Counting Blessings

This is the time of year in which many pause to count their blessings.
This year we here in Southeastern Michigan (and maybe a few others as well) have one very special blessing to include in our gratefulness. It is a blessing unique to us and also a blessing that could easily be ignored or forgotten.
So, rather than risk having this blessing passed over, I want to draw attention to it, throw the spotlight on it.
Let us not forgot the great blessing that we uniquely have in our little corner of the world.
Let us not forget to count among our greatest of blessings the Detroit Lions!
OK - go back and read that last line again.
You are reading correctly, seeing accurately.
One of our greatest of blessings, especially in a year like this would be the Detroit Lions.
Think about it.
How many households and families were fretting the approach of the holidays, especially this year?
How many households were even questioning the feasibility of hosting a gathering, a family dinner, get-together?
Name a topic and it likely ran the risk of exploding any hopefully civil holiday gathering into a verbal tug of war or worse.
Talk about politics? Boom!
Talk about refugees? Boom!
Talk about climate change? Boom!
Talk about Church? Religion? Boom! Boom! Boom!
Find a safe topic? Go on and just try.
We seem to be living in a time when any topic seems loaded with potential to blow any situation into arguments beyond control.
Neighbors are divided. Families are divided. Political parties seem equally divided. Churches are divided.
And it is not just a matter of simple disagreements and varying viewpoints.
Almost every topic seems loaded and ready to explode.
So we could have faced trying to gather and talk about -- well, nothing really.
That is until the Detroit Lions came along.
Now we have a safe topic!
In our neck of the woods we can all talk safely about the Detroit Lions.
And there is really no danger of raised voices because we can all agree.
They stink!
What a blessing they are to us!
They have provided us with a safe topic for our holiday gatherings!
Just mention the Detroit Lions and everyone in the room will come to almost instant agreement.That one great disappointment has become our special holiday blessing.
They have brought us together in a true sense of unity.
We can all agree - They stink!
And that unity can hold . . .
that is unless someone dares to say,
"But wait until next year!"

Not a Stone upon a Stone!

A couple of weekends ago I had the opportunity to preside at Mass at the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle. Being in that place invited some reflections and looking back.
You see, this St. Thomas the Apostle is located in Garden City which is in the western part of metropolitan Detroit.
I grew up in the shadow of the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle. Only thing is that the St. Thomas of my youth was located on the east side of Detroit in the Harper/Van Dyke area - worlds apart.
The St. Thomas of my youth was a very formidable complex. The church was rather large, seating, I would venture to guess, upward of 800 at a time, Romanesque in style. A stately bell tower dominated the structure. The rectory was attached and also quite sizable. I am not sure exactly how many it could house and I am not sure how many priests the founding pastor thought he would have assisting him, but my suspicion is that that place could house a small seminary.
St. Thomas had a school - grade and high school, more significant buildings. The sisters who staffed the school also needed housing and so there was, in the complex, a convent, again of significant size.
The entire St. Thomas Church of my youth covered an entire city block.
It was truly a dominant presence in the neighborhood.
Actually, thinking of that St. Thomas got my imagination going as I reflected on the Gospel for the Thirty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time this year. The Gospel is Luke 21:5 - 19.
Letting my imagination go, I pictured someone back in the 1950's or 1960's standing on the front steps of that old St. Thomas, announcing to all who were entering for Sunday Mass, "Not a stone will be left upon a stone!"
The day is coming when all this will be gone.
I can imagine the looks an announcement like that might garner. Imagine the comments!
The mighty St. Thomas the Apostle complex will, someday, no longer be?
Really!
Well, that kind of captures what Luke describes as he tells of Jesus in the Temple, announcing its coming destruction.
The people hearing Him could hardly believe what they were hearing.
This was their most sacred of places.
This was the great sign that God was, indeed, with them.
And Jesus was saying that it is all coming down?
Really?
But He was right.
By the year 70 not a stone was left upon a stone. To this day all that remains of that once magnificent Temple is what is known as the Western or Wailing Wall.
He was serving to remind us of how temporary all of our structures are, and our institutions, and our wealth and - well, all that stuff we tend to cling to.
Temporary!
Like the St. Thomas the Apostle of my youth.
Drive by the area today.
I don't know what you will find but I do know what you will not find.
The church is gone; the bell tower is gone; the rectory and convent and schools, grade and high, all gone.
That memory, those words of Jesus, this Gospel - all are serving to call us to look around and to realize and remember - all temporary.
These things will pass.
As we move into the later days of November even Mother Nature reminds us of that concept - temporary.
The leaves of summer are gone now.
Those warm breezes are bone-chilling now.
The lush green grass is browned and ice solid now.
Don't cling too strongly to what will pass with the passing of time.

Dancing? Saints???

It certainly caught my attention.
I subscribe to a monthly devotional. I guess you could call it that. It is titled: Give Us This Day and it is a publication of Liturgical Press. (And if this catches your interest, you can Google Liturgical Press for more information.)
This little publication contains a daily Morning and Evening Prayer, loosely based on the Liturgy of the Hours, a daily reflection on a holy person, the texts for each day's Mass followed by a reflection on the Mass texts. There are some other items included, but all in all, this is a simple daily devotional that can help with one's prayer.And having provided that commercial, back to the matter at hand.
What really grabbed my attention is the November cover, front and back, for this publication.
At first, I merely saw some saints, which, of course, would make sense since November launches with the Feast of All Saints.
Then I looked again.
And still again.
And then I realized it. I was right.
They are all dancing!
And there is even one playing a saxophone!
And I liked it!
Really liked it!
You know, all those pictures we see of angelic creatures floating around in the clouds, harps in hand!
That's a rather common image of heaven, isn't it?
And I just bet that really turns a whole lot of folks on (NOT!)
But why should heaven be depicted as boring to say the least?
After all we do have that New Orleans favorite "When the Saints Go Marching In," and that certainly has a beat.
And now this!
Dancing Saints!
The cover credit is given to a larger work, a mural by Mark Dukes titled, exactly, Dancing Saints. It is a work seen at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Fransisco, California.
What appears on that cover is a sampling of this larger work.
Naturally I Googled the church, found its site and began to learn more and more about the Dancing Saints.
On the church site is a listing of all the holy people depicted in this mural. Also to be found are brief biographies including, often, information about why they are included. Well worth the read.
You can check out the site for yourself. And as you do be sure to click on the brief video showing the entire mural with background music included.

ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA

And as I reflect on this art piece, I see captured something of the joy of heaven, the joy of the saints, the joy of our beloved who have gone before us and the joy that awaits us.
Why not?
Dancing Saints!
Brings to mind my Aunt Betty.
She has been long gone from us now but while she was with us, though she may have gotten a tad ornery and cranky in her later years, she knew the joy of dance.
She taught me how to dance, got me ready for my first school dance back in the ninth grade.
If she had no one else to dance with, she just danced by herself.
Dance spoke of life.
In her later years movement was often difficult. She had trouble just getting out of chairs.
I had a lift chair that once was my dad's. I offered it to her to help her.
She refused.
I can still hear her words from back then to me, "Someday I will dance again!"
Dance on, Aunt Betty! Dance on!
Join the Dancing Saints.

Clearing Out Purgatory

I am old enough to remember (and, perhaps, you are as well.)
I remember back in the day when we could annually clean out Purgatory!
Yep!
Clean it out!
Empty it!
Or at least come close.
Or so we thought and so we tried to do.
I am reminded of that time as we approach another November, a month to remember our beloved dead, a month that includes the Day of the Dead as well as All Souls' Day.
We had a chance in those days long ago to do our part in cleaning out Purgatory.
And let me say, we did take full advantage of it.
Purgatory Cleaning began at noon on November first, All Saints' Day and the period extended all through the following day, November second, All Souls Day.
We were assured that we could gain a plenary indulgence, which, it was believed, removed or remitted all temporal punishment due to sin.
And isn't that what Purgatory is all about - paying off that temporal punishment that is due.
To gain this plenary indulgence we had to enter a church, recite six Our Fathers, Hail Marys and Glory Be's, praying for the intentions of the Holy Father. We also had to go to Confession and Communion within a week. (In those days Communion was a very infrequent thing for many.)
Fulfill those requirements, you got a plenary!
However, you could not use it for yourself!
It had to be intended for someone in Purgatory!
That meant release! Freedom for someone in Purgatory! Full pardon!
That is what we understood "plenary" to involve.
So that visit to church, those prayers and Sacraments sent someone soaring out of Purgatory and straight into Heaven!
Glory be!
And that happened as often as you entered a church, said those prayers and named a beneficiary
from noon November first all the way to the end of November second.
Know what many of us did?
You guessed it!
In and out of church and in and out again and again and again and repeat.
Purgatory Cleaning was well under way.
Oh, there was one theological note of concern.
What if someone for whom our plenary was intended was no longer in Purgatory?
Theology had an answer for that, of course.
Then God could use that plenary for someone else, someone who needed it, perhaps someone now long forgotten.
And interestingly, for us just to be safe, the following year we would be at it again. We would still keep sending those plenaries for people we remembered the previous year. No worry. God could take care of things.
Can you imagine: every year on November third outside the Gates of Purgatory the sign would appear: "Vacancies!"
I suspect that even these days there is someone still making those plenary visits this year.
In many places now, while we still celebrate All Saints and remember All Souls, something different is to be found.
Sometimes it is a special Mass, sometimes it is a special prayer service. Sometimes these include candles or crosses marked with the names of the community's deceased from that year.
We gather to remember and we should gather, not just those who have lost loved ones in recent months but all of us. We are a community. We gather to remember and support and show faith and hope and most of all love for one another and for those who have gone before us.
Love has power, an incredible power.
Love has the power to transcend even the boundaries of death itself.
And love has the power to set free!
It was love that inspired us in days of old and it is love that inspires us still to profess that death does not have the final word.
Our loved ones and still our loved ones.

Guess you can forget it!

For the past few days I have been inclined to do some more writing, a new blog post. Each time I did not, at least not until today. And as I pen these words, it occurs to me that the idea I had the past couple of days, well, you can just forget about it.
Actually, the idea was quite unrealistic even yesterday or a couple of days ago. Nevertheless, it was a thought.
And that thought got hit with pure, simple reality today.
We are approaching mid-October and here in Michigan the days of October have been marked with temperatures initially in the 80's and then easing into the 70's. It was actually possible to keep the heat off and open windows.
Sleeping with windows open in October in Michigan! Unreal!
Which led me to my "idea."
I was going to suggest that the time draws near when we can start ordering palm tree saplings!
Palm trees in Michigan!
Awesome!
And then today arrived and it is time to don a jacket, shut the windows and turn on the heat.
That is Pure Michigan - in October.
Forget ordering those palm trees!
But the idea of palm trees in Michigan - well, that just invites comments on climate change. Is it getting warmer? Colder? Drier? Wetter?
Is the climate changing?
That is a issue which, of course, some still do not believe.
We can have icebergs and glaciers melting at record pace.
We can have a heat wave baking most of Europe as never before.
We can have historic floods in Texas and storms in the Caribbean.
We can have young Greta Thunberg pleading before the United Nations.
But still we have a debate with regard to the reality of climate change.
Maybe we need a new viewpoint, a change of vocabulary.
Maybe we need to speak of Ecological Responsibility and Stewardship.
Just days ago we remembered and honored Francis of Assisi, that great and humble man who in word and deed reminded us that all of creation is deeply interrelated and that we are stewards of Mother Earth.
In recent times we have had from Pope Francis his encyclical to the world, Laudato Si, a letter not just to Catholics but to all people again reminding us that the world - air, seas, lands, resources - are not our possessions but our care, our trust, our sacred trust. We are caretakers, stewards.
Presently in the Vatican a unique Synod is taking place. The topic under consideration is
The Amazon - its resources, people and importance - all a sacred trust.
We need to come to the realization that The Environment and its care is not a political question.
It is a moral matter, an ethical question, a concern for religion.
If we are to be truly "Pro-Life," then we must be Pro-Environment, Pro-Ecology.
We look for things that can unite us.
This should be it.
We all share the same air.
We all share the same earth.
We all share the same water.
We all share the same responsibility to care for and consider sacred the very things that sustain us.
And we all share Ecological Responsibility and we are all Stewards of God's creation.
Amen!

Then October Comes . . .

 . . . and it becomes clearer and clearer that it is ending.
While September may sometimes taunt and beguile us with the empty promise of continued summer (as this year's September has done,) then October comes and we realize that it truly is ending.
October comes and the darkness increases.
October comes and the leaves display their momentary splendor, than fade and fade away.
October comes and one day we are searching for those warmer outfits.
October confronts us with reality.
It is ending.
Summer is ended and the year itself is ending.
October comes and forces us to face the reality of endings.
I was recently reminded of that while reading a poem in a current America Magazine.
The poem is by Terry Savoie and the lines that pointed me in the direction of October's lessons read:

Into their once full garden that's now

close to barren, two ancient nuns shuffle

along looking for a few late autumn blossoms

to paint their lives. Covered in grey habits

& (winter) coats, they're two of nine

lastlings living out their remaining days

in a convent that once housed dozens.

Two of nine lastlings!

Word came recently that the Dominican presence at Oxford, Michigan was coming to an end. The motherhouse and retreat center there would soon be closed. Reality had to be faced. In a building meant to accommodate 43, now only 13 remained. Lastlings!

There was a time when the Oxford community numbered - what? Hundreds? They staffed parish school in Slovak communities in Detroit and when our ancestors moved into the suburbs, the Dominicans followed. Their ministries responded to new needs and exciting possibilities.

For over fifty years on weekend after weekend retreatants came to the place of prayer and renewal of spirit.

Novices, bringing new hope and life, frolicked in the wide open fields of Oxford.

Parishes flocked to Oxford on Springtime Sundays and Autumn Sundays as well for pilgrimages and festivals. By busloads they came. It was a place filled with life and music and laughter. We sang there songs of faith and songs of Fatherland. Slovakia!

But now October comes.

And endings!

And the memories and tears that endings can bring.

But October reminds us the endings must come.

And they will come.

And they do come.

New days cannot begin unless old days end.

New Years cannot begin unless old years end.

And new life cannot begin unless the old life ends.

And so October comes!

And with it time to say, "Goodbye!"

Never Forget!

Every year, right around this time of the year, we begin hearing those words again, "Never Forget." And, of course, they are pointing us annually in the direction of September 11 and especially 2001.
Never Forget!
And with those words we see the images all so familiar - the Towers, the smoke, the twisted metal and mountains of debris.
Never Forget!
But for the past couple of years my mind began to wrap around the question, "Never forget what?" Or maybe the question should be, "Never forget! Why?"
What is it really that we are suggesting we should Never Forget?
And why should we Never Forget?
Those who lived through that time in our history hold sharp memories of the events. And they are often painful memories.
Never Forget!
Does that somehow imply that we should hold onto those painful memories and never move on?
Is that ever even healthy?
Keep reopening the wounds?
Renewing the hurts?
If that is what is implied by "Never Forget," then I would say that it is time to move on. We must move on. We cannot and should not hold onto the pain and keep reopening old wounds.
Never Forget, though, can and should mean more, so much more than embracing yesterday's pain.
Never Forget the heroism of those brave men and women who risked and all too often even lost their lives for the sake of others. Never Forget that because that shows us in a real way what Jesus meant when He said, "Greater love than this has no one that to lay down their life for another."
No, Never Forget that!
Hold on to the lesson that is important to think of others and work for others and sacrifice for others - even when those others may be strangers to us.
Never Forget!
In those days we came together as a people. We were able to rise above those things that can tend to divide us. Politics aside; status put aside; Black/White/Any shade in between did not matter. We were one people and we found the strength that comes from unity - from being able to rise above those things that seek to divide us. We were better than all that and that made us a strong and beautiful people.
Never forget that! The wonder that comes from unity.
And Never Forget!
On that morning we saw the ugliness and pain and tears that can be caused when a handful of people, egged on by a preacher of hate can bring about upon so many. A small group, filled with hate, made so much so ugly.
Hate has the power to do that.
Never forget that lesson - especially when any preacher of hate emerges on the scene.
Never Forget the power of hate.
And also Never Forget that unity and sacrifice are still more powerful.
Never Forget who we should be and how we should be.
That is what, I believe,  we should Never Forget!