16th Sunday Ordinary Time – 9 AM (Fr. Gribowich homily)
Podcast Transcript:
Good morning, everyone. It’s great to be back here with you in New York. I think the last time I was here it was like freezing, and now it’s just like sweltering. So I always come back to the East Coast when were in these weather extremes, which is the complete antithesis of what I’m used to now in the Bay Area and Berkeley, by San Francisco, because it’s like everyday it’s 70 and breezy. It’s like, it’s amazing how easy forget about weather extremes when you’re living out there, so I’m guess I’m happy that I was reminded that there are other parts of the country that really struggle with weather. So I’m in it here with you as well, so thanks for being here this morning as we’re all trying to get through this hot weather.
Today’s Gospel, I can’t help to think, is just one of those stories with Jesus that just seems all too human, all too real. How many of us have just dealt with just the frustration of someone close to us, perhaps a family member or friend, who doesn’t seem to be pulling their weight. When we’re overextending ourselves and trying to do something, and of course this is the case of, you know, Jesus, as the guests at this house of these two sisters Martha and Mary, and he see that Martha is doing everything to make sure that the house looks right. Everything’s put together, and of course what’s Mary doing? While she’s just kind of was listening and hanging on to everything that Jesus is saying. It’s almost as if, like, you know, Mary’s that’s like Jesus’s biggest fan, and just can’t wait to just get everything out of him.
Well, Martha’s the one in the in the back, you know, kind of running the concession stand, making sure that, you know, everything’s working, and of course there’s this resentment. Martha’s because she is doing all this work and Mary seems to be getting a free ride. Not only is Martha serving Jesus and making the house good for Jesus, it seems as if Martha is also making sure that Mary is okay, as well. You know, twice the amount of work almost, right?
And when we look at the story, of course, as it is with everything in the Gospel, there’s probably a deeper spiritual implication going on, and many of us will take away from this story – well there seems to be two different ways to live the Christian Life. There is the life we would say of the full-time contemplative, the full time prayer, and then there’s the life of the full-time active minister – social worker, if you will. The person who’s always trying to make things and make an impact in society, and of course in our Catholic Christian tradition, we could probably look upon many examples of different Saints, many different notable people who we can think of, many Saints who were monks and nuns. People who are true contemplative people who left the world as a way to reform greater intimacy with God, and in that presence of being with God they were able to engage the world in a different way, as a way to look at the world as something that is passing, and it’s a way for us to prepare our souls for eternity.
The tons of even recent examples of people who were contemplative in modern times – the 20th Century – to think of someone like Thomas Merton, for example, who was, who lived a very active life here in New York City going to Columbia University, and then becoming a Catholic and leaving the world and going to a monastery in Kentucky, where he was able to develop his life to prayer and spiritual writing, and which many of us have maybe been influenced by. And of course then we have the great other extreme: people who work very hard in the world trying to make an imprint on bringing relief to the poor to the sufferings of those are marginalized. And of course in the Twentieth Century, again we can think of someone like a Mother Teresa, who is clearly right in the thick of things in Calcutta, working with people who are suffering from leprosy and other harmful elements in the midst of extreme poverty. And so looking at those two types of streams of how to live the Christian Life, we kind of look at this Gospel as a place where it’s find the origin, Mary being the great contemplative at the feet of Jesus, Martha being the great active social worker in the world making a difference.
Yet today, Jesus seems to give Martha a hard time, almost saying that all this activity is not really what’s important. Yet, when you look at it in a far deeper way, is perhaps not Jesus’s criticism of the activity – it’s more of Jesus being mindful that the thing that Martha was struggling with is something that I think we can all identify with and that is anxiety. Jesus says that Martha you are anxious about many things. Anxiety, I think all of us understand what it means to be anxious, to be worried. And what is anxiety? Anxiety is simply us not living in the present moment. What I mean by that, because if you really think about it, our anxiety is always worrying about things that might happen, that could happen, that maybe even will happen. But yet, they’re not actually happening right now.
All of us right now this very moment may feel anxiety because you may think about what you have to do after you leave church. You may have to think about ways to deal with the rest of this week. You may think about something that’s happening right now and your family life and your personal life, but if you’re really honest with yourself, if we are all honest with ourselves at this very moment, as we sit in these pews, we really don’t have to worry about anything. We can just be. But yet, our anxiety takes us to someplace else and Jesus is very, very delicately and very gently – I would say – gently reminding Martha that anxiety takes us outside of the presence of God, because the presence of God is always in the present.
The presence of God is a journey. Now there’s not a presence of God that’s found in the past, or presence of God that’s found in the future, because God doesn’t operate in time the way that we understand. If God exists outside of time, he’s beyond time. We’re the ones who think in a very linear progression. God is simply the Eternal Now – “I Am Who Am”. As he reveals His name to Moses and how do we practically deal with that, what we deal with it as we’ve tried our best to become more contemplative.
Now that doesn’t mean that we’re all going to run off and become monks and nuns call to be contemplative. The Christian should always be one who is constantly contemplating the presence of Jesus Christ in the now, in the present, because only by contemplating where Jesus is in the present moment. Will anyone be able to know what he or she should do with his or her life if you’re thinking about the future and always worrying about what’s going to happen next? And how we’re going to deal with things, or if you’re even dealing with the regrets of the past? Those things do not help us learn how God wants us to live our lives today.
Now let me give up a short little example of this happened to me this week as I was coming back from California. For those you may not know, I’m out in California studying at Berkeley, and I came back on a flight that was supposed to arrive at 9:30 at JFK on Wednesday evening, but there were thunderstorms here in New York and the plane was delayed, so I didn’t get to make it back here until midnight at JFK. So of course I have to try to get back from there over to here to Brooklyn, and I want to take the subway, so had to get to the Howard Beach station to take the train back into Brooklyn. But since it was so late, I arrive at the platform at Howard Beach and there was track work being done and now it was going to rain, just so you had to be like, you know, get onto the the train, go to two stops, get off the train, get onto a bus, go to – that would take you to Euclid Avenue, and then from there you go up on another train and shoot into Brooklyn. So of course, my 5-hour flight from San Francisco to New York was now going to be equally matched by probably a 5 hour commute from JFK to Brooklyn.
And here it is almost midnight and there was a man on the platform with me. He’s, okay, “where’re you going?” – so I go and say, you know, Brooklyn running out to Jay Street. “That’s where I got to go too – let’s split an Uber!” Like I just checked it out, like 50-some dollars or something like that. Now of course I was tempted, I guess, for a moment to think that, all right, well I guess it would make more sense to me and I am kind of tired and I should probably get to sleep, have a long day next day on Thursday.
But for some strange reason, I just felt that, you know, I kind of made a commitment that I was going to take the train back, and yeah, I could afford to take the Uber, so it’s not like I’m some type that’s financially-strapped, but there was a great desire on my part to stay, and it’s because I want to be present to this moment, because there are a lot of other people who do not have the luxury of just hopping on an Uber right now. There’s lots of people right now on this platform who worked a very long day, most likely at the airport, and have to go through this whole process of hopping on the train, and dealing with this bus shuttle, and going on the other train, again to bed probably way too late and having to wake up way too early. And while it’s very tempting to think that I can just kind of be removed from that, for some reason I just really felt the presence of the Spirit saying to stay. And so I did, stop after all – the different exchanges and things like that.
I probably ended up in a bed around 3 in the morning, but it’s amazing what you are able to behold on the New York public transportation system at that early hours, right, because you see a lot of stuff, right? You see people who really are just spent from the day of working a very long shift, and you hear the conversations, and you’re hearing their anxieties, and they’re worried. And of course you see people who are dealing with their own issues of mental illness, drug addiction. You see the homeless. You see the young teenage couples making out. You see everything.
But you know what you really see in the midst of all that? You see Jesus Christ. You see Jesus Christ in each and every one of those people on that train and on that bus, because Jesus comes to us in the present moment, through each and every person and most especially through their wounds, through their suffering, through their trials, through their anxieties. We often have to remember that we worship a Jesus who’s hanging on a cross. That’s the Jesus we worship, that’s the Jesus we behold. We don’t behold Superman Jesus. We don’t behold Jesus is just somehow above all the worries and stresses of the world. We behold a very broken Jesus on the cross. That’s how we’re able to encounter the same broken Jesus in each and everyone around us and it’s what gives us hope that in our own brokenness, in our own pain, and yes, even in our own anxieties, there is tremendous hope – tremendous because as much as we gaze upon the crucified Christ, we know the story does not end there.
We know that the death of our Lord is so intrinsically connected to his resurrection, that they are almost one in the same. They are contingent on each other – our longings and our sufferings only increase our desire more for wholeness. Yet if we are always thinking about how we wish things were somehow different or if we’re always thinking about how we personally have to manage things or handle things, we can neglect to see exactly what Jesus is offering us in the present moment, in our own situations. And through the people around us what we need to respond to as a way to not only get through what’s happening but also find joy and what’s happening in our lives yeah it’s impossible to do this just simply by having a change of attitude.
Martha could very well continue to be working in the kitchen getting things ready, but rather than trying to tell Jesus – telling God – what to do, to allow her work to reveal in of itself a certain type of wholeness, a certain type of contemplative presence. Because the reality is that Martha wasn’t happy doing what she had to do. She wasn’t happy that she had to go through all this process of work. She didn’t see the joy in the suffering of work, just like it’s probably not fun to have to actually just hang out on the platform of the train and hop on the bus and do all these other things – exchanges – to get back home one night. That’s not a fun thing to do and I could very be tempted to say no when I get out of this Uber, Lyft. But yet when we’re able to enter into contemplation, we can see that even the roughest, toughest commute can be a moment of joy, because we are united more closely with Christ, with Jesus, in his wounds.
We do that today when we come to this Mass. Once again we approach the altar, and we are united with Christ in Holy Communion. We receive His Body – the same body that’s bruised and broken on the cross. We receive that Body and we are one with Jesus’s brokenness. Just as the priest breaks the host, we are then clearly entering into the broken body of Christ. Yeah, we also receive at the same time the resurrected Christ – Christ of completeness, of wholeness, of healing, as we receive Jesus today in this very hidden presence of what looks to be bread and wine. Maybe then leave this church and once again behold and reveal the Hidden Presence in the broken bodies of people that we see all through our city, and maybe especially on our trains and buses in our city.
I know that we are in solidarity with each other in our own brokenness, and only by being in that place we’re able to heal each other, because the same Jesus who unites us in brokenness is the same Jesus that is helping us all to heal, as we contemplate today what we’re being called to do next.
God bless you all.
Catholic Charities La Frontera Migrant Shelter
Catholic Charities La Frontera Shelter at Laredo, TX receives from the Border Patrol over 200 families admitted for asylum each day. The center feeds, clothes, and reunites the asylees with family in the US until their case is adjudicated. Msgr. LoPinto and Catholic Charities Brooklyn & Queens are making an urgent appeal for donations to assist this humanitarian work. Donations can be made online through St. Charles at https://stcharlesbklyn.
The following article from America magazine has more information about the shelter and their needs: https://www.
16th Sunday Ordinary Time – Greater Than Can Be Imagined
Feast of St Mary Madelaine
“The Apostles to the Apostles”
Monday, July 22
There is a tendency among Catholics to call any celebration of a Saint a feast. This is not quite correct. There are 4 levels of commemoration. The first is an “optional” memorial. This means that the Saint is acknowledged as worthy of recognition by the entire church but leaves it up to the individual community to publicly celebrate it at Mass or not. Most American Parishes commemorate American Saints like John Neumann or Elizabeth Ann Seton even though it is not required. The next level is “Obligatory” memorial. These are Saints that are considered so important for the entire church that they must be remembered. This Friday we will celebrate the Obligatory memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, the Parents of Mary. The next level is “Feast” strictly speaking. These are Saints whose lives were so important that we are called to pay special attention. Feasts have special prayers and readings and we sing or say the Gloria. This week we celebrate the Feast of the Apostle James on Friday. The highest level is a Solemnity. These are usually reserved for Jesus and Mary but Sts. Peter and Paul and John the Baptist are so honored. These celebrations are given the same honor and form as a Sunday Mass.
Pope Francis has elevated the celebration for St. Mary Magdalene to a Feast. Indeed, she is to be treated as an Apostle. One of the signs of a feast of an Apostle is the use of a special Preface (prayer before the consecration). As this prayer refers only to men, Pope Francis commissioned a special preface for this feast. The English translation is not yet ready, but please find below an unofficial version. It is well worth reading – note the official name.
Preface of the Apostle of the Apostles
It is truly right and just,
our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks.
Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God,
whose mercy is no less than His power,
to preach the Gospel to everyone, through Christ, our Lord.
In the garden He appeared to Mary Magdalene,
who loved him in life, who witnessed his death on the cross
who sought him as he lay in the tomb
who was the first to adore him when he rose from the dead,
and whose apostolic duty was honored by the apostles
that the good news of life might reach the ends of the earth.
And so Lord, with all the Angels and Saints,
we, too, give you thanks, as in exultation we acclaim:
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might …
To know why I chose the picture above, you will have to attend the 12:10 Mass on Monday.
Adult Sacraments:
Baptism, Communion and Confirmation: Non-Catholics who wish to become Catholic or Catholics who wish to receive Communion, Eucharist or Confirmation are asked to call or email Fr. Smith. The classes will begin in the Fall.
Marriage: St. Charles Parish congratulates those who will become engaged this summer and we wish to accompany you on your way to the altar and beyond. Please contact Fr. Smith at your earliest convenience. This includes those who will be married in another Parish and especially those who will be married in another country.
A special invitation is extended to any adult in the Parish to participate, even if you . This is a wonderful opportunity to not only update your knowledge of the Church’s teaching but also to experience true spiritual formation.
Please contact Fr. Smith at the Rectory (718-625-1177 ext 409)
First Reading
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Gen 18:1-10A
July 21, 2019
Today’s passage from Genesis is perfect reading for a heat wave. It occurs during the middle of the day when it is so hot that even a seasoned desert dweller like Abraham can do nothing but sit at the entrance – covered part – of his tent and wait for the relative cool of the evening to finally come. He is more than surprised to see 3 men appear near him at this bestial time of day. This is the desert and people could be seen far off in the distance, yet they seem to simply appear before him in an instance. We have been told in the sentence before that this was to be a theophany, an appearance of God, and Abraham senses that this is not an ordinary meeting, although he does not know what, with whom, or how.
As a host in his time and place, he would be expected to care for his guests. Yet his actions are extreme.
When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them; and bowing to the ground, (Gen 18:2).
This demonstrates his recognition of their superiority.
He offers them “a little food”: but then
Abraham hastened into the tent and told Sarah, “Quick, three seahs of fine flour! Knead it and make rolls.”
7 He ran to the herd, picked out a tender, choice steer, and gave it to a servant, who quickly prepared it. Gen 18:6–7).
This is clearly a feast. He recognizes them as so superior to him that he waits on them as their servant and does not take his place at table.
Then he got some curds and milk, as well as the steer that had been prepared, and set these before them; and he waited on them under the tree while they ate. (Ge 18:8).
We need to note the obvious confusion here. We, the readers, have been told that the Lord is appearing to Abraham, but three people stand before him. There is no consensus as to what this means or how it developed. For some commentators, it reflects the very earliest days of the Hebrews when they still believed in a multitude of gods, the Lord was their God and superior to all. To others, it is a sign that The Lord has brought members of his court with him. It is perhaps best to remember that this was finally edited millennia after the event and the final authors would have seen it as a sign of the uncanny. We should be a bit dazed and confused when the Lord is present.
As confusing would have been the next incident. They ask Abraham, “Where is your wife Sarah?” First, respectable wives were not seen at these times, but like Sarah, was off in a corner. This was a great breach of protocol. Second, how did they know her name? They were strangers.
Perhaps somewhat dumbfounded, he responds that she is in the tent. Then:
One of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son
With this, Abraham now knows that it is the Lord who is speaking to him. In the previous chapter, the Lord had appealed to Abraham and said:
1 But my covenant I will maintain with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you by this time next year.” (Gen 17:21)
This occurred only several weeks before, when the Lord made a covenant with Abram.
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said: “I am God the Almighty. Walk in my presence and be blameless.
2 Between you and me I will establish my covenant, and I will multiply you exceedingly. Gen 171-2
Abram would walk in the Lord’s presence and he would be rewarded by being the Father of a great nation. He thus changes his name from Abram – “the Father is exalted” – to Abraham – “Father of a great nation”.
The physical sign of this covenant was circumcision. These, as we have seen, are a very physical people, and a physical sign was required.
Today’s scene is a reminder that given the ages of Abraham and Sarah this promise was difficult to accept. As we see in the next section not included in our reading today:
Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent, just behind him.
11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years, and Sarah had stopped having her womanly periods.
12 So Sarah laughed to herself and said, “Now that I am so withered and my husband is so old, am I still to have sexual pleasure? (Gen 18:10b-12)
As I said, these are very physical people.
The Lord hears this and said to Abraham,
Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I really bear a child, old as I am?’14 Is anything too marvelous for the LORD to do? At the appointed time, about this time next year, I will return to you, and Sarah will have a son (Gen 18:13)
This is not the end of this section, however. The Lord and his messengers are on their way to Sodom.
Then the LORD said: “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave,
21 that I must go down and see whether or not their actions fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me. I mean to find out.” (Gen 18:21-22)
Abraham understood that the Lord means to destroy it, and takes this opportunity to bargain with the Lord to save them. He eventually received His promise that He would save the city if there were 10 righteous people. We need to remember why this was important to Abraham and why the eventual destruction is important to this narrative.
When we read about Abram several weeks ago in Gen 14:18-20, he was revealed as a fearsome warrior who fought a cabal of chieftains to rescue his nephew Lot and his family. Lot had traveled with Abram until the lands were no longer able to support both. He offered Lot first choice and he wisely chose the lands nearest to Sodom. Since then, Lot has become resident of Sodom, and when no just people can be found in the town, Abraham is permitted to tell Lot and his family to run away. Lot first cannot persuade his sons-in-law to leave and eventually leaves with his wife and remaining daughters. His wife does not obey the Lord’s command not to turn back and is turned into a pillar of salt. He and his daughters eventually find shelter in a cave. There the daughters have incestuous relations with their father and bear the ancestors of the Moabites and the Ammonites, two peoples who are neighbors of the Hebrews, but not allowed to become members of the Covenant. (Deut 23:4)
Genesis loves to play on comparisons – Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau – and here Abraham and Lot. They both left their common home, Ur, to follow the call of the Lord, but Lot become more interested in success than faith. Therefore, although he had many advantages, he ends up dwelling in a cave and the father of peoples who are enemies of the Lord. Abram who sought first to please God although aged, is the father of many nations and revered millennia after he died. God fulfills his promises slower than we would like, but greater than we can imagine.
Bulletin for July 21, 2019
Please read the bulletin for July 21, 2019 here.
15th Sunday Ordinary Time – Fr. Gribowich homily
Good morning, everyone. Sorry for my little liturgical faux pas – I forgot to incense the Gospel right after I made the announcement. I think I’m recovering from the fact that yesterday afternoon, I spent in San Francisco going to a coffee shop, and for some strange reason I thought that it made perfect sense for me to get an espresso around 8 p.m. at night, and I think that I’m still kind of trying to figure out how to think straight after that. So, maybe sometimes these things happen like that.
Anyway, one thing I could say about our culture that we live in – and this has really been right in front of my face I think since I’ve moved out here to the Bay Area – is that we live in a culture that is very much valuing what I would call “self-care”, and I think this is in response to a work culture that is so hard-working, that people are trying to figure out ways to take care of themselves when so much is demanded to them at work. Continue reading “15th Sunday Ordinary Time – Fr. Gribowich homily”
Bulletin for July 14, 2019
Please read the bulletin for July 14, 2019 here.