearts are drowsy and forgetful, tired out by the anxieties of daily life. Maybe we distract ourselves from our troubles by working very hard, or becoming depressed, or becoming fascinated with (you name yours) drink, or sex, or out-of-control emotions, or gambling, or email, or golf, or surfing the web, or pride, or, or, or.

Whatever it is for you, the very clear message of Advent is, "Settle down for a while." Open the door just a crack to let God in. The Church has a liturgical strategy in the Advent Sunday readings. Each week's First Reading is the carrot: usually positive, a promise of good. The Gospel is the stick.

Take the First Reading this Sunday. It reminds us of the promise God has made to his people: Rightness and justice will come to the earth. Security. The day of the Lord will arrive, though long delayed. Peace in our day. What a lovely thing it is to desire such a time. Is it too good to be true? Is it just pious thought?

Read the First Reading now and ask yourself those questions. Spend time with them. Pray to God for help. The Responsorial Psalm will help you. It asks God to make known his ways to us, to guide us and teach us.

The Second Reading urges us to put God's promise of peace into action, even if we are not yet sure what it means. Love others and be loved. Ah, and then the Gospel!. It tries to wake us up, especially if the above has not helped. "But I am perfectly awake," you say. Alright then, go ahead and read the Gospel. It is the "stick."

Signs in the sun, moon and stars, nations in dismay, the roaring of the sea and the waves, people dying of fright, and the Son of Man appearing in the clouds with power and great glory. Terrifying. Are you ready for it? Let yourself imagine it what this might be like. Picture it scene by scene and don't worry about being exact. Just experience it.

Will such a shakeup really happen literally? We do not know. Maybe much worse is to come, judging from the state of the world today. Do you live without fear of terrorist acts, of proliferating nuclear weapons, of a crash of the entire economy or the greed that fills so many hearts to overflowing in your city, in your country, in your world?

If you can say "You are right, I am afraid of these," then go back to the Responsorial Psalm and pray. Beg that Christ be given birth in your soul and in so many others in this world that need it so badly. Welcome to Advent.

An Advent Prayer from the Heart!

God of love, you were so generous, sending the presence of your Beloved Son to dwell among us and to tell us who you are. Encourage me during this Advent season to continue in the sharing of this loving presence through my attentiveness, given in prayer and in deeds.

You who dwell within me, remind me often to let go of my busyness and my hurriedness so that I can be with others in a loving way. Convince me that "being" is as important as "doing." Thank you for your strengthening presence. Thank you for being with me. Amen.

Mass Intentions for the week

That all our beloved dead, especially

TUESDAY, Dec. 1
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Nelson and Diniz Raposo

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 2
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Daniel Jude Florentino

THURSDAY, Dec 3
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Tafar and Ruban

FRIDAY, Dec 4
Weekday
8:30 a.m. - † Gorgina Aprile

may live again in the presence of the God of limitless love . . . for those who are mourning the loss of a loved one . . . for those who are dying and those who tend to them as they die . . . for those who are alone and afraid . . . for a peaceful death without fear or regret . . . for the mind of Christ . . . We pray to the Lord.

FOR THE SICK... ESPECIALLY FOR
All those who have asked for our prayers . . . for healing for the sick. . . for courage for those in pain . . . for those who live in the shadow of the cross . . . for those whose suffering is severe . . . for the mind of Christ . . . We pray to the Lord.