ST. PHILIP NERI PARISH                   PAULIST CENTER in Portland, OR since 1913 

Greetings!

The holiday seasons are getting longer!  The first week of September, I saw Halloween displays in Fred Meyer, Dollar Tree and Target.  By Halloween, I saw Thanksgiving decorations and—if I recall correctly—I was seeing Christmas decorations out before Thanksgiving.  Yesterday, I saw St. Patrick’s decorations, and yes, on the shelf above those—porcelain eggs were starting to appear!

Obviously, we are a society who likes to prepare ahead. 

It seems like just yesterday we were in Advent preparing for Christmas. And now this week, we begin Lent and we are preparing for Easter, April 8^th.  The question is:  what are you doing for Lent?  Depending on who taught you, some people will ‘give up’ movies, meat, TV, and the list goes on…

My teachers had a different approach:  We were told to ‘take on’ the qualities of Jesus.  For instance,at people more often, smile people who you normally don’t say anything to,compliment a relative you haven’t talked to in a month,call a chore for someone else without saying anything about it,do to someone (younger/older) or read to your pet—they love it!read the door for someone,hold/open someone else go first, let all the hymns at Mass, sing a prayer for someone who it is difficult for you to get along with,say your blessing each day of Lent,list someone—even if they don’t ask,forgive yourself to someone new at church,  introduce a letter to someone who would appreciate it,write an event at church other than Mass, attend non-perishable food items/supplies to the Food Pantry,donate baby/toddler clothes and take to Mother & Child Education Center, collect on good books to people you think would enjoy them,pass someone, hug a friend to the movie, take out your favorite recipe and share it with a friend, write cookies for a busy mother, bake to baby sit for two-three hours so parents can  ave ‘out time.’  offer. The list of good things to do is really endless.  Improve yourself by reaching out to others in a positive way—Share the Good News by your actions.

Deo Gratias, Barbara M. Harrison

The Power of Touch

Fr. Charlie Brunick, CSP

This Sunday's first reading from Leviticus describes the casting out of lepers from life within the early Hebrew community – 'they must dwell apart, making their abode outside the camp'.  In biblical times lepers were treated as pariahs.  Unfortunately, in the religious mind set of the time, to suffer from leprosy was a double whammy for its victims.  First was the understandable quarantining of victims of a contagious disease which at the time was thought to be incurable is understandable since the disease could threaten the health of the whole Community.  More unfortunate was the second judgment, common in many ancient cultures and societies, that the victims were also 'religiously unclean' and therefore considered religiously unclean because of the disease.  Leprosy was the ultimate uncleanness.  It made the victim an outcast not only socially, but also in the religious sphere.

Because leprosy was understood to be highly contagious, lepers in the biblical period were forced to live outside the community.  They were untouchables.They were forced to .live a cold and lonely existence.  They had said good‑bye to home, family, and friends.  Once they were somebody in life; now they were nobody.  Their life was a living death.  People believed they were cursed by God.  They considered them to be not only sick but also unclean. 

In the 1940's and 1950's it was quite common to similarly 'cast out' or quarantine victims of tuberculosis or polio.  Luckily, these more modern quarantines did not usually include the moral judgment that the victims were sinners or religiously unclean.  But that does not mean modern society should consider ourselves morally superior to the ancients because the AIDS epidemic of the 1980's brought similar self righteous religious judgments about the sinfulness of many of the epidemic's earliest victims.

In reaching out with a loving hand to the leper in the Gospel story, Jesus reached through and broke the social and religious taboos of his day.  Showing us how we much also reach out to people whom society rejects, or anyone undergoing the feelings of pain, suffering, rejections or isolation in their daily lives.

In the healing of the leper, we see Jesus' power at work in the cure.  More important than the physical cure is Jesus actually physically touching the leper.  In this we see Jesus humanity and compassion.  Most of us are afraid of the sick and the very poor.  We may give some money when asked by a homeless person, but we usually are careful to make sure there is no physical contact between us.

Yet we love to be touched ourselves.  We feel honored when someone important shakes hands with us or gives us a pat on the back.  Physical contact is precisely what gives people, especially sick and wounded people, a sense of warmth and joy.  By the very act of touching another person we accept that person exactly as he or she is.  Jesus touched lepers, sinners, sick people, and the dead.  Kindness in some cases is more important to a sick person than medicine.

Few of us have the medical, scientific or political power to cure the ills our society or of its' individual members.  However we all have the ability to touch people’s lives in kind and loving ways.

The leper said to Jesus, "If you wish, you can make me clean."  Jesus is saying to us: "If you wish, you can reach out to others in their pain or suffering or loneliness and bring to them a sense of loving acceptance."

Can We Minister To God?

In the new translation of Eucharistic Prayer II of the Mass, soon after the consecration, we pray, “we offer you, Lord, the Bread of life and the Chalice of salvation, giving thanks that you have held us worthy to be in your presence and minister to you.”  We probably don’t usually think of “ministering to” the Lord.  How can this be?  Thinking about this gives us an opportunity to reflect more fully on just what we are doing when we celebrate the Mass.

When we join in celebrating the Mass, and especially when we pray the Eucharistic Prayer at the heart of the Mass, we are joining with the whole Church; the Body of Christ.  The Eucharistic (Thanksgiving) Prayer is offered to God the Father, with Christ and in the Holy Spirit.  Just as Jesus did on Calvary, so too in the Mass, Jesus offers himself to God the Father.  Jesus joins himself to our thanksgiving offering by becoming one with our gifts of bread and wine, and makes them his Body and Blood, a perfect sacrifice of praise.  Through our Baptism into Jesus we offer ourselves with him in the Mass, and thus minister to God with him.  In our Communion we are in turn ministered TO by Jesus, the Son of God.

In the celebration of the Mass a great mystery is enacted; a mystery of mutual giving and receiving.  As we offer our sacrifice of praise and thanks, God accepts his Son’s perfect sacrifice and gives us his eternal Son to be our spiritual food leading us to eternal life.

No one would be able to offer a true ministry of thanks to God, except through His own Son, Jesus Christ.  With, and in him, God is pleased to accept our gift of thanks, and we are empowered and sent on mission to continue the work of building the Kingdom of God with the help of the Holy Spirit.    

Fr. Jim McCauley, CSP