Some of you might be familiar with a reality TV show called The Voice that’s been on for a few seasons. Contestants come on stage one at a time and sing to three [actually four] judges whose backs are turned. Based solely on the sound quality of the singing voices and their potential, the judges try to choose the most promising contestants to continue on in the competition.

There’s something compelling about a distinctive voice. The music industry is filled with great voices from many different genres and eras.

In the world of pop music, artists like Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin have been amazing listeners for over sixty years. Today’s radio listeners might be impressed by the voice of Celine Dion, Josh Groban, or Sarah Brightman.

We don’t even have to know what an artist is singing to appreciate their voice. When opera singers like Luciano Pavarotti or Joan Sutherland fill a concert hall with an aria we are so astounded that a human being can make sounds like that, it doesn’t matter that we don’t understand the language. Their voice becomes a musical instrument that transcends the written word.

It’s not just singing voices that resonate with us. I grew up with the authoritative voice of Walter Cronkite on the news and the friendly, energetic ring of Dick Clark [I meant Casey Kasem!] counting down the top forty. And what would Star Wars have been without the deep tones of James Earl Jones as Darth Vader.

The human voice is fascinating.

In today’s gospel, Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice.”

It’s significant that he says “My sheep hear my voice,” rather than “My sheep hear my words,” or “My sheep hear my teachings.”

Like listening to an opera singer, the compelling quality is not in the words necessarily, but in the voice itself, in the timbre, the tone, in the familiar depth of sound that the breath forms as it comes across the vocal chords.

The sheep are so close to the shepherd, their lives are so intimately bound together, that his voice is instantly recognizable to them.

Science tells us that no two human voices are alike.

If we meditate for a bit on what makes up a human voice, we discover a miraculous interconnection between the lungs, the vocal chords, and the mouth. Our lungs pump air across vocal chords that loosen, tighten, and change thickness. The position of our tongue and the shape of our neck and body change the vibrations that come out of our mouth. And these vibrations go out of us and become sounds when they are encountered by ears close enough to hear them.

Sinatra, Pavarotti, Sutherland, each of them make their own unique sounds out of air, out of the very breath of life. We, too, each make our own unique sounds.

And so does God.

Our Almighty God, the great God of the Universe–after speaking for centuries through the motion of the stars and planets, after speaking through leaders like Abraham and Moses, after speaking through the Law and the prophets–this great God finally speaks to his people in His own unique voice. In a human voice.

The creator of galaxies, the maker of star systems, the builder of planets, takes on a heart, and lungs, and vocal chords, and speaks with a human voice.

He breathes in, his lungs fill with air, the air moves back up over his vocal chords as he loosens and tightens them, and he calls to his sheep.

Sheep do not follow a shepherd because they understand his Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek. They follow the shepherd because they feel the vibration of his voice in their ears and they recognize it.

They feel in their bones that this is the one who is always speaking to them, this is the one who comforts them, this is the one who nourishes them.

It’s the same way with a newborn baby who hears his mother’s voice for the first time.

I remember watching Brenda hold each of our children after they were born. With each child it was the same thing. She would start talking and instantly their eyes would follow the voice. They recognized her voice first of all, and they followed it. Did they know what she was saying? Did they understand the words? No, not really.

But they knew that this was the one who had carried them for nine months, who had fed them, who had spoken to them in the very vibrations and movements of the womb.

Mothers can say, like Jesus, “My baby knows my voice.”

New infants feel it in their bones, just as the disciples could feel the voice of Jesus in their bones, even though they might not understand all that he was saying.

Do we feel it in our bones? Are we so intimately connected to the shepherd that we know the one who carries us through our days, who feeds us at this altar, who speaks to us in every movement of the world?

Do we recognize the vibrations of his voice in our souls?

We might say, “But we don’t hear Jesus’ voice any more, since he no longer lives among us.”

We might look at the events in Boston, or West, Texas or China this past week and ask “Where is our shepherd?” It may seem to us that his voice is silent as the tomb.

But we cannot forget the lesson of Easter.

We cannot forget that in rising from the dead and sending forth the Holy Spirit, Jesus makes us one with him and speaks now through His Church.

The Church is the Body of Christ. We are the Body of Christ. Christ speaks through a human body today just as he did two thousand years ago.

When scripture is proclaimed here in our midst, in a human voice, we hear the voice of Christ.

When the bread and wine are lifted up, and the priest says, “This is my body, this is my blood,” we hear the voice of Christ.

And even more: when we pronounce the “I do” at our wedding, when we speak words of comfort to the sick or dying, when we take the time to talk with someone in need, then Christ speaks through us.

When marathon runners run toward a blast and not away from it, when they talk to a lost child or a disoriented fellow runner, they speak with the voice of Christ. When a little boy’s parents cry over the death of their son, when the country mourns with them, it is Christ himself whose weeping voice is heard.

Jesus still speaks to us in a human voice. Our loving God is as close to us as the air we breathe, as the air that forms the words we say. Are we listening? Do we recognize the voice of the shepherd?

We might not understand the words. We might not comprehend his teachings. We may even have our backs turned to him, like those judges in that TV show.

But if we let that voice resonate within us, if we follow after that voice, we shall never perish. Like a newborn in the hands of a mother, no one can take us out of his hands.

As my time at the NCEA Convention is coming to an end, I see that I didn’t really get to post as much as I wanted to. I still want to share some of the sights and sounds of the convention however, so I’ve put together a few things in this final post.

First, I’ve attached a recording from the second Eucharistic liturgy of the conference. This is a performance of “Be Still, My Soul” by the Houston Catholic Schools Choir. It’s a tragedy that my recording is so poor, because the choir sung this beautifully as the prelude to mass, and it moved me greatly. Here are the words:

Be still, my soul; the Lord is on your side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to your God to order and provide;
In every change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; your best, your heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul; your God will undertake
To guide the future as in ages past.
Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and wind still know
The Christ who ruled them while he dwelt below.

Be still, my soul; the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

The liturgies are always a high point of NCEA conventions, and I was blessed to be able to attend mass celebrated by our very own Bishop Blase Cupich, who is the new chair of the NCEA board.

This convention was also special to me for two other reasons. First, I was able to be present at the banquet in which our second grade teacher Linda Eber received the 2013 Distinguished Teacher Award. It was a wonderful occasion and I felt privileged to witness Linda being honored for her years of dedication and service to Catholic school students.

Second, it was my first time presenting at a national convention, and I had a great time meeting people in person that I had previously only known online. People like Barb Gilman, Nancy Caramanico, Greg Dhuyvetter, Carmen Ribera, Jim Meredith, Matthew Warner, and Ryan Blackburn.

One of the highlights was sitting around a table with Barb, Nancy, and Greg, doing in person what we before could only do online: chat about Catholic education.

And of course, it was an unbelievable joy to present to a great audience of Catholic educators. My principal, Kathy Hicks, was in the audience, as well as Linda, Nancy, Barb’s principal and AuntTammie!

Here are links from our presentation, for those of you who would like to know what we talked about:

• Catholic Classrooms without Walls
• The To Teach as Jesus Did Project - be sure to check out the results of our interactive project in which over half of our audience participated!

And finally, here is a gallery of pictures I took this week:

The scene from the airplane as I left Seattle…

Barb and Nancy were involved in an automobile accident on their way from the Houston airport to the hotel. The shuttle van they were riding in struck a barrier in the road and flipped, crushing the roof and shattering the windshield. Their injuries weren’t life threatening, but they were shook up all the same.

The scene of Barb and Nancy’s shuttle accident as I arrived in Houston…

The entire story is theirs to tell, so I won’t go into all the details. But after spending about four hours in the emergency room, they finally made it to the hotel where I got to meet them in person–bruises, blood, and all.

Thankfully their injuries weren’t worse. Suddenly the NCEA convention doesn’t seem as important as it did a few hours ago.

ACE Advocates “I Love Catholic Schools” T-Shirt

My bags are packed and I’m getting ready to leave today for the 2013 NCEA convention in Houston, Texas. Thousands of Catholic educators will be converging on the George R. Brown Convention Center on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week for keynote speeches, professional development sessions, liturgies, and camaraderie.

Barb Gilman and I will be presenting Catholic Classrooms Without Walls: Interactive Projects Connecting Classrooms Around the World, and I can’t wait to finally meet so many of my online teacher friends, especially those who participate in #CatholicEdChat each weekend.

For the next few days I hope to be posting audio and video podcasts of the convention. If you’re interested in what happens when thousands of Catholic educators gather, you can follow the podcasts here, on iTunes, or on Twitter.

I’ll also be cross-posting on Catholic School Chronicle, so pardon the duplication if you follow both feeds.

Before his resignation from the papacy, Pope Benedict chose Lebanese youth to write the meditations for this year’s Stations of the Cross in Rome. In the following video, some of the young people talk about the process.

“Living Holy Week is always going deeper into God’s logic, into the logic of the Cross, which is not first and foremost a logic of sorrow and death but one of love and the self giving that brings life. It is entering into the logic of the Gospel. Following, accompanying Christ, staying with him when he demands that we ‘go out’: out of ourselves, out of a tired and habitual way of living the faith, out of the temptation of locking ourselves in our own schemes that wind up closing the horizon of God’s creative action. God went out of himself in order to come amongst us … to bring us the mercy … that saves and gives hope. And we, if we want to follow and remain with him, cannot be satisfied with staying in the sheep pen with the ninety-nine sheep. We have to ‘go out’, to search for the little lost sheep, the furthest one, with him.”

“Often,” he observed, “we settle for some prayers, a distracted and infrequent Sunday Mass, some act of charity, but we don’t have this courage to ‘go out’ and bring Christ. We are a little like St. Peter. As soon as Jesus talks of his passion, death, and resurrection, of giving himself and love for all, the Apostle takes him aside and scolds him. What Jesus is saying shakes up his plans, seems unacceptable, the safe certainty he had constructed, his idea of the Messiah, in difficulty. And Jesus … addressing some of the harshest words of the Gospel to Peter, says: ‘Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.’ God thinks mercifully. God thinks like a father who awaits the return of his son and goes out to meet him, sees him coming when he is still afar … a sign that he was awaiting him every day from the terrace of his house. God thinks like the Samaritan who doesn’t pass by the unfortunate man, pitying him or looking away, but rather assisting him without asking anything in return, without asking if he was a Jew or a Samaritan, rich or poor.”

“Holy Week,” Francis concluded, “is a time of grace that the Lord gives us to open the doors of our hearts, of our lives, of our parishes—so many closed parishes are a shame—of our movements and associations, to ‘go out’ and meet others, to draw near them and bring them the light and joy of our faith. To always go out with the love and tenderness of God!”

Read the full text of the audience at VIS news – Holy See Press Office: FRANCIS’ FIRST GENERAL AUDIENCE: FOLLOWING JESUS IS LEARNING TO GO OUT OF OURSELVES.

I didn’t get a chance to post about this earlier, but before Pope Francis was elected we held our own conclave in the eighth grade. Two local media outlets covered the story, and unlike the conclave in Rome, we let them in for a peek. Here’s an excerpt from the story in our local paper, along with video coverage:

Before Jorge Bergoglio was selected as the new pope Wednesday, students at All Saints Catholic School held their own conclave. They came dressed in red capes. Some were made out of blankets, some looked more like wizards’ capes and some were simply made out of red cloth. And they all wore the traditional little red beanie: the zucchetto.

The two eighth-grade classes at All Saints Catholic School were sequestered last Thursday, where they followed Roman Catholic protocol and selected a new pope.

Leading up to the conclave, the 55 students had each picked the name of a voting cardinal and researched his work and opinions.

“A papal conclave is so infrequent we have to relearn the ritual every time,” said Nick Senger, vice principal and eighth-grade teacher. “If they pick a younger pope we may not see a conclave for another 20 years.”

Read the rest at Catholic school puts conclave in the classroom – Spokesman.com – March 14, 2013.

KHQ Right Now – News and Weather for Spokane and North Idaho |

Pope Francis Preaches on Palm Sunday

Here is Pope Francis’ homily from earlier today. “A Christian can never be sad! Never give way to discouragement!”

Catholic film critic Steven Greydanus gives his list of ten movies kids probably haven’t seen that are well worth their (and your) time:

Kids today are lucky if they know the likes of The Wizard of Oz, The Song of Bernadette, Singin’ in the Rain, The Sound of Music, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Babe and The Iron Giant.

Lots of good stuff there (though older movies may require adult mediation to help kids adjust to the slower rhythms of the Golden Age). But what’s really off the beaten path for kids today? What have most kids not only not seen, but not even heard of?

Of the 10 films highlighted below (with other recommendations thrown in), I can almost promise that at least nine will be brand-new to all but the most film-savvy or fortunate kids—and all are worthwhile for grown-ups, too.

Here are a few of the films he mentions:

• The Court Jester – I second this recommendation–a terrific film starring Danny Kaye
  
• The Story of Weeping Camel–another great unsung film
• The Kid Brother–slapstick silent comedy starring Harold Lloyd that rivals Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin

For the whole list, along with Steven’s commentary, see Neglected Family Fare.

And as a teaser, enjoy this clip from The Court Jester:

From Whispers in the Loggia:

In a sudden announcement this morning from the Holy See, Pope Francis has yet again turned Vatican protocol on its head – shredding the earlier plan of beginning the Easter Triduum in St Peter’s Basilica, the new pontiff has instead opted to go to a juvenile prison in Rome to celebrate Holy Thursday’s Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, at which he’ll wash the feet of 12 inmates.

The opening chapter of the church’s most sacred moment of the year, while the rite normally takes place in at St John Lateran, this year’s Evening Mass was previously slated to happen in the Vatican Basilica as the new pontiff has yet to take possession of the Lateran – the “Mother and Head” of all churches, which technically serves as the cathedral of the bishop of Rome.

Historically, the Popes have washed the feet of 12 retired priests of their diocese at the liturgy.

Read the full story.

Pope Francis Descends Popemobile to Bless Disabled Man Before Mass Begins

Pope Francis – Homily at Mass of Inauguration

Please, I would like to ask all those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life, and all men and women of goodwill: let us be “protectors” of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment. Let us not allow omens of destruction and death to accompany the advance of this world! But to be “protectors”, we also have to keep watch over ourselves! Let us not forget that hatred, envy and pride defile our lives! Being protectors, then, also means keeping watch over our emotions, over our hearts, because they are the seat of good and evil intentions: intentions that build up and tear down! We must not be afraid of goodness or even tenderness!

Here I would add one more thing: caring, protecting, demands goodness, it calls for a certain tenderness. In the Gospels, Saint Joseph appears as a strong and courageous man, a working man, yet in his heart we see great tenderness, which is not the virtue of the weak but rather a sign of strength of spirit and a capacity for concern, for compassion, for genuine openness to others, for love. We must not be afraid of goodness, of tenderness!

In the song, Springsteen sings about a group of middle-aged friends sitting at a local bar longing for “the good ol’ days,” the glory days.

The days when you could blow a fastball by a hitter.
The days when all the boys’ heads would turn when you walked by.

The glory days.

You can imagine these friends sitting together drinking, maybe unhappy with the way their lives have turned out, frustrated at unfulfilled dreams, unpaid debts, or stale relationships.

In our mind’s eye we can see them raise their glasses with wistful eyes, singing the chorus:

Glory days, well they’ll pass you by.
Glory days, in the wink of a young girl’s eye,
Glory days.

Maybe we recognize a little of ourselves in that group of middle aged friends, looking back on state championships, young loves, or financial successes. Or maybe the younger people among us look at that group of friends and worry that it might be them some day, afraid that when they grow old all they will have is the memories of their glory days.

It’s not just individuals who look back like this. Entire nations of people have their “glory days,” too.

This is what’s happening our first reading today. The Israelites were in exile when this passage from Isaiah was written. They had been conquered by the Babylonians, and the skilled workers and educated members of the Israelite community had been captured and taken into exile. And while they’re in exile–alone, frustrated, alienated–they long for the glory days.

They remember the days Moses led their ancestors through the Red Sea, rescuing them from slavery at the hands of the Egyptians.

They remember the time that their forefathers marched on Jericho.

The remember how they grew into a great nation under King David.

Like those friends at the bar in Bruce Springsteen’s song, the exiled Israelites are caught up in the events of the past.

And even the Church is not immune to dwelling on glory days. We too can spend our time nostalgically looking at the past, at what seem to be the glory days of the Church. If we’re angry or frustrated at the Church, we might long for the way things were. We might sit with disgruntled friends and raise our glasses to the Council of Trent or the Second Vatican Council, or we might toast St. Augustine, or Pope John XXIII, or Pope John Paul II.

Glory days.

But in the midst of the exile, in the midst of the Israelites’ longing for their glory days, the prophet Isaiah speaks with the voice of God, and his message is for us, too: “Remember not the events of the past. The things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new.”

When we get caught up in looking at the glory days of the past, we run the risk of not being able to see the new things that God is doing in our lives right now.

We can see this clearly in the events of the last month, and especially the last week.

For the first time in centuries, the pope resigned.

“See, I am doing something new!” says the Lord.

For the first time in history, a pope from the Americas has been elected.

“See, I am doing something new!”

For the first time in history, a Jesuit has become the Holy Father.

For the first time, a pope has taken the name Francis.

“See, I am doing something new!” says the Lord.

And dare I say it, for the first time, Gonzaga is the number one basketball team in the nation.

And just as God does “something new” for Israel and for the Church, so he does something new for each of us individually.

But if we’re too busy looking at the past, we miss what God is doing today, right now, in this moment.

In our spiritual lives, however, it’s usually not the great events of our past that blind us to God’s presence. More often than not we get preoccupied with the sinful things we’ve done. We dwell on them over and over, beating ourselves up internally over mistakes we’ve made, sins we’ve committed, friends we’ve hurt.

But God has something new for us, too. Can we see it? Do we recognize it? Looking back over just the last twenty-four hours, what new things has God done for us?

We can be assured that God is doing something new for us each right now, right here. Something in the back of your mind maybe, or perhaps in the person next to you in the pew. Perhaps God is speaking to you through the different objects here in the church–the candles, the stations of the cross, the altar, the crucifix.

Perhaps we can allow the many new things of this past week to remind us that God is always doing something new. Maybe we can take our eyes off the sinfulness of the past, off of the glory days, both individually and as a Church, and we can look forward with Christ to the glory days that are to come.

“See, I am doing something new!” says the Lord. “Now it springs forth, do you perceive it?”

To my colleague and friend, Mary Feezell.

Readings:
Wisdom 3:1-6
2 Timothy 4:7-8
Mark 10:13-16

Some people call it “The Happiest Place on Earth.” Others call it “The Magic Kingdom.” Anyone who knew Mary, or who looked at the memory table as we walked in, knows that Mary loved Disneyland. If Mary wasn’t telling you about the trip she just took to Disneyland, she was telling you about the next trip she was going to take to Disneyland. She even had a Disney cruise planned for this summer.

That love for Mickey and the Magic Kingdom is a perfect expression of Mary’s childlike qualities. She understood what Jesus was talking about in the gospel we just heard. Jesus tells us today that in order to accept the Kingdom of Heaven we must become like children. Once we become like children we open ourselves to the mercy of our loving Father who cares for each of us.

But what does it mean to become like children?

We can learn how to become like children by looking at the way Jesus worked in Miss Feezell’s life. As a Catholic school teacher, it was Mary’s vocation each day to help her students draw closer to Christ. Now, in one last lesson, her life can help us understand Jesus and draw closer to him.

First of all, to be childlike means to be in awe of creation, to look in wonder at the world. Mary’s favorite song was “What a Wonderful World.” You know the words:

I see trees of green…red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself…what a wonderful world

Our family, our friends, our school, are gifts from God, gifts that are easily taken for granted. To become like a child means to wake up each morning overjoyed that the sun has come up again, excited about each new moment of the day, and to think…what a wonderful world. It means falling in love with this wonderful world and with the God who made it.

And the next lesson we can learn from Miss Feezell about being childlike is that children never tire of what they love.

Mary loved teaching, she loved her students and friends, she loved her faith. She loved playing soccer at recess, joining in PE class, and helping students become readers and writers.

She never tired of those things she loved. Her body may have become tired, but her heart never did. Even in her last days she spoke about her love and concern for the children.

So lesson number two from Miss Feezell is that to be childlike means that we never grow bored or weary of the things we love. Sometimes people complain about hearing the same prayers at mass, or about having to get up on Monday morning and start the daily grind all over again. But have you ever heard a child complain about hearing the same bedtime story over and over again? It’s not so much the story that they love, but rather the the parent who reads it.

When we truly love something, it is never a burden, but a source of continual joy. It is the love God has for each of us, a love that never gets old, even if we do.

And our final lesson today, lesson number three, is that being childlike does not mean never growing up.

Jesus did not tell his disciples to remain children, but to be like children. We see this in Miss Feezell, too. Though she was childlike, Mary was also an adult.

To be an adult means to accept the responsibilities that come with growing up, and for people of faith that means carrying the crosses that are laid on our shoulders.

We hear in St. Paul’s letter to Timothy that life is like competing in a race. It takes effort. It’s often difficult and painful.

And Mary competed hard. She accepted her illness, her fatigue, her pain, and never complained. She kept the faith. Just as Jesus accepted the burden of the cross, so Mary accepted the burden of her illness. If you take a look at Mary’s Relay for Life survivor medals, you see the symbols of a woman who took what was given to her, faced it with courage, and accepted it with grace, dignity, and childlike trust in her God.

There’s a little booklet that we teachers at All Saints try to live by, called To Teach As Jesus Did. We try each day to model our teaching after the one true Teacher, Jesus Christ. This is what Mary tried to do too.

She took the lessons she learned from Jesus–to be childlike, to carry her crosses–and she put them into practice.

This is our journey. This is our task. To learn to see life with eyes of wonder. To love without growing tired. To bear our crosses patiently, trusting that God’s mercy will some day relieve of us of our burdens.

My family and I had the joy of meeting up with Mary in Disneyland in the summer of 2005, when the park was celebrating its 50th Anniversary. Mr. Coyle was there, too. It’s one of our fondest family memories.

I like to think that Mary fell so much in love with Disneyland because she was able to see beyond the rides, the parades, and the fireworks to the loving creator who made them all. The same child within her who loved Disneyland also loved her Catholic faith and her savior Jesus.

If we can learn to live with Mary’s childlike wonder, while at the same time accepting the very real work of carrying our crosses, then we, like Mary, will be able to say one day, “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.”

It is that faith into which Mary was baptized, and it is that faith that gives us hope in her eternal life.

Mary has left behind the Magic Kingdom for a greater kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven. She leaves behind the “Happiest Place on Earth” to be received into the happiest place of all.

The movie is a powerful experience, and it captures well the religious themes of the novel. As I’ve taught the book over the years, I’ve seen it change lives and open eyes.

One of the reasons the novel has such a powerful influence is its main character, Jean Valjean.

For anyone about to join the Church, or for anyone who is trying to live out their baptismal call, Jean Valjean’s story vividly illustrates the path of the Christian life. Valjean is like Abram in today’s first reading, or like the three disciples in today’s gospel.

Jean Valjean

As the story opens, Valjean has just been released from prison after nineteen years. He served five years for stealing a loaf of bread to give to his sister and her seven children in a time of unemployment and no money. The rest of those nineteen years he had to serve because he kept trying to escape. As he’s released he’s a hardened man who hates society for having punished him so severely.

And he has no reason to change his attitude as he is rejected by every place he turns to find work after his release. No one will have him. Every one turns him away.

Everyone except one person, that is. A kindly old bishop welcomes him in, gives him warm food and a bed, treats him like an honored guest.

The bishop lives a very simple life, and his only bit of extravagance is the set of silver plates and utensils that he breaks out when he has company.

Jean Valjean repays the bishop’s hospitality not by staying around to do a little gardening for him, or by helping him repair part of the cathedral. He repays him by sneaking out of his room in the middle of the night and stealing the bishop’s silver.

Well, Valjean doesn’t get very far. He’s caught by the police and brought back to the bishop. And though the bishop is a simple man who leads a simple life, he’s very intelligent, and he can see what’s happening. The bishop says, “Oh, there you are Valjean. But you left so quickly you forgot to take the silver candlesticks, too.” The policeman are flabbergasted because of course Valjean told them the silver was a gift from nice old priest with whom he’s spend the night. Rather than press charges, the bishop saves Valjean from having to go back to prison for life.

After the police have gone, in one of the most famous scenes in all of world literature, the bishop tells Valjean that he must use this silver to become an honest man, that he has bought his soul for God.

Now this story has been put in short story collections under the title “The Bishop’s Candlesticks,” and it serves as a great example of forgiveness, of turning the other cheek. But that’s not why it’s in the novel. This generous act of the bishop is a major turning point in Jean Valjean’s life and it takes place at the very beginning of the story. In fact, in the movie musical, this much of Valjean’s life only takes about ten minutes of screen time.

Like God’s covenant with Abram in the first reading, or Jesus’ transfiguration in the gospel, or as with our Baptism, First Eucharist, and Confirmation, the real story has yet to begin.

The bishop makes the offer, and Valjean accepts and commits himself to changing his life.

God made the offer to Abram who put his faith in the Lord; but then he and his descendants had to go out and live that covenant. It would take many years–years of unfaithfulness, year of slavery, years of traveling in the desert, years of divided kingdoms and exile–and still the covenant would not be completely fulfilled.

Peter, John, and James climbed Mount Tabor and saw the glory of the Lord, but this was no time for pitching a tent, for setting up camp. Jesus was not talking with Elijah and Moses about the beautiful sunrise, the soft breeze or the lovely view. They were talking about the suffering and death that was soon to come. This is the turning point of Luke’s gospel.

Shortly after this transfiguration experience Jesus “resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.” The phrase Luke uses is literally translated as “he set his face” toward Jerusalem. After Jesus’ face changed on Mount Tabor, Jesus sets it toward Jerusalem, toward his suffering and death.

Valjean, too, sets his face toward suffering and death. The rest of the novel tells the story of Valjean’s struggle to follow the bishop’s instruction to become an honest man. In the rest of the book, Valjean has to learn to continually pour himself out in sacrifice, even when he knows it will not be appreciated or repaid.

The Church places these readings at the beginning of Lent to remind catechumens that they are not simply preparing for an event at the Easter Vigil. They will certainly encounter God in the sacraments of Baptism, Eucharist, and Confirmation. But then they must set their faces toward Jerusalem, pick up their crosses and follow Jesus.

But these readings are for us, too, who have been fully initiated into the Church. Our lives are to be continually poured out for the sake of others. As Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, we are not to be occupied with earthly things, but we are to remember our citizenship is in heaven.

Lent is the time for a renewed recommitment to emptying ourselves for the sake others with no thought of repayment or gratitude.

It is the time for pouring ourselves out for our children, even if they rarely think of the sacrifices it takes to raise them.

It is the time for spending time at the House of Charity helping people who over and over again seem unable to break themselves from the chains of addiction, or whose mental state prevents them from really understanding what they’ve been given.

It is the time for spending hours in prayer for people who never even know they’re being prayed for, and who perhaps continually make our lives miserable.

This is the call of the disciple. This is what it means to follow Jesus.

And at the end of our story, at the end of our journey, Jesus will change our lowly bodies to conform with his glorified body.

If you’re looking for some inspiration as Lent continues, you may consider watching the new Les Misérables film, though it’s definitely not for children; better yet, the book could be a part of your Lenten reading. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the 1400 page unabridged version though that could be a Lenten penance, I suppose. My students and I read a 600 page abridged edition by Enriched Classics that’s very very good.

Whatever our Lenten inspiration is this year, whether it’s Les Misérables or some other book, movie, devotion, or practice, these forty days give us an opportunity to look at our lives and ask, “Am I stuck on Mount Tabor camping out in my tent, or have I set my face toward Jerusalem, following Jesus as his disciple?”

“Have my Baptism, First Eucharist, and Confirmation been one-time events, or do I constantly renew them by giving of myself to others in service?”

Prayer and converse with God is a supreme good: it is a partnership and union with God. As the eyes of the body are enlightened when they see light, so our spirit, when it is intent on God, is illumined by his infinite light. I do not mean the prayer of outward observance but prayer from the heart, not confined to fixed times or periods but continuous throughout the day and night.

Our spirit should be quick to reach out toward God, not only when it is engaged in meditation; at other times also, when it is carrying out its duties, caring for the needy, performing works of charity, giving generously in the service of others, our spirit should long for God and call him to mind, so that these works may be seasoned with the salt of God’s love, and so make a palatable offering to the Lord of the universe. Throughout the whole of our lives we may enjoy the benefit that comes from prayer if we devote a great deal of time to it.

Prayer is the light of the spirit, true knowledge of God, mediating between God and man. The spirit, raised up to heaven by prayer, clings to God with the utmost tenderness; like a child crying tearfully for its mother, it craves the milk that God provides. It seeks the satisfaction of its own desires, and receives gifts outweighing the whole world of nature.

Prayer stands before God as an honored ambassador. It gives joy to the spirit, peace to the heart. I speak of prayer, not words. It is the longing for God, love too deep for words, a gift not given by man but by God’s grace. The apostle Paul says: We do not know how we are to pray but the Spirit himself pleads for us with inexpressible longings.

When the Lord gives this kind of prayer to a man, he gives him riches that cannot be taken away, heavenly food that satisfies the spirit. One who tastes this food is set on fire with an eternal longing for the Lord: his spirit burns as in a fire of utmost intensity.

Practice prayer from the beginning. Paint your house with the colors of modesty and humility. Make it radiant with the light of justice. Decorate it with the finest gold leaf of good deeds. Adorn it with the walls and stones of faith and generosity. Crown it with the pinnacle of prayer. In this way you will make it a perfect dwelling place for the Lord. You will be able to receive him as in a splendid palace, and through his grace you will already possess him, his image enthroned in the temple of your spirit.

I wonder how many of us have hidden in the back corner of the storage closet somewhere, a collection of wedding gifts that didn’t quite match our personalities. The set of ceramic squirrels, that yogurt maker, the 3D picture of horses? We welcomed the gifts graciously, and then promptly put them away.

Maybe we bring them out when the people who gave them to us comes to visit, but then they goes back in the closet and continue to collect dust.

In the gospel today, the young newlyweds received a wedding gift from Jesus that they certainly appreciated. But it didn’t come right away. It only came after near embarrassment.

A Jewish wedding was a great, joyful affair that would often last several days. This couple comes to discover that the wine has run out. Now, to understand the full significance of that, you might, like me, have to translate that into language you can understand. I come from a German family, so for me it has a greater impact to translate that as, “The beer has run out.”

But in any case, the spirits have run dry, and the young couple is on the verge of embarrassment. And so Mary, the mother of Jesus, asks him to intervene. Jesus has six stone jars filled with water, and in a miraculous gesture, he turns it into 180 gallons of wine.

What a generous gift. Not only was there now enough wine, but it was more than they needed, and better than the wine they shad begun with. It makes you wonder what would have happened if Mary had said to Jesus, “They’re out of money.”

But the celebration continues, and this young couple will have a wedding feast they will always remember–a great memory to hand on to their children.

As we look more closely at this great gift that Jesus gave, we remember that John calls this a sign, not just a miracle. There are very few miracles recounted John’s gospel–only seven, and he calls them all signs. They mean something.

So this gift of abundant wine is for more than just the young couple. It’s for you and me, and the entire Church.

This wedding at Cana is our wedding, too. We are part of the great Wedding of the Lamb.

We see this in the Old Testament which is filled with metaphors of God loving his people as a groom loves his bride.

We get a taste of that in the first reading today when Isaiah tells the forsaken people of Israel that they’re not forgotten. He tells the people of Israel that have been beaten down and kicked out of their homes that their God loves them with the love a husband for his wife:

“As a bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you.”

And so when we look at this sign from the gospel of John, we see in this wedding feast more than just Jesus helping out this newlywed couple.

There are two important things that this event signifies:

• First, God’s love is overflowing almost to the point of silliness.
  • 180 gallons is a lot of wine, even for a wedding. Again, to translate for the Germans or the Irish out there, that’s about 12 kegs of beer.
  • Besides the sheer abundance of wine, there’s the fact that it’s better tasting. There’s no need to serve good tasting wine now, after people have already been drinking for a while. But God’s love goes beyond what’s logical or rational or prudent.
  • And God is just as generous and extravagant with us.
  • Do we recognize and acknowledge the gifts that surround us?
  • This new day of life, parents and siblings, pets, friends
  • The house we live in, the food on the table, the clothes we wear
  • Electricity, water from a tap, indoor plumbing
  • Good schools, good roads, safe streets
  • Do we see God’s gifts in the day-to-day moments of our lives?
  • Or have we overlooked them and put them in the back corner of our mind like those wedding presents stuffed in the back of the closet?
• The second thing the Wedding at Cana signifies, is that sometimes the best gifts come after the wine has run out.
  • We’re in Ordinary Time now, and maybe we feel like we have run out of wine. Maybe the weather’s getting us down. Christmas is over, and the routine has begun again: there are errands to run, lunches to make, clothes to be washed.
  • But we begin Ordinary Time with this gospel so that as the year continues we can remember that Jesus is there to turn the ordinary water of our lives into rich, exquisite wine.
  • If we look with the eyes of faith at the events of our lives can we recognize in them the gift of overflowing love the Father has for us?
  • Jesus is right there, turning the water of our lives into wine, turning our despair into hope.
  • When our children are sick and needy and they reach out to us for a hug–that is a wedding gift from God.
  • When we visit a friend in the hospital and they reach out and tenderly take our hand, appreciative of the time we’ve taken to see them–that is a wedding gift from God.
  • As we try to find work, and we’re forced to do serious soul searching–that’s a wedding gift from God.
  • After a fight with our spouse or a colleague, and the forgiveness comes pouring out–that’s a wedding gift from God.
  • When the savior of the world is crucified on a cross, and rises on the third day–that is a wedding gift from God.
  • Sometimes the best gifts come after the wine has run out.

The marriage has begun, and yet the gifts keep rolling in. They’re greater and more abundant than anything we could have asked for. As Ordinary Time continues, we look with the eyes of faith and try to recognize the graces God has in store for us, approaching the banquet table with hope and gratitude.

After a fairly lengthy letter, Tolkien gets to the heart of his response:

“So it may be said that the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks.”

– The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Humphrey Carter, ed. (page 400)

Doesn’t it make you just want to take out that old copy of Treasure Island or Robinson Crusoe and settle in for the evening?

The score is unusually text driven, just like liturgy. The singers in the film were chosen not for their singing ability but for their acting — which makes the singing more authentic in some way. Their voices were not ruined by too much training and affectation. They seemed authentic because of this — again, a point that is replicated in a liturgical context.

I highly recommend that every priest and singer needs to see the film to understand the drama that is possible in the musical context. The application to liturgical worship makes the point that we are denying ourselves deeper spiritual experiences by settling for spoken Masses over sung ones.

It’s an interesting comparison, one that some readers take issue with in the comment box at the end of the article. Read more at The Chant Café.

In The Joy of Reading, Charles Van Doren describes the novel in this way:

Pride and Prejudice was her first novel; she wrote a version of it before she was twenty. She put it aside to write Sense and Sensibility, her first work to be published; she then rewrote Pride and Prejudice and published it in 1813.

It is magically interesting, astonishingly adult. Elizabeth Bennett, its heroine—no doubt there is a lot of Jane Austen in Elizabeth—is as intelligent as she is beautiful, and as articulate as she is wise about the ways of the world.

And according to Philip Hensher at The Telegraph,

…Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has indeed risen from a cult favourite to a present-day universal of literature. Of course, for many years, Austen was the exclusive property of the “Janeites”, as her more fanatical readers were termed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s recorded that a sexton in Winchester Cathedral in the 1860s asked, with sincere puzzlement, whether there was “anything particular” about “that lady”, after so many people inquired after her grave. In 1866, a reader wrote to the learned journal Notes and Queries, seriously asking who might have written a book, mentioned by Macaulay, called Mansfield Park.

Since then, her popularity has risen and spread, and her readers have engendered still more works and enjoyed more spin-offs – from Pride and Prejudice in particular. It has been filmed dozens of times, including a 1952 television version with a very young Prunella Scales as Lydia and Peter Cushing as Darcy. Some have “improved” on the original – the 1940 Greer Garson Hollywood version, partly scripted by Aldous Huxley, makes Lady Catherine’s final angry denunciation only play-acting, a test by the dowager of the strength of Lizzie’s love. Others have spun still further off, including a recent detective thriller set at Pemberley by P D James, a vampire fantasy, and any number of novels in which the Darcys have children, face new problems, grow up, grow old, and repeat themselves ad nauseam. We are never, it seems, going to grow bored with Pride and Prejudice.

Happy birthday to one of my favorite books. Give yourself a treat and read it (or re-read it) this month.

Today is the feast of the Holy Family, and as we look at the gospel reading today we might be reminded of another story, a similar story, a more modern story.

A story of a family taking a long trip during the holiday season who suddenly realize they’ve left their young son home alone.

I’m speaking of course of the 1990 John Hughes movie Home Alone, where young Kevin McAllister is sick of being bullied by his older brothers and sisters, tired of being ignored by his parents, so he wishes his family would just disappear.

His wish gets granted when, on the morning they’re supposed to be getting on an airplaine  to go to Paris for Christmas, they oversleep and have to rush to get to the airport.

And just as Mary and Joseph don’t realize that Jesus has remained behind in Jerusalem, the McAllisters don’t realize that young Kevin has been left behind at home.

It takes Mary and Joseph several days to find Jesus when they return to Jerusalem, and it takes Mrs. McAllister several days to get back home from Paris.

And when they do get back–Mary and Joseph, and Mrs. McAllister, they come to realize that their sons were able to take care of themselves, and the message we might draw from this is that family is important, and our children are capable of more than we realize.

Now this is a good message. It’s good for us to appreciate the value of family and to see more in our children.

But if we stop there we short change the gospel. And the gospel reminds us that today is not the feast of the family, it’s the Feast of the Holy Family.

The Church sets Jesus, Mary and Joseph before us as a model of what our families should be like.

We might identify more easily with the McAllister family–with their bickering, noisiness, chaos–rather than identifying with the Holy Family.

How could we ever measure up to that kind of holiness? How could our families ever be that perfect? What could we do that would ever be good enough for us to be called a holy family?

But holiness doesn’t come from our own efforts. There is only one who is holy, and that’s God.

Our holiness comes from our connection to God, from our relationship with God.

And so the first thing we learn about family from the Holy Family is that we walk with God. A holy family walks with God.

Mary and Joseph welcomed Jesus into their lives. Jesus came to bring God to us. And just as that Holy Family welcomed God, we are to welcome the gift of each other that God has given us.

Our parents, our siblings, our children, are gifts from God, and when we welcome them into our lives we welcome God’s presence and we take one more step toward holiness.

The next thing we learn from the Holy Family is that being family means serving each other. Mary and Joseph placed themselves at God’s service to raise and take care of Jesus. Jesus himself came not to be served but to serve.

When we look at our own families we see many ways we can live out that call to service.

Husbands are to serve their wives by helping them achieve their salvation. Wives are to serve their husbands by helping them achieve their salvation. We become partners on our spiritual journeys, on this walk with God.

We pray for and with each other. We spend time together–even if it’s doing dishes together, working on the bills together, or folding clothes together, or just collapsing on the couch at the end of the day.

We walk together, we serve each other, to get closer to God.

And to be a parent is to be a servant. Driving kids to all of their activities, getting them ready for school in the morning, helping them with their homework, showing them how to vote, and cook and fix things. We pray with our kids, show them how to do acts of charity, bring them into the sacramental life of the Church, we bring them to Mass each weekend.

We serve them.

Children, too, have a part to play. They support each other by cheering at games, or applauding at dance recitals. The play games with each other and when they grow up they help each other through difficult times, they care for aging parents, they serve each other.

And so we learn from the Holy Family that we are to walk with God, that we are to serve each other. And if we do this, then we make our little corner of the world holier. We allow God to make our lives holy.

And in doing that we bring holiness to the world.

This is the Year of Faith, and the Church is calling us to be a part of the New Evangelization, to reignite the Faith in the lives of those who may have forgotten or drifted away from the Good News.

What better way to bring that Good News to the world, than by the example of our lives, than by living as holy family, families who walk with God.

We may sometimes look like the McAllisters’–noisy, busy, frazzled. We may even wish, like Kevin at times, that we could make our family disappear.

But we have a God who will never disappear. We have a God who will never leave us behind. His presence is what makes us part of a truly holy family.

1. The Aubrey/Maturin Series, books 6-13 by Patrick O’Brian: As I continue re-reading the series, I am loving the dictionary look-up feature on the Kindle to help me deal with the nautical terms. After Don Quixote and The Lord of the Rings, these are my favorite books of all time.
2. Teach Like a Champion: 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College by Doug Lemov: This has had the biggest positive influence on my teaching of anything I have read in years. It’s practical, wise, and easy to implement. Every teacher should read it.
3. An Introduction to the Homily by Robert Waznak: I read a lot of books on homiletics this year, and most of them were very good, but this one stood out as a superb introduction for the beginner–like me.
4. How to Defend the Faith Without Raising Your Voice: Civil Responses to Catholic Hot Button Issues by Austen Ivereigh: This is the way apologetics should be done. A must read for anyone engaged in the New Evangelization.
5. Our One Great Act of Fidelity: Waiting for Christ in the Eucharist by Ronald Rolheiser: A beautiful series of mediations on the Eucharist.

As 2013 begins, I am considering changing my reading goal to focus on fewer books of more substance. Right now I’m re-reading the unabridged translation of Les Misérables by Norman Denny. I start teaching the abridged version to my eighth graders soon, and I thought this would be a good time to reacquaint myself with Victor Hugo’s full story.

My thought for this year is to only read about one to two books a month, but to choose some of the longer books I’ve been wanting to read (or re-read): Our Mutual Friend and Bleak House Dickens, for example, or Eliot’s Middlemarch (which I recently abandoned), Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope, maybe even Boswell’s Life of Johnson. Of course, I still have the Aubrey/Maturin series to finish, and there’s always the books I’m reading for work and the diaconate, but I really would like to focus on quality this year rather than quantity.

Quite a few firsts in this homily:

• first homily without a full text in front of me
• first time preaching at a liturgy for children
• first Christmas homily
• first time using the lapel microphone
• first homily away from the ambo and walking around

You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry?

Last weekend Brenda and I took the girls out to do some Christmas shopping and we ended up at a local sporting goods store looking at boots, hats and gloves. And as we made our way up the stairs to the second floor we saw a young boy, probably five or six years old, trying to hide behind the winter coats. He had obviously had enough of Christmas cheer, and was ready to goh home. And his mom looked to be at her wit’s end.

And I overheard her say those words that parents often say this time of year to their young children, “Don’t forget, Christmas is close, and Santa is watching.”

Immediately my mind jumped to the words from “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”:

“He sees you when your sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness’ sake.”

It’s a difficult time of the year if you’re a kid. On the one hand, you have the joy of knowing that presents are coming and school is about get out. On the other hand, there’s all this pressure to behave because Santa’s watching.

It takes all the fun out of waiting.

We see that same dynamic at work in today’s liturgy.

Today is Gaudete Sunday, Rejoice Sunday.

The Church gives us this Third Sunday of Advent to remind us how close we are to celebrating the Incarnation, how close we are to Christ’s coming at Christmas.

The words of St. Paul give the day this name: “Rejoice in Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!”

That same sentiment is echoed in the first reading from the prophet Zephaniah: “Shout for joy, O daughter Zion!” “Sing joyfully, O Israel!”

We’re only nine days away from Christmas, and so we light a rose-colored candle, we use rose colored vestments, we hear these enthusiastic words of rejoicing and joy.

And and the other hand we have John the Baptist.

John the Baptist is like that mother reminding her son to behave. He takes all the fun out of waiting.

Why would we have such a somber gospel reading on a day that’s supposed to be so joyful?

As we remember from last week, John was the voice crying out in the wilderness to prepare a way for the Lord. He calls people to a baptism of repentance.

And so the people are coming to John the Baptist with a question, a key question: What should we do?

There are three groups of people that come by. To the crowds he says, look, if you have got two cloaks, give one to the person who doesn’t have any.

To the tax collectors he says, stop stealing from people. Just do your job and do it well.

And to the soldiers he says, Don’t bully people. Stop misusing your authority.

And he speaks with such force, with such conviction, that they begin to wonder if he is the Messiah. They begin to be expectant just as we are expectant here in the season of Advent.

And he says, No I’m not the Messiah, but you better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, I’m telling you why–because the Messiah is coming–with his winnowing fan, with that long blade where he’s going toss the grain up in the air, and the loose chaff will blow away into the wind to be burned.

And this is our reading for Rejoice Sunday?

What is there to rejoice about in this reading?

The tax collectors certainly aren’t rejoicing. John’s telling them to stop skimming off the top. They’re going to take a cut in their pay.

It’s certainly not a positive message for the soldiers because they’re going to have to start toeing the line and their authority’s going to start to mean less and less.

And those with two coats–they’re going to have to give one of those up.

But there’s another group of people Luke is speaking to with this message.

And to these people this message gives great hope. This message gives them great cause for rejoicing.

It’s the people who have no coat who are rejoicing.

It’s the people who have been cheated out of their taxes day after day that have cause to “sing joyfully.”

It’s the people who have been pushed around by the soldiers.

It’s those innocent victims in Connecticut and their families.

Luke speaks to the poor, to the downtrodden, to those who would normally have no reason to rejoice about anything.

To them he says, the Lord is coming, the Lord is coming to rescue you. To rescue you from the brutality of those in authority, to rescue you from those who use their position to cheat you, to rescue you from poverty, to rescue you from tragic and senseless violence.

The Lord is coming.

And not only is the Lord coming, but as we draw on the words of Zephaniah, the Lord is coming because of you.

He sings because of you.

And so today we can take comfort. The Lord rejoices over us with gladness.

The Lord sings joyfully over us, whether we are the soldiers, the tax collectors, the crowd with several coats, the Lord comes for us too and calls us to share what we have, to live up to the best of our selves.

If we’re in authority in our jobs or in the home, to lead without dominating.

If we have more than others, to share what we can.

And if we are unemployed right now, if we are sick right now, if we’re hurting right now, in a broken relationship right now, mourning the loss of the innocent, the Lord is near.

For centuries, the chosen people waited in darkness. They waited as Pharaoh enslaved them, they waited as they were conquered by the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans.

And as they waited they rejoiced. They rejoiced in the hope of a promise.

God promised to deliver them from bondage, to bring them back from exile, to save them.

And God fulfilled that promise.

That hope kept them faithful through the centuries, that gave them the courage and strength to keep going, came about.

And God fulfilled that promise. He fulfilled it by submitting to bondage himself, by going into exile here on earth, by accepting the cross of betrayal, humiliation, and death.

Our God. Our Messiah. Our savior.

We carry our own crosses through those doors, down these aisles, and we lay them across the shoulders of the only One strong enough to take them from us. Because, God knows, we are not strong enough to carry them alone.

And our Christ, our weak, broken, shattered Messiah, stops on his way to Calvary, stops and looks at us with sad eyes, bows his head, and willingly receives the burdens we can no longer bear alone.

Even on Gaudete Sunday, on Rejoice Sunday, the cross casts its shadow. But the only reason it has a shadow is that there is a great light above it, a light that is stronger, a light that has already conquered the darkness.

That is the good news today, truly great cause for rejoicing.

Today’s readings speak to us of the end of the world and of the signs that it is near. As we watch the news after hearing these readings proclaimed, we might begin to think that these are the days Jesus was referring to when he talked about the tribulation.

The east coast is recovering from Hurricane Sandy, the Middle East is struggling to keep peace, other parts of the world are dealing with the aftermath of earthquakes.

I have to admit, I haven’t had much personal experience with the kinds of disasters some people are facing right now. Part of the reason for that comes from living here in Spokane.

In a 2011 ranking by the New York Times, Spokane ranked as the 6th safest city in America from natural disasters. How blessed we are.

About the closest I’ve been to witnessing the end of the world is teaching my teenage boys how to drive.

If you’ve ever had to teach someone to drive, you know what I’m talking about.

You punch holes in the floor of the passenger seat trying to press a brake pedal that isn’t there, you see your life flash before your eyes, and you wonder if these are your last moments on earth.

And teaching my own boys how to drive has given me a greater appreciation for my own mom and dad.

You see, one of the problems I had in learning to drive was keeping the car from drifting around in the lane. I just couldn’t seem to keep the car between the lines–especially on the freeway.

Then my dad taught me something about driving that changed everything, and that helped me to stay in my lane without drifting.

Jesus teaches his disciples the same lesson in today’s gospel

The disciples are worried and fearful about something much more important than learning how to drive. They’re worried about the end of the world, what the prophet Daniel calls “an everlasting horror of disgrace,” and what Jesus describes as a darkening sun and falling stars.

Jesus is responding to some questions by Peter, James, John, and Andrew. They want to know when it will all happen, and what sign there will be that things are about to come to an end.

Mark is writing to a community that has witnessed some pretty horrific events and is about to witness more: the violent expulsion of Christians from Rome, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the persecution and martyrdom of friends and relatives.

And because the horrific events have not stopped, Mark is writing to us, too. Two World Wars, a terrorist attack on New York, an earthquake that devastated an already poverty-stricken Haiti, a tsunami that led to a nuclear melt down, Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.

Our world, our country, and our community have been devastated by some pretty severe events.

And we also have our own personal tribulations, our own personal darkening suns and falling stars. Our friends and relatives are being taken away from us by diseases like cancer; we see loved ones battling addiction and depression.

How do we maintain our faith and hope in the face of such catastrophes? How do we keep our bearings when things seem so frightening?

Like people learning to drive for first time, these catastrophes, both communal and personal, can cause us to drift all over the road, frightened and almost paralyzed.

But here’s where my dad’s advice comes in handy. My dad taught me the trick to staying straight in the lane. My problem, I discovered, was that I was looking at the road right in front of the car. My head was down, my eyes were on the patch of pavement just in front of me.

The solution was to look far ahead, almost to the horizon. Once I began to look up the road, I began to stay in the lane without drifting.

The same thing is true as we travel the road of life. These disasters, these tribulations, can turn us inward. We drop our heads down, our postures curl inward.

But the scriptures remind us to keep our ultimate end in mind, to look forward, as we say in the creed, to the resurrection of the dead.

When we look forward, when we sit up straight in the driver’s seat and look up the road, what do we see?

We see Michael, “the great prince, guardian of the people.”

We see the wise “shining brightly, like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever.”

Most importantly, we see “the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory…gathering his elect from the four winds.”

That is our destiny, that is what we see when we look ahead up the road before us.

Yes, we have to deal with an aging body that isn’t able to rake leaves the way it used to. Yes, it is tragic when a colleague has to bear the burden of chemotherapy. It’s an almost insurmountable problem to try and rebuild after a hurricane like Katrina or Sandy.

But someday it will all pass away. All the pain, all the hurt, all the tribulations. They will all disappear, and Jesus will come back again at the end of all things and bring us to where we will never have to worry or be frightened again.

By looking at the road ahead instead of at our feet, that’s how we keep from drifting off the road. It’s what my dad taught me, it’s what I tried to teach my boys. It’s what our Catholic faith teaches us.

It’s what we do when we we gather here for Mass.

In the midst of a universe that seems to get darker each day, we gather here to tell each other, “Look forward, Jesus will come again.”

Advent is just around the corner, and after that, the glory of Christmas, and after that struggles of Lent, but oh, after that, what joy we will celebrate as our Lord and Savior rises from the dead and takes us with him.

Jesus promised this to his disciples who handed it on to us, and we hand it on from generation to generation.

In the midst of the Eucharistic prayer today, Father will proclaim “The Mystery of Faith,” and we will respond “When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, O Lord, until you come again.”

Though the world be dark around us, though the cold be bitter right through us, yet there is hope in the one who saves us. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but his words will not pass away.”

We don’t know when, or where, or exactly how, but we just keep driving, looking up at the road ahead, confident in the one who loves us.

I’d like to begin with a word of thanks. Brenda and I are so grateful for last week’s reception and for your continued prayers and support, not only over the last four years, but during the last twenty-one years that we have been members of St. Peter. From the time I started teaching at All Saints, to Brenda’s time as Director of Religious Education, to the times we sit here beside you in the pew, we have always felt welcomed and supported. It’s one of the gifts of this community, and we feel so blessed to remain here and continue to serve the parish which has become our home. So thank you again.

As some of you know, Brenda and I have four children: Ryan, who’s 20 years old; Joseph, who’s 18; Teresa, who’s 13; and Sarah, who’s 7. Like many of you, we’ve had a busy summer trying squeeze in as much vacation and family time as possible. We haven’t gotten as much time together as we wanted, but summer has still had its moments.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could discover what makes those summer moments so full of life, and then apply that to the rest of the year?

Why don’t we walk back through summer, and maybe we can pick up some clues.

Let’s go back to June, and people are at the lake and sitting around campfires telling stories and roasting marshmallows until they’re that perfect shade of golden brown–the marshmallows, I mean.

What makes that night on the lake so special? Is it the company? The stories? The s’mores?

Now it’s the Fourth of July, and the grill is crackling with barbecue ribs, or burgers and hotdogs, and the family gathers to celebrate Independence Day. And though it’s not really the food that makes this moment so enjoyable, it sure feels good to have a drink on the porch with friends, watching the fireworks.

Now we’re at a family reunion, and grandma’s brought her famous potato salad, the recipe of which is a closely guarded secret, and even those who know it can’t quite make it like she can.

It’s great to see everybody again and hear the old stories, and dinner comes just at the right time.

There were also weddings in some of your families this summer, with the cutting of the cake, dancing, and champagne toasts.

Summer is full of life-giving moments like these, moments with friends and family, feasting together, laughing together, just being present to each other.

What is it that makes them so special? The people, certainly. The stories, perhaps.

But what about the food?

As these last days of summer dwindle away, and we look back on the times we’ve had, can we imagine them without food or drink?

No s’mores around the campfire? No beer and burgers? No potato salad or champagne?

Food is as vital to those experiences as everything else.

We might not want to admit it. But our children betray us. What’s the first thing they look for when they get to Grandma’s house? Treats! “We love you Grandma–and you make great chocolate chip cookies!”

These summer moments are life giving because of the company of friends and family, yes, but there’s more. Take away the food, and something is missing.

What is it that is so satisfying about sitting around with friends drinking wine while the stars come out, or getting together for coffee and conversation?

It’s the filling of two of our deepest needs: physical and spiritual, our hunger for food and our hunger for companionship. We are people of flesh and blood, and people of spirit and intellect. We hug and handshake, pump fists, and pat each other on the back. We kiss and tousle hair, hold hands and put our heads on each other’s shoulders.

Our relationships grow best when we connect both physically and spiritually.

The same is true of our relationship with God.

In today’s gospel, Jesus gives himself as true food and true drink, telling the crowds that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood. The word used for “eat” in today’s gospel is more accurately translated as “gnaw” or “munch.” “Whoever gnaws on my flesh has eternal life.” Jesus means for us to take him literally.

Why? Why does he shock the crowd by telling them they must gnaw on his flesh? Why does he go against every Jewish proscription against blood, telling them they must not only come into contact with blood, but that they must drink it?

Because Jesus wants a relationship with us. The great God of the universe, the Wisdom of the ages, loves us and wants to connect with us completely, intimately–that means physically as well as spiritually.

God is not content with a partial relationship. He wants us to have it all, to be one wholly and completely with him. So instead of just a handshake or a hug, God offers us himself as food.

That is the Eucharist.

As Fr. Ron Rolheiser says, “The Eucharist isn’t abstract, a theological instruction, a creed, a moral precept, a philosophy, or even just an intimate word. It’s bodily, an embrace, a kiss, something shockingly physical…”

“Something shockingly physical.”

That is the Good News today: God offers himself to us both spiritually and physically, so that we can, indeed, have fullness of life, so that we can experience what writer Andre Dubus once called “the taste of forgiveness and love.”

This altar is like our front porch, our campfire, the place of our family reunion and our wedding reception. This is where we come together to build relationships–relationships with each other and relationships with God. And, just like those summer get-togethers, it’s not complete without the food and drink.

And when we eat his flesh and drink his blood, Jesus tells us that we remain in him and he remains in us. In other words, we become what we consume. We become flesh and blood for the life of the world. As we go forth from here, we are the touch of God in the world, we become “something shockingly physical.” We become “the taste of forgiveness and love.”

Every pregnant mother, nourishing the new life growing within her, is literally flesh and blood for the world. Every father who bangs up his knuckles on the engine of his daughter’s broken-down car is a physical incarnation of love. Every child who gets off the couch and takes out the trash, every nurse who tenderly wraps a wound, every sign of peace exchanged here today–all are flesh and blood for the life of the world.

Because of the life of Christ within us, we are the flesh and blood of this community. Flesh and blood bring life to love. Love needs flesh and blood to make itself manifest. Love is nothing without a body to express it. Just as the Father gives life to the Son, and sends the Son to give life to us, we receive Christ’s life in the Eucharist and are sent to bring that life to the world.

We gather around this table with our friends and family, we share our stories, we eat, and then we go and offer ourselves as food for the world.

It’s like summer all year round.

A mom who always puts her family first;
A dad who sacrifices his life for his children’s;
Siblings who celebrate life in the midst of suffering;
A wife who tirelessly gives flesh and bone daily;
Children who trust that we know what we’re doing;
Friends who keep in touch over years and miles;
Colleagues in education who work to build your kingdom;
Students who leap to volunteer at a moment’s notice.

All that I am, all that I do,
Are only because you did it first, Lord,
Humbly accepting the pain of the cross,
Working through the servants you’ve placed in my life.

Let my life be an ongoing act of thanksgiving
By my service to them, to the world, and to you.
Give me the grace to always put my family first,
To sacrifice my life for my children’s;
To celebrate life in the midst of suffering;
To tirelessly give flesh and bone daily;
To trust that you know what you’re doing;
To keep in touch with others over years and miles;
To work to build your kingdom;
And to volunteer at a moment’s notice.

Let my service echo their service;
Let my life echo Christ’s life;
Let my love echo your love.

Amen.

I’m looking forward to sharing this with my students this coming school year.

After several pages of statistical analysis, Greeley concludes:

1. Catholics are more interested in the fine arts than Protestants, and those Catholics who go to church regularly are the most likely to be interested in the fine arts.
2. Catholics are more interested in the fine arts because they have more graceful images of God, and those Catholics who have the most graceful images of God are the most likely to be interested in the fine arts.
3. Among Catholics the correlation between graceful imagery and regular churchgoing is positive. Among Protestants it is negative. (p. 44)

By graceful, Greeley refers to a four-item Grace Scale he developed, that “measures a respondent’s image of God as mother versus father, lover versus judge, spouse versus master, and friend versus king.” (p. 43)

He goes on:

“…the important conclusion of this analysis is that Catholic interest in the fine arts reveals a mostly preconscious dynamism–a liturgical imagination linking graceful stories of God and church attendance–at the core of the Catholic religious heritage. There appears to be a distinctive and very powerful liturgical spirituality among Catholics.” (p. 45)

Quoting Hilaire Belloc:

Where’r the Catholic sun does shine
There’s music and laughter and good red wine
At least I’ve found it so,
Benedicamus Domino.

More notes:

How does one acquire a Catholic sensibility, a Catholic perspective on time and space and community and creation and salvation?

The answer is that a religious sensibility is passed on by storytellers, most of whom are not aware that they are telling stories because their narratives reside more in who they are and what they do rather than in what they say. Religious heritages are transmitted, not necessarily by official teachers and preachers, but more likely by intimates, those who are closest to us in our lives. The stories are told by the way in which they react to the ordinary and especially the extraordinary events of life–failure, disappointment, suffering, injustice, death, success, joy, love, intense pleasure, marriage, birth. (pp. 174-175)

And finally:

Where, then, does the institutional Church fit into the paradigm I have been describing? Parents, relatives, neighbors, friends, teachers, classmates, local clergy, lovers, and above all spouses are the primary religious socializers, the most powerful sources of the Catholic sensibility….The typical Catholic probably has never read a papal or hierarchical document or listened with any attention to what a pope or a bishop has said. They probably have sat through religious instruction in Catholic school and may even have read a book or two beyond the textbook. But these are weak influences compared to stories told by the family, the peer group, the parish priest, and the spouse. (p. 179)

Who has more influence on religious preference, the pope or a warmly loving spouse? If you are not sure of the answer to that question, then you are kidding yourself. (p. 180)

So, what do you think?

Tommy Emmanuel at the Bing in Spokane, WA

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of seeing Australian guitarist Tommy Emmanuel in concert at the Bing Crosby Theater here in Spokane, and it was a true “Life-Is-Beautiful” moment. Not only was I jaw-dropped by his finger-contorting playing, but I was happy to see a similar reaction on the face of my teenage son. Though Joseph and I don’t share the exact same tastes in music, we both admire talented guitar work, and it doesn’t get much better than Tommy Emmanuel.

T-Shirt from the Concert

According to his web site, Emmanuel has been playing since the age of 4, and has worked with likes of Chet Atkins, Men at Work, and Air Supply. He has won numerous awards and was honored by Chet Atkins with the title of Certified Guitar Player, an honor bestowed on only four other individuals: Jerry Reed, Steve Wariner, John Knowles and Paul Yandell).

He certainly lived up to his reputation last night. From a blistering Beatles medley to a haunting Navaho-inspired epic, the three hour concert was a foot-stomping cornucopia of gorgeous melodies and thunderous riffs. As one concert goer said, “After listening to Tommy Emmanuel play, a guitarist just wants to go home and burn his guitar, knowing he will never be that good.”

As a special unannounced bonus, halfway through his show Emmanuel brought out renowned guitarist Martin Taylor for a special set in the middle of the show. Emmanuel and Taylor are soon to begin work on a collaborative album and they wanted some time to “jam together” before they start recording. The highlight of their set was a rousing version of Taylor’s “Down at Cocomo’s.”

The entire show was fantastic, and if you ever get the chance to see Tommy Emmanuel in concert, follow the advice of reviewer Richard McFalls: “…run, do not walk, to a Tommy Emmanuel concert near you. True happiness is in tragically short supply right now, all over the world, but you will definitely find it there.”

Here is an incomplete set list, since I am relying on my memory, and since I am not so familiar with Tommy Emmanuel’s songs as to recognize them all:

• Several songs I couldn’t name
• Sixteen Tons/Nine Pound Hammer medley
• Beatles medley, including Here Comes the Sun, Day Tripper, Lady Madonna and While My Guitar Gently Weeps
• Secret Love
• Digger’s Waltz
• The Trail

Intermission

• Classical Gas
• Blue Moon
• Several songs with Martin Taylor
• Martin Taylor solo set
• Tommy and Martin: Down at Cocomo’s
• I Just Can’t Say Goodbye
• Doc’s Guitar
• Guitar Boogie
• Encore

If you’re unfamiliar with Tommy Emmanuel’s work, here’s his performance of Mason Williams’ Classical Gas:

It has been a privilege, a joy, and a great blessing to have spent the last four years with such a generous and spirit-filled group of men and women. In fact, the entire formation process has been a constant source of inspiration and blessing.

For instance, when I began looking into the diaconate in 2008, a very wise deacon friend suggested two scripture verses to pray over:

• “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.” 1 Samuel 3:10
• “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” Hebrews 3:15

In the context of vocational discernment, I cannot think of any more helpful prayers than the desire to hear God’s will clearly and the grace to accept it willingly. And isn’t that the secret to true fulfillment for all of us — the ability to recognize God’s will and embrace it?

Those two verses have been my trusty companions for the past four years, along with the Suscipe Prayer attributed to St. Ignatius of Loyola:

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding,
and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours; do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace,
that is enough for me.

I’ll be pondering those words and much more this weekend as I try to get my ego out of the way enough to hear God’s voice and respond to it with generosity and courage. Please pray for the eighteen of us and our wives. We will all be praying for you as we celebrate Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours together.

I began to really appreciate Bradbury’s work when I taught Fahrenheit 451 to seventh graders in my first years as a teacher. Because of books like The October Country, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Halloween Tree, and Dandelion Wine, I always think of Bradbury when October comes around.

The Halloween Tree; oil painting by Ray Bradbury, 1960

One of my favorite Bradbury stories is “…And the Moon Be Still As Bright” from The Martian Chronicles. The title comes from the poem “We’ll Go No More A-Roving” by George Gordon, Lord Byron. It seems like a fitting tribute.

Here’s to you, Ray:

So, we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we’ll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.

Since I recently finished John O’Donohue’s book Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, I’ve been trying to actively bring more beauty into my life, and to recognize the beauty that already surrounds me. The first place I went to was my digital music collection, where I tried to put together a playlist of beautiful music. As I scanned through my collection looking for songs and pieces of music to include in the list, I was struck by how many of them dealt with sadness or longing. Songs like:

• “Everybody Hurts” by REM
• “One Day I’ll Fly Away” by Nicole Kidman from the film Moulin Rouge
• “The September of My Years” by Frank Sinatra
• “Pie Jesu” arranged by Andrew Lloyd Weber
• “Sail On” by the Commodores
• “Abraham, Martin and John” by Dion
• “Into the West” by Annie Lennox from the film The Return of the King

As I continued putting the list together, I was reminded of a quote by Edgar Allan Poe in an essay he wrote about composing his haunting poem, “The Raven.” He said, “Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.”

So that became my chief criteria for choosing songs for this list of beautiful music. These are songs that nearly bring me to tears. I call the list “Achingly Beautiful Music.”

I’ve also been experimenting with the Spotify music service, so I thought I’d embed the playlist below so you could hear what I mean. The iTunes playlist this is based on has 292 songs, but Spotify didn’t recognize all of them, so there are only 152 songs on the list below. Not all the songs fit the criteria, and I’m still tweaking the list; but as I’ve been listening to this music over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself more attuned to the beauty that surrounds me in other areas of my life.

O’Donohue writes, “All holiness is about learning to hear the voice of your own soul.” In these songs, I hear echoes of my own soul. Perhaps you, too, will hear something of yourself in this music. Let me know if any of the songs on the list touch you as they touch me. And I would love to hear about other music that speaks to your soul in an achingly beautiful way. Please feel free to share your musical inspirations in the comment box.

(Update: apparently you can only listen to the playlist below if you have the Spotify desktop app installed and running on your computer.)

…whenever we awaken beauty, we are helping to make God present in the world. Consequently the rituals and liturgy of religion can be occasions where beauty truly comes alive….Thomas Aquinas and and the medieval thinkers wisely recognized that beauty was at the heart of reality; it was where truth, unity, goodness and presence came together. Without beauty they would be separated and inclined towards destructive conflict with each other. Accompanied by beauty, truth gains graciousness and compassion. Beauty holds harmony at the heart of unity and prevents its collapse into the most haunted chaos. In the presence of beauty, goodness attracts desire and beauty makes presence luminous and evokes its mystery.

Today is Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you), so here are Darth Vader and Yoda recording their voices to be used with Tom Tom GPS devices:

“Being a loving parent is work that guarantees the transformation of the ego for in the work of rearing children the limits of your selfishness, need and smallness are continually challenged. Somehow you find within your heart a love that is willing to stretch further and further. In this sense, the work of parenting is profoundly blessed work. Some people pray in words; in the work of raising children, parents pray every day with every fibre of their being.”

John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, page 164

How long before this turns into a meme?

The quiet, hidden life of St. Joseph stands in contrast to our culture’s obsession with celebrity. Fr. Jim Martin comments on the life of this humble model of faith from his DVD Who Cares about the Saints?:

Each morning I wake up and check Facebook to see what I can share with the 8th graders  during Religion class. After morning prayer and attendance, I bring up the diocesan Facebook page on the screen and we see what’s new from Rome. Bishop Cupich’s reflections and pictures have led to some great teachable moments:

• We’ve discussed what an ad limina visit is;
• we’ve seen pictures of the tomb of St. Paul;
• and we’ve learned about seminarians from Spokane and how some of them study at the Pontifical North American College.

Because of a generous gift from Pope Benedict to Bishop Cupich, we’ve also had the opportunity to learn more about pectoral crosses:

Bishop Cupich receives a gift from Pope Benedict

A new pectoral cross

I wonder what’s in store for the rest of the week…

Traditionally, journey was a rhythm of three forces: time, self and space. Now the digital virus has truncated time and space. Marooned on each instant, we have forfeited the practice of patience, the attention to emergence and delight in the Eros of discovery. The self has become anxious for what the next instant might bring. This greed for destination obliterates the journey. The digital desire for the single instant schools the mind in false priority. Each instant proclaims its own authority and the present image demands the complete attention of the eye. There is no sense of natural sequence where an image is allowed to emerge from its background and context when the time is right, the eye is worthy and the heart is appropriate. The mechanics of electronic imaging reverses the incarnation of real encounter. But a great journey needs plenty of time. It should not be rushed; if it is, your life becomes a kind of abstract package tour devoid of beauty and meaning. There is such a constant whirr of movement that you never know where you are. You have no time to give yourself to the present experience. When you accumulate experiences at such a tempo, everything becomes thin. Consequently, you become ever more absent from your life and this fosters emptiness that haunts the heart.

John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, page 27

Jill’s classroom was the Kool-Aid house of our school. Day after day, students stopped in to chat, surrounding her desk as she sat in her motorized scooter. Whenever I saw an All Saints graduate return for a visit, I knew exactly where they were heading: last door on the right, 5 North.

But it wasn’t just the classroom. Jill herself was a moving Kool-Aid house, a water cooler on wheels, the place where teachers would gather to laugh, complain, or comment on the latest news. If Jill was in the office, that’s where the teachers would hang out. If Jill motored outside to each lunch in the sunshine, that’s where the teachers ate lunch.

There are people in this world who, by the sheer force of their magnetic personality, draw people continually to them. Jill was such a force, and such a personality.

Where will we gather now that she is gone?

Jesus tells us:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way.”

Jesus has come back to take Jill to the place he has prepared for her. There are dwelling places for each of us in heaven, and when I get there I know where everyone is going to be. They’ll be hanging out at the Kool-Aid house. They’ll all be at Jill’s place.

“For when we talk about confirmation our conversation is really about baptism; when we are dealing with baptism we are discoursing about Christian initiation; when we are into initiation we are face to face with conversion in Jesus Christ dead and rising; and when we are into conversion in Jesus Christ dead and rising we are at the storm center of the universe.”

- Aidan Kavanagh, OSB

Today the world remembers Charles Dickens, born on this day two hundred years ago. I have a great fondness for Dickens’s works, especially David Copperfield and Hard Times.

One of Dickens’ particular qualities was the ability to make one laugh and shudder at the same time. As Chesterton says, “These two primary dispositions of Dickens, to make the flesh creep and to make the sides ache, were a sort of twins of his spirit; they were never far apart…”

Consider the opening of Hard Times:

‘NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!’

The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the speaker’s square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster’s sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker’s obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders, – nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was, – all helped the emphasis.

‘In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!’

The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim.

Horrifying, indeed, and yet humorous at the same time.

Another of his considerable talents was his enormous creative output, especially his characters. Again, from Chesterton:

There is no way of dealing properly with the ultimate greatness of Dickens, except by offering sacrifice to him as a god; and this is opposed to the etiquette of our time….One of the godlike things about Dickens is his quantity, his quantity as such, the enormous output, the incredible fecundity of his invention, I have said a moment ago that not one of us could have invented Mr. Guppy. But even if we could have stolen Mr. Guppy from Dickens we have still to confront the fact that Dickens would have been able to invent another quite inconceivable character to take his place. Perhaps we could have created Mr. Guppy; but the effort would certainly have exhausted us; we should be ever afterwards wheeled about in a bath-chair at Bournemouth….It is impossible to do justice to these figures because the essential of them is their multiplicity. The whole point of Dickens is that he not only made them, but made them by myriads; that he stamped his foot, and armies came out of the earth.

Scrooge, Fagin, Macawber, Uriah Heep, Pip, Estella, Tiny Tim–even his minor characters leap off the page.

So Happy 200th, Mr. Dickens. Here’s hoping people are still reading you in another 200 years.

So that’s what they talk about…

Here’s violinist Lindsey Stirling with a beautiful medley of music from Lord of the Rings:

Thanks to TheOneRing.net for the tip!

Watch Ben-Hur with SQPN in February

The good folks at SQPN, always looking for new ways to network, have launched an initiative they call the SQPN Movie Panel. Here’s how it works:

• Each week, SQPN will suggest a movie to watch, based on a theme for the month. The first theme is “Oscar Month,” and the movies are Titanic, Ben-Hur, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, and West Side Story.
• Watch the movie and join in on the conversation, either on Twitter @moviepanel or on the SQPN Facebook page.

Find out more at SQPN.