Saturday word, 31 Oct 2009

30th Saturday of the Year (31 Oct 2009)
Rm 11.1-2, 11-12, 25-29; Ps 94; Lk 1. 7-11
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Meaning Often Overlooked

Chapters 9 through 11 in the Letter to the Romans are St. Paul’s rereading of the history of God with people as the bible presented it. St. Paul was not alone in rereading the bible’s history. “To a large extent, being a Jew in the first century meant to take part in the debate of the meaning of Torah, with each sect and group finding in the tradition the basis of its own claims...to the exclusion of the claims of others.”/1/ Although we usually assume it was monolithic, Judaism was not.

St. Paul’s rereading, like other New Testament witnesses, was shaped by belief in Jesus; that made it unique. St. Paul’s belief in Jesus shaped his thought; he thought as a person of faith. God was the principal actor in the drama of world history. As he began the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul wrote: ever since the creation of the world, [God’s] invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made;/2/ and he closed Chapter 11: For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be glory forever! Amen!/3/

Yet St. Paul found himself in a predicament of the all and some. That’s the context of the first reading. God created all humans, but only some responded to their creator. Jews had God’s covenant, yet not all lived that covenant [torah often translated with the world law, which confuses us more]. Some responded to Jesus, the dead and risen One, but not all embraced him as God’s messiah. And among the Jews were some like St. Paul, whose relationship with the chosen people was alive and who rejoiced to call Jesus the crucified messiah. St. Paul addressed his predicament in today’s reading.

St. Paul did so in religious—as opposed to philosophical—meaning. When you and I express religious meaning, we are not always logical. Jesus, dead and at the same risen, is an example. St. Paul proclaimed a mystery not a philosophy.

The mystery is that humans cannot discern God’s purpose, which works for the good of humans and all creation./3/ Our limitations, of course, do not limit God. We can speak of God’s mystery only because of what God has already done in and for us through Jesus’ dying and rising and giving us his Spirit.

As we heard, St. Paul recalled Isaiah’s prophecy to emphasize that God will do what humans cannot. Though we cannot know how and though evidence to the contrary abounds, God acts and will act. St. Paul recalled what God will do: all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come out of Zion, he will turn away godlessness from Jacob; and this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”

Remembering that religious meaning was at the heart of St. Paul's proclamation of the gospel and that religious meaning is not always logical, we can appreciate the meaning of Zion. Zion, which stands for all Israel is not limited to Jews; it includes Jews who accept God’s mysterious and gracious purpose, plus the full number of the Gentiles who do likewise!

It is not easy to appreciate this mystery even when read in context of St. Paul’s entire Letter to the Romans. We are always challenged to remember that God is the principal actor in everything and that God delights that humans take supporting roles in a drama that is no longer only about created things but about an utterly new, completely new creation in Jesus, our Messiah and Lord. The truth of St. Paul’s conviction, the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable, begins to satisfy us, only when we begin to recognize and name our individual gifts, which is the beginning of prayer. Prayer is not always logical and supports us as religious, that is, people of faith. Refusing to overlook religious meaning cooperates with Jesus’ Spirit at work in us. By that meaning Jesus shapes us as his disciples today.


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1. Luke Timothy Johnson, Reading Romans: A Literary and Theological Commentary. NY: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1997. pp. 141-142.
2. Romans 1.20
3. Romans 11.36.
4. Romans 8.28.
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Wiki-image by AngMoKio of a statue of St. Paul is used according to the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license. Wiki-image from a copy of the Book of Revelation is in the public domain.

Tuesday word, 27 Oct 2009

Fred Rudin funeral (27 Oct 2009)

Eccl 3. 1-14; Ps; Rv 20.13; Jn 14. 1-6

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.

God’s Loyalty

On behalf of Gesu Parish, I extend our prayers and heartfelt sympathy to you, Rosemarie, at the death of your spouse of more than 50 years; to you, Kathryn, Fred, Joseph, Susan, Carolyn, Stephen and James at the death of your father. Be more courageous than your grief is sharp. Your children grieve, too. Your confidence in our risen Messiah will help your children grieve well. Christopher, Lauryn, Annmarie, Matthew, Lesley and Michael: you will help your parents to experience your grandfather’s presence in real and new ways. All Fred’s family and friends will experience his presence in real and new ways.

Today the Catholic church bids farewell to one of hers. I offer a few words to console and strengthen you in your grief; to help you appreciate God’s astounding compassion by noticing Jesus’ victorious dying and rising were present in Fred Rudin./1/

We are grateful, James, for your words of remembrance. Your words help us connect Fred with the mystery of Jesus’ dying and rising we celebrate today. I want to reflect briefly with you on the scriptures Fred’s family chose for his funeral and a detail they reveal.

When Fred’s children were selecting scriptures for his funeral mass, their memories painted a portrait in words to help me appreciate their spouse and father. At one point, James, interjected how his thoughts about his dad organized themselves: “PHD: provider; husband; dad.” Your individual memories shared with me highlighted each of those descriptions. Also, they suggest sacramental images which, I hope, benefit you today and in your future.

In bringing Fred to church for the last time, we gather around the altar-table of our Lord Jesus. While it is significant in many ways, our gathering around the altar-table of our Lord Jesus reassembles each of us into a community of his disciples. The time you spent with your husband and father around your kitchen table echoes our gathering today. Around your kitchen table you listened to one another as well as spoke. Here we listen to God’s shaping and saving word. Around your kitchen table you enjoyed your mom and grandmother’s delicious meals. Here we feast on the body and blood of Jesus so we can live more like him wherever we are.

As the eucharist nourishes us in deeply real ways, it does not slake our hunger and thirst. Even as your meals at home satisfied your hunger and thirst, you received more real and more substantial nourishment from your spouse, father and grandfather. He let you know he was proud of you. He encouraged you to grow, be yourselves, pursue your dreams and do your best. That nourishment is more substantial, not only because you remember, but because it has shaped you to be who you are.

Beyond the kitchen table and their home and their young years, Fred kept in touch with his children. He loved calling them, and he enjoyed hearing their voices. On the phone Fred echoed what he had told them in person: “I’m here for you if you need me.” If the moment was difficult or challenging, Fred would close with encouragement: “keep smiling!”

Fred’s closing opens another sacramental effect. Jesus is the sacrament of God. The Latin word sacrament translated the earlier way people spoke of Jesus as embodying God. Sacrament was the oath Roman soldiers made to the emperor. Christians made it their word to convey loyalty they wanted to express. Looking at Jesus reminds us that Jesus reversed the direction of loyalty—from God to us—and embodied God’s solemn promise to abide with us! Fred’s “I’m here for you if you need me,” echoed Jesus’ sacrament—God’s solemn promise—I am with you always, even to the close of the age!/2/

The Book of Revelation, seeking to console people who suffered, expressed Jesus’ promise in words we just heard. Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God...will always be with them as their God. More substantial than a dwelling with walls, God is personally with us! No walls, yet real and abiding presence!

Our imaginations are limited by our senses. Jesus recognized our limits and with limited imagery expressed personal presence with us and action for us: I go and [I] prepare a place for you...where I am you also may be. Sharing life, Jesus’ risen life, is the point.

I think Fred intuited that. He knew we are limited in all kinds of ways. He knew that things, gifts, sporting tickets, shared activities with family and with his extended family of Gesu pointed to the truly substantial: affection; joy; family bonds; love in all its forms.

Our celebration of Christmas embodies that. What is more substantial than God sharing our humanity so we become divine, to share God’s enduring life? Christmas will sting this year because your, spouse, father, grandfather, relative and friend will not be there to welcome you home, to have him available to you as he was. That is real and will be difficult. You told me you are already anticipating it. Yet his more substantial presence & love, which contributed greatly to shaping who you have become today, will remain with you. How to describe it? A spatial image, limited as it is, may help.

When my father realized he would die, he told my niece, “I’m sorry, Diana, but I don’t think I’ll see you and Jeff get married.” Diana replied with a smile: “You’ll be there, Grandpa, you’ll see us from a different seat.” I was and am proud of my niece’s faith. Her faith conviction did not minimize her pain of sadness and loss or mine. I share that moment with you to recall for us all that Christian funerals do not dismiss anyone’s pain. They bring us together to remember Jesus abides with us no matter where we may be.

Together we encourage each other to hope in the more substantial life Jesus promises and to embody his more substantial life the best we can, just as Frederick E. Rudin modeled it for his family, friends and his brother- and sister-Catholics. His life is changed not ended,/3/ and he taught you how to live our transformed life in Jesus so that you may teach each other and all you meet as Fred did.

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1. Cf. Order of Christian Funerals, 27.
2. Matthew 28.20.
3. Preface for Christian Death I, Roman Missal.

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Wiki-images of anastasis and of Grunewald's Resurrection are in the public domain.

Sundayword, 25 Oct 2009

30th Sunday of the Year (25 Oct 2009)
Jer 31. 7-9; Ps 126; Hb 5. 1-6; Mk 10. 46-52
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Three Features

Mark’s is an intricate gospel. It’s brevity—the shortest of the four gospel-portraits of Jesus—makes us dismiss its details. One of its details is that Jesus’ disciples, including the apostles he called to follow him, were slow to grasp the identity of Jesus and slow to appreciate what Jesus taught. That detail describing the disciples, doesn’t it describe us, too? We’re not quicker than the disciples. We are like them, even with our advantage of seeing the entire story of Jesus, something his disciples could not.

Today’s gospel selection reminds us that Mark’s gospel remembers Jesus healed two blind men with different effects. The first blind man, unnamed, Jesus healed gradually. Mark recalled it this way:

Putting spittle on his eyes [Jesus] laid his hands on him and asked, “Do you see anything?” Looking up he replied, “I see people looking like trees and walking.” Then [Jesus] laid hands on his eyes a second time and he saw clearly; his sight was restored and he could see everything distinctly. Then [Jesus] sent him home./1/

In today’s gospel Jesus healed Bartimaeus instantly:

Bartimaeus threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. Jesus said to him..., “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.” Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed [Jesus] on the way.

Details confuse people about Mark’s lesson then and now. Some people are stymied by Jesus gradual healing of the first blind man. Others miss that Bartimaeus threw aside his cloak. Still others forget that Jesus’ many discouraged Bartimaeus, which surely is evidence enough that the they were slow to get Jesus’ mission.

Both men and Jesus’ response to them are icons for us today. The blindness of the first man was from no faith to faith. Jesus sent him home, that is, to protect and cultivate his faith until he was ready.

Faith, in visual language, allowed him to see everything distinctly, which even the disciples could not do! Yet, new faith needs protection, and it needs to grow strong.

Bartimaeus had strong faith: no one could quiet it in him. Jesus saw his faith and he recognized a new disciple, as we heard: “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately [Bartimaeus] received his sight and followed [Jesus] on the way.

We share significant features with Bartimaeus. Let me name three. We are named and our names have been sealed by baptism. Second, our baptism consecrated us on mission with Jesus: we follow Jesus on his way. Three, our baptism gave us faith, and the eucharist sustains the faith our baptisms began.

Our faith, we know from experience, gets shrouded, and at times, we even allow it to be invisible. More often, whatever cloaks our faith doesn’t allow others to recognize our true features as Jesus’ contemporary disciples. Baptized into faith and faith sustained by the eucharist, we all have our cloaks, to which we cling or which cling to us. We recognize Jesus heals us—that is, empowers us to live the pattern of his life—when we throw aside our cloaks and live with faith’s freedom to replicate the pattern of Jesus’ dying and rising day to day.

In your daily 15 minutes with Jesus this week, ask the Trinity to enlighten you and bless your vision. Ask Bartimaeus to present you to Jesus. In your words thank Jesus for your faith, then ask Jesus to help you identify your cloak and give you strength to throw it aside for the freedom of faith to imitate the pattern of Jesus’ dying and rising. Close by saying slowly the Lord’s Prayer. It is both example and power: Jesus’ example of living freely and faithfully, and his power in us to do the same and to follow him on his way.



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1. Mark 8.23-26.
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Wiki-mage of Jesus healing the blind is in the public domain.

Saturday word, 24 Oct 2009

Joan Czyzak-Matthugh McManus wedding (24 Oct 2009)
Tobit 8. 4b-8; Ps 128; Philippians 4. 4-9; Matthew 7. 21, 24-29
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Foundation and Compassion

Joni and Matt, by celebrating your wedding you give us an opportunity to appreciate yet another facet of the mystery of Jesus and his church. You inaugurate a mystery: your married life, which is two individuals making one life together. This has always been so, and today the church enriches and strengthens you with [the sacrament of matrimony]/1/ to live together your Catholic selves. I want to reflect with you and your guests on one way the sacrament enriches and strengthens you, as well as your role in deepening its grace.

While no mechanics of grace exists, all the baptized share in God’s life--to what the word “grace” points us. God’s life is God’s gift to us; like all gifts we don’t control receiving them. Also like gifts, God’s life in us is real and affects us for our good. You know this from your experience of falling in love. Love has no blueprint. You knew love was shaping you because it allowed you to see yourselves in each other; plus, your love helped you see aspects of each other with a clarity neither of you enjoyed before.

This clarity expresses itself in many ways. All the ways share in a hallmark of married life, equality. A 3rd-Century Christian described this equal expression in a letter to his wife. Speaking of spouses, he wrote:

Together they pray, ...together perform their fasts; mutually teaching, mutually exhorting, mutually sustaining. Equally both [are] in the Church of God; equally at the banquet of God; equally in straits, in persecutions, in refreshments. Neither hides from the other; neither shuns the other; neither [troubles] the other. The sick is visited, the indigent relieved, with freedom. [They give] alms [freely and]…without scruple./2/

Since that early Christian wrote his wife, the church grew to appreciate equality as a hallmark of Christian marriage. I have come to define Christian marriage as two individuals making one life together. Each of you will remain individuals, and you will make one life. Your differences will strengthen your one life, not just your similarities.

The scriptures you chose for your wedding help us see how. The reading from the Book of Tobit is a starting point. It is not only about people in the past; it is autobiographical. Both of you pray. While you have already prayed for one another and with one another, from this day your prayer will be one voice from two selves. If you allow Tobias and Sarah to guide you, as you pray you will rehearse creation as they did: Blessed are you, O God of our ancestors! reminding each other that together yours is a noble purpose.

Your purpose is to continue learning what is true and to keep on doing the truth in love. To keep your purpose alive and fresh, to keep learning each other as you have been, allow me to suggest this: in the weeks, months and years to come, Matt and Joni, give your relationship the same priority you have given it since beginning to date seriously and to prepare to marry. That’s no canned line: my parents did that during their 60 years together, long before I realized they did so.

If you give to each other in years to come the priority—that is, the honor, the respect, the tender love as well as to admire each other as you do today—not only will you Rejoice! We will rejoice with you. Making one life that way also will make your joy and your kindness for one another known to all and felt by all who meet you.

Giving each other and your life together at each future moment the priority you have given each other in the earliest phases of your relationship is your foundation: not only the foundation of your relationship; it is the foundation of your life together, who is none other than Jesus for us Catholics.

Jesus, of course, does not want to be idolized and remain distant. The empty cry of Lord! Lord! in the gospel Matt and Joni chose alludes to idolizing Jesus and keeping him distant. Some of you may know that the gospel we heard impressed Matt from grade 1 or 2 and stayed with him. Joni welcomed his choice of it for their wedding. In the familiar parable of Jesus about building on sand or on rock, sand, rock, houses and even building are minor characters. They support Jesus’ point that doing God’s desires is each one’s vocation.

With what greater authority will both of you do and fulfill your vocation than as spouses? With what greater authority than as spouses will you give witness to us and the world that God works in all human lives for good? With what greater authority will you model compassion than by the joyful compassion by which you carry each other and care for each other as spouses? Your mutual compassion for one another will fashion you from today as a domestic church./3/ It will help you save each other’s souls and welcome children lovingly from God/4/; it will also allow Jesus to work through you for the sake of the world.

Joni & Matt, I want to affirm what you have allowed me to see: your desire to live a Catholic marriage. I also want to remind you that at each step of making one life together, Jesus accompanies you, drawing you and your love for each other into the mutual love, which his Father and Jesus and their Spirit enjoy—our destiny. You’ll never lack for Jesus’ companionship blessing your love with the love of the Trinity.

Matt and Joni, I’m very proud of you and, I wish you every good thing. I congratulate you on behalf of the church. Please remember that in pledging yourselves to each other you allow Jesus to work through you for your Christian destiny—the salvation of each other as well as our world. As you forge one life together Jesus begets something new: a new harmony to feel Jesus creating you and your mutual love for each other; and to help us and others feel Jesus recreating the world not from afar but with us and for us all.

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1. Rite of Marriage, Ch.1: 23.
2. Tertullian, To My Wife, 2,8:4, in AnteNiceneFathers, IV:48.
3. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, 11, of The Second Vatican Council.
4. Rite of Marriage, Ch.1: 24.

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Wiki-image by Jeff Belmonte of wedding rings is used according to the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license. Wiki-image of life of Jesus window is in the public domain.

Friday word, 23 Oct 20

Henry Hentemann funeral (23 Oct 2009)
Eccl 3. 1-14; Ps 27; Rv 14.13; Mt 11. 25-30
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Work and Rest

On behalf of Gesu Parish, I extend our prayers and heartfelt sympathy to you, Jean, at the death of your spouse; to you, Chris, Mark, Gretchen and Eric at the death of your father. Be more courageous than your grief is sharp. Your children, Henry, Emma, Patrick, Tatum, Grace and Emerson, will miss their grandfather. Your confidence in our risen Messiah will help your children grieve well. Henry, Emma, Patrick, Tatum, Grace and Emerson, as you grow you will help your parents to experience your grandfather’s presence in real and new ways. All Hank’s family and friends will experience his presence in real and new ways.

Today the Catholic church bids farewell to one of hers. I offer a few words to console and strengthen you in your grief; to help you appreciate God’s astounding compassion by noticing Jesus’ victorious dying and rising were present in Hank Hentemann./1/ We are grateful, Chris and Eric, for your words of remembrance. Their words help us connect Hank with the mystery of Jesus’ dying and rising we celebrate today. I want to reflect briefly with you on the scriptures Hank’s family chose for his funeral & a detail they reveal.

When Jean and her children were selecting scriptures for Hank’s funeral mass, they helped me learn again that scriptures are not only about people and events in the past; they are biographical of us all. Work and rest in scripture appeared to them repeatedly to fit Hank. Hank’s family reminded me that Hank’s descent from German immigrants—Hank was 1st-generation German-American—shaped his attitude toward work. Hank’s immigrant ancestors helped each other struggle and work to survive. Hank struggled and worked, and with Jean to help him, so that they and their children could thrive. Hank worked with modesty and humility, never losing touch with people: vital for a civil defense attorney.

As you spoke of Hank, you reminded me of my father’s desire to be at home. Hank’s desire to be at home allowed him to balance his career with life at home. Hank loved his home and used his talents to make their house a home for Jean and their children. Mark likened Hank to a German primogenitor, the ancestor who established his estate and cared for it not only for the present but for its future after him.

While Hank’s work demanded him to use sets of skills and knowledge, they did not fashion him into their image. Rather, his fairness, his decency, his enjoyment of family and friends and his sensitivity to human predicaments as well as human potential shaped him as thoughtful, modest and without pretense. By exercising his talents outside of work, Hank “got his peace,” as Eric put it; and Chris turned the phrase, “Dad was a project guy.” In addition to the long deck, rooms, lawn and woods were a few of his projects.

Yet another, different project was dear to your dad: passing on to you a desire to live your lives in ways that affected other people and the world for the better. His “red-wine wrap sessions” with you was one of his ways of doing that more real, more vital project than his others.

If anyone doesn’t know, Hank enjoyed long conversations with his children when they were together, sipping wine as they solved the problems of the world. Because Jean had already solved them in her way, she retired early. Hank’s family can give you details. My point is twofold: one, conversation is a great teacher, helping us learn while we’re not aware that we are learning; two, Jesus engaged people in conversation so they might learn God and God’s astounding compassion.

I’m convinced the most effective learning happens when we’re unaware we are learning. Afterward, we come to realize our minds and our hearts have become more spacious, that we have grown more patient and more wise. You used “patient” and “wise” frequently in describing your husband and your father. I trust you are aware that you enjoy a share in his patience and wisdom. You are his estate, for patience and wisdom were its land and its walls. Patience and wisdom were Hank’s more real success; you will continue to bless others with his more substantial success by your lives, you his more vital project than his others. If a spouse and father’s success can be measured, then Hank’s success rested on his patience and his wisdom. They were his work and his rest.

The author of Ecclesiastes wrestled with work and rest and noticed degrees of difference. The author expressed one degree with the word, time and another with the phrase the timeless. Time denotes what can be seen, felt and measured, including human toil. The timeless denotes things more substantial, like patience, wisdom, decency, fidelity, hospitality and concern, which make us humane and images of God. They give us respite. Usually hidden, we know godly values by their effects. Godly values endure beyond all else.

In our Catholic sensibility work and rest point to deeper realities, which I think Hank intuited. Looking to Jesus helps us appreciate how different! When Jesus praised his Father for revealing hidden things to unpretentious people—what childlike means—Jesus was responding to hostility self-important people leveled at him because Jesus accepted prostitutes and sinners and shared with them time and table-fellowship./2/ The unpretentious ones recognized God drew near them in Jesus. When Jesus promised to give them rest, he promised them God’s life, what no adversary could wrest from them.

By looking to Jesus, I suggest Hank’s success flowed from work and rest, which participated in the divine life Jesus revealed and continues to reveal by his Spirit. The routine way Jesus reveals is through other people. Because Hank pursued this work and rest, in both his career and in the simple tastes his life at home offered, you are proud to call him husband, father, grandfather, relative, friend and colleague. It also makes it difficult to let him go, when you desire to have him with you. Our Christian conviction that life is changed not ended/3/ challenges us to let go of Hank, no longer available to you, his family and friends, as he was.

We shall be reunited when Jesus returns in glory with salvation for his people./4/ It is while we await Jesus’ return, the resurrection of the dead and our reunion with them that we need to remember that promise and live from it: that in baptism we have all died in the Lord. That is a blessing we find difficult to imagine and none of us can explain. It is at once both a dying and a living, a rising with Jesus yet to come to completion in each of us.

Hank goes ahead of you: as in life, by his livelihood and his more vital project of instilling in his family and others substantial, godly, enduring values of patience, wisdom, decency, fidelity, hospitality and care, God transforms him into God’s project of rest and the unending life God works more completely in Hank, the same work and rest in which all of us place our hope.

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1. Cf. Order of Christian Funerals, 27.
2. Matthew 11.18-19.
3. Preface for Christian Death I, Roman Missal.
4. Penitential Rite (C,ii), Roman Missal.
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Wiki-images of an icon of the Beatitudes and of the Lamb in a folio of the Book of Revelation are in the public domain.

Monday word, 19 Oct 2009

Bernard Lukco funeral (19 Oct 2009)
Ecclesiastes 3. 1-11; Ps 63; Romans 6.3-9; Luke 12. 35-40
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Two Eras

On behalf of Gesu Parish, I extend our prayers and heartfelt sympathy to you, Lynn, at the sudden death of your brother. To you, Mary, at the sudden death of your spouse; and to Beth and Laurie, Michael and Matthew at the death of your father and stepfather. Your children grieve, too, for their grandfather and great uncle. Be more courageous than your grief is sharp. Your confidence in our risen Messiah will help your children grieve well. Nicholas and Carolyn and Grace, you will help your parents to experience your grandfather’s presence in real and new ways. All of Bernie’s family will experience his presence in real and new ways.

Today the Catholic church bids farewell to one of hers. I offer a few words to console and strengthen you in your grief; to help you appreciate God’s astounding compassion by noticing Jesus’ victorious dying and rising were present in Bernard Lukco./1/

We are grateful, Diana, for your words of remembrance. Her words help us connect Bernie with the mystery of Jesus’ dying and rising we celebrate at his funeral mass. I want to reflect briefly with you on the scriptures Bernie’s family chose for his funeral.

As their were two eras in Bernie’s life, with Beth and Laurie and their mom and with Mary, Matthew and Michael, we all live in two eras of grace. The two eras of grace are before Jesus, the incarnation of God, and since Jesus. The church has always reminded us that the second era, the one in which we live, is yet to be completed: God-with-us in Jesus did not obliterate the human aspect of the world with its limits and imperfections. To use the words of Ecclesiastes, both time and the timeless, that is, God’s self, exist together. In different words Paul expressed the same in his Letter to the Romans: death and resurrection.

What does that mean for all of you? First, each person grieves in his or her way. Second, we experience people in different ways. Third, each of us develops over time. The fact that we grieve differently means our support of each other is vital. At times one person will feel Bernie’s loss more sharply than another. Our sensitivity to one another helps all of us. It also gives us courage when we experience Bernie’s absence in a painfully sharp way.

As we experience people differently, Bernie had different facets in his life. Beth named an earlier facet succinctly: “he spent his time and effort raising us.” Your education was important; he wanted you to “embrace what we love.” As I listened, I heard of a man who was captivated by things outside himself. Later, Bernie was able to be more reflective. Michael expressed that he saw Bernie was “where [Bernie] needed to be”; that implies not where Bernie felt he needed to be. Growth, much of it invisible to others, happened between these facets. It is not that Bernie became a different person but that his interests and his ways of being in the world shifted.

One way that presents to me, who did not have the privilege of knowing Bernie, is his career history: social studies teacher, job corps, guidance counselor, Ohio State, EPA, management & marketing. While education is the umbrella for them all, a subtle shift appears to me: from imparting knowledge to managing knowledge. I know that’s extremely simple, yet it parallels the difference between “facts and wisdom.” Having facts does not guarantee we use them well. The author of Ecclesiastes wrestled with that. There is an appointed time for everything, and often our busied lives prevent us from discovering that God is in all our time and activities; that God gave us creation to help us make a return of love to God more easily./2/ That is the beginning of graced wisdom for us.

Perhaps over time Bernie’s move from participating and leading associations to collecting antiques and doing his part to further historical restoration and preservation points to that shift from exterior to interior, from world to grace, from death to resurrection.

Bernie’s sudden death may well have left him with things undone and unsaid and desires to put into effect graced wisdom he had discovered. Mary chose the gospel selection in the light of Bernie’s sudden death, and she chose it because of the wisdom it imparted to her, to her family and to all of us.

Whatever Bernie may have left undone and unsaid is no fault. It is one of those twists of time over which none of us has control. Even our Messiah Jesus, who pitched his tent in our time-limited humanity, did not control it while he lived in our flesh.

Mary and her family chose the gospel selection with confidence that Jesus waits on Bernie because of Bernie’s faith in Jesus. The Prayer over the Gifts at a funeral mass echoes your confidence—indeed the confidence of the church—as it implores God: be merciful in judging our brother for he believed in Christ [Jesus] as his Lord and Savior./3/ That Jesus waits on us in the kingdom he has promised helps us appreciate the dry truth St. Paul announced: a dead person is absolved from sin. The church buries, it does not blame.

Plus, our Christian conviction is that life is changed not ended./4/ That conviction of our faith challenges us to let go of Bernie, no longer available to you, his family and friends, as he was, though our desire is to have him with us. We shall be reunited when Jesus returns in glory with salvation for his people./5/ It is while we await Jesus’ return, the resurrection of the dead and our reunion with them that we need to remember that promise and live from it: that our era of grace is victorious even without humans ever discovering...the work which God has done in Jesus by their Holy Spirit, work the Trinity continues to do in all people. By grace each of puts into effect what time did not allow Bernie to put into effect in his life.


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1. Cf. Order of Christian Funerals, 27.
2. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, 23.
3. (A) One Person, Outside the Easter Season, Roman Missal.
4. Preface for Christian Death I, Roman Missal.
5. Penitential Rite (C,ii), Roman Missal.
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Wiki-image by Laszlo Ilyes of Christ the Redeemer statue is used according to the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license. Wiki-image of Resurrection Angel by Plasmoid is used according to the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license.

Sunday word, 18 Oct 2009

29th Sunday of the Year (18 Oct 2009)
Is 53. 10-11; Ps 33; Hb 4. 14-16; Mk 10. 35-45
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Toward Living More Faithfully

The church wants us to think differently; to think “outside the box,” as the current phrase has it. The early Christians did that more easily than we do. Our inquiring minds prefer one-to-one matches: the first among you will be the slave of all. Jesus was human. Jesus is divine.

The first example, the first among you will be the slave of all, is very difficult for us to own, so we make it an ideal rather than a practice, or we reject it altogether. To first [I must] be the slave of all we say, “I can’t do that.” Yet, that is certainly a different way of thinking.

It doesn’t get easier thinking about Jesus. It is not that Jesus has no one-to-one match, but that we can better appreciate Jesus with one match after another! Jesus was human. Jesus is divine. Jesus is our high priest. Jesus, Son of God, sympathizes with our weakness. Our Messiah was crushed with infirmity, the way he shall justify many.

The word priest to describe Jesus is not isolated in scripture’s Letter to the Hebrews. Jesus as priest seeped early into Christian vocabulary and Christian imagination. Yet it didn’t stop one early Christian pastor from describing a deacon’s task as imitating Jesus. /1/ Nor did it stop another early Christian pastor from calling Jesus the first deacon! Of course, both of them would have called Jesus priest as well.

Serving others describes well what Jesus did. Jesus’ service sought to improve, to develop the life of people. It worked this way: Jesus began what people continued. Jesus healed some and they followed Jesus, providing for him and his disciples from their means. Jesus called others to continue his work, a call that was a discreet moment yet echoed through the lives of those called and beyond them. Jesus gave new hope, new energy, new purpose to people, and with that new hope, new energy and new purpose people reoriented their lives. Jesus began, people continued; and, Jesus sustained what people continued.

This Year of the Priest includes every Catholic. It would be impossible to celebrate otherwise. It helps us think differently, more broadly, to be precise, about priests. The Second Vatican Council noted priests have three functions: to “preach the gospel and shepherd the faithful and to celebrate divine worship.”/2/ This year of priests invites Catholics to appreciate not only what they routinely see and enact with priests, mass and other liturgies. It reminds us that priests are to renew the priority they allow scripture to have on them so that their ministry will be a relationship of caring service. Caring service shapes our relationships with one another, no matter one’s particular vocation. Even the pope is called the “servant of the servants of God!”/3/

Plus, the pope is called the first missionary of the church, remembered each Mission Sunday. Christian mission is less about what any Christian controls and more about feeling in the control of, that is, enveloped and steered by something greater than self. That something is the power the earliest Christians experienced and to which they witnessed by their lives. It remains ever new, which is one reason it will always feel like it doesn’t fit and challenge us to think outside the narrow confines of our experience and imagination.

My visits to missions in Brazil, Sri Lanka and India remind me how narrow my experience and imagination is, and how others allow their lives to be guided and steered by the power of our crucified and risen Messiah. Priesthood, missionary, slave of all offer us the power of more supple imagination and bolder experience. To think differently this way is to think and to live more faithfully.

In your daily 15 minutes with Jesus this week, refresh yourself in the presence of our Triune God. Ask your patron saint to present you to Jesus. In your words thank Jesus for the many avenues to serve in his name Gesu offers you. Ask Jesus for the grace to renew your exercise of pastoral care in one ministry and so deepen your friendship with him. Close by saying slowly the Lord’s Prayer to remind us to think differently, that is, to consider ourselves and others with the mind and attitude of Jesus./4/






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1. Ignatius of Antioch: “Let the bishop preside in God’s place and presbyters take the place of the apostolic council and let the deacons...be entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ” (Letter to the Magnesians, ch 6); Also, Ignatius of Antioch: “In like manner let everyone respect the deacons as they would respect Jesus Christ, and just as they respect the bishop as a type of the Father, and the presbyters [priests] as the council of God and college of Apostles. Without these, it cannot be called a Church” (Letter to the Trallians, ch 2; quoted in Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1554).
2. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen gentium), 28.
3. Paul VI restored this 6th Century appellation, first used by Gregory the Great.
4. See St. Paul’ Letter to the Philippians, ch. 2-3.
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Wiki-image of San Biblia church doors by Giovanni Dall'Orto, who gives permission for its use. Wiki-image of Jesus washing his disciples' feet is in the public domain.

Synopsis of Bishops' Statement on Military Force in Afghanistan

The U.S. Bishops via their Committee on International Justice and Peace. It sent its appeal [the full text] to General James Jones, the U.S. National Security Advisor.

He wrote the letter to offer guidelines and suggestions while the country's administration reviews its strategy in Afghanistan.

"While we are pastors and teachers and not military experts," [Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany] stated on behalf of the entire conference, "we can share Catholic teaching and experience which may help inform various policy choices."

Bishop Hubbard also noted "that the situation in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan is at a critical juncture. Should these states fail, particularly with Pakistan possessing nuclear weapons, there are grave implications for regional and international security."

The full text of their appeal includes three principles and recommends five actions.

And Counting

Zenit.com has listed key words at the Second Special Synod for Africa still in progress in Rome this month. The list also includes the numbers of times the words have been used. It provides a snapshot of the orientation of the synod.

The Vatican website offers more detailed information, including the preparation documents and Reflection of Pope Benedict during the synod's first general congregation (on 05 October). The proceedings synods and more in Rome are aids to learning the world and its situations beyond those in North America.

Sunday word, 11 Oct 2009

28th Sunday of the Year (11 Oct 2009)

Wis 7. 7-11; Ps 90; Hb 4. 12-13; Mk 10. 17-30

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.

Releasing the Gospel

On his way with his disciples to Jerusalem and his cross, Jesus encountered the rich man who eagerly sought Jesus’ counsel, was disappointed and provoked the disciples to ask Jesus, “Who can be saved?” As was his custom, Jesus made the occasion a lesson for his disciples—and us.

The question of the rich man, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” may seem to have a narrow focus, yet it touched convictions about God, convictions Jesus laid bare in his reply to the rich man: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Jesus’ answer confuses us because we confuse doing good with the Source of all that is good. God’s goodness exceeds, even excludes human claims we are good, as well as human needs to impress on others our real or artificial goodness. Jesus began his answer to the rich man—and to us today—that God is the source of goodness.

By doing whatever is good we join ourselves, ally ourselves with the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus. By doing whatever is good we put ourselves on God’s side; we don’t manipulate God to our sides. We place ourselves on God’s side when we respond to the commands God gave us to inherit God’s life. Jesus replied to the rich man’s question by rehearsing all the commandments having to do with human relations with one another. You and I inherit God’s life by how we live with one another!

As challenging as that is for us, I think we get that like the rich man did. It’s the rest of Jesus’ answer that comes less easily: exchange treasure of earth for treasure of heaven. The matter is not simply one of having nothing; rather it is drawing closer and closer to the Source of goodness, life, love and generosity. By coming nearer and absorbing with heart and mind what flows from God—in daily practice, goodness, life, love and generosity—we follow Jesus, we become his disciples daily. Yet, to follow Jesus, to be his disciples, does not make us good. Oh, that it were that easy; but it’s not.

In practice possessions are risks to promoting goodness, life, love and generosity when possessions grip us and manage us. Jesus said we are to manage possessions not be managed by them. To the rich man Jesus put it this way: “Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

To follow Jesus, to be his disciple, does not make us good. Being disciples challenges us to join Jesus in his move down not up: downward mobility not upward mobility, to use modern language for accepting the cross. This lesson to surrender wealth is a hard blessing for us.

Surrender of wealth does not mean throwing our wealth on the junk heap. Surrender of wealth by love, generosity, concern for others and care for them gradually yet really discloses God’s power: all things, including our entering God’s realm of life, are possible with God!

Two verses, early and late in this gospel selection, are key. Read together, they make sharing God’s life nothing short of miraculous, and they tame human ambition instead of the gospel Jesus proclaimed. The verses give us access to God’s mercy toward us: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? ...For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God!”

When we pray with those two verses, as we keep them together in mind and heart, they don’t suffocate the wonder of creation around us and of people in our lives. As we pray with those verses, as we keep them together in our minds and hearts, they help us not overreach ourselves or substitute our ambition for God’s merciful power. They help us release the gospel into our lives and the world and not tame it or try to fashion it to our liking.

In your daily 15 minutes with Jesus this week, praise the Trinity for creating you and giving you creation to make a return of love to our God more easily. Ask the disciples, who listened often to Jesus, to present you to him. In your words praise and thank Jesus for his gospel and ask Jesus to help you continue to be his disciple more in fact than in name. Close by saying slowly the prayer Jesus taught us. It teaches us to show to others the mercy Jesus works in us.

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Wiki-image of Jesus and the rich man is in the public domain . Wiki-image by Sengkang of Fountain of Wealth: the author has allowed its use in any form.

Synod for Africa

The Synod for Africa opened in Rome Sunday. The word "synod" comes from two Greek words meaning "together" + "way;" thus, synods seek to help all in the church to progress together in the Christian life. Synods are almost as old as the church!

After the Second Vatican Council Pope Paul VI invited the world's bishops to come together around a specific theme of importance to the church at any given time. His successors have continued that practice. Pope Benedict explained the operation of synods before Sunday's Midday Angelus:

Synods always constitute an intense ecclesial experience, an experience of pastoral collegial responsibility in regard to a specific aspect of the life of the Church, or rather, as in this case, of a part of the Christian people determined on the basis of a geographic area. The Pope and his closest coworkers join together with the designated members of the assembly, with the experts and auditors, to reflect on the chosen theme. It is important to emphasize that it is not a matter of a study group, nor a programmatic assembly. Communications and speeches are heard in the hall, there is discussion in groups, but we all know that we are not the protagonists: it is the Lord, his Holy Spirit, who guides the Church. The most important thing, for everyone, is listening: listening to each other and, everyone, listening to what the Lord wants to tell us. Thus the Synod takes place in a climate of faith and prayer, in religious obedience to the Word of God. It is the place of the Successor of Peter to convoke and guide the synodal assembly, gather together what emerges from the work and then offer the opportune pastoral instructions. [Zenit translation]

The pope reminds that synods are guided by Jesus' Spirit, whom he gave to his church to be with it always. Synod members read the signs of the times; they prepare well in advance in order to exercise their "pastoral collegial responsibility in regard to a specific aspect of the life of the Church, or...a part of the Christian people determined on the basis of a geographic area."

[After reciting the Angelus with the people gathered in St. Peter's Square, Pope Benedict also remembered to God the Asian nations and peoples suffering from the recent typhoons, earthquakes and tsunami, before making other remarks.]
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Wiki-image of Pope Benedict is in the public domain.

Sunday word, 04 Oct 2009

27th Sunday of the Year (04 Oct 2009)
Gn 2. 18-24; Ps 128; Hb 2. 9-11; Mk 10. 2-16
Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.
Heart at Home

This Sunday throws into bold relief our respect for life. The church throughout the United States asks those who assemble around the tables of divine word and eucharist to allow respect for life to be a lens through which our vision of divine word and eucharist might be sharpened.

Our eucharist is both source and summit./1/ Something lays between. If the eucharist is Jesus’ self-gift to us to guide us on our pilgrim way to [the] kingdom/2/ he proclaimed, then our prayer—our relationship with Jesus—our self-gift to Jesus rests between both source and summit and realigns our direction as we journey.

One metaphor of our self-gift to Jesus has a venerable place in the church. It is consecrating our hearts and homes to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This is what Fr. Snow, Br. Denis, a team of planners and I invite parishioners to do for a year beginning this month. It is a great help to respect life.

While the word “heart” refers to a specific organ of the human body, you and I use the word “heart” more often to mean the whole person. “Put your heart in it!” is such a way. We know we mean self, body and soul. In the same way, to consecrate, that is, to join our hearts to Jesus means we pray to put our lives in the service of Jesus, his gospel and the life he invites us to live by the power of his Spirit.

God became flesh and blood in Jesus by their Spirit. God inhabited our world, our humanity. We humans receive the world through our senses. By becoming human Jesus made our senses, already good because he created them, Jesus made our senses holy. In liturgy the church exploits our senses with water, oil, fire, bread, wine, silence, words and song. Using our senses, we consecrate ourselves to Jesus and his Sacred Heart in a home liturgy.

It is called an Enthronement of the Icon of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A member of each household will receive this icon to take home inside this liturgy of Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus for Gesu Parish. The first sense we employ is our sight. What catches your eye? What do you notice? Much is present to notice many times over: Jesus’ face; his hands; his eyes; a scroll he holds; his heart; and more.

Before families enthrone the icon of the Sacred Heart in their homes, people consider their hearts. The Sacraments of Reconciliation, the Eucharist along with one’s prayer style, members of one’s family, the walls of the house itself can help our hearts become more alert, more supple and more grateful for the many gifts we have received. When a family chooses a date this month to consecrate themselves and their home to Jesus’ Sacred Heart, they will find its liturgy here.

Fr. Snow, Br. Denis and I ask that to keep alert to Jesus and to the ways Jesus blesses you and calls you to glorify his name with your lives, you begin to do the Daily Examen together. The Daily Examen was St. Ignatius’ favored way of praying. On the reverse of the icon is an adaptation of it you can introduce before you begin supper or at another time when everyone is together. One way I’ve introduced people to the Daily Examen is to do one of is steps daily for a week. The next week add to the first step the second step, and the next the third step and so on. Take one week at supper or whenever your family is together and ask Jesus to join you; then share: for what moment today I am most grateful? for what moment am I least grateful?

Each one or together you may begin your day with the Daily Offering Prayer to unite yourselves with "Jesus...who continues to offer himself in the eucharist for the salvation of you and of the world.”/3/ In your daily 15 minutes with Jesus this week ask the Trinity to brighten your home with grace. Ask Mary to present your household to Jesus. Speak with Jesus, asking him to deepen your desire for his life in your home and to help you resolve to dedicate your home “in response to Jesus’ great love for [you].”/4/ Close by saying slowly the Lord’s Prayer, which Jesus gave us to guide our steps in his love and to model it for each other beginning at home. The Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in your home will help you feel more deeply with all your senses his love and how to radiate it to others inside and outside your home.

Link to this homily's Spiritual Exercise

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1. Decree on the Liturgy, 10, 14; Second Vatican Council.
2. Prayer after Communion, Order of Christian Funerals, 410A.
3. Daily Offering Prayer, adapted on the reverese of the Icon of the Sacred Heart of Jesus given to Gesu Parishioners this weekend.
4. Introduction of Enthronement of the Sacred Heart of Jesus for Gesu Parish.
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Wiki-image by AndreasPraefcke of a heart of Jesus window is used according to the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Wiki-image of Claude dela Colombiere, S.J., spiritual director of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, is in the public domain.

Saturday word, 03 Oct 2009

Gentry Lee Cooper Jr. funeral (03 Oct 2009)

Eccl 3. 1-14; Ps 23; Rm 5.5-11; Jn 5. 24-29

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J.

Faith and Promise

On behalf of Gesu Parish, I extend our prayers and heartfelt sympathy to you, Clarence at the death of your brother; and to Ellis, Gentry, Donna, Derrick and Celeste at the death of your father. Your children grieve, too, for their grandfather. Be more courageous than your grief is sharp. Your confidence in our risen Messiah will help your children grieve well. Evan, Ariane, Sawana and Craig, you will help your parents to experience your grandfather’s presence in real and new ways. All of Gentry’s family will experience his presence in real and new ways.

Today the Catholic church bids farewell to one of hers. I offer a few words to console and strengthen you in your grief; to help you appreciate God’s astounding compassion by noticing Jesus’ victorious dying and rising were present in Gentry Lee Cooper Jr./1/

We are grateful, Donna, for your remembrance of your dad. Her spoken words and Celeste’s written words all of us have in the worship aid help us connect your brother, father and grandfather with the mystery of Jesus dying and rising we celebrate at his funeral mass.

I am grateful to Donna and Celeste for confirming what I observed about your father and your grandfather in the few years I have been at his longtime parish. “Man of faith” and “man of promise” are how their words and the words of scripture shape my remarks.

While some of you know, everyone else who follows the line along which my finger points will know where Gentry sat at each 10:30 Sunday mass here at Gesu. Quietly engaged with the community at the Lord’s table and with our Messiah and his, Gentry brought his week to Jesus and asked Jesus to guide him in his week to come.

His fidelity allowed him to be generous and, together with your mother, to shape his family to be good and generous. Gentry encountered Jesus in a personal way through your mother, for whom he became Catholic and with whom he lived his faith in Jesus.

His relationship with Jesus expressed itself in his patient goodness. His goodness practiced reassures us that your father and grandfather, brother and uncle and friend, felt God’s power in his life. Holy Spirit is the name we give to God’s power. We heard St. Paul remind us, hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Human words cannot exhaust the meaning of God love, the way that our words, “I love you,” never fully express what we mean with them. Yet that does not mean that speaker and hearer do not know love. Gentry Lee Cooper Jr. knew what words can only point to: God loved him and was loyal to him.

This was not easy. Gentry struggled with four cancers yet knew God’s loyalty and presence. You, his family and friends, and I face this time under the heavens. God has not changed God’s fidelity to Gentry. Gentry’s life is changed not ended./2/ That conviction of our faith challenges us to let go of him--he is not available to you, his family and friends, as he was. Still, our desire is to have him with us; and the assurance of our faith promises that we shall be reunited when Jesus returns in glory with salvation for his people./3/ It is while we await Jesus’ return, the resurrection of the dead and our reunion with them that we need to remember that promise and live from it as your father and grandfather, brother and uncle did.

The man who provided for you, his children, who put first his wife and his family, made the promise of life real for you. As Celeste and Donna put it, speaking for you all: “We knew our [parents’] love; we grew up seeing their love, and they knew our love.” Their love for you and for your children embodied our Triune God’s for you. Without having to know about the mystery we name the Incarnation, you have known it! You will see your father and grandfather again and know his love in ways none of us can imagine.

Your father also modeled how to hold on to the promise of our faith. Donna told me that the Saturday your mother was buried she saw your Dad at her grave, speaking softly. Later, Donna asked Gentry what he said. He said he promised to visit Gwen’s grave every week. For 13 years, with a yellow rose in hand, Gentry fulfilled his promise. Hold on to that memory: his memory and his promise kept!

Memories and dreams—both waking dreams and sleeping dreams—play roles in accepting death and in grieving. Memories and dreams also play roles in our faith lives. In his final days, Gentry dreamed of your mother, calling out, “Gwen, Gwen! The pickles!” While we cannot know now his dream, it is safe to guess the scene may well have been one of those many family gatherings at which Gentry hosted, entertained and BBQed for you. Surely God is hosting and entertaining Gentry with divine life and love that exceeds what any of us can imagine!

Jesus reminded us in the gospel, Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and...has passed from death to life. Hear Jesus’ words as his promise to your father. Thank Jesus for the gift of your father and your mother; thank Jesus for their love, which made Jesus real to you. Remember they passed the faith to you. As they made its promise real for you, honor them by keeping the promise alive for one another and for everyone you meet.


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1. Cf. Order of Christian Funerals, 27.
2. Preface for Christian Death I, Roman Missal.
3. Penitential Rite (C,ii), Roman Missal.
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Wiki-image by Elucidate of a yellow rose is used according to the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. Wiki-image of the Resurrection is in the public domain.