RBWords - Volume 24 - Number 3: March 2011
Something to Think About
As I write this reflection, I am at a parish in Southern Arizona to preach a parish mission. Between February 6th and Easter, my schedule shows nine parish missions in five different states! Although the mission services are roughly the same (cf. http://video.rbwords.com/for a sample), each parish has different characteristics and requires a bit of adaptation to schedules and musical resources as well as layout of the space in which the services will be held. At some parishes, I celebrate not only the evening mission services, but also the daily Mass at which I will preach a kind of “mini-mission” for those who cannot come in the evenings. Some pastors ask that I not include a Penance Service because another one is scheduled at a different point in Lent. Some pastors ask that I do the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick (usually featured on the final night) at a different time in the day because it is easier for the elderly to attend. Each of these requests requires redesigning the usual service to meet the request or designing a completely new service that will fit the theme (which I usually take from the scriptures of the Sunday on the weekend I begin). (One can add to all of this the usual “asceticism of the road” which means different accommodations, diet, climate, etc. etc.) All in all, it is a ministry of considerable diversity into which I bring a basic approach that focuses on Baptism and its implications for our daily lives as Christians.
The preaching challenge is one that I love. I do not have any of my homilies written out even though I have a “core” of ideas for each of the three mission services: Baptism, Reconciliation, Healing and Ministry. New images and examples consistently present themselves and each location has its own contribution to make by way of local color! I do use the same scriptures, but occasionally will change one or another to meet a specific local challenge. Each service has a liturgical component (procession to Baptismal water, special Examination of Conscience, Anointing of the Sick) which gives expression to the preaching. I find that even if I am using the same scriptures to preach from, I learn new things about them each time and I do not hesitate to quote from others that occur to me as I preach. I try whenever possible to use common Catholic experiences (such as making the Sign of the Cross with holy water at the door of the church) to call attention to things we take for granted! The whole “mission experience” as I present it has evolved over the past 15 or more years and continues to evolve as I continue to preach parish missions. The same could be said of the retreats that I preach for priests, religious and laity. (cf. also the website noted above for a sample)
This is what I do throughout the year and is what I ask you again and again to pray about. I regard my readers as my “partners in preaching,” and I am ever grateful for your company. IT’S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
It Has Been Said
The enfleshing of the Word which spoke the galaxies made the death of that Word inevitable. All flesh is mortal, and the flesh assumed by the Word was no exception in mortal terms. So the birth of the Creator in human flesh and human time was an event as shattering and terrible as the eschaton. If I accept this birth I must accept God’s love, and this is pain as well as joy because God’s love, as I am coming to understand it, is not like man’s love. What one of us can understand a love so great that we would willingly limit our unlimitedness, put the flesh of mortality over our immortality, accept all the pain and grief of humanity, submit to betrayal by that humanity, be killed by it, and die a total failure (in human terms) on a common cross between two thieves?
From THE IRRATIONAL SEASON by Madeleine L’Engle
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