Daily HOMILY for December 31, 2013: Tuesday after Christmas, Cycle A

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In 2014, I am facilitating a 12-week interactive online course in contemplative prayer and action for priests with Saint Luke Institute.  Please visit SLIconnect.org to learn more:  https://www.sliconnect.org/product/living-god-program-contemplative-life-2/

Tuesday after Christmas

St. Luke’s Institute

December 31, 2013

THE LAST HOUR +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  The last day of the year. “It is the last hour” John says in our first reading is here now

Ø  If we allow ourselves some time for reflection, we may have many thoughts about what has happened and not happened this past year

Ø  As well as what we hope will continue or be different in the new year starting tomorrow

JOHN’S NATIVITY ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  Today we hear John’s account of the nativity

Ø  There are no shepherds, Magi nor angels, and no manger in this one

Ø  John, instead, speaks of the theology of the birth of Christ and the meaning of this event for those who embrace it with faith

Ø  The acceptance of the one who came as a human child to reveal concretely God’s love opens the way to the transformation of our lives

NATIVITY’S PROMISE +++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  It doesn’t matter how poorly this past year may have gone in terms of our personal lives or our hopes

Ø  Today’s gospel tells us how much has been given us in Christ and how much, therefore, can still come to pass in us

Ø  Those who have accepted him, John writes, are empowered to become sons and daughters of God

Ø  Those who believe in him have a share in his fullness flowing as waves of love from God

LEAVE SELF-PITY BEHINE ++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  A man who had the terrible experience as a ten-year-old of finding his mother murdered writes that over the years he has learned that the abandonment of self-pity is the beginning of wisdom

Ø  Rather than moan about what should or might have been last year, about failures and losses, we are able, through the love of God available to us, to face the new year with hope and strength

CONCLUSION +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  The real light has come into the world

Ø  The Word of God has made his dwelling among us

Ø  God’s enduring love for us has come in and through Jesus Christ

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Daily HOMILY for December 30, 2013: Monday after Christmas, Cycle A

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In 2014, I am facilitating a 12-week interactive online course in contemplative prayer and action for priests with Saint Luke Institute.  Please visit SLIconnect.org to learn more:  https://www.sliconnect.org/product/living-god-program-contemplative-life-2/

Monday after Christmas

St. Luke’s Institute

December 30, 2013

ANNA THE WIDOW ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  Widows and widowers know the wrenching grief the death of a spouse brings and the great gaping wound it leaves in one’s life

Ø  Anna, the prophetess, experienced this at much too young an age

Ø  She could not have been much older that 21 or 22 when she lost her husband and may have been a widow for over 60 years

EFFECT OF LOSSES +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  In a culture where a woman’s ID was essentially connected to her relationship with her father or husband, Anna’s being thrust into this state must have been particularly devastating

Ø  Deep grief, no matter its source, has a way of shaking the foundations of our ID

Ø  Who are we, when we are no longer someone’s spouse, brother, sister, child, or friend?

Ø  When we are no longer pastor, minister, teacher, community member?

Ø  When we can no longer garden, walk, write or see?

PROVIDING FOR GROWTH ++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  Primitive societies allowed a widow communally protected solitary space to mourn her loss, accept her vulnerability, and reach within for a renewed and deepened ID

Ø  Anna found that protected space in the Temple

Ø  There she was able to find her identity in God

Ø  Healed and renewed she became a spokesperson for God, a prophet

SLI ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  Our losses can be openings to a deeper ID

Ø  With the support of others, we allow ourselves the protected solitary time and space needed to turn more totally to God

Ø  With the help of therapists, we are better able to accept, adjust to, and integrate our losses in life

Ø  Within a protected space, those unnerving psychic earthquakes can deepen our experience and conviction of God’s ever loving presence

CONCLUSION +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  Those commissioned from SLI tells us that in the light of that presence we can see in new ways

Ø  In the light of that presence we are able to reveal God’s compassionate presence to others

Ø  That day will come for all of us

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Weekly HOMILY for December 29, 2013: Feast of the Holy Family, Cycle A -- Relieving Family Pressures Today

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In 2014, I am facilitating a 12-week interactive online course in contemplative prayer and action for priests with Saint Luke Institute.  Please visit SLIconnect.org to learn more:  https://www.sliconnect.org/product/living-god-program-contemplative-life-2/

Feast of the Holy Family

St. Mark’s Church, Fallston

December 29, 2013

Relieving Family Pressures Today

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

Young Families Today

A recent incident made me realize that I was out of touch with some of the pressures a young family could be having today.

David and I have been working together on a ministry program. He and his wife Wendy are the parents of two small boys.

Wendy, chief breadwinner of the family, has been laid off for some time and was away on job interviews.

Matthew their youngest had developed unexplained blotches all over his body and doctors couldn’t explain what was going on. Add to this was the concern that they would soon be losing their family health coverage.

David and I were scheduled for an all-day business meeting when his car broke down on his way to pick up his younger son at Pre-School because he was sick.

All that and it was just Monday morning!

So it is that many families today feel the mounting pressures of raising children, career, safety, education, sickness, finances, and the list goes on.

Behold the Pressure Cooker

Life for lots of families can be like this pressure cooker (show pressure cooker), on high heat, with the pressures of each day building and the family ready to blow.

It’s at such times that families desperately need a way of dealing with the inevitable pressure buildup.

To apply the analogy, it seems there are three ways to relieve the pressure.

The first is to flip open the pressure gage, the second, to remove the pot from the heat, or third, in some way bring down the internal temperature.

But let’s say you couldn’t remove the heat, that the lack of job and health insurance, the broken down car, the boys’ illnesses are all realities that “keep the heat on” so to speak.

Let’s also say your family doesn’t have a safety value, there’s no magic outlet to be opened to release the buildup of steam.

So the answer regarding relief must come from within the pot, within the very members of the family.

Reading from Colossians

In the second reading, in which St. Paul is encouraging the Colossians, may hold the answer.

He tells them, “Put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another

“If one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection.

“And let the peace of Christ control your hearts … and be thankful.”

St. Paul is saying that it is love, which flows from an encounter with Christ Jesus and God’s indwelling Spirit of peace that makes the difference in the quality of our life.

So within the pressure cooker we call our family, we can draw from the wellspring within us a cooling inner spring that is “kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with and forgiving one another.”

Encounter and Indwelling

That Monday morning when I finally saw David, he filled with tears; he was clearly at his limits.

We greeted each other and sat silently in prayer together tapping the wellspring of faith within us both.

It was in those 15 minutes of silence that he realized his powerlessness, began to trust in God who always brought him through pressured times, and most importantly he was able simply to surrender, surrender his boys, his wife and himself to God.

Conclusion

Coming out of the encounter with silence, the glow of his face was enough to know that nothing outside him had changed, but the heat and pressure with had diminished.

We quickly rescheduled our all-day meeting; he borrowed a car to pick up Nathanial from school, and all seemed back to normal as we parted.

HOMILY for December 25, 2013: Christmas Day, Cycle A

PODCAST - Press sideways triangle below to listen

or click here if there is no triangle
In 2014, I am facilitating a 12-week interactive online course in contemplative prayer and action for priests with Saint Luke Institute.  Please visit SLIconnect.org to learn more:  https://www.sliconnect.org/product/living-god-program-contemplative-life-2/

Christmas, Cycle A

St. Mary Magdalene 4:30, 6:30 pm

Our Lady of Grace 10:00 am

December 25, 2013

A Baby: A Two-Fold Sign of Hope and Healing

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

 

Power of a Baby

Back in 1987, I experienced the power of a baby that I will never forget.

My mother died in April of that year and my brother and sister were both feeling the loss. I was particularly sad, since I had brought her to Baltimore to live near me so I could care for her.

Soon after my mother’s death, my niece Allison gave birth to her first child, a little girl they named Mariah, after my mother, whose name was Mary.

And little Mariah – without knowing what was going with our sadness – was such a tremendous help in those months following my mother’s death.  It is difficult to put it into words what her new life meant for us all.

Mariah brought smiles to our faces in those sad days, as she gurgled, cuddled and cooed.  She brightened the darkness we were experiencing as a family.

In some way her little life was giving us energy and strength to keep on going. 

I would imagine that many of us have had a similar experience of the amazing power a baby’s birth can have on you.       

Baby of Bethlehem

That death and birth came to mind as I was preparing a Christmas homily last week.

It seems that when God wants an important thing done in this world or a wrong righted, God goes about it in a very singular way

God doesn't release thunderbolts or stir up earthquakes. Instead God simply has a tiny baby born, of a very humble home, of a very humble mother.

And God puts his idea or purpose into the mother's heart and she puts it into the baby's mind, and then – God waits

Babies, a Sign of Hope

I would suggest that the great events of the world may, in fact, not be battles, elections, earthquakes, or thunderbolts, but instead, the great events are the birth of babies.

Perhaps each newborn baby comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged with our world and its future, but is still expecting goodwill to become incarnate in each human life

Ø  So in every birth – our own children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews – God is re-creating all of us

Ø  In every birth we witness or are part of, God gives us reason to hope in the future

Ø  In every birth we experience first-hand, God breathes new life into humanity,

This was my insight as God breathed new hope into my family at the time of my mother’s death with the birth of little Mariah.

Hope Forestalled

We all know that little babies become little infants and little infants become little children and the hope they were at birth can loose its luster.

Their lives can become dark or sad. Some of us as infants or children may have been mistreated, uncared for, or placed aside by family, playmates, or teachers and the hope that we were at birth was suddenly forestalled.

Whatever the sad case of neglect may be, the good news of this baby called Jesus is not only that he is a sign of hope as any baby can be …

but that he is God present as one of us, God come in our human form to lift and heal us, if we have been diminished, damaged or denigrated in any way in our childhood.

In my pastoral work with men and woman who have been mistreated and abused, the greatest remedy for healing and reestablishing the hope of the child in them that has suffered neglect is for them to know first-hand God’s love for them.

To know God’s great love for us by becoming one of us – Emmanuel, God-with-us – helps us in dealing with or in healing the scars.

Conclusion

Listen again to what the angel tells the shepherds who were living in the fields with their flocks:

“Behold, men, women and children of Our Lady of Grace Parish, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”

The good news for all of us is that the child that is born to us is both an infant and a savior

He is an infant to give us hope. He’s a savior to fulfill the promise today that may have been forestalled in our own childhood.

Christmas blessings of hope and healing to each of you!