Welcome to the Family, Mason!

 Yes, indeed! Welcome to the Family!

(And, perhaps, here a word of explanation is in order. Mason is a young lad being baptized this weekend. He is not an infant anymore and so he is rather aware of what is happening. He is all of - what? Five? Anyhow, he has a little bit of life behind him and he is not a baby being baptized. He has an awareness. And so to him I address this message. Perhaps someone will even print this and give it to him when he is a bit older and able to understand better.)

So here goes - Welcome to the Family, Mason!

No, not your human family. You entered that a couple of years ago. That was the easy family to break into.

I am speaking of a whole different kind of Family now, Mason. When that water flows across your head and you feel the oil smeared there as well, when you are holding that candle (assuming that your dad lets you hold the candle) when all of that happens, you will have entered the Family of which I speak, an incredible, amazing  Family, not always perfect but definitely stunning.

It is a Family not bound together by natural blood but by a whole different sort of Blood, Blood shed by One who loved us, loves you, so deeply that He was willing to give His own life so that you, all of us, could live forever. His is the Blood that binds us together and makes us this unique Family.

And I have a strong suspicion that your grandma, who passed into this forever life not too long ago, well, when she arrived, I suspect that one of the first things she did was tap that One who so loves us on the shoulder and she pointed to you and said to Him something like, "Get that boy into the Family!"

Grandmas are like that - always looking after and always loving even across that barrier we call "death."

And so here you come into the Family.

Get to know some of your ancestors in this Family. We have some truly remarkable folk on our Family  Tree.

We go back, way back to include among those whose heirs we are names like Abraham and Isaac and Joseph and Moses. These are names to you now but when you grow a bit older, get to know their stories. You will be impressed.

And you really must come to know a lady from a place called Nazareth. Mary is her name. Mother, housewife, simple, quiet woman who with a single word changed the whole course of human history.

And her husband, Joseph, not a single word of his is recorded in any book, not even the Bible, and yet he holds a place of highest honor in our Family, your Family.

And guys like Peter and Andrew and James and John and Matthew, oh yes, Matthew, get to know his story. It is an important one.

And don't forget Paul (aka Saul.) He wanted to wipe our Family out forever and he was set about doing just that when something happened and he totally changed course, becoming one of the strongest voices for our Family.

And lest I sound like I am throwing a spotlight on the male members of our Family, let me also set before you some of our amazing women - like the Theresa - Theresa of Avila, a woman way ahead of her time, and Thesese of Liseaux,  died too young but live a richly beautiful life, and Theresa of Calcutta, who spent  herself for the folk no one else would give the time of day for. We are blessed in our Family with women who have done and continue to do some remarkable things. Our Family has strong women!

And yes, we do have all kinds in our Family - rich and poor, strong and weak, important and very ordinary, old and young, married and single and widowed as well. We come from every century and every corner of this earth. In this Family you have relatives almost everywhere and from every era in history.

And Mason, I heard that one day not so long ago, you heard your grandma saying something about praying and you said to her something like, "I've got to find out more about that praying thing."

Well, praying, you will learn, is about having conversations with your Family, this Family, even and especially with the One who gave His Life for us, with His mother (and ours) Mary and with any of the others as you get to know them. Even if they have been gone from life on this earth for years and even centuries, they are still Family and we are bound together and they will listen because they care and they can listen because they truly live!

You will have an incredible Family now, Mason!

Welcome!

Oh, and one more thing. 

Take a minute to talk to your grandma and thank her for pointing you out and telling the One who loves us, "Get him into our Family!"

That is what praying is.

And YES!

 

Meantime, 

Keep Praying

 . . . and Stay Safe! 

It's Time

 Just read a post of Facebook from someone I know. It said simply, "Taking down the tree" and was followed by one of those emojis depicting a face flooded with tears.

Sad moment.

Almost immediately there came a second post, one from still another whom I have come to know over the years. This one showed a photograph of a fireplace, flames blazing, garland and a Christmas tree festively decked with ornaments and lights. And again the declaration that the time had come to put away Christmas, this one adding that the time had provided a bright spot in an otherwise bleak period in our lives.

Sad moment.

Nevertheless, it is time.

Another Christmas Season has become history and now it is time to enter in earnest into the New Year.

For Catholics we are entering a brief period know to us as Ordinary Time. We will get a hefty dose of this Ordinary Time through summer and autumn. This period which we have now is just a sampling, spanning only five and a half weeks.

For most Christians this period is known at the Time after Epiphany.

All basically the same animal.

The days have begun to grow noticeably longer and we may even be noting the days until that shadowy figure of Punxsutawney Phil puts in his annual appearance.

Somewhere along the way there will still be a Super Bowl although this year with empty seats and also, as is annually predictable, absent the Detroit Lions.

And as mid-January arrives, we are reminded that Valentine's Day is right around the corner and St. Patrick's Day follows closely on its heals.

And I just know that most any day now packages of Peas Egg Coloring and those Peeps will be arriving on store shelves.

It's all part of the predictable of this span of Ordinary Time.

Still, it is time to put away the trappings of Christmas and move into that commonplace of Ordinary Time. It is time to get back into some ordinary and predictable and steady and stable. We have been living through so much uncertainty and unpredictability and even chaos and fear.

The past several months have been anything but ordinary. And looking ahead, for several months yet we will not have too much ordinary.

But then, the question we need to face if we have not as yet might well be: what exactly is "ordinary?" What do we mean by ordinary? What do we expect to find, to experience in this "ordinary?"

Perhaps we respond by suggesting that ordinary means getting back to the way things were before . . . 

But do we really want to go totally back to the way things were before our lives were upended by this pandemic?

Perhaps we need to do a close examination of what has changed over these months for us.

What happens if, when reflecting back over the pandemic months, we look not at what was lost but rather at what may have been gained? What are the blessings we can find in these months?

Seriously? Would you really and honestly say that there were none for you? No blessings at all? No treasures discovered? No awarenesses reawakened? Nothing that you would want to hold onto when times return to "normal?" 

What might the New Normal, the New Ordinary look like for you after what we have been living through these past months?

This Ordinary Time that we enter into now is characterized by the color green. And green is the color of the grass and the leaves and the pines and, well, so many growing things.

And that says volumes about what Ordinary Time should embody - growth.

All of our lifetime is meant to be a time of constant growth and discovery, all of our lifetime. And that includes that Pandemic Time.

What might your New Ordinary look like?

Meantime, 

Keep Praying

 . . . and Stay Safe!