Lo! He Comes

I had a conversation with Tim Cribdon yesterday which tickled my fancy. Tim talked about his time with the youth group (coffee with Christ) during the day and the interesting topic they wrestled through. Of course it was about our preparations for Advent. Thinking of the millions of people in the West that trooped to the theaters during the week to watch the new Harry Porter movie, Tim had the kids wondering what it would look like if Christians created such hype and interest around the coming of Christ.

Sometimes the clouds seem to gather to precipitate same thoughts in us. Therefore Fr. Lorry in a pep talk to the music ministry of our parish later in the day had all of us thinking along those same lines. How is it (he wondered) that Canadians in Montreal this day will fill a ninety thousand capacity stadium in a -19’ temperature, while heated 150-200 capacity Anglican churches will consider themselves lucky to be half full at any of their services?

Being an ardent football (soccer) fan, this is an issue I’ve found myself struggling with for a long time. Watching English Premiership (thanks to television) is my major weekend leisure. If a game is not on television, I follow it up on the internet. Part of the hobby for me is to follow the number of people that fill stadia across England Saturdays and Sundays to watch football games, come rain or shine, come heat or cold. At the same time, churches are getting emptier and emptier and closing down. What is turning people away from the church? Why don’t they come on Sunday morning?

A good way of looking at this problem is for us to play our own kind of game-the blame game. This seems to be the preferred way. “They have lost interest in things of God” or any of the many reasons we adduce. Wake up children of God! Recriminations won’t lead us any further than where we are. It is time to “examine ourselves to see if we are holding to our faith.” (2 Cor. 13: 5). It is time we look at our branding. It is time to look into ways of generating Harry Porter Movie-like interest around the church and create football (real or American) fans level interest around what we do in church on Sunday morning.

Each year the Church invites us to remind ourselves of God’s plan of salvation for us sinners. Each day throughout Advent we are presented with yet another prophet providing further insights into the Messiah who will be sent by God to take away our sins and to restore our friendship with God.

Advent is rightfully called a “new beginning” since God’s plan of salvation is lived out yet anew year after year. Our challenge is to find suitable and appealing ways of offering this now beginning. “Lo He comes with clouds descending.” How can we make it a real new beginning? How can we generate the interest and create the hype?

Of Peace of Mind and Forgiveness

Bishop James rightly alluded to the various beautiful themes emanating from last Sunday’s readings. From the gospel reading alone, there are many: “Sunday Worship,” “Upper Rooms of Fear,” “Peace,” “The Joy of His Presence,” “Doubting Thomas,” (of course we find something of Thomas in all of us), and so on.

In verses 22 and 23 we meet with the powerful theme of forgiveness. Oh yes! “Receive the Holy Spirit” Jesus said to all of us when he breathed on the disciples. Then He added; “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained”

Hold your thoughts there! Let me share this story with you.

Once upon a time, a man, attempting a bank robbery, shot and killed a young woman who was a teller. He was a worthless man, a drug addict, an abuser of women, a cruel, vicious, evil gangster. The young woman's family was Catholic. They hated the man. They could hardly wait for the trial. They sat in the courtroom, their eyes filled with hate throughout the trial. When the jury found him guilty they cheer. When the judge sentenced him to death, they yelled with exaltation and exchanged high fives. They waited impatiently for the day of his execution. They told the media that they would experience "closure" to the tragedy only when they watched the lethal chemicals flow into his body and his face twist in death agony.

They waited years for all the appeals to be exhausted. In prison the man went through a conversion experience and begged for forgiveness. The family refused to grant it. It's a fake they said. He just wants to save his rotten life. He asked for forgiveness from the execution chamber. They spit in his direction. They cheer again when he died. As they were leaving the prison, the dead woman's sister said to her brother, I don't feel closure, do you? No, he said, I don't either.

Why couldn’t they find closure? You and I and the church are in perspective here. It seems to me that on this lies the abundance of PEACE in our lives and relationship or a lack thereof. I came across a saying that “to forgive is not a right to be jealously guarded, but an obligation to be exercised generously.” Why? Is it not simply because we do not earn our own forgiveness by forgiving others? Rather we manifest the generosity and implacability of God's forgiveness of us.

It is only true to conclude that it is impossible to find closure when we fail to forgive. This is true of any relationship. Don’t you think so?

Lenten Season

Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
-- T. S. Eliot


How can I sit still?
Endure the relentless, internal chatter?
The chatter that says,
"Do more!"
"Achieve more!"

How can I embrace the Mystery...
Or be embraced by the Mystery
When I'm so busy
Running from place to place...
and from myself (and God!)?

Appropriate caring;
Appropriate activity;
Appropriate not caring;
Appropriate stillness;
Balance!

The elusive, dynamic fullness
that comes from emptiness.

Not striving to be so
Full of stuff, so
Full of self.

Another Lent -- a few days to
Repent.
Reflect.
Reorient.
Return.

While I've been busy.
God's been waiting to teach me
To care.
To not care.
To sit still.

Forty days.
So long.
So short.
I hope I'm ready
To (re)learn my lessons.