Thursday, December 27, 2012

Midnight Mass Sermon Christmas 2012


December 24/25, 2012
Nativity/Christmas Day
Merry Christmas. Joyeux Noël. Feliz Navidad. Frohe Weihnachten. Mele Kalikimaka. Buon Natale. Felix dies Nativitatis.
Some of you, who know me well, know that tonight you might want to settle down for a long winter’s nap, get your kerchief and cap, because this is not going to be a short and quick sermon.  This is a shock to you, I know. The children present will fidget a bit, but I challenge you to not let that distract you and make it through it all.
Why should it be long, you might ask? Christmas, after all, is one of the two most major feasts in all of Christendom. Shouldn’t we make a big deal about Christmas? Shouldn’t we actually take a little extra time for the day that signifies the incarnation of God?
I have much to say about this feast. Much, that if I did not, then I would be taking lightly my role in the Church, given how I think Christmas is being treated this year. Each year seems to get worse. However, sometimes we have to hear tough things in life. Sometimes, we need to hear things that awaken our souls. Sometimes, we just need a long sermon to awaken the spiritual acknowledgement that is needed on a day such as this.
Roman Catholic Pope Benedict recently spoke on a topic that much mimics what I too had in mind to speak about today. He refers to something happening among many Christian people today. He calls it, “Practical Atheism”. He states that “Practical Atheism” is a title applied to those who say they are Christian but live as if God does not exist. He goes on to say that this is a bigger threat than actual Atheism itself.
I couldn’t agree more. In fact I see it everywhere I go, and I suspect I am out in the public life more than his Vatican minions allow him to be. So many of us live as “Practical Atheists”. So many of us live our lives without living out our faith. So many of us are the type that go to church occasionally, and have prayer lives even less – if at all. And even if we do go to church on a regular or semi-regular basis, what happens the moment we step out of the sanctuary? We don’t live out our Christian faith. We do not witness this faith to others. It certainly is not a way of life for many, at least if we are honest with ourselves. Don’t take it too personal, because sometimes I am no better either. But let’s face it – it isn’t just about going to church. It goes deeper than that.
One can rationalize it in many ways, I suppose. In some cases, these rationalizations are legitimate – and other times they are not. Some of us have jobs that keep us away from church, but should it keep us from loving God and witnessing Jesus Christ in our lives and how we live?
Christian witness is always very hard. We are constantly challenged by the glitz and glamor of worldliness. This, I dare say, has contributed to some of the conditions in our world today. Society has become indifferent and even confused about ethics and morals in daily life. Ethics and morals that may have been more common a hundred years ago or so, have been replaced with relativism. Being liberated and free, especially in democratic countries such as ours, has become an excuse for lack of worship of, and the keeping of God in our lives.
Many folks know the Christmas story and its general meaning for our lives. In most cases, these folks even believe the story and its significance. However, the story does not come alive or even live for those of us in this category anymore. It has grown tiresome under the weight of an over-busy life. Additionally, the commercialism of the feast, such as Christmas cards, office parties, family get-togethers, family photos, gift buying, giving and receiving, and a myriad of other activities or responsibilities have stretched us further than most of us can bear. And all the while, the expense of it all, both in terms of money and energy, can make it feel like anything other than a season to rejoice.
Some folks want to believe in the Christmas story, but simply cannot see how the story can actually touch their lives. Life is full of too many bits of unhappiness, surprised unhappiness’s, unfulfilled hopes and dreams, and loads of choices made that are now regrets – all so it seems anyway. The wonder, majesty and heroicness of the Christmas story is just too pure, perfect and pristine to have any effect on our individual lives. As the story is remembered, they listen to it in simplified form, maybe even going to church, but will not allow it to seek in and let their soul seek out the one who makes this day so important for us all. Some go so far as to wonder if the story can really be believed in at all in this “modern” world we now live in. A story from two thousand years ago just does not seem to resonate anymore.
For those of us who do believe, whether a lot or in small amounts, maybe we have to be honest with ourselves and admit that maybe the whole thing scares us a bit. If God’s presence became real to us in a deep and true way, we’d have to face the things we’ve denied or shoved down or learned to keep at arm’s length; we would have to wrestle with God over how all this fits together, and how we would go on with him coming alongside - present - day after day, week after week, and so on.
Tonight/today, we are called to open the gate to our souls and hearts if you will. The Gospel of Luke begins with the premise of God’s presence coming among us as a mortal man. He does this by surprising a husband who has been crying out in desperate prayer over a disappointment that is wounding his wife and his life, or at least so it seems. We see Joseph being concerned about his wife to be, being pregnant and he is not the father, so he prays about this, and learns from the Angel of God that it is not the scandal it seems to be.
By Luke beginning his Gospel in this way, he opens the gate and welcomes all of us, wounded and wondering, to come into the story as a living story still today. We all have baggage; we all have concerns. We all have the, “How can this be?” kind of question in our hearts.
We also see the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, who are old and without child. In ancient Judaism, this was thought as a punishment from God. What had they done to deserve this? Nothing, which is why the Archangel Gabriel goes to them and announces that Elizabeth will indeed bear a child, even at her advanced age. Their disgrace has been taken away, not in a small way, but is a big way as the story unfolds. This was a once in a lifetime experience for Zechariah, as he is told of the pending great event while in the temple serving as Priest, but doing so for the first time, because to serve in the temple was the luck of a draw, and his name came up for him finally at this late stage in life. Was it the luck of the draw, or was God intentionally working in some form of divine providence? Zechariah, no doubt, felt he had never been chosen prior to this time because of some punishment for some unknown sin he committed. Zechariah was not being punished, but given a great privilege. Divine providence indeed it was. What does the Archangel tell them? He tells them, “Do not fear!” We are still being told that today.
The point of the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth has multiple implications; however the biggest by far that we must focus on in our modern time is this. We see God act in the lives of two people – two people who think themselves abandoned by God for some sin they must have committed, but not knowing what sin it was. Finding out that apparently, and to their joy, they were wrong. Further, that God can work in ways our human intellect may say otherwise.
We see a virgin with child. How is this possible? No less than His action with Zechariah and Elizabeth, He is not limited to the intellect of humanity, but to His ominscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence!
But does all this mean that nothing in the story is transferable to us? Is it possible to learn from Zechariah, Elizabeth, Joseph and Mary? Is it possible we can learn from Mary’s response? Can the Spirit of God hover over us and do the same, this time for a new – renewed – creation in and of our own lives? Yes!
I too have asked these questions. I too feel challenged. I too feel unworthy. I came here 11 ½ years ago to take over a parish in decline, and I have felt as though I was very wrong for the job, even to this very day. Yet, I have to become willing to risk it, to trust that God may just be present, be with us, and have something worthwhile for me to do in life. Does God work out the seemingly impossible? Can we bring our ‘impossible” situations to him for salvation and ask with Mary, “How can this be?” Do I and St. Francis parish simply need to continue on like Zechariah and maybe receive the intervention in God’s own time?
We need to be more willing to reply as Mary had, “Let it be done to me according to your word!” Mary’s yes to God, becomes our redemption. She still had free will just as we do here today, but she trusted in God and thus the Holy Spirit gave her the strength and holiness to persevere.
Now we ask, but why all this? Why did God have to come as a man? Why come as a child? And even further, why did He wait until 30 years of age to start his ministry of salvation? Did he or does he even exist? Some of these questions, no answer will satisfy us or be suffice even to our finite intellects.
There is a story told by Lee Strobel that he witnessed which took place during his conversion from atheism. He was a reporter at the time and he relates a story of a sixty year old lady and her two granddaughters who lost all they had in a fire that destroyed their roach infested tenement they once lived in and who now lived in a two room apartment. They had no furniture, rugs, nothing on the walls – only a small kitchen table and a little bit of rice. The granddaughters, who were both eleven years old, each had one dress and only one sweater to share amongst the two of them.
Even in this state of poverty and the arthritis that kept her from working, the grandmother talked confidently in her faith in Jesus. She was convinced he had not abandoned them. As Lee interviewed them, he never witnessed or sensed any despair or self-pity in their home. The faith this women put in the God he did know, simply amazed him. He wrote an article about the family and it was published in the newspaper for which he worked.
He didn’t think much about it for a few days after, but on Christmas Eve he felt compelled to go to see how the family was doing. When they opened the door to his knock, he could not believe his eyes. The readers of the newspaper responded by showering the family with rooms full of furniture, appliances, rugs, a lavish Christmas tree with piles of wrapped presents underneath; carton upon cartons of food; clothes of all sorts, especially dozens of warm winter coats, scarves and gloves. To add to all of this, was thousands of dollars in cash.
Needless to say he was greatly surprised at what had come to pass from his article in favor to this family. But, what astounded him even more was the grandmother’s response to it all. When he arrived, the grandmother and her granddaughters were preparing to give it all away. He asked her about this, and she responded, “This is wonderful; this is very good,” she said, gesturing toward the largeness. “We did nothing to deserve this – it’s a gift from God. But,” she added, “it is not his greatest gift. No, we celebrate that tomorrow. That is Jesus. Our neighbors are still in need. We cannot have plenty while they have nothing. This is what Jesus would want us to do.” And so, she planned to give much of it away.
They had peace in their poverty, and we live with anxiety in our plenty. How can this be? The reason lies in what I started out my sermon on; we live as “practical atheists”. Virgins just don’t get pregnant and gods don’t come down in human form to help us, much less impact our lives directly.
Can we really trust the biographies of Jesus to tell us the true story of his birth, life, teachings, miracles, death and ultimate resurrection from the dead? Did the Christmas child actually grow up to fulfill the attributes of God? The answer to all of these is a resounding, “Yes!”
Many historians of past and present confirm biblical accuracy. Historians Papias and Josephus both from around the first and second centuries, just to name two of many historians who recorded events surrounding Jesus and his Apostles which give validity to the gospels. Early church fathers testify to the information that was handed down to them from the Apostles themselves. The historians even speak of the witnesses of Jesus and the Apostles and how accurate these stories really were. Anyone can find a rationalization to not believe, mainly because it is harder to simply believe. Yet, there is so much out there to help us believe that we don’t quite so eagerly seek out.
Luke, the physician writer of the gospel of Luke, is believed to have personally interviewed eyewitnesses who knew about everything from the birth to the death and to the resurrection of Jesus. In fact, this companion of the Apostle Paul said he carefully investigated everything so he could write an orderly account about the certainty of what occurred. There was no doubt that he was claiming to be recording actual historical events. Prominent archaeologists have carefully examined Luke's references to 32 countries, 54 cities, and nine islands, finding not a single mistake. In fact, archaeology has not produced anything that is unequivocally a contradiction to the Bible and its message.
Theologians can come up with explanations that seem to make sense, even though they might not be able to explain every nuance about the incarnation itself. In a way this is very logical, because if the incarnation is true, it is not surprising that our finite minds could not totally comprehend how it could have happened. Why is it so hard for us to believe that God wanted to come down and become part of our mortal nature so that we can see him and thus believe? Maybe we are all like the Apostle Thomas and need to see for ourselves. Maybe we are simply too busy to even think about it. In this day and age, this is the more probable reason.
In the Jewish scriptures, which Christians call the Old Testament, there are several dozen major prophecies about the coming of the Messiah, whom God would send to redeem his people. In effect, these predictions formed a figurative fingerprint that only the Anointed One of God would be able to match. This way, the Israelites could rule out any imposters and validate the credentials of the authenticity of the real Messiah. Jesus lived up to all these prophecies in ways that no human being could possibly have imitated.
More than four dozen major predictions in all are in the Old Testament. Isaiah revealed the manner of the Messiah's birth; Micah pinpointed the place of his birth; Genesis and Jeremiah specified his ancestry (a descendent of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, from the tribe of Judah, the house of David); the psalms foretold his betrayal, his accusation by false witnesses, his manner of death (pierced in the hands and feet, although crucifixion hadn't been invented yet when the prophecy was made), and his resurrection (he would not decay but would ascend on high); and on and on.
Maybe Jesus simply lived out the prophecies, one might rationalize. However, the odds of any one human being, especially one like us without a divine nature, the odds are so astronomical that it would be impossible for any one human being to live out every one of the prophecies exactly as they were prophesied in the same manner in which Jesus fully did.
What does all this mean to you and me? It means that we have the same opportunity that the people of 2,000 years ago had. We have the opportunity to take what we hear and what we see and even what we feel, and live out our lives as we are being called to do. The church lives out the life of Christ in sequence every single year to help us in our pilgrimage toward the kingdom of heaven. It is indeed hard for us to have faith and believe in a God such as we do, when the busyness and technological advancement of the world around us challenges us for our mental attention, our spiritual attention, and our overall faith.
We have but to look around and see. God is everywhere and in everything. Jesus as the second person of the Trinity is that person of God, the person of the one God that came among us in human form to help our weak and unfaithful minds to see that God is truly with us. We have but to ask and Christ will make himself known to anyone who asks this of him. But I say to you look around this room, look in your homes, look in your cars, look on your televisions and computers, go to your local hospital, go to some of the tallest buildings in the world and stand on the top, just go to a flower garden. Go and look at all these things, is what I say to you today. Go and read Gray's anatomy and think about how intricate the human body is and how all those organs work in very specific ways to keep each of us alive. Go into all these things, and then come back and tell me that you cannot believe that there is a God and that he came down for us in the person of Jesus Christ.
No Big Bang did this. No form of evolution did this. This in everything we see, feel, hear, taste, and can touch is due solely to an intelligent force that created it all. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” The “Word” as we all know, is what St. John used in reference to Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Word. Jesus Christ is God!
Like the grandmother who was poor and destitute, we need to put our faith in Jesus Christ. We need to do this in the same simplistic form that she did. We do not necessarily have to expect what she received, fore it would be like testing God, but we certainly can have faith that we will get the answer we need even if it is not the answer we want.
I do not have time tonight/today (for that, you are probably quite thankful) to enumerate all of the possible proofs, not only of God's existence, but that of his existence in the person of Jesus Christ. But, I certainly think that I have given you something to think about. However, let me finish with this - listen to this story and see if it can touch your heart.  
“I'm sorry. We're doing everything we can.
The doctors did everything they could to save my son's life. I called Jesse my miracle baby. Born three months premature, he’d amazed everyone with his fighting spirit and will to live. He’d kept his sweet nature through many traumas and life-threatening illnesses over the seven years.
This time, however, nothing seemed to work. Jesse looked so small and helpless with wires and tubes attached everywhere. I wanted to pray for him, to simply ask God to heal, but I was too tired. We’d repeated this scene so many times that I developed prayer fatigue.
Now, three days before Christmas, I could see the fight going out of him. I could feel it draining out of me, too. Trying to place Jesse in God's hands, I looked up at the silent television. Please God, I thought, don't let us have a Christmas tragedy. On TV, they always have Christmas miracles. I know you can write a better story than that.
As Jesse struggled to breathe, his abdomen retracted deeply in the attempt. He had a dangerous kind of croup and his airway was extremely narrow from the inflamed scar tissue that lined his throat. Lucille Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford, in Northern California, was one of the best in the nation. The staff was doing all they could.
It just wasn't enough.
I leaned my head against the cool glass of the hospital window, breathing slowly and deeply. Oh, dear, loving God, I cried silently, I wish I could breathe for him. And Jesse wasn't the only sick child there. In the rooms around us lay other desperately ill children with equally worried parents. The atmosphere felt heavy with sadness. For me, it seemed to match the grayness of the day outside.
A whimper and a look of pain on Jesse's face made me realize he was worse than he had been.
Christmas should be about good news. Why should there be such sadness at this time of year? As I pondered what to do, I decided to call others and ask for their prayers.
‘I'm going to call people to pray for you.’ I pushed back the tears as I said to my son, ‘You're going to be okay.’
I made the calls and waited. I pulled him close to me and held him as tightly as I dared. As I stared out the window, darkness slowly descended. I was afraid of the darkness, because Jesse always went downhill in the evenings. The doctors had already told me that we should expect an especially rough night.
Just then someone knocked at the door. I called out, ‘come in.’
Two huge men entered the room. Between their size and their smiles, they seemed to fill the whole room. They were members of the San Jose Sharks, a professional hockey team. ‘We've come to bring a little Christmas cheer to the children,’ one of them said.
Jesse loved visitors, no matter how ill he was, and he waved them to come closer. Holding his toys, he strained to whisper, ‘I have two cars.’ He held up one of the shining Matchbox toys. ‘Can you find a boy in another room who doesn't have any and give him this one? Tell him I'll be his friend.’
As the hockey players left, both of them had tears in their eyes.
Thank you for this wonderful little boy, I prayed. The world needs more boys like him!
As the staff had predicted, it was a hard night, and not just for us. Alarms buzzed all over that wing of the hospital. I stood guard as Jesse held on; needing many treatments with powerful drugs just to keep breathing. I repeatedly reminded myself of a verse from the book of Psalms, ‘Weeping may last through the night but joy comes with the morning.’ (Psalm 30:5) I didn't know if God would make it come true for me, but I was determined to recite the verse and hold on.
With the sunrise came more dark clouds and rain. The doctors didn't communicate with us and the nurses looked sad when they walked into the room. Jesse couldn't stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time. My apprehension grew.
As discouragement pulled at me, I thought of a church where I visited a few times. The people there had seemed genuine and I felt such a spirit of love whenever I visited. As the morning wore on, I couldn't stop thinking about them. They care about people. They pray for people, I said to myself. As difficult as it was to share the pain of what we were going through, I called my friend Jessica. ‘Please contact the minister and the people at that church. Ask them - ask them if they'll pray for Jesse, Will you?’
Jessica was delighted to be able to do something for us.
For a long time I stared at my little boy. The dark circles under his eyes had deepened. They came from the effort it took to draw each breath. I wanted to wipe away the bruises on the bridge of his nose that came from wearing oxygen mask. His curly hair was damp and tangled, but he looked like an angel to me, as beautiful as any I'd seen in paintings or on Christmas cards.
I got up and walked to the window and stared into space. Just then, a bright rainbow filled the sky right in front of me. I didn't understand it, but I felt God had sent the rainbow just for me. I kept repeating, Thank you! Thank you, Lord! As I watched, three layers of cloud cover parted just above our window and revealed the blue sky.
‘It's like an open heaven,’ I whispered. I can't explain it, but I believe that not only was the rainbow just for me, but I also felt God had given me a special sign. I'll take that as a promise, God. I trust you to take care of him! As deep peace washed over me, I was ready to curl up next to Jesse and rest.
I didn't know it then, but word had spread quickly throughout the community about our son. People made phone calls and sent e-mails all over the country asking for prayer.
Just then, I realized Jesse wasn't wheezing. He looked so peaceful; my first thought was that he had died. But the alarms were silent. No, I assured myself, he's breathing deeply on his own.
Within minutes, my son, who struggled for every breath during the night and lay listless and unmoving, grinned at me. He sat up in bed. He yanked off his mask and disconnected the wire. ‘Let's play, mommy!’ He said.
Immediately the alarms sounded because of his actions. Nurses rushed in, expecting a crisis. Instead there were shocked expressions and disbelief on their faces.
Jesse jumped out of bed and ran around the room. Afraid he might relapse; I scooped him up and hugged him. The tears came freely now and I knew God had answered prayer - my prayer and those of hundreds of others.
One of the nurses asked, ‘What happened in here?’
‘God's helping me,’ Jesse replied matter-of-factly. ‘He's helping all the children.’ The nurses called the doctors with the good news. Within our reaching out for prayer, everything had changed.
We had to stay another day for observation, so we sent out e-mails of thanks. Jesse and I enjoyed the day playing together, and we watched holiday movies. We prayed for the other families on our floor, too.
Very early Christmas Eve morning, Jesse woke up and said, ‘Mommy, Jesus came to see me. He said I'm going to be all better. It was special. He's telling the other kids stories in their rooms right now.’ He smiled, lay back, closed his eyes, and was soon asleep.
I lay awake with tears of joy sliding down my face. Thank you, I prayed, he's coming home for Christmas.
That night was the most peaceful night we ever experienced in the pediatric ICU. Nurses remarked on how quiet it was, how strange that no alarms broke the silence. There was no crying children and no sudden crises. It was as if a sweet peace had fallen over the entire hospital wing and everyone was able to rest.
‘You gave us a good ending to our story, Lord,’ I said. ‘It's even better than TV.’
God helped my son to breathe when the doctors couldn't. After years of fighting for his life and spending far too much time in intensive care, it turned out just as Jesse said: Jesus had made him well. Even better, our son has not been hospitalized since. Even the scars are gone.
Since then, whenever troubles come, I no longer hesitate to call people for prayer. Jesse won't let me. He still believes in miracles.
So do I.
(Lisa Anne Wooldridge)
This is but one of many Christmas Miracles that happen every year, sometimes every day. We have simply allowed ourselves to forget that all that revolves around us is guided by something more than the technological device we use to organize our lives. Let us be like the Zechariah’s, Elizabeth’s, Mary’s and Joseph’s of the past, and live our lives in faith of the one who created it. Don’t let church tonight/today be the only time you think of the true reason we celebrate on this day. Do not fear.
Go away from here today and do like the bumper sticker, and “keep Christ in Christmas.” It is, after, the day we celebrate as His birthday, or have we forgotten that? I think maybe we do tend to forget that as Christmas Day transpires. My prayer for each of you is that you go away from here today and believe. Go away from here today and believe in Christmas miracles. Each day is a miracle. Some miracles are just larger than others. But most of all, remember what this day is really all about!
God Love You +


+ The Most Rev. Robert Winzens
Pastor – St. Francis Universal Catholic Church
San Diego, Ca.

Monday, November 5, 2012

All saints and all souls day Sunday Sermon

November 4, 2012
All Saints and All Souls Sunday
While reading from one of my daily meditation guides for Lectio Divina, I realized the inspiration I was being given for today’s sermon. The passage of Scripture from the Bible I was reading about at the time was from Luke 9:49-56. As I was reading and meditating, I was thinking how this will be great for a sermon one Sunday. Little did I know it would be the sermon I was thinking about and started writing just prior to that. Almost as if the Holy Spirit said: “Right topic. Wrong direction.”
I had been thinking as of late about how we sometimes get ourselves worked up over other people. Be they friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances or even strangers. We all do it. I frequently catch myself and have to try to correct my mindset. Lately, I have begun to notice various factions around those whom I interact with on a regular to a semi-regular basis and have discovered a sermon like this is needed. Then, as preparing for my sermon, I read today’s Gospel and I realize that maybe the Holy Spirit is trying to tell me now would be a good time. The Sermon on the Mount, or the beatitudes, was such a perfect match for what I was reading in Luke 9 during my meditation.
Let me read it.
 John answered, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.” But Jesus said to him, “Do not stop him, for the one who is not against you is for you.”
 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village.
The time had come for Jesus to begin his journey to Jerusalem—and to the cross. He knew that word of his teachings and miracles had gone ahead of him, so he was cautious about entering certain villages.
This was especially true of Samaritan villages, where Jews in general were not welcome and where he in particular might face opposition. So he sent a few followers ahead of him to one village to find a place for him to stay and maybe even a gathering place where he could preach. But the answer came back as a resounding “No.” The villagers wanted nothing to do with this Jewish prophet or his date with destiny.
John and James were indignant. “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” they asked. They wanted to show their faith and their knowledge by mimicking Elijah from the early ancestors by asking for fire to come from heaven and consume the people in the town they just visited. But Jesus would hear none of this. He rebuked them and continued on his way.
Why did James and John react in the manner they did? Part of the key here is that they went to a village of Samaritans. Jews and Samaritans have been bitter foes for some years. Jews considered the Samaritans illicit relatives. Back around the 8 B.C. the Assyrians destroyed the northern area of the Jews. The Assyrians brought with them pagans who remained after the Assyrian destroyed their kingdom and intermarried with the Jews who remained. By doing so, the Jews still faithful to the Law of Moses considered those who intermingled with the Assyrians not only as traitors but now having impure bloodlines. Those who intermarried with the pagans eventually became known to many as the Samaritans.
So, why James and John’s reaction, Maybe it was because of the Samaritans as a people; a people who mixed the purity of Judaism with pagan religions and who were a constant thorn in the side of faithful Jews. Maybe it was because they were offended that anyone would reject Jesus, who had done so much good for so many people. Possibly, too, they were trying to show Jesus how committed they were to him. After all, this story comes not long after they had gotten caught up in an argument about who was the greatest among them. Whatever their reasoning, while their proposal seemed reasonable to them, Jesus was very quick to condemn it.
This Gospel reading can help us realize ways in which we harbor resentments against people who don’t share our values; any animosity we may feel toward people who seem to stand against us and our general views on life. This could include people who are actively opposing Christianity, and it could include those who are indifferent to God as well. It could include our neighbor who never takes his family to church on Sundays, and it could include political leaders whose policies seem to show little regard for the sacred­ness of human life.
So, it’s helpful to see that Jesus rebuked his apostles and not the Samaritans. While he no doubt wanted the villagers to welcome him, Jesus humbly moved on to the next town. He seemed more concerned with James and John’s attitude than with the Samaritans’ attitude.
Jesus wants to focus on our attitudes rather than the “Samaritans” around us. He wants to correct us when we allow judgment or self-righteousness to pit us against people who don’t share our faith, our values or our simple everyday life opinions. Of course Jesus wants everyone to believe in him and obey his Father’s commands. But he also wants us to witness to the joy of following him. He wants a kind and compassionate Church, not a hostile, self-righteous one.
Why is it important to be kind and compassionate? Think about Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:4-6). The shepherd in this parable risked his own life, as well as the safety of ninety-nine sheep, just to find one missing sheep. And when he found it, he didn’t scold it or rebuke it for wandering off. He put it on his shoulders and brought it back to the fold. He was so happy that he even held a party to celebrate! Maybe, our little church – our little denomination - has a mission to bring back the ones and twos of those who have left the church for one reason or another and show them the true compassion of Jesus in the way we interact with each other and minister to them also.
Every human being is a child of God, created in his own image and likeness. And this means that every person deserves to be treated with the deepest respect. In this regard, there is no difference between believers and unbelievers or those who hold our political view and those who do not. There is no difference between faithful, observant churchgoers and lapsed or complacent Catholics. We are all members of the same family, and our Father wants us to treat each other like the brothers and sisters that we are. He wants us to reach out to them as friends, not enemies. He wants us to tell them about the gospel in the same way we would share some good news with our best friend.
So what should we do? First, let’s be positive and start looking at everyone, whatever their convictions, with the same love that God has for us. Second, let’s be sure we are listening to people care­fully and respectfully. Third, let’s be careful not to over-emphasize our objec­tions. Instead, let’s look for common ground and build from there. Finally, if points of contention or disagreement come up, let’s try to stay calm. We should remember that the Lord is with us and that he wants to bless us and those we are speaking with.
This doesn’t mean that we should give in or water down our faith. It means that we should patiently go as far as we can to help people come to Jesus—but not go overboard. It means making sure we can “live to preach another day.”
Jesus has these Apostles who want to send fire down on fellow humans, yet in the midst of such divisive and even destructive thoughts, Jesus was still pleased with them. He looked past all the infighting, the mistaken passion, and the subtle arrogance. He knew all of this was an essential part of the process of becoming a disciple and learning to be more like Him. In fact, in the very first verse of the very next chapter of Luke, we see him sending them out on a second mission to spread the good news all over again (Luke 10:1).
Jesus wants us to be in unity with each other. He wants us to put away any condemning thoughts and attitudes and stop judging people who don’t think the way we do. But he knows how challenging this can be.
The best defense is a good offense. We have all heard this before. Although, it may not work for all things, it commonly will for most and it certainly does for Christians. Sermons are not often the place for teaching about disagreements or arguments as such, but as human beings we seem to place ourselves into less than friendly relationships sometimes. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes, as they have come to be known, can serve us well when we encounter those pesky disagreements.
Yet, head on, flat out, face-to-face confrontation has been the most popular form of combat for centuries. The Roman Empire gave us gladiators - two men armed to the teeth facing each other across an enclosed coliseum. Medieval combatants came up with jousting - two opponents mounted on enormous steeds, rushing straight towards each other with long pointed lances. In the 18th century European battles were fought by lining up all the soldiers in neat rows, their weapons pointed directly at the tidy rows of the opposing army across the battlefield from them. Interestingly, this was also done in the name of Christ. However, we have come to learn that Christ would not have condoned such behavior and His Sermon on the Mount, as we read today, and the passage from Luke makes it very clear.
In the Beatitudes Jesus offers a series of what appear to be intentionally self-destructive personal choices, which he then reveals as the way Christians will ultimately "win" against those who seek to harm them. I suppose this is the art of what we can call Christian Judo of sorts.
The Beatitudes stand as the pre-eminent example of this Christian Judo stance. Jesus said, "Congratulations to those who show mercy;" "Congratulations to those who love their enemies." Unfortunately, the church which bears Jesus' name has often found more pragmatic ways of dealing with its enemies: torture, persecution, burnings, inquisitions, intolerance. However, it would seem it is time to return to the source and explore Jesus' method for dealing with opposition.
In the art of Christian Judo, instead of pitting strengths against strengths, one steps aside and turns another's strength to one's own advantage. Don't attack your opponent's position. See what lies behind it. Don't reject their position or defend your own. Sidestep their attack by getting behind where they are coming from and where they are going. When we disagree with a point of view, we would do well to find out why the opposing person feels the way that they do, instead of attacking what we may not fully understand as their motive.
The whole point of Christian Judo is not to return tit for tat, an eye for an eye, strength for strength. The point is to step aside and let the attacking person's strength benefit and bless you. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount gave us the best outline of Christian Judo - how to deal with those who are attacking us. Jesus' surprising defensive technique ultimately leads to a truly shocking final conclusion. Further into the Gospel of Matthew Jesus contradicts the Torah and thus the Jews of His time by rejecting the right of retaliation and instead counseling listeners to turn the other cheek.
Instinctively we oppose some people we disagree with, but we should not react this way. Let the other person make the first move and develop a strategy and approach based on their angle of attack. Listen and be creative. Refrain from reacting: Don't attack your opponent or defend yourself - ascertain and discern instead. Rather than coming at your opponent and attacking their position, sidestep their attack while ascertaining where they're coming from. Rather than defend yourself - which locks you in and gives them a target to hit - discern what's behind their arguments and attacks. Search for the underlying premise that motivates their hatred, fear and uncompromising personality. Once you understand the bedrock principles behind and underneath the attack, you can deal with fundamental forces of opposition rather than the overt expressions of hostility.
Unlike James and John, we should not call down fire based on our preconceived thoughts of the background of those of whom we are dealing with or the disagreement we may have with them. We cannot and may not ever really know all that is behind their thoughts or actions any more than they will of us. But, by following Jesus’ examples and teachings we can be one step closer to respecting those whom we desire respect from.
Christian Judo – the stealth and humble way to being disciples of Christ. He is so committed to us and to his dream of a united, beautiful Church that his final prayer was “that they may all be one” (John 17:21). It’s a prayer he continues to make for us each day. It’s not always easy to be in unity. But those who seek it will find it over time. By God’s grace, we can triumph over everything in us that feeds division. So let’s continue to pray for the strength, the compassion, and the wisdom to love everyone as Jesus loves us.
God Love You +
+ The Most Rev. Robert Winzens
Pastor – St. Francis Universal Catholic Church
San Diego, Ca.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Sunday Sermon

October 28, 2012
The Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity
Do you believe in miracles?
It seems to happen at least once or twice a year. On an otherwise "slow news day" some media person gets wind of yet another "miracle story" and runs a camera crew out to film the big event. In their most cases these momentarily newsworthy miracles usually take the form of a vision of the divine ... of sorts.

Let's face it, though these are pretty puny epiphanies! The face of Christ miraculously appears in the cracked bathroom window of some rundown house. The image of a descending angel miraculously floats above the landscape scenery of some cheap painting. And of course who can forget the miraculous transformation of a home fried tortilla into an icon by the silhouette of Jesus that emerged upon its surface.

Don't all these "miracles" make you mad? It is utterly unfair that God could appear as a pillar of smoke by day and fire by night to the escaping Israelites, that Jesus could walk on the water and bring a dead man back to life in first-century Palestine, while we here at the beginning of the 21st century are supposed to squint our eyes in order to think we can see a miracle on a piece of fried dough!

Do miracles still happen? Or, as some "cessasionists" claim (those who believe miracles only happened at the time of the beginning of the church just shy of 2,000 years ago), did God stop working through miracles after the apostolic era? This has been one of the biggest and longest-running controversies in the church. For at least five hundred years believers have been asking, "Can God do miracles today?" The Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment each added more and more bricks to the walls of reason and logic and quantifiable evidence that the best and brightest were helping to build walls between miracles and our daily lives. But it took the Industrial Era to really start erecting a miracle-proof wall between the ongoing transformative work and presence of God in this world and the "scientific" view of the universe being developed.

As these walls have grown higher and wider, the separation between those who continue to believe in the presence and possibility of miracles and those who utterly deny this kind of experience has become taller and deeper. How ironic, then, that as we move ever deeper into the postmodern era, miracles and discussions of past ones are trying to make a quiet comeback.

Let's take, for example, the great debate over a supposed long ago miracle the virgin birth. Few issues have caused such historic theatrical events. Churches have been split and thousands of books have been written on the possibility or impossibility of a miraculous virgin birth. There have been heresy trials and ruined ministries for the sake of this issue.

The debate often has been ugly and nasty on both sides. Reams of paper and teams of scientists have marched before virgin-birth believers, denouncing the belief in that miracle as anti-science, anti-rational and anti-intellectual. Unfortunately, many of the defenders of the virgin birth miracle considered such designations complimentary. The evangelicals and fundamentalists adhering to the old "not-since-the-apostolic-era" mandate against miracles are just as restrictive and closed-minded as the clinical white-coated skeptics. Why, does it seem that the Catholic Church appears to be the only religion still accepting miracles as real and still taking place in the manner that plays out similar to that in the Scriptures?

So where does this leave us today? Today, we live in a world where science makes it possible for virgin births to happen every day. We call the process "in-vitro fertilization" and the results "test-tube babies." Isn't it rather amusing that those who refused to admit the possibility of God doing a "virgin birth" are in a posture today of watching science do "virgin births" every day? Isn't it rather amusing that those fundamentalists who would refuse to allow God to perform miracles in the dawn of the 21st century, have no problem at all with allowing human scientists to do the same thing? Why is it that science gets all the miracle-making, wonder-working powers, and not God? Why is it we can't say, "God can do anything God wants to do?"

But what constitutes a "miracle" today? Miracles are not divine holograms floating in the sky or bizarre appearances in spaghetti bowls. A miracle is when God makes a way when there seems to be none. God can make a way in our lives when there seems to be no way; we simply need to get back into believing it. Miracles are a sign of God's active partnership with us helping us to deal with the issues, remove the obstacles in our lives and in the life of this world. To put it as Sam Williams, pastor of Van Ness Community Church in Fresno, California, puts it: "God doesn't solve problems for us. God solves problems with us."

In today's gospel reading, the real miracle is the eruption from within the blind Bartimaeus of such a powerful faith that it will neither shut up nor hold still. Recall that in this healing story, Bartimaeus comes to Jesus. Jesus does not approach some sedentary, helpless figure. It is the miracle of faith, a divinely given gift, which makes possible the restoration of Bartimaeus' sight. In the life of the blind roadside beggar, God made a way when there seemed to be no way.

You might be caught up short and stuttering if someone asked you point-blank: "What miracles has God performed in your life?" We haven't been taught to think about events in our lives as "miracles" we have been trained to look for threads of logic and reason and fact to hold the fabric of our lives together. But what if you were asked, "Where has God made a way in your life when there seemed to be no way?"

Some of us experience the miracle of the Eucharist. Some go through the motions and simply give it the reverence due, but nothing further. Why God allows one to experience this miracle fully while hundreds of others to go away simply having faith that what the church teaches on the topic is true without ever really experiencing anything is something we may never know or understand.
A French nun’s healing from Parkinson’s was chosen from among the many reports of grace and alleged miracles that made their way to the Postulator of the Cause for saints. She was there, in the front row at St. Peter’s Square, to give thanks to the new Blessed. The procedure for recognizing the miracle that helped bring Karol Wojtyla onto the altar was not simple, There were concerns raised about the case, but further detailed investigations finally led the medical panel for the Congregation of the Causes of Saints to declare the disease’s remission inexplicable.
Sister Marie Simon Pierre Normand, 52, is part of the congregation of the Little Sisters of Catholic Motherhood, and works with newborns in a French hospital. “I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in June 2001,” she says. “The illness affected the entire left side of my body. After three years, the symptoms worsened - tremors, stiffness, pain, insomnia...”
Sister Marie followed the ceremonies presided over by John Paul II with apprehension - in the image of a sick and motion-impaired Pope, she saw her own future. Just after the death of Pope John Paul II, her symptoms increased. “From April 2005 I started to get worse every week, more run down day by day, no longer able to write or to drive a car... I was struggling to do my job.” In 13 May of that year, Benedict XVI officially announced a special dispensation to begin the beatification process for John Paul II. “Starting the next day, the sisters of all the French and African communities asked for his intercession to cure me. They prayed incessantly, without tiring...” A few weeks later, on the night between the 2nd and 3rd of June, something happened. Sister Marie awoke suddenly, just before dawn, after many hours of rest.
“My body was no longer stiff as it had been, no rigidity, and inside I’m not the same. Then, I felt an inner call and a strong impulse to go to pray before the Holy Sacrament.” From that moment on, the French nun regained her ability to walk quickly - all her symptoms had disappeared. She immediately stopped taking her medicine. A few days later, the doctors confirmed it. “On 7 June, as I have said before, I went to the neurologist who had been treating me for the past four years. He too was surprised to observe the sudden disappearance of all my symptoms, despite having stopped medical treatment five days before my visit.” Since then, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre has been perfectly healthy.
Let’s move on to a mother who tells this story:
One year ago today I delivered my son, a stillborn. For a moment he was placed in my arms quiet, blue, and limp. The midwife and her assistant then took him from me and began CPR. They could not find a pulse. He did not breathe. Because we were at home (it was my third, planned homebirth) 911 was called.
While CPR was continued and we waited for the ambulance my husband took water and baptized him using the name we had agreed upon, James Fulton. I remember sitting on the floor saying, "Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen" over and over again in my head. I suppose it was as close as I could come to a prayer; I suppose it was my way of asking Archbishop Sheen to intercede for my son.
The paramedics came and rushed James away. In route, as they tried to restart his heart, they gave him two doses of epinephrine by lines in the shin bone. Neither worked and one leaked out, turning his whole right leg - from toe tip to buttock - black and blue and purple. In the ER the doctors and nurses worked on him for another 18 minutes or so. A nurse practitioner told me she wanted James' mother to be able to hold him alive for a little bit. Five minutes, an hour - she just wanted my son to be alive long enough for me to say good-bye.
They did a sonogram of his heart. It fluttered but it didn't beat. A nurse held his foot; she later told me it was cold, like the expression "cold and dead". He was intubated and getting oxygen, but there was no way that the chest compressions were adequately circulating the oxygen to the brain and other organs. Following the orders of the on-call neonatologist they stopped working on him so they could call time of death.
My little boy, James Fulton, 9lbs and 12oz, had been without a pulse for 61 minutes. Everyone stopped working. And then his heart started.
James was admitted to the NICU at the Children's Hospital of Illinois and was immediately "cooled" - a newer type of therapy where they lower the body's temperature by a few degrees in an effort to spare the brain and other organs further and ongoing damage.
For three days he was sedated and shivering, covered in tubes and wires. They thought that he would not live to be a week old. They thought he would have to lose his right leg because of the chemical burn. They thought that if he did live he would be a "vegetable".
They tried to give us hope, but they thought that he would probably spend the rest of his life strapped in a wheelchair, blind, severely mentally disabled, on a ventilator, fed through a feeding tube, in diapers, unable to communicate love.
EEG's showed very abnormal brain activity. An MRI showed that the brain had been injured from the severe lack of oxygen.
At times I wondered if we should have just stayed home and never called 911. I worried that I had become Dr. Frankenstein and had, through other people, manipulated James into life. I worried that he would be treated like a monster.

In the situation we were in I could either worry or I could hope. I could fear or I could trust. We had prayerfully decided to have a homebirth and so I knew that we were following God's plan for our lives. I didn't know where we would end up, but I knew that I could not live in the dark - I had to hope and trust - I had to live in the Light.
So we prayed, and we asked people to pray with us. Two days after his birth 100 people, many I barely knew, came to the Peoria Diocese's cathedral. In the church where Fulton Sheen served Mass and was later ordained, we had a holy hour and Mass.
Friends told James' story on Facebook, in emails, on blogs, and to their prayer groups, prayer chains, Bible studies, family members, and friends. People in Alaska, New York, Mexico, Peru, Germany, Ireland, and Canada prayed for my son, asking for Sheen's intercession. Atheists asked their believing friends to pray for him. Classrooms of children in Catholic schools throughout Illinois recited the Sheen prayer every day. Little children adopted him as their main prayer intention. My dad began attending Mass again on a regular basis.
And God answered the prayers. Jesus Christ healed my son. The Holy Spirit filled the hearts of His faithful. And Sheen continued to evangelize through his namesake and my son. By the time he was a few days old his kidneys, liver, and colon were all working. His leg was healing.
By a week he was breathing without any assistance. His blood pressure was good. He began eating by bottle. He was taken off pain meds and started to interact with me, his visitors, nurses, and doctors. At seven weeks he came home from the hospital.
A follow-up MRI showed no more brain damage. The precautionary g-tube was removed when he was six months old. Now he rolls over, crawls, cruises, and will walk soon. He eats Cheerios, picking them up with his thumb and pointer finger. He squeals with laughter, plays with blocks, steals toys from his older siblings, and has scored in the normal / age appropriate range by his developmental and physical therapist.
My family and I believe that God brought James back from the dead and healed his body. We believe that He did this through the intercession of Archbishop Sheen. We believe that God did this for the same reason that he allowed Lazarus to die: "This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it."
Today my son is one year old. Thank you, Jesus, and Happy Birthday, James Fulton!
These are but two stories that show miracles do indeed still happen today. Yes, it may appear that miracles are something from apostolic times. We do not see them very often. But, in the days of the Apostles, were they seen any more frequently? Maybe by the Apostles and the followers of Jesus who hovered over Him night and day? Remember, Jesus’ ministry was three years long. Reading the Scriptures we come away feeling that there were miracles every few seconds, but that is merely how it appears for the very limited amount of information we have. So, whether miracles are happening at the same frequency as the Apostolic times or not can be left to debate.
Jesus’ ministry, which is captured in the Gospels we have, is but a fraction of His three years of ministering to the people of God. Further, the Gospels we have, based on their condensed form, make it seem like there were miracles every few seconds, when in reality, they may not have been so frequent at all.
However, let me not discount the fact that Jesus did perform many miracles. This is true. My point is simply that when you think of what we know and how long His ministry on earth was, we can gain a perspective and comparison to the miracles we see and hear about today. Do miracles happen less? Has God shelved miracles to the book-shelf under the Apostolic age?
We must keep in mind there are billions more people on earth than when Jesus walked among us as man. Many miracles go unreported. Many more go reported, but the skeptics keep them from spreading. Some are seemingly simple or small in nature and those who are recipient of them feel no need to communicate them. Others still, like the two I relayed here, come to the for-front for all to hear. I see no problem with this. What did Jesus tell many of those who were the recipient of His blessings and miracles? ‘Go, and tell no one of what I have done for you.’
Maybe, just maybe, this is still the case. Regardless, miracles have not been shelved on the bookcase of the past. We simply must have faith that they do indeed still happen. Whether we see them or even experience any in explicit ways does not make them fiction. We have to trust in God’s providence to work the miracles when and where He deems best, always believing in faith. We are not all like the blind man in the gospel reading, but we are loved children of God … a god who does indeed still work miracles in our modern world.
God Love You +
+ The Most Rev. Robert Winzens
Pastor – St. Francis Universal Catholic Church.
San Diego, Ca.
 

Sunday Sermon

October 28, 2012
The Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity
Do you believe in miracles?
It seems to happen at least once or twice a year. On an otherwise "slow news day" some media person gets wind of yet another "miracle story" and runs a camera crew out to film the big event. In their most cases these momentarily newsworthy miracles usually take the form of a vision of the divine ... of sorts.

Let's face it, though these are pretty puny epiphanies! The face of Christ miraculously appears in the cracked bathroom window of some rundown house. The image of a descending angel miraculously floats above the landscape scenery of some cheap painting. And of course who can forget the miraculous transformation of a home fried tortilla into an icon by the silhouette of Jesus that emerged upon its surface.

Don't all these "miracles" make you mad? It is utterly unfair that God could appear as a pillar of smoke by day and fire by night to the escaping Israelites, that Jesus could walk on the water and bring a dead man back to life in first-century Palestine, while we here at the beginning of the 21st century are supposed to squint our eyes in order to think we can see a miracle on a piece of fried dough!

Do miracles still happen? Or, as some "cessasionists" claim (those who believe miracles only happened at the time of the beginning of the church just shy of 2,000 years ago), did God stop working through miracles after the apostolic era? This has been one of the biggest and longest-running controversies in the church. For at least five hundred years believers have been asking, "Can God do miracles today?" The Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment each added more and more bricks to the walls of reason and logic and quantifiable evidence that the best and brightest were helping to build walls between miracles and our daily lives. But it took the Industrial Era to really start erecting a miracle-proof wall between the ongoing transformative work and presence of God in this world and the "scientific" view of the universe being developed.

As these walls have grown higher and wider, the separation between those who continue to believe in the presence and possibility of miracles and those who utterly deny this kind of experience has become taller and deeper. How ironic, then, that as we move ever deeper into the postmodern era, miracles and discussions of past ones are trying to make a quiet comeback.

Let's take, for example, the great debate over a supposed long ago miracle the virgin birth. Few issues have caused such historic theatrical events. Churches have been split and thousands of books have been written on the possibility or impossibility of a miraculous virgin birth. There have been heresy trials and ruined ministries for the sake of this issue.

The debate often has been ugly and nasty on both sides. Reams of paper and teams of scientists have marched before virgin-birth believers, denouncing the belief in that miracle as anti-science, anti-rational and anti-intellectual. Unfortunately, many of the defenders of the virgin birth miracle considered such designations complimentary. The evangelicals and fundamentalists adhering to the old "not-since-the-apostolic-era" mandate against miracles are just as restrictive and closed-minded as the clinical white-coated skeptics. Why, does it seem that the Catholic Church appears to be the only religion still accepting miracles as real and still taking place in the manner that plays out similar to that in the Scriptures?

So where does this leave us today? Today, we live in a world where science makes it possible for virgin births to happen every day. We call the process "in-vitro fertilization" and the results "test-tube babies." Isn't it rather amusing that those who refused to admit the possibility of God doing a "virgin birth" are in a posture today of watching science do "virgin births" every day? Isn't it rather amusing that those fundamentalists who would refuse to allow God to perform miracles in the dawn of the 21st century, have no problem at all with allowing human scientists to do the same thing? Why is it that science gets all the miracle-making, wonder-working powers, and not God? Why is it we can't say, "God can do anything God wants to do?"

But what constitutes a "miracle" today? Miracles are not divine holograms floating in the sky or bizarre appearances in spaghetti bowls. A miracle is when God makes a way when there seems to be none. God can make a way in our lives when there seems to be no way; we simply need to get back into believing it. Miracles are a sign of God's active partnership with us helping us to deal with the issues, remove the obstacles in our lives and in the life of this world. To put it as Sam Williams, pastor of Van Ness Community Church in Fresno, California, puts it: "God doesn't solve problems for us. God solves problems with us."

In today's gospel reading, the real miracle is the eruption from within the blind Bartimaeus of such a powerful faith that it will neither shut up nor hold still. Recall that in this healing story, Bartimaeus comes to Jesus. Jesus does not approach some sedentary, helpless figure. It is the miracle of faith, a divinely given gift, which makes possible the restoration of Bartimaeus' sight. In the life of the blind roadside beggar, God made a way when there seemed to be no way.

You might be caught up short and stuttering if someone asked you point-blank: "What miracles has God performed in your life?" We haven't been taught to think about events in our lives as "miracles" we have been trained to look for threads of logic and reason and fact to hold the fabric of our lives together. But what if you were asked, "Where has God made a way in your life when there seemed to be no way?"

Some of us experience the miracle of the Eucharist. Some go through the motions and simply give it the reverence due, but nothing further. Why God allows one to experience this miracle fully while hundreds of others to go away simply having faith that what the church teaches on the topic is true without ever really experiencing anything is something we may never know or understand.
A French nun’s healing from Parkinson’s was chosen from among the many reports of grace and alleged miracles that made their way to the Postulator of the Cause for saints. She was there, in the front row at St. Peter’s Square, to give thanks to the new Blessed. The procedure for recognizing the miracle that helped bring Karol Wojtyla onto the altar was not simple, There were concerns raised about the case, but further detailed investigations finally led the medical panel for the Congregation of the Causes of Saints to declare the disease’s remission inexplicable.
Sister Marie Simon Pierre Normand, 52, is part of the congregation of the Little Sisters of Catholic Motherhood, and works with newborns in a French hospital. “I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in June 2001,” she says. “The illness affected the entire left side of my body. After three years, the symptoms worsened - tremors, stiffness, pain, insomnia...”
Sister Marie followed the ceremonies presided over by John Paul II with apprehension - in the image of a sick and motion-impaired Pope, she saw her own future. Just after the death of Pope John Paul II, her symptoms increased. “From April 2005 I started to get worse every week, more run down day by day, no longer able to write or to drive a car... I was struggling to do my job.” In 13 May of that year, Benedict XVI officially announced a special dispensation to begin the beatification process for John Paul II. “Starting the next day, the sisters of all the French and African communities asked for his intercession to cure me. They prayed incessantly, without tiring...” A few weeks later, on the night between the 2nd and 3rd of June, something happened. Sister Marie awoke suddenly, just before dawn, after many hours of rest.
“My body was no longer stiff as it had been, no rigidity, and inside I’m not the same. Then, I felt an inner call and a strong impulse to go to pray before the Holy Sacrament.” From that moment on, the French nun regained her ability to walk quickly - all her symptoms had disappeared. She immediately stopped taking her medicine. A few days later, the doctors confirmed it. “On 7 June, as I have said before, I went to the neurologist who had been treating me for the past four years. He too was surprised to observe the sudden disappearance of all my symptoms, despite having stopped medical treatment five days before my visit.” Since then, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre has been perfectly healthy.
Let’s move on to a mother who tells this story:
One year ago today I delivered my son, a stillborn. For a moment he was placed in my arms quiet, blue, and limp. The midwife and her assistant then took him from me and began CPR. They could not find a pulse. He did not breathe. Because we were at home (it was my third, planned homebirth) 911 was called.
While CPR was continued and we waited for the ambulance my husband took water and baptized him using the name we had agreed upon, James Fulton. I remember sitting on the floor saying, "Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen" over and over again in my head. I suppose it was as close as I could come to a prayer; I suppose it was my way of asking Archbishop Sheen to intercede for my son.
The paramedics came and rushed James away. In route, as they tried to restart his heart, they gave him two doses of epinephrine by lines in the shin bone. Neither worked and one leaked out, turning his whole right leg - from toe tip to buttock - black and blue and purple. In the ER the doctors and nurses worked on him for another 18 minutes or so. A nurse practitioner told me she wanted James' mother to be able to hold him alive for a little bit. Five minutes, an hour - she just wanted my son to be alive long enough for me to say good-bye.
They did a sonogram of his heart. It fluttered but it didn't beat. A nurse held his foot; she later told me it was cold, like the expression "cold and dead". He was intubated and getting oxygen, but there was no way that the chest compressions were adequately circulating the oxygen to the brain and other organs. Following the orders of the on-call neonatologist they stopped working on him so they could call time of death.
My little boy, James Fulton, 9lbs and 12oz, had been without a pulse for 61 minutes. Everyone stopped working. And then his heart started.
James was admitted to the NICU at the Children's Hospital of Illinois and was immediately "cooled" - a newer type of therapy where they lower the body's temperature by a few degrees in an effort to spare the brain and other organs further and ongoing damage.
For three days he was sedated and shivering, covered in tubes and wires. They thought that he would not live to be a week old. They thought he would have to lose his right leg because of the chemical burn. They thought that if he did live he would be a "vegetable".
They tried to give us hope, but they thought that he would probably spend the rest of his life strapped in a wheelchair, blind, severely mentally disabled, on a ventilator, fed through a feeding tube, in diapers, unable to communicate love.
EEG's showed very abnormal brain activity. An MRI showed that the brain had been injured from the severe lack of oxygen.
At times I wondered if we should have just stayed home and never called 911. I worried that I had become Dr. Frankenstein and had, through other people, manipulated James into life. I worried that he would be treated like a monster.

In the situation we were in I could either worry or I could hope. I could fear or I could trust. We had prayerfully decided to have a homebirth and so I knew that we were following God's plan for our lives. I didn't know where we would end up, but I knew that I could not live in the dark - I had to hope and trust - I had to live in the Light.
So we prayed, and we asked people to pray with us. Two days after his birth 100 people, many I barely knew, came to the Peoria Diocese's cathedral. In the church where Fulton Sheen served Mass and was later ordained, we had a holy hour and Mass.
Friends told James' story on Facebook, in emails, on blogs, and to their prayer groups, prayer chains, Bible studies, family members, and friends. People in Alaska, New York, Mexico, Peru, Germany, Ireland, and Canada prayed for my son, asking for Sheen's intercession. Atheists asked their believing friends to pray for him. Classrooms of children in Catholic schools throughout Illinois recited the Sheen prayer every day. Little children adopted him as their main prayer intention. My dad began attending Mass again on a regular basis.
And God answered the prayers. Jesus Christ healed my son. The Holy Spirit filled the hearts of His faithful. And Sheen continued to evangelize through his namesake and my son. By the time he was a few days old his kidneys, liver, and colon were all working. His leg was healing.
By a week he was breathing without any assistance. His blood pressure was good. He began eating by bottle. He was taken off pain meds and started to interact with me, his visitors, nurses, and doctors. At seven weeks he came home from the hospital.
A follow-up MRI showed no more brain damage. The precautionary g-tube was removed when he was six months old. Now he rolls over, crawls, cruises, and will walk soon. He eats Cheerios, picking them up with his thumb and pointer finger. He squeals with laughter, plays with blocks, steals toys from his older siblings, and has scored in the normal / age appropriate range by his developmental and physical therapist.
My family and I believe that God brought James back from the dead and healed his body. We believe that He did this through the intercession of Archbishop Sheen. We believe that God did this for the same reason that he allowed Lazarus to die: "This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it."
Today my son is one year old. Thank you, Jesus, and Happy Birthday, James Fulton!
These are but two stories that show miracles do indeed still happen today. Yes, it may appear that miracles are something from apostolic times. We do not see them very often. But, in the days of the Apostles, were they seen any more frequently? Maybe by the Apostles and the followers of Jesus who hovered over Him night and day? Remember, Jesus’ ministry was three years long. Reading the Scriptures we come away feeling that there were miracles every few seconds, but that is merely how it appears for the very limited amount of information we have. So, whether miracles are happening at the same frequency as the Apostolic times or not can be left to debate.
Jesus’ ministry, which is captured in the Gospels we have, is but a fraction of His three years of ministering to the people of God. Further, the Gospels we have, based on their condensed form, make it seem like there were miracles every few seconds, when in reality, they may not have been so frequent at all.
However, let me not discount the fact that Jesus did perform many miracles. This is true. My point is simply that when you think of what we know and how long His ministry on earth was, we can gain a perspective and comparison to the miracles we see and hear about today. Do miracles happen less? Has God shelved miracles to the book-shelf under the Apostolic age?
We must keep in mind there are billions more people on earth than when Jesus walked among us as man. Many miracles go unreported. Many more go reported, but the skeptics keep them from spreading. Some are seemingly simple or small in nature and those who are recipient of them feel no need to communicate them. Others still, like the two I relayed here, come to the for-front for all to hear. I see no problem with this. What did Jesus tell many of those who were the recipient of His blessings and miracles? ‘Go, and tell no one of what I have done for you.’
Maybe, just maybe, this is still the case. Regardless, miracles have not been shelved on the bookcase of the past. We simply must have faith that they do indeed still happen. Whether we see them or even experience any in explicit ways does not make them fiction. We have to trust in God’s providence to work the miracles when and where He deems best, always believing in faith. We are not all like the blind man in the gospel reading, but we are loved children of God … a god who does indeed still work miracles in our modern world.
God Love You +
+ The Most Rev. Robert Winzens
Pastor – St. Francis Universal Catholic Church.
San Diego, Ca.
 

Sunday Sermon

October 28, 2012
The Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity
Do you believe in miracles?
It seems to happen at least once or twice a year. On an otherwise "slow news day" some media person gets wind of yet another "miracle story" and runs a camera crew out to film the big event. In their most cases these momentarily newsworthy miracles usually take the form of a vision of the divine ... of sorts.

Let's face it, though these are pretty puny epiphanies! The face of Christ miraculously appears in the cracked bathroom window of some rundown house. The image of a descending angel miraculously floats above the landscape scenery of some cheap painting. And of course who can forget the miraculous transformation of a home fried tortilla into an icon by the silhouette of Jesus that emerged upon its surface.

Don't all these "miracles" make you mad? It is utterly unfair that God could appear as a pillar of smoke by day and fire by night to the escaping Israelites, that Jesus could walk on the water and bring a dead man back to life in first-century Palestine, while we here at the beginning of the 21st century are supposed to squint our eyes in order to think we can see a miracle on a piece of fried dough!

Do miracles still happen? Or, as some "cessasionists" claim (those who believe miracles only happened at the time of the beginning of the church just shy of 2,000 years ago), did God stop working through miracles after the apostolic era? This has been one of the biggest and longest-running controversies in the church. For at least five hundred years believers have been asking, "Can God do miracles today?" The Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment each added more and more bricks to the walls of reason and logic and quantifiable evidence that the best and brightest were helping to build walls between miracles and our daily lives. But it took the Industrial Era to really start erecting a miracle-proof wall between the ongoing transformative work and presence of God in this world and the "scientific" view of the universe being developed.

As these walls have grown higher and wider, the separation between those who continue to believe in the presence and possibility of miracles and those who utterly deny this kind of experience has become taller and deeper. How ironic, then, that as we move ever deeper into the postmodern era, miracles and discussions of past ones are trying to make a quiet comeback.

Let's take, for example, the great debate over a supposed long ago miracle the virgin birth. Few issues have caused such historic theatrical events. Churches have been split and thousands of books have been written on the possibility or impossibility of a miraculous virgin birth. There have been heresy trials and ruined ministries for the sake of this issue.

The debate often has been ugly and nasty on both sides. Reams of paper and teams of scientists have marched before virgin-birth believers, denouncing the belief in that miracle as anti-science, anti-rational and anti-intellectual. Unfortunately, many of the defenders of the virgin birth miracle considered such designations complimentary. The evangelicals and fundamentalists adhering to the old "not-since-the-apostolic-era" mandate against miracles are just as restrictive and closed-minded as the clinical white-coated skeptics. Why, does it seem that the Catholic Church appears to be the only religion still accepting miracles as real and still taking place in the manner that plays out similar to that in the Scriptures?

So where does this leave us today? Today, we live in a world where science makes it possible for virgin births to happen every day. We call the process "in-vitro fertilization" and the results "test-tube babies." Isn't it rather amusing that those who refused to admit the possibility of God doing a "virgin birth" are in a posture today of watching science do "virgin births" every day? Isn't it rather amusing that those fundamentalists who would refuse to allow God to perform miracles in the dawn of the 21st century, have no problem at all with allowing human scientists to do the same thing? Why is it that science gets all the miracle-making, wonder-working powers, and not God? Why is it we can't say, "God can do anything God wants to do?"

But what constitutes a "miracle" today? Miracles are not divine holograms floating in the sky or bizarre appearances in spaghetti bowls. A miracle is when God makes a way when there seems to be none. God can make a way in our lives when there seems to be no way; we simply need to get back into believing it. Miracles are a sign of God's active partnership with us helping us to deal with the issues, remove the obstacles in our lives and in the life of this world. To put it as Sam Williams, pastor of Van Ness Community Church in Fresno, California, puts it: "God doesn't solve problems for us. God solves problems with us."

In today's gospel reading, the real miracle is the eruption from within the blind Bartimaeus of such a powerful faith that it will neither shut up nor hold still. Recall that in this healing story, Bartimaeus comes to Jesus. Jesus does not approach some sedentary, helpless figure. It is the miracle of faith, a divinely given gift, which makes possible the restoration of Bartimaeus' sight. In the life of the blind roadside beggar, God made a way when there seemed to be no way.

You might be caught up short and stuttering if someone asked you point-blank: "What miracles has God performed in your life?" We haven't been taught to think about events in our lives as "miracles" we have been trained to look for threads of logic and reason and fact to hold the fabric of our lives together. But what if you were asked, "Where has God made a way in your life when there seemed to be no way?"

Some of us experience the miracle of the Eucharist. Some go through the motions and simply give it the reverence due, but nothing further. Why God allows one to experience this miracle fully while hundreds of others to go away simply having faith that what the church teaches on the topic is true without ever really experiencing anything is something we may never know or understand.
A French nun’s healing from Parkinson’s was chosen from among the many reports of grace and alleged miracles that made their way to the Postulator of the Cause for saints. She was there, in the front row at St. Peter’s Square, to give thanks to the new Blessed. The procedure for recognizing the miracle that helped bring Karol Wojtyla onto the altar was not simple, There were concerns raised about the case, but further detailed investigations finally led the medical panel for the Congregation of the Causes of Saints to declare the disease’s remission inexplicable.
Sister Marie Simon Pierre Normand, 52, is part of the congregation of the Little Sisters of Catholic Motherhood, and works with newborns in a French hospital. “I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in June 2001,” she says. “The illness affected the entire left side of my body. After three years, the symptoms worsened - tremors, stiffness, pain, insomnia...”
Sister Marie followed the ceremonies presided over by John Paul II with apprehension - in the image of a sick and motion-impaired Pope, she saw her own future. Just after the death of Pope John Paul II, her symptoms increased. “From April 2005 I started to get worse every week, more run down day by day, no longer able to write or to drive a car... I was struggling to do my job.” In 13 May of that year, Benedict XVI officially announced a special dispensation to begin the beatification process for John Paul II. “Starting the next day, the sisters of all the French and African communities asked for his intercession to cure me. They prayed incessantly, without tiring...” A few weeks later, on the night between the 2nd and 3rd of June, something happened. Sister Marie awoke suddenly, just before dawn, after many hours of rest.
“My body was no longer stiff as it had been, no rigidity, and inside I’m not the same. Then, I felt an inner call and a strong impulse to go to pray before the Holy Sacrament.” From that moment on, the French nun regained her ability to walk quickly - all her symptoms had disappeared. She immediately stopped taking her medicine. A few days later, the doctors confirmed it. “On 7 June, as I have said before, I went to the neurologist who had been treating me for the past four years. He too was surprised to observe the sudden disappearance of all my symptoms, despite having stopped medical treatment five days before my visit.” Since then, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre has been perfectly healthy.
Let’s move on to a mother who tells this story:
One year ago today I delivered my son, a stillborn. For a moment he was placed in my arms quiet, blue, and limp. The midwife and her assistant then took him from me and began CPR. They could not find a pulse. He did not breathe. Because we were at home (it was my third, planned homebirth) 911 was called.
While CPR was continued and we waited for the ambulance my husband took water and baptized him using the name we had agreed upon, James Fulton. I remember sitting on the floor saying, "Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen" over and over again in my head. I suppose it was as close as I could come to a prayer; I suppose it was my way of asking Archbishop Sheen to intercede for my son.
The paramedics came and rushed James away. In route, as they tried to restart his heart, they gave him two doses of epinephrine by lines in the shin bone. Neither worked and one leaked out, turning his whole right leg - from toe tip to buttock - black and blue and purple. In the ER the doctors and nurses worked on him for another 18 minutes or so. A nurse practitioner told me she wanted James' mother to be able to hold him alive for a little bit. Five minutes, an hour - she just wanted my son to be alive long enough for me to say good-bye.
They did a sonogram of his heart. It fluttered but it didn't beat. A nurse held his foot; she later told me it was cold, like the expression "cold and dead". He was intubated and getting oxygen, but there was no way that the chest compressions were adequately circulating the oxygen to the brain and other organs. Following the orders of the on-call neonatologist they stopped working on him so they could call time of death.
My little boy, James Fulton, 9lbs and 12oz, had been without a pulse for 61 minutes. Everyone stopped working. And then his heart started.
James was admitted to the NICU at the Children's Hospital of Illinois and was immediately "cooled" - a newer type of therapy where they lower the body's temperature by a few degrees in an effort to spare the brain and other organs further and ongoing damage.
For three days he was sedated and shivering, covered in tubes and wires. They thought that he would not live to be a week old. They thought he would have to lose his right leg because of the chemical burn. They thought that if he did live he would be a "vegetable".
They tried to give us hope, but they thought that he would probably spend the rest of his life strapped in a wheelchair, blind, severely mentally disabled, on a ventilator, fed through a feeding tube, in diapers, unable to communicate love.
EEG's showed very abnormal brain activity. An MRI showed that the brain had been injured from the severe lack of oxygen.
At times I wondered if we should have just stayed home and never called 911. I worried that I had become Dr. Frankenstein and had, through other people, manipulated James into life. I worried that he would be treated like a monster.

In the situation we were in I could either worry or I could hope. I could fear or I could trust. We had prayerfully decided to have a homebirth and so I knew that we were following God's plan for our lives. I didn't know where we would end up, but I knew that I could not live in the dark - I had to hope and trust - I had to live in the Light.
So we prayed, and we asked people to pray with us. Two days after his birth 100 people, many I barely knew, came to the Peoria Diocese's cathedral. In the church where Fulton Sheen served Mass and was later ordained, we had a holy hour and Mass.
Friends told James' story on Facebook, in emails, on blogs, and to their prayer groups, prayer chains, Bible studies, family members, and friends. People in Alaska, New York, Mexico, Peru, Germany, Ireland, and Canada prayed for my son, asking for Sheen's intercession. Atheists asked their believing friends to pray for him. Classrooms of children in Catholic schools throughout Illinois recited the Sheen prayer every day. Little children adopted him as their main prayer intention. My dad began attending Mass again on a regular basis.
And God answered the prayers. Jesus Christ healed my son. The Holy Spirit filled the hearts of His faithful. And Sheen continued to evangelize through his namesake and my son. By the time he was a few days old his kidneys, liver, and colon were all working. His leg was healing.
By a week he was breathing without any assistance. His blood pressure was good. He began eating by bottle. He was taken off pain meds and started to interact with me, his visitors, nurses, and doctors. At seven weeks he came home from the hospital.
A follow-up MRI showed no more brain damage. The precautionary g-tube was removed when he was six months old. Now he rolls over, crawls, cruises, and will walk soon. He eats Cheerios, picking them up with his thumb and pointer finger. He squeals with laughter, plays with blocks, steals toys from his older siblings, and has scored in the normal / age appropriate range by his developmental and physical therapist.
My family and I believe that God brought James back from the dead and healed his body. We believe that He did this through the intercession of Archbishop Sheen. We believe that God did this for the same reason that he allowed Lazarus to die: "This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it."
Today my son is one year old. Thank you, Jesus, and Happy Birthday, James Fulton!
These are but two stories that show miracles do indeed still happen today. Yes, it may appear that miracles are something from apostolic times. We do not see them very often. But, in the days of the Apostles, were they seen any more frequently? Maybe by the Apostles and the followers of Jesus who hovered over Him night and day? Remember, Jesus’ ministry was three years long. Reading the Scriptures we come away feeling that there were miracles every few seconds, but that is merely how it appears for the very limited amount of information we have. So, whether miracles are happening at the same frequency as the Apostolic times or not can be left to debate.
Jesus’ ministry, which is captured in the Gospels we have, is but a fraction of His three years of ministering to the people of God. Further, the Gospels we have, based on their condensed form, make it seem like there were miracles every few seconds, when in reality, they may not have been so frequent at all.
However, let me not discount the fact that Jesus did perform many miracles. This is true. My point is simply that when you think of what we know and how long His ministry on earth was, we can gain a perspective and comparison to the miracles we see and hear about today. Do miracles happen less? Has God shelved miracles to the book-shelf under the Apostolic age?
We must keep in mind there are billions more people on earth than when Jesus walked among us as man. Many miracles go unreported. Many more go reported, but the skeptics keep them from spreading. Some are seemingly simple or small in nature and those who are recipient of them feel no need to communicate them. Others still, like the two I relayed here, come to the for-front for all to hear. I see no problem with this. What did Jesus tell many of those who were the recipient of His blessings and miracles? ‘Go, and tell no one of what I have done for you.’
Maybe, just maybe, this is still the case. Regardless, miracles have not been shelved on the bookcase of the past. We simply must have faith that they do indeed still happen. Whether we see them or even experience any in explicit ways does not make them fiction. We have to trust in God’s providence to work the miracles when and where He deems best, always believing in faith. We are not all like the blind man in the gospel reading, but we are loved children of God … a god who does indeed still work miracles in our modern world.
God Love You +
+ The Most Rev. Robert Winzens
Pastor – St. Francis Universal Catholic Church.
San Diego, Ca.