Month: March 2019

Often in sacred art we see halos surround the head or body of a person deemed sacred. A halo is often seen as a crown of light rays, or a disc of light. The halo can be found in the sacred art of many world religions. In Christian art, halos are seen principally around the figure of Jesus, Mary, Mother of God, and many of the saints.

On the second Sunday of Lent, we hear the Gospel account of the Transfiguration. Jesus, Peter, James and John go up the mountain to pray. While Jesus was praying his face and body is transformed. His whole body is glowing in a dazzling white light. Two important figures of the Hebrew Testament, the prophets, Moses and Elijah, also glowing dazzling white, appear alongside Jesus. They speak to him of the torture and death that awaits him in Jerusalem.  Peter, James and John, are gobsmacked and frightened by what they see. A cloud envelops them and they hear the voice within the cloud say, “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” Suddenly, the vision stops and everything is normal again. Shaken and quiet they descend the mountain with Jesus.

The central image the Transfiguration gives to us is this intense, white, dazzling light that surrounds the bodies of Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. In religious icons, especially that of the Orthodox Churches, the light represents the grace of God shining through the icon. It draws those who view the icon to the deeper reality of God that is beyond the painting. In their earthly ministry, Moses, Elijah and Jesus were living icons who drew people beyond the surface of their daily living to the reality of God that encompasses all of life. However, in doing their earthly ministry they also experienced personal suffering.

Moses was a hunted man much of his life. Pharoah wanted him dead. Even when the Israelites escaped the cruel enslavement of the Egyptians, the suffering didn’t end. They wandered 40 years in the desert. Moses would die looking at the Promised Land from a mountain top, never having stepped into the Promised Land. Elijah, too, was also a hunted man. He spent a great deal of his life escaping death at the hands of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. We all know how Jesus was betrayed, viciously tortured and executed.

That which we need to take away today is that our bodies will be also be glorified one day. Our bodies will also glow with dazzling light. In the second reading today, St Paul tells the Philippian community, “Jesus will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.” This same teaching is repeated in the first letter of John. “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” This is really good news! However, there is a sobering part to this news. In order to have a glorified body like Jesus’, there is always some kind of human suffering involved. To experience our own Transfiguration, like Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, we must first pick up our own cross. As disciples of Jesus we must enter into the Paschal Mystery, the suffering, the dying, and the rising of Jesus.

We each have a cross that is unique to us. We each have our own Paschal Mystery. For some of us it may be a lifetime recovering from an addiction of one sort or another. For some of us it may be the loss of significant relationships by separation and divorce, or by death. For some, our Paschal Mystery may be the result of a chronic illness or injury. For some of us, it may the cross of unemployment or poverty.  Though we carry within ourselves the Paschal Mystery of Jesus, we can find comfort in these words of St Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians. “Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.”

One day, we will all have a halo around us. Jesus, Moses, and Elijah have shown us the way to our own Transfiguration. For today, the question we must ask ourselves is this, “In the way we live our lives, are people drawn into a deeper relationship with God?” Are our halos dull and grey, or do they reflect the dazzling light of God who surrounds and fills us?

Have you ever been asked the question, “Where are you from?” The way we express or say words and our mannerisms can often prompt that question. (For instance, Minnesotans have a unique way of expressing the positive with a negative. The question, “How are you doing?” is often answered with the positive/negative, “Not so bad.” Another example is “awful good coffee”.) In today’s second reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, Paul writes that the manner by which we act and express ourselves must show that we are citizens of heaven and not citizens of the world in which we live.

Those of this world, Paul calls “enemies of the cross of Christ”. The way by which they live and express themselves indicates their citizenship. Paul describes their way of life in these words, “Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their “shame.” Their minds are occupied with earthly things.” Paul calls upon the Philippians to model their lives after that of Jesus. In doing so they will find their bodies, through the power of Jesus, gradually transformed into Jesus’ own glorified body.

As those who have been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, we, too, have died and risen with Christ. While we may live in our world, we are no longer OF this world. We have one foot planted firmly in heaven, while our other foot rests in this world. As we allow our bodies to gradually be transformed into the glorified body of Jesus, we bring that part of heaven that is Jesus into the world in which we live, with the hope that over time, our world will also experience the glorification we are undergoing.

May these 40 days of Lent be transformative for us and for the world in which we live.

Every now and again, I compose a musical song that seems so beyond that which I feel capable of composing. This is one of those songs.

Over the 50 years we have known each other, I have composed 6 songs for Ruth, beginning as a Freshman in College. This most recent song was composed around this time last year.

When I sat down to compose this song the only thing I knew was that I wanted it in 5/4 meter. The melody and the harmonies just came into my mind and I translated what I heard in the musical program on my computer. I have composed many songs over 50 years. This is, in my opinion, my finest piano composition.

Today, Jesus is led into the silence of the desert that he might better listen to God the Father. Our daily lives are filled with distractions. Some of these distractions are good and some are harmful. Even our prayer can be distracting. We fill our prayer with so many words that can distract us from reflecting on the words we are praying. We need to build within our day, desert time. Like Jesus, we need to escape into silence in order to better listen to God speaking within us. Quite simply, we need to shut up and just listen.

One of the most ancient forms of Christian prayer is called “centering prayer.” Centering prayer requires us to sit in silence and listen to the presence of God within us. Those who daily commit themselves to 10 or 20 minutes of centering prayer find, over time, God revealing God’s love to them, compelling them to live more fully their vocation as disciples of Jesus.

A very simple way that need not take 10 to 20 minutes, is the “Examen” prayer developed by St Ignatius Loyola. At the close of our day, St Ignatius recommends us to follow these 6 simple steps. 1) Become aware of God’s presence. 2) Review your day with gratitude. Gratitude is the foundation of our relationship with God. Walk through your day in the presence of God and note its joys and delights. 3) Pay attention to your emotions. Reflect on the feelings you experienced during the day. Ask what God is saying through these feelings. 4) Choose one feature of the day and pray from it. Ask the Holy Spirit to direct you to something during the day that God thinks is particularly important. It may be a vivid moment or something that seems insignificant. 5) Look toward tomorrow. Ask God to give you light for tomorrow’s challenges. And, 6) End the Daily Examen with a conversation with Jesus. Ask forgiveness for your sins. Ask for his protection and help. Ask for his wisdom about the questions you have and the problems you face. Do all this in the spirit of gratitude.

If we do the Examen daily, we will find ourselves less distracted and more focused on the presence of God in our lives. Isn’t that what the Season of Lent is all about?

This day is always a sad one for me. The day prior to the above picture being taken, Floyd was diagnosed with cancer of the bone. A tumor was destroying the bones of his right rear leg. Great Pyrennes, being a large breed, are too massive to try to get around on only 3 legs. Floyd was so large that the neighborhood kids use to argue as to whether he was a polar bear or whether he was a dog. Though weighing in around 170 pounds, he was mostly fur, but actually quite skinny under all that fur. He was our gentle giant and a very loving companion. So, on March 7th, I drove him early in the morning to the local vets. Ruthie met me there and as we held him, the doctor administered the lethal injection. Floyd looked at me one last time with those beautiful brown almond shaped eyes, and then his eyes closed and he died.

When I was recovering from a MRSA infection resulting from a hip replacement in 2011, I began a book of poems dedicated to my wife, Ruth. I call it The Book of Ruth. The poems chronicle our courtship, our early years of marriage and so on all the way to 2011. In it is the poem I wrote about our wonderful dog, Floyd. While the poem is about Floyd, the poem is addressed to Ruth. She, growing up on a farm, had no time for pet animals. So instead of a dog or a cat, the kids had birds, rodents, fish, and a lizard as pets. I think the lizard broke her resolve, and she finally conceded on the kids having a dog. We did our research, presented it to her, and she ignored it all. She picked up the official AKC book of breeds, looked at some pictures, saw a picture of a Great Pyrennes and told us that this was the dog. I remarked that our house and yard were too small for a dog that size. In fact, you can almost saddle a Great Pyrennes and ride it. Ruth was unrelenting. So we got Floyd and he changed our lives for ever.

Here is the poem.

PASSION AND DEATH – FLOYDRMOOSE

Six years earlier, a ball
of white fur, a point
of a tail dabbed in red.
“Red” is what they named
him to differentiate him
from his siblings, “Green,”
“Blue,” “Yellow,”
“Purple” and “Orange.”

Farm girl objections
and convictions of
dogs as outside
not inside animals,
years preventing,
and oddly creating
a cavalcade competition
of seed spitting birds,
rodent masquerades
of hamsters and gerbils,
and slowly lumbering
iguanas as family pets,
bringing you to this
capitulation, or is it defeat?
Man’s best friend wins,
fevered searches,
thumb-worn resources,
American Kennel Club,
scoured and searched
for the perfect dog.

The equation laid out,
tall, big people equal
tall big dogs, a direct
logical defiance of a
poster stamp yard.
Befuddlement ended,
a magnificent photo
of a mountain top dog,
a giant white canine,
lion’s mane of hair
olive-shaped brown eyes
as tall as the mountain
upon which it stands.
“That is the dog!”
your word final,
the quest begun
to end here finding
this diminutive ball
of white fur with the
eagerly wagging
red-tipped tail.

Variances for fencing
sought and got
the little creature
home, little knowing
how hearts would
be captured, and
who really owned who?
You, the alpha dog,
the queen of his heart,
laying at your feet
in expectation, you
christened him,
a play on “Fliedermaus”,
a bat? Hardly, a
moose, FloydRMoose
he became, a 170 pound
behemoth, muzzle resting
on the kitchen counter,
eyes intently gazing,
carefully gauging,
meal preparation,
for bacon, or cheese,
a pound of butter,
the NutterButter thief.

Adoration, yes,
greeting you, his
great head bowed low
raising it under your
nightgown, his black
broad nose, coldly
nestling the warm
skin of your voluptuous
bottom, a “Get your
nose out of there!”
ringing through the house.
Adoration? Infatuation?
or merely opportunism?
taking my empty spot
in the bed, his head
on my pillow, spooning
you as you lay on
your side, you wondering
if it were I breathing
heavily into your ear.

Neighborhood debates,
loudly argued among
the younger residents
as to him being a
Polar Bear or dog.
The diminutive postal worker
glancing nervously sideways
at the huge white creature’s
great bark of welcome,
frozen in fright as he
nosed open the screen
door to sniff her, later
weeping at his death.
Photogenic, his broad
open smile dominating
every picture, our
Beth, dwarfed and
forgotten by his
side in her graduation
pictures. His resounding
voice originating from
the dew claws on his
back feet, catching
the attention of the
unaware, the long
strings of drool from
each corner of his
ear to ear smile,
the shake of the
great white head sending
the strings in flight
across the room to
land on people,
sofa and chair.

Hot summers draped
over air-conditioning ducts
on the floor, like a
pile of snow on
a hot July day.
In winter laying
across the bottom
of the outside door
catching and trapping
the cold, seeping air
in his thick white coat.

Water, especially lake
water his dreadful
foe, memories of near
drowning off boat
docks and dramatic
rescues his paws
clutching desperately
around the neck
of Meg as she pulled
him from a watery demise.
Bath water an equal
foe, much preferring the
dirt under the deck
or his lips colored pink
from the red artificial
apple ornaments he mistook for real fruit.

Ear mite infestations,
unwelcoming the drop
of medication in his
ear canals, the heart
worm pills disguised
in cheese and bacon,
the large Dairy Queen
vanilla cones, his
favorite anytime treat,
his blown, white undercoat
resting on the deck like
a foot of snow in the Spring,
prime nesting material,
providing a soft layer
of spun comfort for the bottoms of mother birds.

Six years later, here
we are, the sudden limp,
the cancer eating at
the bone of his right
rear leg, the visit
to the doctor, and
the grim diagnosis.
Too massive to move
on just three legs,
the stark alternative
inevitable. Julius Caesar’s
Ides of March not
nearly as bitter as
this Seventh of March.

The painful climb
into the back seat,
one final ride to
the Vet he loved,
instincts intact,
nose active urine
inspections at the
entrance, we walk,
together, through
the door. You pull up to
the building, this woeful,
awful task to not
be mine alone, we lift
his beautiful, massive
white body onto the table.
The shot is administered
and he falls gently into
eternal slumber, as
beautiful in death
as he was in life, and
heartbroken, we weep.

© 2015. Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

Have you ever heard of a fight breaking out in a line of people waiting to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation? Sounds absurd, doesn’t it?  A deacon friend of mine, assigned to Catholic parish in St Paul, told me that he would be sent out by the priest to break up fist fights among the elderly parishioners  who were in line for confession. There was a certain protocol established by the parishioners for getting into line, and if that protocol was violated, violence would erupt among the elderly participants. Woe to the visitor to the church who didn’t know that he or she was unknowingly budging in line. It sounds ludicrous that people seeking reconciliation with God would act contrary to the reconciliation they were seeking with God.

This story illustrates what Jesus is telling us in the Gospel today. Continuing on his message of loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us, Jesus is urging us the necessity of examining our own sinful behavior before we start in on the sinfulness of others.  This self awareness is wonderfully lived by Pope Francis. When asked the question, “Who are you?”, Pope Francis always answers, “I am a sinner.”   Jesus emphasizes that we need to become self aware of our own sinfulness, our own need for conversion. Not a one of us lives perfectly the Great Commandment of loving God with all our heart, mind and strength, and loving our neighbors as ourselves. It is important for us to be self aware of that which gets in our way of loving God and loving our neighbor, and to commit ourselves to trying each day to love God and our neighbor better.

If we do not work at this self awareness, then no matter how self righteous we may appear to others, we are no more than the whitened graves (sepulchers) by which Jesus described the Pharisees. We look good on the outside, but are filled with dead bones and rot on the inside. To be blind to our own sinfulness is, in the end, self-betrayal. We only fool ourselves, and our lives end up being as futile as getting in a fist fight with others in line as we wait to go to confession.

We are so quick to condemn, aren’t we? I am as guilty of this as the next person. It is far easier to curse or bellyache about someone or something, than it is to find some good in someone or something. Throughout the Gospels, the message that we hear multiple times from Jesus is that the mercy that God gives us will equal the mercy we extend to others. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” we pray to God every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer. Do we really want God to forgive us with the same level of forgiveness we dole out to others? The last line of the Gospel today Jesus tells us, “For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” That should shake us up quite a bit, especially if we have been less than merciful to others.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite,remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.” It is easy to project our own faults and shortcomings on others. We love to hold others accountable for the very faults and sins for we should be held accountable. Jesus tells us that this behavior is not acceptable for his disciples. (Mt 7: 2-5)

Today, Jesus abolishes the old law of vengeance, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” by instituting a new law for his disciples. “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” Jesus shortens this law up in John’s Gospel to “love one another as I have loved you.” We are given a command from Jesus to abandon the dirty mantle of revenge and hatred by which the world lives, and cloak ourselves in the mantle of God’s love and forgiveness. Which will we choose to wear?