August 2016 – Journeying Into Mystery

A post-operative right knee replacement reflection from a butthead believer.

Glass butterfly wind chime Ruthie gave to me on August 12, 2011, my birthday, the day the orthopedic surgeon had to remove my first artificial hip because of a deadly MRSA infection.

I posted this message on Facebook this morning.

“First day home. It is both wonderful and incredibly scary to come home from the hospital. There are worries surrounding getting into the car, getting out of the car, walking from the car to the house, getting up the steps, and, then, what to do once you get into the house. Of course, generally, there is nothing about which to worry, but somehow life would not seem normal without it. Ruthie provides for me such a safe, comfortable environment and in the midst of worry I fail to appreciate it. I was wondering why I was a bit of an incorrigible asshole last evening and found at its roots the horrifying memories of 2011 and a MRSA infection, a visceral reaction to something that happened a long time ago. There are some things we just don’t forget that get locked into our memory and body memory. I apologized profusely to my beloved Ruth and thanked her for putting up with my sorry ass. Thankfully, reason does win out and stupid fears are put to rest.”

As a pastoral minister, I share in the joys, the hardships, and the tragedies that accompany people in life. While my role is to support others, there is such a thing as role reversal, when the one who provides support is the one most desperately in need of support. The visceral memory of August 12, 2011 is one of those memories that will never go away. Along with the horror of that past, are also the memories of tremendous support. The first starting with that wind chime that my beloved, Ruth, gave me on my birthday. As I was wheeled up to that hospital room, ironically the same room in which I spent these past few post-operative days following my right knee replacement, I saw the wind chime hanging from the trapeze apparatus that was above my hospital bed. Multi-colored glass butterflies, symbol of the Resurrection, new hope and new life, greeted me as I was moved from the surgical gurney to the hospital bed. And, of course, there was my beautiful Ruth, smiling and kissing me as I tried to grapple with the uncertain future of my new condition.

In the days that followed, I remember an aide, arms carrying two large brown paper grocery bags, filled with get well cards. “Just who are you?” he asked as he placed the two bags on the hospital bed side table. “No one ever gets this much mail!” Later, as I spent two to three weeks at the former Queen of Peace Hospital in a swing bed, learning how to hop properly (yes, there are proper and improper ways of hopping) and building up an endurance to hop 100 feet, my daughter Beth took this picture of this perennial beautiful red Hibiscus blooming next to the bird bath in our front yard. I had this picture as the wallpaper on both my cell phone and computer for the next couple of years. There was something about that picture that gave me a much needed lift in a very dark and foreboding time in my life.

At times, like yesterday evening, when worry and uncertainty clouds the mind, and the best one can say of another is, “he is being a reprehensible, unreasonable butthead,” it is hard to see the hope and the promise that lays beyond the immediate situation. I have written about having to pass through darkness in order to find light. By faith we know that it was only passing through the darkness and misery of his passion and death, that Jesus was able to rise from the dead. We know this by faith but sometimes preclude that that was something only applicable to Jesus and not to ourselves. Whether one believes in Jesus or not, or even whether one believes in God or not, the passage through darkness to light is a part of every human’s life. No one is exempt from this passage, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist alike.

Sometimes, all that it takes to see beyond the immediate darkness is something very simple, a glass butterfly wind chime, two big grocery bags of get well cards, or a blooming bright red hibiscus blossom. While not an end unto themselves, these simple objects point us to that ultimate light which will fulfill all, a God who loves us into eternity.

Just a brief note …

I am never too sure as to how many folks look at this blog or not. While I hope that it gets read or listened to, as in the case of the music, were it followed only by a couple of folks that would be just fine.

I am having my right knee replaced tomorrow, which, along with recovery and therapy may either give me a lot of time to post things, or may not. If it is the latter, I ask you to be patient. If it is the former, well, I guess that unless I get really obnoxious there won’t be any problem.

Peace,

Bob Wagner

Knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door – a homily for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

HOMILY FOR THE 21^ST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR C

It is a human tendency to want to exclude those with whom we find disagreement. It grates us to be inclusive of people whose thinking, beliefs, culture or lifestyle differs from our own. Sadly, this human trait has perpetuated like a bad genetic strain from one human generation to the next. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Enough is enough! This thinking of exclusion must end.”

Those Jewish people of Jesus’ time who believed in an afterlife, believed that only the Jewish people would have eternal salvation. Jesus tells them, “Don’t get too cocky.” The net of God’s love and mercy is thrown far wider than the Jewish faith, so much so, that it will be those they exclude who will be the first to enter heaven, long before the Jewish people. God’s infinite mercy and love is far greater than our own feeble-minded , finite human concepts of mercy and love. However, this is only a part of the gospel lesson today. The real lesson lies in this very striking passage from the gospel.

Jesus tells the people that they will come knocking on God’s door saying, “Lord, open the door for us.” God will look at them and reply, “Go away, I do not know where you are from.” Then the people will say, “We ate and drank in your company and you taught us.” Then God will say, “I do not know who you are and where you are from. Depart from me all you evil doers!” When we encounter God face to face, will God know who we are? Rather than waste our time deciding who or who will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven, a decision that is not ours to make, the real question is when we knock on God’s door, will we be able to enter the Kingdom of heaven?

About this time in 2004, I was comfortably serving as a deacon a large southwestern suburban parish, when I received a call from the Office of the Archbishop that Archbishop Flynn assigned me to be the parish life administrator of St. Stephen’s in South Minneapolis. While most parishes in the Archdiocese are for the most part mainstream Catholic parishes, both Archbishop Roach and Archbishop Flynn believed all Catholics must have a spiritual home. So there was established specialty parishes for those Catholics who were more rigidly orthodox in their faith and parishes for those Catholics who were by and large unorthodox in their faith. St. Stephen’s was counted among the latter.

The parish mission statement of St. Stephen’s at that time was that the parish was a spiritual circus tent under which all were welcome. No one was excluded from the parish. The parish was diversely made up of homeless people, the developmentally disabled, gays and lesbians, ex-priests, ex-nuns, ex-offenders, prostitutes, hurting Catholics who were either on their way out of the Catholic Church or reentering the Catholic Church after having been away from the faith for a long time, and the disenfranchised of some mainstream Protestant denominations. I am now beginning my 40^th year in church ministry and St. Stephen’s was, by and large, one of the most challenging, perplexing, fascinating, frustrating, and at the same time most rewarding of my parish assignments. The parish was no paradise, no parish ever is, and there were times at the end of the week when I would sometimes sigh and say, “I think we are still Catholic.”

I remember one Sunday after Mass, a man telling me his story. He was gay. He grew up in a large, strict Irish Catholic family. He was educated as a Catholic from time he was in first grade till he graduated from college. He told me tried to heterosexualize himself for many years, dating girls, and even getting married, trying to fight his sexual orientation. However, he could not live a lie. Overwhelmed with tremendous guilt, he fell into a deep, dark depression and despaired to the point of dying by suicide, when he walked into the doors of St. Stephen. Within this very diverse community of faith he encountered Jesus, who loved him and accepted him as he was, a gay man. He said that this parish saved his life. This man, whose soul had been torn spiritually and emotionally asunder for so many years, finally found peace within himself and with God. He knocked on God’s door and God knew who he was, welcomed him and bid him enter.

Who will be admitted or not be admitted to heaven is a choice that belongs only to God. Would we not best spend the time that we have becoming spiritually the person God created us to be? This requires us to honestly discern and accept who we truly are. Have we grown authentically into the person God created us to be or are we living a lie?

This kind of discerning is like standing in front of a spiritual mirror and one by one removing all the illusions, delusions, and deceptions in which we have been clothed until we stand spiritually naked. To see ourselves as we truly are in that mirror is an unpleasant and shocking experience. It is only when we have spiritually stripped ourselves and clothed ourselves only in humility, that we are prepared to knock on the door of God. And, as we knock upon the door of God, be equally grateful that the mercy and love that God extends to others is there for us, too!

Music for my daughter, Beth.

PSALM OFFERING 8 Opus 6

I dedicate this Psalm Offering to my youngest daughter, Beth. Intelligent, articulate, dedicated to serving others, and fearless, Beth reminds me most of my sister, Mary Ruth. Though she is close to receiving her Bachelor Degree in Psychology, music has been central in her life. From the time she was very little, she had a way of setting everything to music, including her song for Ruthie, “Mommie, good girl!” Early in the morning before school, she and Meg would sing and sing, knowing full well it would irritate the hell out of her brother Luke. I remember her singing Gershwin’s aria, “Summertime” from the opera, Porgy and Bess, at her high school senior choir concert. Dressed in a long black gown, standing alone in front of the curtain, the audience was spellbound as she sang that beautiful song. I just sat there, a big smile on my face, as tears streamed from my eyes. Oh, how proud I was of her!

This Psalm Offering originated in a musical sketch I initially composed as a setting for Psalm 45. It is composed in simple three-part form. Both the A and B melodies are what I would describe as sweeping, dramatic melodies moving over a range of two octaves. The song has the quality of an operatic aria. Perhaps, that is why it seems so appropriate for Beth (and, in case you might be thinking it, Beth, I am not calling you a Diva). Love you, beautiful girl!

Music for my daughter, Meg.

Psalm Offering 10, Opus 6

This Psalm Offering is dedicated to my oldest daughter, Meg. The one quality of Meg that I have always felt present in her is compassion. I remember Meg, about 4 years old, sitting on my lap and watching the Disney cartoon movie, Dumbo. When it got to the part of the movie where Dumbo’s mother is imprisoned in a cage, and baby Dumbo is mourning the loss of his mother. Dumbo’s mother sings the song, “Baby, Now Don’t You Cry.” Poor Meg. She buried her face in my shoulder and sobbed her heart out. Of course, as we know, things eventually get better for Dumbo and for his mother in the movie. However, to this very day, tears well up whenever I think of that one moment Meggie and I shared.

In high school, Meg sang in the regional competitions, I was so honored that the song she sang for the judges was the one I composed for my ordination, “Abba, Yeshua, Ruah.” I also had the honor of accompanying her on the piano. As I recall, Meg received an “excellent” score for her singing.

This Psalm Offering is in simple three part, ABA form. The A and B melodies are simply stated at the beginning and then as they are repeated get more and more elaborate. Stylistically, the song is different from the preceeding songs of this Opus. I don’t know if it is the use of major seventh chords, which in some ways lends a slight air of mystery to the melody. Some of the compositions of this Opus seem to flow easily onto the staff, and others, like this Psalm Offering took some time to create. I must have spent close to 4 hours on the last 15 measures of this Psalm Offering, composing, erasing, composing again, and erasing again, over and over until I finally arrived at what was finally written. To my beautiful Meg, her compassionate heart, her wry and raunchy sense of humor, and her dedication to those she loves and serves, this song was well worth all the work. (And, incidentally, Meg, with a little practice you will be able to play this.)

Music for my son, Luke.

PSALM OFFERING 9 Opus 6

I dedicate this Psalm Offering to my son, Luke. Of all our children, Luke has had to face the most challenges in life. Born with a visual disability and Aspergers, Luke has never allowed himself to be limited by these challenges, whether it be learning to ride a bicycle, or graduating from Vocational School with a degree as an audio studio technician. Luke is an excellent musician, his specialty being the guitar. His musical skills are extraordinary whether it be playing Hendrix or Page or Clapton. While he rarely plays for an audience, Ruthie and I have had the joy of listening as Luke performs in his room. When I feel in need of courage, I look to Luke, whose life is a source of courage for me.

The music for this Psalm Offering is modeled off of that of the late Renaissance Period dance form called a Courante. The Courante was a dance in triple meter and was played at a fast tempo. The literal translation of Courante is “running.” The Renaissance Courante was described as a fast, jumping style of dancing. In the Baroque Period, the French Courante was a slow, stately dance of the Royal Court. However, the Italians preferred it to be considerably faster in tempo.

The music is composed in a strong, fast tempo in triple meter (3/4 time) and is in three-part, A,B,A form. Though the variations of melody A and B change from dotted rhythm to triplets, to running 16^th note arpeggios, the strong feeling of three beats is maintained throughout the music. The music has a joyful lift to it, much the same as the joyful lift Luke has given to me in life.

Music for my daughter (in-law), Olivia

Psalm Offering 12 Opus 6

This Psalm Offering, the last of Opus 6, is dedicated to my daughter (in-law), Olivia. Unlike our other four children, who entered into my life through Ruthie’s womb, Olivia entered my life in loving Andy. I could see immediately why Andy was so incredibly in love with her. Beautiful in heart as well as appearance, Olivia makes an instant impact on all who know her. She is remarkable in all that she does, and her compassion and love for her family and others is evident in her every action. Artistic does not quite do her justice as a photographer. She is able to take the cheapest throw away camera, and take pictures that leave me spellbound. Now that her own father has passed away, I am honored to be her adopted father.

As with Psalm Offering 7, the music for Olivia’s Psalm Offering initially was composed as a hymn melody. Like much of the music from that time in the late 1980’s, the melody lay unused in that plastic storage bin waiting to become something grander than just notes on a sheet of paper. There is an Irish influence integrated into the melody line. It is all the more apropos for Olivia. While her ancestry is Filipino, she was a major participant in our big family trip to Ireland in 2000 (commemorating Ruth’s and my 25^th wedding anniversary). She, along with Meg and Beth, did kiss the Blarney Stone, and I think that the Irish magic that is part of that ritual assimilated in ways mysterious with her Filipino DNA. The musical form of the song is Variations on a Theme. The theme is simply stated at the very beginning, then with each restatement, the theme undergoes a variety of changes. There are times when the melody is augmented (lengthened) and other times it is diminished (shortened). Changes in the tonic key, rhythm, harmonic rhythm and accompaniment keeps it melodically interesting. Overall, there are 9 variations of the initial theme before it arrives at the Coda. I chose this musical form to reflect the wonderful multi-faceted qualities of the person to whom it is dedicated.

Music for my son, Andy.

Psalm Offering 11 Opus 6

This Psalm Offering is dedicated to my oldest son, Andy. He is a man of integrity, and honesty. There are many qualities which Andy possesses too many to list. Those that stand out are intelligence, a skillful builder, and an artist in his trade. However, his greatest quality is his love and dedication to his beloved, Olivia, and their children. He has taught me more as a son than I will ever teach him as his father. He began to teach me the moment he was born. The doctor directed me to leave Ruth’s side (“you’re not going to be of any help to her, you know…”) and to stand behind him as she gave birth. As I stood directly behind the doctor, I saw Andy emerge from his mother’s body. I was dumbstruck with awe at the sacredness of his birth. The presence of God was so strong in that delivery room. From that moment on, I began to learn, with Andy as my teacher, the lessons of being a father. Blessed with four children, they are my professors in life, each an expert in their own particular way. However, Andy remains significant as the first of the four teachers.

The music was first conceived as a setting of the great Canticle from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. As with many of these early settings of musical ideas, not much ever came of it until now. The tempo of the song is Presto con moto, literally “fast, with great movement.” From the very first notes, the tempo never variates in speed, but remains constant to the very last chord. The song is in simple 3 part, ABA, form, with variations on those two melodies every time they are restated. There is nothing subtle in this song, the melody strongly punctuated with syncopation, heavily articulated with accents, staccato, and both. If there is a metaphor for this music, it is like musical fireworks, flashes of accentuated melody, followed by booming chords. Perhaps this metaphor is all the more appropriated since I was busy composing this over the fourth of July weekend. The joy that permeates this music is only an indication of how joyful Andy has made my life.

I have come to sow division on the earth. What happened to peace and good will? – a homily for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Did we hear Jesus correctly in the Gospel? Jesus tells the people, “Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” I remember at Christmas, the angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will!” Jesus’ birth was to bring peace to a humanity afflicted with illness, pestilence, hatred and violence. Yet today, Jesus is saying that it is not peace he is to establish on earth but division. How does this make any sense?

In our second reading, the author of the letter to the Hebrews writes that human division is a product of Sin. If we are to find peace of which the angels sang, our eyes must be constantly focused on Jesus, who is the leader and the perfecter of our faith. Division, calamity, and destruction that we experience in the world is the result of human eyes focused not on Jesus, but focused on ourselves.

My dad grew up in the mountains of western Pennsylvania and he was fond of telling a story about two women who grew up in those mountains. The women were unmarried, sisters, living together, and faithful members of their Baptist church. They read the Bible daily. However the two women also had a weakness for chewing tobacco. Sundays always found them in the front pew of their little church. One Sunday, there was a visiting minister who gave one of those fire and brimstone sermons on the evils afflicting humanity. He preached vehemently about the sin of dancing. The one sister remarked to the other, “Oh, he is a fine preacher.” “Amen to Jesus!” the other sister responded. Then the preacher took up the evils of alcohol. “Oh, he’s ablaze with the Holy Spirit!” said one sister to the other. “Give it to them sinners, Reverend!” the other sister shouted. Then, the preacher began to preach against the evils of tobacco. One of the sisters spat some tobacco juice on the floor and complained, “Well, now he’s just meddling.”

As this story illustrates, while we may think our eyes are fixed on Jesus, our eyes are often only fixed on ourselves. Even the most well-intentioned of us struggle to drag our eyes away from ourselves with all of our own prejudices, and our own preconceived ideas of righteousness. If our gaze is fixed only on ourselves, we only manifest and perpetuate the sin and evils that have afflicted humanity from the time of Adam and Eve.

In today’s gospel, Jesus acknowledges that the way of God is in direct contradiction to the ways of the world and thus there will be division. Jesus makes it clear that if we, as his disciples, fix our gaze on him, our lives will be lived in direct contradiction to that of the world. The world tells us that we are to destroy our enemies, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Jesus says in response to the world, “No, that is not the way of God. The law mandated by God is, “love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.” The world tells us that we are to place ourselves first before others. Jesus says in response to the world, “No! We are to be as servants to one another. The last shall be first and the first shall be last.” The world tells us that we must preserve our lives at all cost. And, Jesus says in direct contradiction to the world, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” In Matthew’s Gospel, we hear that when Peter pleads with Jesus not to go to Jerusalem and so avoid dying, Jesus turns on Peter saying, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” To think as God thinks and live as God intends us to live will place us in direct contradiction to those who think only as human beings do. There will be division.

May we take to heart the words of the second reading, today. Let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus who is the leader and the perfecter of our faith. In focusing our lives on Jesus, we will find the peace of which the angels sang on Christmas morn. For it is only in Jesus that we will find true joy and happiness.

In search of humanity – a reflection on the readings of the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Many of us, especially as we age, are in a constant search for our humanity. It seems that as we get older we equate what it means to be human to that which we once did when we were young. The time and money in advertisements offering the qualities of life that once had been ours in our youth, whether it be eliminating the sagging of skin on one’s body, or revitalize former sexual functions is enormous.

At the typical viewing of an NFL football game one cannot begin to count the number of erectile dysfunction commercials, whether it be Viagara or Ciales, on both hands … we run out of fingers (if only our hands were larger). Then there are those manufacturers that market everything from skin lotions and creams to smooth out the wrinkles on one’s face and body, to hair replacement clinics, and plastic surgery to eliminate the scars and stretch marks and other sagging tissue from pregnancy to over eating. How will this constant human pursuit of the fountain of youth in the form of chemicals and plastic surgery ever measure up to the quality of being truly human? Will any of these pursuits increase our humanness? I think not.

In the second reading today, Paul tells the Collosian community to NOT put on their old self, but rather to put on their NEW self. Fr. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, in his masterpiece, “Becoming Human Together”, speaks of St. Paul’s idea of anthropology. In the cosmic schema of St. Paul, there is the epic of Adam and the epic of Jesus, the New Adam. The epic of Adam is that of humanity of the first creation cursed and tainted by Sin prior to Jesus. This is human life marked by self-centeredness, greed, hate, and violence. Paul calls this kind of human existence “sub-human.”

The Epic of Jesus is the new creation, one in which humanity is recreated into what God meant humanity to be before the Sin of the first parents. Jesus is the new Adam free from sin. To truly be Human, life is lived for others in love and compassion. We look to Jesus to see and experience what it means to be really human.

Paul is telling the Collosian community that to put on their old self is to slip back into living a sub-human state of life. They have been baptized, it is time now to live truly “Human lives.”

The same is addressed in the gospel. It is not the things of the “old self” that are ultimately the most important. Wealth, security, power are not treasures that are long lasting but are fleeting. As this is expressed very well in the first reading, “Vanity of Vanities. All things are vanity. “If our entire life is focused on on these pursuits, we spend our lives chasing after emptiness.

Rather Jesus is telling us to focus on the treasures that are everlasting, the things of heaven. It is love and compassion, the focusing our efforts and attentions on God and on others that is the true treasure of heaven. Everything that we have in life, including the graces we have received, are to be shared with others. It is there where true happiness will be found.

Like it or not, we all eventually realize that to attempt to go back to the bodies, and the libidos of what we once had in our youth, is a waste of time and effort. As we get older, let us put aside all that marks our “old selves” and focus on putting on our “new selves”, that which will last forever.

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