Stewardship of Service

My name is Phil Hayes.  I've been a CCD teacher at St Pius for 9 years.  I've taught 3rd, 4th, 7th and 8th grades.  But I'm not a teacher by trade, so how did I start doing this?

Well, 15 years ago, I attended a Christ Renews retreat.  If you haven't done it yet, it's a powerful experience.  That weekend, I learned that the Holy Spirit is very much present and acting in each of our lives!  I also learned that we need to serve others, just as Christ instructed us when he washed the feet of his disciples.  So after the retreat, I was ready to get involved in the Church.

St Pius offers about a hundred different ways that we can serve!  Many of you do so much more than I do.  Thank you for your wonderful work!  My wife, Claire, is active in four ministries.  But I work full time as the General Manager of a Bus Manufacturing company, so I had to find things that fit with my schedule.  I decided to sign up for Eucharistic Minister on Sundays, Eucharistic Adoration, and The Great Bible Adventure - what an a fantastic adult bible-study course, right here at St. Pius!  I highly recommend it.

In that class, I learned that before Moses died, he told the Israelites that the most important thing we can do is to pass our faith on to our children and grandchildren.  So I decided to fill out that little card that I would be willing to teach CCD.

My first class of 4th-graders had just 6 students.  4th graders soak up every word like a sponge, and they love to participate.  In fact, when you start to ask a question, all their hands are high in the air, saying "call on me, call on me!"  And they don't even know the question yet!  It's a great blessing to see that joy in a 4th grader's eyes.  4th grade studies the 10 commandments, so it was very humbling....I was reminded of my own sins every week!

Four years ago, I was "promoted" to 7th and 8th grade, with classes of 20-25 students.  Much more challenging!  The older children are beginning to question the various teachings of the Catholic Church.  For example: Why is abortion so wrong?  Why is human life so precious?  Why is marriage defined as between 1 man and 1 woman?  Is Christ truly present in the Eucharist?  I learn as much as they do along the way.  If you want to really know something, try teaching it!

During the school year, we go through a journey together. Two years ago, a very difficult thing happened.  My oldest daughter, Jeannie, died of a sudden illness, very unexpectedly.  My 8th grade class stuck with me.  They cried with me.  They prayed with me.  They were just one part of a large support group from St. Pius that helped me and my family to increase my faith in God.  That's what service is - helping someone in your community who is in need.

I teach CCD on Monday nights, and when I get home from class, I often have this feeling that I might have just made  a difference in some of those children's lives.  It's a rewarding feeling.  I'm sure that people in all types of service work have that same feeling.

When you give of yourself, you receive so much more in return.  Serving others, and serving God, bring us the highest level of happiness we can have in this life, and bring us closest to what we hope to experience in the next.  Thank you for listening.  May God bless you and your families.

THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD

17 MAY 2015

            Saint Luke tells us that Jesus was taken up into heaven.  This taking up of Jesus is an essential part of the Paschal Mystery.  Jesus showed incredible trust in his Father during his earthly ministry.  He trusted that his Father knew what he was doing when he carried his cross to Calvary.  He could trust, because he had learned detachment.  In being removed from his physical existence in this world, he trusts his disciples to carry on his mission, even though he knows they are clueless.  He trusts them even when they ask a really dumb question about when he would kick out the Romans and restore the Kingdom of Israel.

            As Jesus is taken up, two men dressed in white tell the disciples to take a journey within.  In taking a long, sobering look within their own souls, they begin the process of learning to be detached.  They are like young parents who are holding their first newborn child in their arms.  Filled with joy, they suddenly ask themselves, “What now?”  As the reality of a new child sinks in, they will eventually learn how to detach themselves from so many things they had considered important to focus on the needs of their child. 

            That is why the two men dressed in white garments tell the disciples that they now need to take the journey out.  Saint Mark tells us that they went forth and preached everywhere.  Filled with the Holy Spirit, they could speak the language of love, which drove out demons, allowed them to handle slippery situations, bring the healing power of Jesus to people, and not be afraid to swallow insults from others. 

            As we reflect on the Mystery of the Ascension, the Lord invites us to respond to the trust he has given us.  He has been taken up.  We respond by taking a journey within.  In taking that long and sobering look at our souls, we will discover the gifts and talents God has given us.  Then the Lord sends us on the journey outside ourselves.  He wants us to trust him and learn detachment, so that we can be free to proclaim the Kingdom of God through our service to our families and to our parish.

            That is why the message of stewardship is so important.  Stewardship gives us a structure way of responding in faith to the Mystery of the Ascension.  During Lent, we renewed our stewardship of prayer.  Today, we are invited to renew our stewardship of service.  Please read the materials in your stewardship of service packet.  Please consider renewing your commitment or making a new one.  As you take this journey within and pray over how you can move out, please listen to Phil Hayes.  Phil has been a faithful catechist in our CCD program for many years.  As he speaks of his humble service, listen to the Holy Spirit nudging you to take a step in faith and allow the Lord to work through you, as he worked through those first disciples.

SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

10 MAY 2015

            People often speak of taking a journey to find God in their lives.  People sometimes do crazy things like biking from Canterbury to Rome to search for God.  While there are many good things to be said about making efforts to find God in our lives, the First Letter of Saint John gives us a very different perspective.  He says just the opposite.  He tells us that God wants to find us.  God is love.  Because God IS love, and not just a God who has one of the attributes of love, God wants to give that love to us.  We do not earn it.  We do not deserve it.  It is a gift, and God invites us to accept the gift and give it to others.

            Saint Peter understands that truth well.  The Son of God had found him and invited him to follow him.  Peter had responded and listened to Jesus teach the essentials of God’s love.  Peter would certainly remember the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel spoken at the Last Supper.  He knows that he has become a friend of Jesus and understands the command to love others as the Lord had loved him.  Peter witnessed the ultimate expression of that love when Jesus had washed his feet, given his life in expiation for Peter’s sins, and then forgiven him when he was raised from the dead.  Peter realizes that love is not some overpowering emotion that makes him feel good.  Rather, love is seen in action, in making sacrifices out of love for other people.

As Peter continues to reflect on this incredible love, he comes to understand that the risen Lord has not chosen to love a select few of his best friends.  Through the Holy Spirit, the risen Lord was finding pagans, people outside Peter’s comfort zone, and calling them to be included in the circle of friends. The pagan soldier, Cornelius, is one of them.  As a faithful Jew who had never have entered the home of a pagan, Peter has the courage to walk into the home of Cornelius and welcome him to the community of believers.  He does not make Cornelius wait in line until everyone else had been chosen (as I had to wait until everyone else had been chosen as a kid to be part of a team!).  Instead, Peter listens to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and welcomes Cornelius and his family into the community of believers.

To use the image of Jesus from last Sunday’s Gospel, Cornelius and his family are now branches connected to the true vine of Christ through the waters of Baptism.  As disciples, they too are given a command, a mission:  go out and bear fruit; go out and love others as I have loved you.  Those of you who have the vocation of being a mother understand what Jesus is talking about.  You have responded to the Lord’s call to love your children as the risen Lord has loved you.  So many times, the many sacrifices you make for your children are taken for granted.  Children simply presume that their needs are taken care of.  They presume that they will have clothes to wear, food to eat, and tender loving care when things go badly.  They can even become resentful and rebellious when mothers try to teach them lessons that they do not want to learn.  Today, within the context of the truths we hear about the love of God, we get a chance to thank our mothers for showing us so many ways in which they make visible the love which our Scripture readings describe.

At the end of Mass, we are told to go in peace.  Our English words, Go, the Mass is ended, translate the Latin command, Ite, Missa est!  In other words, get out of here and continue the mission of spreading the sacrificial love made present in the Eucharist.  We are sent to bear much fruit, to continue to show that the way we behave reflects the Mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Our response is appropriate, Deo gratias, or thanks be to God.  We do not imply that we are glad that the Mass is over.  Instead, we are glad to get another chance to show the world that the risen Lord has chosen us to love as we have been loved.           

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

3 MAY 2015

            When this community gathered for Mass on Palm Sunday, we prayed the beginning verses of Psalm 22.  Those verses spoke of God’s servant being mocked, abandoned, and murdered.  Today, we prayed the later verses of that same Psalm, telling us that God vindicated his servant.  The earliest followers of Jesus Christ connected the first part of the Psalm with the passion of Christ and these later verses with his the Mystery of his Resurrection.

Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles gives us insights into how they lived that Mystery.  Filled with the Holy Spirit, those early believers boldly proclaimed their faith that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  That bold proclamation brought death to Stephen and scattered the community.  It infuriated Saul of Tarsus, who dedicated himself to eliminating this new movement.  Having encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, Paul was equally bold in proclaiming the truth from his encounter with the risen Christ, causing fear in the Christian community and so much anger that the Hellenists tried to kill him.  His friend, Barnabas, had to take him back to Tarsus to save his life.  And yet, in the midst of all of this chaos and conflict, Saint Luke tells us that the Church continued to be built up and was at peace!

            This peace that Saint Luke describes is obviously not an absence of conflict or problems.  Rather, that peace is the result of the indwelling of the risen Christ.  Those earliest believers knew that Christ was keeping his promise and that he remained in them.  They understood the image presented by Jesus in today’s Gospel.  They saw themselves as branches which had been grafted onto the true vine of Christ when they were baptized.  They were being fed by his Body and Blood when they gathered to break bread.  They realized that their efforts to keep the commandments to love God and neighbor were connected with their faith that Christ was remaining in them.  They also believed that God was using the conflicts and difficulties to prune them, to cause them to bear more fruit by the ways in which they were keeping his commands.

            As we continue to reflect on the implications of the resurrection in our own time, our first communicants remind us that we too have been grafted onto the life giving vine of Jesus Christ through the waters of Baptism.  As they march to the Baptismal Font clothed in the white garments that speak of their putting on Christ at their baptisms, we join them in renewing our efforts to resist the temptations of the Evil One and to live the faith we profess by making new efforts to love God and neighbor.  As they come forward for the first time to be fed by the Body and Blood of Christ, they remind us of the Sacrament we can take for granted.  They remind us that we need to come to Mass on a regular basis, not because of some arbitrary law, but because we need to be nourished as branches on that true vine.

            When most members of the Christian community were afraid of Paul of Tarsus, Barnabas stepped forward and vouched for him.  Barnabas (his name means “Son of Encouragement”) was able to see the surprising ways in which God works in the conversion of his strong headed friend.  He encouraged the earliest believers to trust Paul and to protect him from those who wanted to do him harm.  Boys and girls, you are “Barnabas” to us.  Your uncomplicated faith and obvious joy on this day encourage us as we renew our Baptismal Promises with you.  You remind us that Christ wants to remain in us.  You remind us that the indwelling of God in our lives will continue to give us that incredible gift of peace.  With that gift of peace, we can take another look at the conflicts and difficulties which we face in our daily lives, and even at the ways in which we fail to keep the commandments.  That peace remains, even when God uses these difficulties to prune us and help us to produce more fruit.

FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

26 APRIL 2015

            As we continue to reflect on the transforming power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and apply that Mystery to our lives, our Scripture readings offer us two interesting images today.  Saint Peter gives the first in his speech to the members of the Sanhedrin.  Peter is clearly changed by the power of the resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit.  When the Sanhedrin had interrogated Jesus on Holy Thursday, Peter was so filled with fear that he denied knowing him.  This time, he stands without fear before that same hostile group.  He defends his healing of a crippled man, asking why anyone would condemn him for performing an act of kindness.

            Then he explains how this healing occurred.  He insists that the miracle was not a result of his own power.  Rather, he boldly proclaims the truth that Jesus the Nazorean is the promised Christ, whom they had condemned to death.  He quotes Psalm 118, the psalm we pray today as the Responsorial Psalm, and uses the image of Jesus being the stone rejected by the builders.  That stone, Peter argues, has been raised from the dead by the Father and has become the cornerstone of a new structure being built of living stones.

            That image takes on new meaning for our parish.  Last weekend, Bishop Rhoades led us in the groundbreaking of our new church.  He blessed the cornerstone, the most important part of that structure.  You can check it out after Mass – the stone weighing two hundred pounds in the back of church.  That cornerstone reminds us of the centrality of Jesus Christ in our lives and in our parish.  Our new church may be very beautiful and more spacious.  As we watch the new church being built and put up with the inconveniences caused by construction, we connect that emerging structure to the living members of our parish.  Just as that cornerstone will be the most significant stone in that structure, the risen Christ remains the most important part of ours, inviting us to be transformed through the power of the resurrection, as Peter was transformed.

            The second image comes from the Gospel, and our children receiving their First Holy Communion can tell you all about it.  Jesus says that he is the Good Shepherd.  He addresses this image to the religious leaders who are more concerned about their own welfare than the welfare of those entrusted to their care.  As the man born blind comes to see the truth about him, they close their eyes to the truth.  Jesus uses this image to help us understand that he knows us each of us by name.  He recognizes our voice.  He invites us to recognize him speaking to us in the Word.  He invites us to renew our faith in his life giving death and resurrection.  He has laid down his life for us on the cross to rescue us from the wolves of death and sinfulness.  He has laid down his life so that we can share in the transforming power of the resurrection.

            That is why this First Communion Mass is so important.  These children have been preparing anxiously to be fed by their Good Shepherd, who knows each of them by name, and who feeds them as the Lamb of God under the form of bread and wine.  Boys and girls, we pledge our support to you as you take this important step in faith.  In a moment, you will walk back to the Baptismal Font to renew your Baptismal Promises.  It was at the font that you were incorporated into the risen Christ through the waters of Baptism.  You were clothed with a white garment to indicate that you had put on Christ.  As you renew those promises, we promise to support you and your families as you continue to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd speaking to you every Sunday.  We promise to walk with you as you approach this Sacrament, trusting its power to conform you slowly and gradually into the Body of Christ, of which you are an important member.

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

19 APRIL 2015

          Throughout his Gospel, Saint Luke tells us that Jesus often shared meals with people.  His biggest meal involved feeding thousands of people with five loaves and two fish.  He would eat with sinners and tax collectors, offering them God's fellowship and scandalizing the pious Pharisees.  At the Last Supper, he took bread, blessed, broke, and gave it to those who would soon abandon him, making sure that he would be present in a real way to his disciples through the ages in the form of bread and wine.  On the day of the resurrection, he walked with two disciples running away from Jerusalem.  Even though they did not recognize him, he opened their hearts and minds to the Scriptures that the Christ would suffer and die for them.  At Emmaus, he joined them for a meal, taking bread, blessing, breaking, and giving it to them.  They recognized him in the breaking of bread.

            Today, those same two disciples are back in Jerusalem, back in the same place where their leader had been so cruelly executed, back to the fear from which they had been fleeing.  At a meal, the risen Lord appears.  Again, they do not recognize him, because he has been transformed through the Resurrection.  Again, he gives them his peace, his mercy, his forgiveness for their abandoning him and not believing in him.  He invites them to touch his hands and feet.  He asks for a piece of fish to eat, showing that he is real, that he is not a ghost or a strong reminder of his former presence among them.  In the resurrection, he has redeemed everything that is so wrong with the world, including the betrayal by Judas, the judgment of Pontius Pilate, the hatred of the Sanhedrin, and their own abandoning of him.

            We celebrate Easter for fifty days, because it takes that long to sort out the implications of this greatest of our Christian Mysteries.  In gathering at this Eucharistic Meal, we hear him speak to us in his Word, inviting us to open our hearts and minds to the ways that our sufferings and pain have redemptive significance because of his suffering and pain.  He invites us to face death with the same courage and hope that he did.  Then, we recognize his true presence when we take bread, bless the Father for the sacrifice of Jesus made present as we remember, break, and give.  Then, he sends us to witness to the power of the resurrection in our world.

            When Saint Peter boldly proclaims the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, he does not mince any words.  He tells it like it is.  YOU did not recognize the author of life, he tells the people in the Temple.  YOU denied him in front of Pontius Pilate, released a murderer instead, and put him to death.  Peter does not say these things out of arrogant condemnation, but out of a realization of his own sins and failures.  Like him, they did not know what they were doing, and God's mercy is theirs.  He tells them to change their hearts and recognize the truth.

            The risen Lord invites us to have this same attitude.  In the light of the resurrection, he invites us to look at our behavior.  If we really believe in the resurrection, then we need to keep the commandments to love God and neighbor.  In the spirit of true repentance, we can address honestly what is wrong and sinful in our own lives and in our world.  But, we do so with the spirit of mercy and compassion, the mercy and compassion that comes from the transforming power of the resurrection.  We do not gather here to recall the spirit of a great man who taught beautiful lessons and did wonderful things.  We gather here to celebrate his real presence in the resurrection, and learn how to be converted, to turn more completely to the One who has the power to save us.

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

12 APRIL 2015

          The disciples had many reasons for locking themselves in the upper room.  Their leader had been executed like a common criminal an extremely cruel and humiliating way.  The Roman way of crossing those who crossed them causes fear.  They fear that this will happen to them.  They fear the scorn heaped on them by the skeptical residents of Jerusalem:  "you are in a long line of people duped by fake messiahs."  But there is an even greater fear.  They know that the tomb is empty and have heard of the claims of Mary Magdalene that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  If her report is true, Jesus would certainly be angry with them.  Despite their repeated claims of being faithful, they had proven to be cowards and unfaithful.

            But the risen Christ breaks through those locked doors.  Instead of castigating them and giving them a sermon on being more faithful, he gives them peace.  The Hebrew word, shalom, implies forgiveness and the presence of the messianic age promised by the prophets.  Now that Jesus has been transformed by the resurrection, he shows them what they would recognize, what caused them to run away:  his wounded hands and side.  In case they are do not understand, he says again, "peace be with you."  Then he gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit and tells them to give this gift of mercy, or peace, to anyone coming to believe in the presence of the risen Lord.

            During Holy Week, Father Terry and I spent hours in the Confessional extending this mercy, this incredible peace, to those who were very conscious of their failings and sins.  Over and over again, we, who need God's mercy ourselves, became instruments of that same mercy to others.  Through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the Lord does not condemn or yell at us.  He forgives us, and gives us the grace to begin again.

            And then there is Thomas.  We have no idea why he is absent.  I suspect that he is locked in his guilt.  He had bragged that he would go to the tomb of Lazarus in Bethany with Jesus to die with him.  He had told Jesus at the Last Supper that he did not know the way to the Father.  Locked in his guilt and self hatred, he is absent.  Locked In his absence, he cannot believe that the Lord had been raised from the dead.  He demands proof.  He wants to see the wounds that have caused his guilt.  And sure enough, the Lord presents those wounds to him on the following Sunday.  As a result, Thomas moves from the depths of doubt to the highest expression of faith in Jesus:  "my Lord and my God."

            We often look negatively at Thomas and call him doubting Thomas.  However, he can help us understand our faith.  Like Thomas, we are often absent.  Through our own sins and human weakness, we distance ourselves from the Lord and sometimes stay away from the believing community.  At other times, God appears to us as absent from our lives.  Like Thomas, we respond to this absence by wanting tangible proofs of the Lord's risen presence.  We look for a personal and real relationship with Jesus Christ, which we eventually find when we touch his real presence in the Sacramental life of the Church and hear him speak in his Word.  Then, we too can cry out:  "my Lord and my God."  We begin to understand  that doubt is not the opposite of faith, but rather the path through which we pass to a deeper faith.

            Jesus says to Thomas that we are blessed who have not seen and have believed.  We have not experienced the risen presence of the Lord in the same way as Thomas or any of the other disciples did.  But in our growth in faith from the absence of God to God's intense presence in our lives, we have come to believe.  May this Easter Season sustain us in our doubts, carry us through the ways that God may appear absent, and bring us to a deeper faith in the risen presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through that faith, we truly have life in his name.