Feast of St. Matthew - Sermon on the Mount

If the Persecution came and a Tyrant was burning all our Bibles, what part of the Bible would you consider to be the most important? What would you memorize and pass on to the coming generations? 

In our Gospel tonight, we learned that St. Matthew was one of the Twelve Apostles, called by Jesus. He traveled with Jesus, lived with Jesus during his ministry and we have a Gospel attributed to him. 

It is not my intention to tell you about St. Matthew. My intention is point out and honor what I think is his single most important message, the one thing that he would want to say if he were here right now.

When I turn my Bible to Matthew Chapter 1, I see two incredible things;

Verse 18 - "This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about[d]: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit."

and

Verse 23 - “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[g] (which means “God with us”). 

Matthew is telling us something monumental! He's telling us the Yin and the Yang have come together, that Physical and Spiritual have come together, that Heaven and Earth (God and Human) are One - in Jesus, the Bridge-builder.

In Matthew Chapter 2, our Saint tells us another story, one that should leave us breathless. The Magi, Gentiles, worse! They're pagans! They see an unusual star in the night sky and they follow it to come worship the new King. What's more is, Joseph & Mary, Jews who are not allowed by Mosaic law to bring Gentiles into their home, open their doors in hospitality... Matthew is saying that Jesus is going to do away with all social classes; there will be no Jew or Gentile, no male or female, no rich or slave - all is becoming one in this bridge-building Messiah. Jesus will turn the world upside down and inside out, leaving no stone unturned and make everything new. Forget what you thought you learned, what you thought was important, this is new world. And Jesus shows us to get there.

As an adult, Jesus goes out to visit John the Baptiser and he is baptised by him. This is a rich scene, entire books have been written about it and what it might mean. But I'll say this much. Matthew has just shown us that Jesus has just de-throned the "god of money". Knocked him right out of his chair... Jews, in order to obtain forgiveness of sin by God, had to undertake a perhaps long and expensive travel to Jerusalem. Upon they had buy a pigeon or a lamb and present it to the priest for sacrifice. John and Jesus were both saying; God is everywhere, his heart is with the people and his forgiveness is as free and easily obtained as water. This is why the priests were standing on the shoreline pulling their beards in frustration and crying out; "By what authority do you do this?!" They were losing authority and money... But the people lined up. They were finding God, here, on earth. All were converging and becoming One. 

Still, the baptism, renouncing our enmity with God and humanity, becoming reconciled with God and one another, that's just the very FIRST step. In the Sermon on the Mount, Chapters 5 through 7, Matthew presents us with the heart of Jesus's teaching. And it's a revolutionary, transformative teaching, in every way. Matthew says: if we repent and come into the kingdom of God, we will be changed, then we can change the world.

How? In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew gives us the heart of Jesus's Gospel. Transform your minds, open your hearts. Recognize the HEART of crisis. Divorce is evil, he said, but the lust of adultery is the core of the problem - don't invest your time and energy in fantasizing about other people. Murder is evil, he said, but it is harboring anger and holding grudges that is the real root of the problem - take care of the anger and you'll never have to worry about murder... The whole of the Middle-East is rising up in anger against the United States right now, there will be much more blood-shed. If only the home of the Messiah could see this with the eyes of their hearts and be transformed. "Blessed are the Peacemakers!"; Jesus said. They shall be called children of God.

What else did he say? He said; "Blessed are the poor and blessed are you who hunger now."... Jesus had a table theology. When he set out the loaves and fishes, a prefiguration of Communion, he fed everyone who came to the table. No one was excluded. The rich and the poor were there, the Jew and the Gentile, the male and the female and he fed them all with love - for the scriptures say, he had looked upon them with compassion. And again, at the Last Supper and Institution of the Eucharist, Jesus lovingly hand-fed even Judas, the sinner and betrayer... This was incredible! Remember, the priests and public authorities of the day criticized him for this very thing. They criticized Jesus for eating with tax collectors, prostitutes, sinners. And they, themselves, would never have been in the same room with gentiles, which is why the Jews remained in the court-yard and had forced Pontius Pilate to get up off his throne come out to confer with them... Jesus did away with all of these social rules and more. He not only said, but showed us that what is most important is the state of the heart. An excluded heart is a hurting heart, he told us to be open, to love enough to heal the world, to become one. To share our burdens and our joys, as one, as the Body of Christ to the world. Love sees all as sacred and transforms everything it touches.

Ok. So, once we've opened our hearts with love and we've set the table, then what? Then, the great Commission, preach the Gospel and when necessary, use words. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick and visit imprisoned. These are all incredible, revolutionary things. We hear the world clamoring about it today. Turn on the tv and you hear people say; "Why should I pay for food or health care for THOSE people? Why can't they take personal responsibility?"... When Jesus healed the woman who'd had a bloody hemorrhage for years, the scripture tells us; "she'd spent all her money on doctors and they could not heal her." Can you imagine? Can you just see how angry those doctors were that Jesus had just "stolen" a source of their income? And he did it not just for her, we're told that Jesus healed the blind, the lame, those with leprosy - he put a lot of doctors out of business giving away free health care. 

Jesus transformed the world, he was building the kingdom of God and through St. Matthew's Gospel, especially the Sermon on the Mount, he calls us to do the same. Forget money and social status, he says. Love sees all as sacred and heals, transforms everything it touches.

I'd like to close with this portion from the Sermon on the Mount

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

ST. John the Baptist

(If we are not in God's grace, may He put us there. If we are in God's grace, may He keep us there. Amen.)


Happy Summer Solstice! 


All of our ancestors were hunters and gatherers in the most ancient of days. In order to survive, they kept very careful track of the smallest signs of the shifting Seasons, so they would be able to track the migrations of birds, deer and other animals vital to survival. So they would know when to plant and when to reap crops vital to survival. All around the world, in every race, creed and culture the Summer and Winter Solstice were recognized in one form or another, as being the Light part of the year and the Dark part of the year, respectively. And Christianity is no exception.


Today, on Summer Solstice, we celebrate the birth of John the Baptizer, who looked on Jesus and said; "He must increase and I must decrease." Here, John represents darkeness and Jesus represents light. We are entering the dark part of the year, where the sun shines on our earth a little less each day. Come Winter Solstice, we will celebrate the birth of Jesus, the light of the world, just as the sun returns and the days become longer. So, we see; John the Baptizer rules the dark part of the year and Jesus rules the light part of the year.


Tonight, our Scripture said; 
"What shall I cry? 
All people are like grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall
but the Word of God endures forever."
Here we may see John and Jesus polarized again. John is mortal, the grass. Jesus is the Word of God that endures forever, the Author of Eternal Life.


We see these two men polarized over and over again; 
John wears coarse camel hair.
Jesus wears a fine tunic, a rich tunic that the Romans admire so much that they will not tear it but choose to gamble for it instead.
John is often seen as a lone hermit living in the desert, a Voice crying in the Wilderness.
Jesus is always in the city, surrounded by the madding crowd. Crowds so great that a paralyzed man's desperate friends were forced to tear apart a roof in order to by-pass the crowds to obtain healing for their friend.


It's hard to imagine two more different men. Yet, for all their differences, they are not opposites, they are not in opposition. Rather, they are more like complementary polarities, like the right and left hand working together, or the two sides of the same coin.


In tonight's Gospel, we hear that the neighbors and relatives were shocked to hear Elizabeth say; "His name is John." They said; "you don't have any relative by that name." What's going on here? What's going on here is that God is not continuing on with the "same-old, same-old, different day". God is doing something NEW, so He is symbolizing the NEW inbreaking power of his forgiveness and grace by demanding that this baby have a NEW name. And the name "John" means; "God's gift of mercy and grace." ... We see the exact same thing happen with Jesus. He is not named after Joseph. He, too, is given a NEW name. A name that means; "rescuer of his people."


And if you look, too, both Jesus and John preached the same Gospel. "Repent! Be baptized! The Kingdom of Heaven is near. Share your food, share your clothing, do not steal, do not lie, etc. Why? Because they both know, Jesus and John both know we are not necessarily punished for our sins but by our sins. One way to overcome sin and usher in the Reign and Love of God is through forgiveness. Forgiveness covers a multitude of sin. But an even better and more effective way to overcome sin and build the Kingdom of God is to inspire people to stop hurting one another and teach them how to relieve suffering, how to love.


I find tonight's lesson from Isaiah to be especially touching - even dear to my heart, when seen through the examples of John and Jesus.


"Comfort, comfort my people! says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Proclaim to her that her service has been completed, that her sin is paid for."


And tonight, we see that God sent one man into the desert to speak His message of justice, liberation, love and healing. God sent the other man into the cities to speak that same message. God sent one man to the mountain to proclaim it, and sent the other man into the depths of Herod's dungeons to speak light into the darkness. Two very different men, going to very different places, proclaiming the boundless love of God. And God made sure then, just as He makes sure now; no matter who you are, no matter where you are, no matter if you are rich or poor, gay or straight. Regardless of your gender, race or language... You cannot hide, you will not be over-looked, you will not be left out or forgotten. God is sending someone to you, to EVERYONE to say; 
"I love you and I will heal you and I will never abandon you. Love one another, heal one another. Do not abandon one another. Do not be afraid!".


Amen. +

Feast of St. Bernadette Soubirous

Feast of St. Bernadette Soubirous

If we are not in God’s grace, may He put us there. If we are in God’s grace, may He keep us there. – Amen.

Tonight, we celebrate the life of St. Bernadette Soubirous. She is the patron Saint of the sick, the poor and those who are ridiculed for their faith.

Bernadette was born on January 7, 1844, in Lourdes, France. She was the oldest of 9 children. But the family lived in extreme poverty and because of both the inhumane conditions they lived in and lack of medical care, only 5 of those 9 children survived.

The family was so poor, they were forced to live in a single room. But this wasn’t just any room. It was so dank, so unsanitary that it was a condemned prison cell. It wasn’t even considered fit for prison-convicts! Living there was cruel and unusual punishment. But a family of 7 lived in this single cell and, we are told, they lived harmoniously. The family is remembered as being kind, polite, disciplined and loving, in spite of the inhuman conditions they were living in. Still, the poverty, lack of medical care, living in a damp, condemned prison cell would leave indelible marks of suffering on Bernadette. For one example, she fell ill with cholera as a small child and suffered severe asthma. For another, poverty forced her family to cut her education short and put her to work as a child.

On February 11, 1858, Bernadette and 2 young girls went out of the village and into the woods to collect firewood. The 2 girls walked ahead, while Bernadette stopped to take her socks and shoes off before crossing the stream. She didn’t want them to get wet. Suddenly, a wind blew and Bernadette saw something out of the corner of her eye, she turned to look… She saw a vision of the lady in white. The young girl was, at first, afraid, so she brought out her rosary. The lady in white brought out a rosary too and they began to recite together. Then the lady disappeared without ever having spoken a word to the young girl. This is how the story of St. Bernadette begins.

Bernadette would continue to have visions at the grotto, from February 11^th to March 4th. Before long, the entire population of Lourdes would follow her out into the woods, hoping see something magical, something freaky, or hoping for a miracle.

The town’s police saw these crowds as a dangerous threat, as public panic or hysteria, the next thing to a riot. So they arrested Bernadette and they interrogated her, they harassed her. Why was she going out to the woods, what was she seeing? Was she charging admission? Was she in this for any kind of fame or profit, or gain? When it became clear that the girl was innocent, the police handed her over to psychiatrists to be tested, to see if she needed to be put into the insane asylum. But she passed all their tests, she was deemed to be lucid and sober as a judge. In the end, they had to set her free.

The Church authorities, for their part had an extremely hard time. First, they wanted to know who or what Bernadette was seeing? Was this spirit damaging to the souls of the people of Lourdes?... It took a long time for the spirit to answer Bernadette, and when she did, she gave Bernadette a title, not a name. The lady in white said; “I am the Immaculate Conception.” This was a scandal when these words came out of Bernadette’s mouth! The 14 year old girl with a first grade education could not possibly know what these words meant! It meant that Heaven really was speaking to and through her. Her! An impoverished, ignorant, stinking peasant. Not to the bishops, not to the priests, not to the nuns…

Remember our reading: “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ²⁸ God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, ²⁹ so that no one may boast before him.” God has long history of this, just within the New Testament alone; Jesus was a carpenter, his disciples were mostly fishermen, Mary Magdalene (a woman) was chosen to be the first evangelist of the resurrection. Even Mary, herself, sang; “My heart praises the Lord… for he has remembered me, his lowly servant.” She wasn’t just being modest – she really was socially lowly, being betrothed to a poor man.

I’d like to think that Mary chose Bernadette because she saw something of herself in the girl, because she felt she could relate with her. But Bernadette would not have been able to see or understand that kind of honor or kinship. Bernadette was once heard to exclaim; “Don’t I realize God and the Blessed Virgin chose me to carry the message because I was most ignorant? If anyone could have been found that was more ignorant than myself, she would have been chosen!”

This was pretty much the extent of Bernadette’s visions, except for one more thing; Mary told Bernadette to eat some wi1d herbs and dig in the dirt with her hands, then a spring would well up. Bernadette was obedient, she got on her hands and knees ate the wi1d grass and dug. She 1ooked crazy! On a11 fours with mud around her mouth, pawing at the ground… A 1ot of peop1e wa1ked away in disgust, having 1ost faith. But it happened. There, the healing waters of Lourdes sprang out of the ground and later, the shrine was built.

Bernadette did not see the shrine. She withdrew from society and joined a cloistered order of nuns. She spent the rest of her short life in prayer, dying at the young age of 35 of illness… When asked why she didn’t go to the shrine for healing, Bernadette simply said; “it isn’t for me.”

Who is it for? What’s it about? What are we really looking at here? What are we looking for?

If we look at this one vision, we don’t learn much, except about the Catholic doctrine of the “Immaculate Conception”. If that. It’s something that doesn’t mean much to us, it doesn’t strengthen our faith or give us anything to hang onto.

If we look at the healing waters of Lourdes, we may find the miraculous, if we believe… I will not deny the miracle. I’ve seen some pretty strange and inexplicable things. It’s important to know that God cares and reaches into our daily lives in a special way, sometimes.

If we look at how Bernadette was interrogated, harassed and ridiculed her whole life long, and yet retained both her dignity and her faith. That’s something we can hold onto, something that changes us and strengthens us. The Psa1m sings beautifu11y of Bernadette tonight; “Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. … sustain me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners will be converted to You…”

But there’s more to Lourdes than this. When we look at all of the accounts of the Marian Apparitions; Lourdes, Fatima, Medugorje, laSallette, even Norwood, Ohio and Cold Spring, Ky. We see they all have something in common. Our lady, our mother, consistently calls us to 4 things; repentance, prayer, confession and communion. She never proclaims herself but she points to Jesus through the sacraments of the Church. In this way, as a true mother, she seeks to gather us all together as a family with no one left behind.

Did I say, “no one left behind?” Yes, I did! There is one other thing that is incredib1y specia1 about the Marian shrines in this new mi11enium and here is where I find the greatest mirac1e of a11;

“The Indian Express* reports an upsurge in Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists visiting Catholic shrines dedicated to the Blessed Mother. In an unexpected twist of globalization, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and other pilgrims regularly worship at famous Roman Catholic shrines to the Virgin Mary such as Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal. They drink the holy water, light votive candles and pray fervently to the Madonna for help with life's hardships. Many venerate her like one of their own goddesses… Rather than turned away, the newcomers are free to join the crowds from Ireland, Italy, Spain, and other traditionally Catholic countries who flock to Europe's most popular shrines."

When I’d first reported this news to Mother Pau1a, she responded with the 2 words I choose to c1ose with; “Sa1ve Regina”!

Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If we are not in God’s grace, may he put us there. If we are in God’s grace, may he keep us there. Amen. +

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in 1906 to a middle-class family in Breslau, Germany.  His father, Karl Bonhoeffer, was a famous neurologist and psychiatrist and Dietrich was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps.

The Bonhoeffer family wasn’t known to be religious. So his family was unpleasantly surprised when Dietrich told them he planned to become a pastor. His older brother told Dietrich not to waste his life in such a "poor, feeble, boring, petty, bourgeois institution as the church", fourteen-year-old Dietrich replied, "If what you say is true, I shall reform it!"

Dietrich attended several different seminaries, in different countries. We get the impression that as a student, he was all brain and little heart, out of touch with the nature of the daily life of ordinary people, an aloof intellectual walking on imported air. When Dietrich came to the U.S., in 1930, to do some postgraduate study, he found the program and professors lacking. He said, contemptuously; “there is no theology here.”… little did he know, he was in for the surprise of his life.

While Dietrich was studying here, in New York, a friend named Frank Fisher took him to a Baptist Church in Harlem. Can you imagine? This stuck up, white, German intellectual in a black, Baptist Church with its swinging choir and out-cries of “Amen!”, “You preach it, Brother!” Talk about culture shock, it’s a wonder the man didn’t die of a heart-attack! But that’s not what happened.  Dietrich fell in love with we what used to call the Negro Spirituals of the Old American South and through these songs he was captured by the rhythm and the passion, it made him feel alive! He began to see Jesus with new eyes. Instead of seeing Jesus as a lofty idea, Dietrich found him in the faces of the singers.

The preachers of this Baptist church introduced Dietrich to the gospel of social justice. Teaching him to see things “from below” – from the point of view of the oppressed. Dietrich’s heart was broken and he was set aflame with passion, all at once. He said; this was the point at which “I turned away from ideas to reality, turned away from a love of words to a love for God and neighbor.” It was in the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem that Jesus resurrected and came fully alive in Dietrich’s heart.

Dietrich’s university days in the U.S. came to an end and he returned to Germany. His career was full of promise, but this was to change when the Nazis came to power in 1933.

Dietrich clearly saw the dangers of nationalism and the Nazi party. He spoke out against them at every opportunity, in Church, on the radio, at meetings with his colleagues. Once, his radio address was even cut off in mid-speech. At this time, Dietrich was the first voice crying for resistance to Hitler’s persecution of the Jews, and his was a lone voice with no one to back him…

In July of 1933, an unthinkable, frightening thing happened, Hitler unconstitutionally imposed church elections. Of course, the elections were rigged and Hitler installed Nazi-theologians into the positions of leadership. For some pastors and theologians, this would have been frightening enough for them to shut up, hunker down and wait till the threats had passed. But not Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he stood up in resistance to this hostile take-over of the Church and called for all pastors to refuse to conduct baptisms, weddings, funerals, etc. Dietrich said;

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”  ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

But his colleagues refused to go on strike with him.

Some of his colleagues did, however, stand with Dietrich in opposing Nazism in the form of the Confessing Church. Karl Barth, for example, drafted a declaration which made it clear that Jesus Christ, not Adolf Hitler was the head of the Church… Still the hostile Nazi take over of the Church continued. Their next move was to forbid any non-Aryan from taking parish posts. Dietrich’s heart was broken, he felt helpless and when he looked around, there was not enough help to be found.

In the autumn of 1933, Dietrich left Germany, not out of fear, but out of hope. He hoped to convince the pastors of Churches outside of Germany to join him and the Confessing Church in denouncing the Nazi party and put an end to the take-over of the Christian church and an end to the persecution of the Jews.

In 1935, however, Dietrich Bonhoeffer returned to Germany, where he worked leading an underground seminary, training pastors. Still, the Nazi party knew who Dietrich was, they understood he was a threat. So, he was forbidden to speak in public, he was not permitted to publish his books and constantly had to report his whereabouts to local police.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was so alarmed by the evil of the Nazi regime that he joined the Abwehr, which was a military intelligence organization in resistance of the Nazi party. Through Abwehr, Dietrich was involved in several plots to assassinate Adolph Hitler. He did this because he believed;

“The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.”  ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

This was not a justification, Dietrich sti ll felt that murder was evil, that it was a sin, regardless of the circumstances. But he felt he was in an evil situation where there were no good answers that he had to choose between the lesser of two evils. Killing Adolph Hitler and putting an end to the carnage, or letting Hitler live and the carnage continue. Ultimately, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was willing to stand up, take responsibility before God and say; “I am a murderer.” He said; “before God I can hope only for grace.”

On April 6, 1943 Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested. He spent two years, nearly to the day, in Nazi concentration camps, where he continued to pastor and to write letters, some of which have reached us.

Dietrich once wrote; “Music... will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.”  ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 I can see him, too, in the concentration camp; thin, cold, ravaged and taking his comfort in singing Negro spirituals like this one;

"Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus Steal away, steal away home I ain't got long to stay here

My Lord, He calls me He calls me by the thunder The trumpet sounds within-a my soul I ain't got long to stay here".

On April 9, 1945, the Nazis hung Dietrich Bonhoeffer at dawn, less than 2 weeks before soldiers from the United States liberated the camp.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer still lives, though, through the amazing writing he left us. And to give you a feel for who the man is, to make him come alive for you, I’d like to leave you with a couple of quotes.

“Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.” 

“Being a Christan is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will.”   

“To deal with the word of Jesus other than by doing it is to lie to him. It is to deny the Sermon on the Mount and to say No to his word. That is why as soon as trouble begins we lose the word, and find that we have never really believed it. The word we had was not Christ's, but a word we had wrested from him and made our own by reflecting on it instead of doing it.” 

Feast of St. Patrick

Feast of St. Patrick

Although St. Patrick is strongly associated with Ireland, celebrated as being a vital part of Irish heritage, the man was not Irish. He was not born in Ireland. St. Patrick was born sometime in the late 4^th century, to Roman parents stationed in somewhere in England. Patrick’s father was both a local government official and a Christian deacon. Patrick, however, has written in his “Confession” that while he was growing up, he wasn’t religious at all.

Around the age of 14, Patrick was captured by pirates, taken to Ireland and sold into slavery. He was sold to a Druid (a pagan priest and magician) and set to the task of being a shepherd.

Imagine! He’s a young boy, kidnapped and sold to a foreign land. He doesn’t know the language, doesn’t know the culture, even the food is strange! He doesn’t recognize anyone and he’s been taught that these people are barbarians, not even human but some kind of wild animals… No wonder, that in the lonely fields with the sheep, afraid and homesick, missing his family, he would turn to God in prayer. In his “Confession”, Patrick writes;

”Every day, I had to tend sheep. Many times a day, I prayed. The love of God and awe of him came to me more and more, and my faith was strengthened. My spirit was moved so that in a single day I would say as many as a hundred prayers and almost another hundred in the night, this even when I was staying in the woods on the mountains. I felt no harm…”

Patrick lived among the Irish pagans, in captivity for 6 years. Somehow, even though it seems he spent much of his time alone among the sheep, he learned the Celtic language and about the ways of the Druids, which according to the legends handed down to us would greatly influence him throughout the rest of his life. These years in captivity were to be the cornerstone on which the rest of St. Patrick’s life was built on… I think that in some form or fashion, Patrick fell in love with Ireland, fell in love with the people and their culture, even if he could never accept his slavery.

When Patrick was about 20 years old, an angel came to him in a dream and said; “Thy ship is ready!”… Patrick escaped from his Slave-master and fled over 200 miles over mountains, through forests and bogs to the sea, where he found a ship’s captain willing to take him back to England, willing to take him back home.

After many incredible adventures that I do not have the time to tell, it seems that Patrick did, finally, make it back to his family. But Patrick’s sleep was disturbed by a dream. In this dream, Victoricus, a man Patrick had known in Ireland, comes to him with a handful of letters. Patrick takes one of the letters and sees the title; “The Voice of the Irish.” Instantly, he hears a multitude of voices crying; “Holy boy, we beg you to come and walk among us once more.” Patrick writes that he was so moved, he woke up, he didn’t get to finish reading the letter. Night after night he has this same dream. Night after night he awakes shaken to the core, with tears in his eyes, until finally, he decides that he must study to become a priest so that he can be prepared to go back to Ireland to preach the Gospel. His family must have thought he had lost his mind! Why would Patrick want to go back to people who were known to commit human sacrifice and cannibalism? Why would he want to go back to a people who practiced slavery? Why would he want to live among such barbaric, wild animals?

The answer is; Patrick did not see them as wild animals. He saw them as human beings. He loathed the practices of human sacrifice and slavery, but he saw great beauty in their culture and their religion, enough that he believed they could be brought out of violence and into peace. We know this because the Voice that came to Patrick in the dream was the voice of the Irish, not of God. His own love for the Irish manifested itself in this dream, so that the Irish themselves came to him and begged him to come and walk with them – to share with them. There is a tone of equality and equanimity there. Patrick was no colonizer, no domineering patriarch or over-lord. He was a friend, a brother, someone who loved them and believed in them. And Patrick was the First.

Historian Thomas Cahill says, "I know that St. Paul is referred to as the first missionary, but Paul never got out of the Greco-Roman world, nor did any of the apostles. Here we are, five centuries after Jesus, who had urged his disciples to preach to all nations. They just didn't do that. And the reason they didn't is because they did not consider the barbarians to be human." Patrick was the First, he is the Apostle to Ireland, the Apostle to the Excluded.

Patrick took 15 years to study as a priest and may have even been ordained bishop. He has done quite well for himself. It is at this point, mid-life that most people would rest on their laurels and write the memoirs of an interesting life. But not Patrick, this is when his life is just beginning.

He goes back to Ireland to take the Gospel to the Irish. What is amazing to me is that he seems to have gone AlONE! I looked at numerous biographies, not one of them mentions even one companion traveling or working with Patrick. So, when Patrick gets to Ireland, he begins to teach and to empower the Natives of Ireland to become their own Church, their own clergy, their own religious authorities.

legend tells us, and I can believe the spirit of the stories, legend tells us that when Patrick began teaching the Irish, he had no wish to change their essence of their beliefs or their culture. He used the Celtic things around him to bring them to understanding, he incorporated the practices they already used into his teachings. For example, he is said to have used the shamrock to illustrate the Trinity. He is also said to have taken the Druid solar wheel to create the Celtic cross. Finally, he is also said to have used accepted the use of Druidic bonfires to celebrate the Saturday-night vigil before sunrise on Easter Sunday.

Because Patrick incorporated some Druidic practices into his teachings, because he taught and empowered a Native clergy, who built their own churches and monasteries – Ireland gave birth to a beautiful Celtic Christian tradition, very different from Roman Christian tradition. Roman Christian tradition preferred the spirit to the flesh because the world is fallen, it had many rules; do not taste, do not touch! Roman Christian tradition subjugated women and preferred that they be avoided altogether, whenever possible…  Celtic Christian tradition celebrates women as equals and competent authorities, it celebrates nature as good (just as God said), more than spiritual ideal living in our heads, it is sensual, incarnational and REAl. You can hear it in the birdsong of morning, you can smell it in the clean floral air after a rainfall, you can feel it under your feet when you walk barefoot over the grass. God is there, in the beauty of it all! Every step is home.

Did I say that Celtic Christian tradition celebrated women as equals, as competent to hold authority? I did… Patrick was one of the only voices in ancient Christian history to speak well of women. And he must have practiced what he preached, because we find women in positions of authority in the church of Ireland. Indeed, when Patrick passed away, we find that St. Brigid was his successor as Primatial Bishop of Ireland. What a legacy!

According to historian Thomas Cahill, when Patrick died, after 30 years of service, this is what we find; the Irish had abolished slavery, they had abolished human sacrifice, Christianity had been established far and wide throughout Ireland, men and women were working together as equals to see that the Gospel was lived out and social justice became the norm in society, and nature was still celebrated as good and holy (just as both God and the Druids would have had it). Patrick was right when he took the chance on love, the Irish turned out not to be so barbaric after all, they weren’t wild animals. They, too, were God’s children.

We are still in the season of lent. A good question to ask yourself might be; Who am I afraid of? Who do I see as a wild animal? Who do I know that needs the love of God?

Saint  Matthias and St. Maria Caridad Brader

Prayer: “If I am not in God’s will or in God’s grace, may God put me there. And if I am, may God so keep me. Amen.” +

Quickly, I’d like to run through tonight’s readings with you, as I’d found an interesting theme running through each one of them and it is encapsulated in the word “HOME”.

In our 1st reading, speaking of the betrayer Judas Iscariot, St. Peter declares; `Let his home become desolate and let there be no one to live in it'… That’s a very strange thing to say about a man who had renounced everything and had just spent years wandering around with Jesus homeless. What home? “Let his home become desolate!”

The Psalmist asks; “Lord, who may dwell in your tabernacle, who may abide upon your holy hill?” Lord, who may make their home with you? In the Psalm we receive this answer; he who is pure of heart AND does no evil is the one who may dwell with the Lord.

In our 2^nd reading, St. Paul says; “Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ… Their end is their destruction; their god is the belly… their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship (our home) is with the Lord.”

Jesus says; “I am the vine. If you abide in me (make me your home) and my words abide in you, you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

Tonight, we celebrate the lives of two Saints; St. Matthias and St. Maria Caridad Brader. Both Saints were homeless, but while they wandered the earth actively building the Kingdom of the Christ, they lived each day quite at home in the tabernacle of Christ’s love.

A Zen proverb says; “Your treasure house is within you, it contains everything you need.” A wandering Zen monk has written; “Everywhere I roam, whether over mountains or down through the valleys, every step is home.”... These Zen monks and Saints of Christ would have recognized and understood one another, I think. They understood that “home is where the heart is.”

We don’t know much about St. Matthias. After this account in Acts, where Matthias is named “Apostle” to replace Judas, everything becomes confused. I’ve come across no less than 4 differing accounts of what may have happened to Matthias;

1)      He left Judea to preach in Ethiopia and was eventually crucified.

2)      He 1eft Judea to preach in Ethiopia and he eventua11y died at Sebastopo1is and was buried there, near the Temp1e of the Sun.

3)      He was stoned to death by Jews in Jerusalem           and then beheaded.

4)      He died of old age in Jerusalem.

We really just don’t know what happened with this Apostle, his history is lost in the mists of time. But we do know two things; he had been with Jesus from the beginning, he was a disciple. It’s easy for us to forget Jesus had 12 Apostles and 72 Disciples. Matthias was one of the 72 disciples and was considered by the other Apostles to be faithful, to be worthy of leadership. Otherwise, he would not have been nominated. Secondly, he was a wandering Evangelist, from the time that Jesus sent out the 72 disciples to preach the Gospel to the day he died. All of the Apostles were, evangelism  characterized their office. They all felt the Good News was so important that each and every single one of them was willing to speak it – shout it in the streets even! No matter what the consequences. They were jailed, they were whipped, they were tortured, stoned, crucified. None of this stopped them. It didn’t matter. The Good News was THAT compelling, it was burning fire in their bones, they had to grab people in the streets and shout “have you heard this?!”

The Apostles prayed in our reading; “Lord, you know everyone’s heart. Show us which one of these two you have chosen…” Clearly, St. Matthias’s heart had made its home in the Lord.

2,000 years later, things weren’t much different for Maria Caridad Brader. She was born in Switzerland in 1860, so she is a modern day Saint and there are photos of her on the internet.

She is reported to have been an unusually intelligent child. Fortunately her mother was wise enough to see this, wise enough to provide the very best education available, and Maria excelled.

I don’t know the details but at some point Maria’s mother was widowed and Maria was the only child. As an only child, I’m sure she was treasured by her mother and the two became very close. Maria must have been a great comfort to her mother. She must have been a source of great pride and joy, being a good child and a child who excelled in school. This bond must have made Maria’s decision to enter a Franciscan Cloister, where she would never see her mother again (and would leave her mother with no family, no hope of grandchildren)… this situation must have made Maria’s decision a difficult and heartbreaking one. But Maria loved Jesus, she loved the Gospel, she loved the vision of God’s kingdom so much that like the Apostles, she left everything and found no sacrifice too great to pay.

The Franciscans were greatly impressed with Maria’s intelligence and put her to work as a teacher at the convent school. Then a call came from a Bishop in Ecuador; please come, we need missionaries! The Mother Superior of the convent volunteered 6 of her nuns including Maria, saying; “Sr. Caridad will go to the missionary foundation; she is supremely generous, shows no reluctance to any sacrifice, and with her extraordinary practical sense and education will be able render great services to the mission”. Wow! I’d like to have that on my resume!

Mother Superior’s prophecy came true too. After teaching in Ecuador for several years, St. Maria went on mission to Columbia, and it is said; “she loved the locals and spared no efforts to reach them, braving the wild breakers of the ocean, the tangled undergrowth of the jungle, and the intense cold of the high plateaus. Her zeal knew no bounds. She was concerned above all with the poor, the outcast and those who did not yet know the Gospel.”

One of the things you might not know is, when the missionary nuns of these times went out into the wilderness they would end up building their own convents, churches and schools. Usually, they would first build temporary log cabins. Then, they would start baking bricks in their ovens and carrying them to the site of the permanent buildings.

St. Maria may have been unique in her day, I don’t know for sure, but once she was established – she educated and empowered the locals to become missionaries and church leaders. She did not cling to power, but handed it to the natives of Ecuador and Columbia. She came to give them a love for Jesus, to share the vision of building the Kingdom and then she stepped out of their way so they could do just that.

Thinking about St. Maria, you might ask yourself these questions; When was the last time I walked a mile in the cold? When was the last time I slept outside? When was the last time I was uncertain of where my next meal was coming from? When was the last time I was thirsty or hungry? When was the last time I gathered up the courage to invite someone to Church? Or gathered up the courage to speak about Jesus and the Good News in a setting where such speech would be unpopular or even condemned?... Now we don’t have to sleep outside, we don’t have to walk for miles in the cold, we don’t have to go out into the wilderness where our food sources are uncertain, we don’t have to make those kinds of sacrifices. But it’s important to think about those who did, to wonder just what compelled them to do those crazy things! It’s also important to think about what kinds of crazy sacrifices we CAN make in this day and age, and even more important to ask ourselves if we are really moved by the love and vision of Christ to make them – or not.

”Home is where the heart is”, where is your heart tonight? A great question for Lent, when we strive to be most honest with ourselves.

Sometimes, the greatest wisdom and most profound theology can be found in the most surprising places. Just want to post a jewel of an excerpt from one of my favorite books. I'd first read it in grade school (who thought that was a good idea?! It's full of extremely adult material!) and this particular scene has stayed with me all of my life.To set up the scene, a vampire has broken into a home, killed a boy's mother and now taken the boy (Mark) hostage.

Mark had uttered a high, keening scream and threw himself at Barlow without thought.

"And here you are!" Barlow had boomed good naturedly in his rich, powerful voice. Mark attacked without thought and was captured instantly. Father Callahan moved forward, holding his cross up.

Barlow's grin of triumph was instantly transformed into a rictus of agony. He fell back toward the sink, dragging the boy in front of him. Their feet crunched in the broken glass.

"In God's Name -" Callahan began. At the name of the Deity, Barlow screamed aloud as if he had been struck by a whip, his mouth open in a downward grimace, the needle fangs glimmering within. The cords of muscle on his neck stood out in stark, etched relief. "No closer!" he said. "No closer, shaman! Or I sever the boy's jugular and carotid before you can draw a breath!" As he spoke, his upper lip lifted from those long, needlelike teeth, and as he finished his head made a predatory downward pass with adder's speed, missing Mark's flesh by a quarter inch. Callahan stopped.

"Back up," Barlow commanded, now grinning again. "You on your side of the board and I on mine, eh?"

 Callahan backed up slowly, still holding the cross before him at eye level, so that he looked over its arms. The cross seemed to thrum with chained fire, and its power coursed up his forearm until the muscles bunched and trembled.  They faced each other...

 "What now?"  Callahan said, and his voice was not his own at all. He was looking at Barlow's fingers, those long, sensitive fingers, which lay against the boy's throat. There were small blue blotches on them. 

"That depends. What will you give me for this miserable wretch?" He suddenly jerked Mark's wrists high behind his back, obviously hoping to punctuate his question with a scream, but Mark would not oblige. Except for the sudden whistle of air between his teeth, he was silent. "You'll scream," Barlow whispered, and his lips had twisted into a grimace of animal hate. "You'll scream until your throat bursts!"  

"Stop that!" Callahan cried. 

"And should I? The hate was wiped from his face. A darkly charming smile shone forth in its place. "Should I reprieve the boy, save him for another night?"  

"Yes!"

 Softly, amost purring, Barlow said, "Then will you throw away your cross and face me on even terms - black against white? Your faith against my own?" 

"Yes," Callahan said, but a trifle less firmly. 

"Then do it!" Those full lips became pursed, anticipatory. The high forehead gleamed in the weird fairy light that filled the room. 

"And trust you to let him go? I would be wiser to put a rattlesnake in my shirt and trust it not to bite me." But he let Mark go and stood back, both hands in the air, empty. "Run, Mark," Callahan cried. "Run!"...

Mark slowly got to his feet. He turned around and looked at Barlow.  "Soon, little brother," Barlow said, almost benignly. "Very soon now, you and I will-" Mark spit in his face. "You spit on me," Barlow whispered. His body was trembling, nearly rocking with rage. He took a shuddering step forward like some awful blind man. 

"Get back!" Callahan screamed, and thrust the cross forward.Barlow cried out and threw his hands in front of his face. The cross flared with preternatural, dazzling brilliance, and it was at that moment that Callahan might have banished him if he had dared to press forward. 

"I'm going to kill you," Mark said.  He was gone, like a dark eddy of water. 

"...fulfill your part of the bargain, shaman."

"I'm a priest!" Callahan flung at him. 

Barlow made a small, mocking bow. "Priest," he said, and the word sounded like a dead haddock in his mouth. 

Callahan stood undecisive. Why throw it down? Drive him off, settle for a draw tonight, and tomorrow - 

But a deeper part of his mind warned. To deny the vampire's challenge was to risk possibilities far graver than any he had considered. If he dared not throw the cross aside, it would be as much as admitting... admitting... what? If only things weren't going so fast, if one only had time to think, to reason it out -  

The cross's glow was dying. He looked at it, eyes widening. Fear leaped into his belly like a confusion of hot wires. His head jerked up and he stared at Barlow. He was walking toward him across the kitchen and his smile was wide, almost voluptuous. 

"Stay back," Callahan said hoarsely, retreating a step. "I command it in the name of God."

Barlow laughed at him. The glow in the cross was only a thin and guttering light in a cruciform shape. The shadows had crept across the vampire's face again, masking his features in strangely barbaric lines and triangles under the sharp cheekbones.

Callahan took another step backward, and his buttocks bumped the kitchen table, which was set against the wall.

"Nowhere left to go," Barlow murmured sadly. His dark eyes bubbled with infernal mirth. "Sad to see a man's faith fail. Ah well..."

The cross trembled in Callahan's hand and suddenly the last of its light vanished. It was only a piece of plaster that is mother had bought in a Dublin souvenir shop, probably at a scalper's price. The power it had sent ramming up his arm, enough power to smash down walls and shatter stone, was gone. The muscles remembered the thrumming but could not duplicate it.

Barlow reached from the darkness and plucked the cross from his fingers. Callahan cried out miserably... and the next sound would haunt him for the rest of his life; two dry snaps as Barlow broke the arms of the cross, and a meaningless thump as he threw it on the floor. 

"Goddamn you!" Callahan cried out. 

" It's too late for such melodrama," Barlow said from the darkness. There is no need of it. You have forgotten the doctrine of your own church, is it not so? The cross... the bread and the wine... the confessional... only symbols. Without faith, the cross is only wood, the bread baked wheat, the wine sour grapes. If you had cast the cross away, you should have beaten me another night. In a way, I hoped it might be so. It has been long since I have met an opponent of any real worth. The boy makes ten of you, false priest." 

Suddenly, out of the darkness, hands of amazing strength gripped Callahan's shoulders... He remembered Matt saying: Some things are worse than death.

- Salem's lot

Stephen King

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