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WELCOME TO LITURGY AT ST. CECILIA'S For more information click on one of the following:
LITURGY AND PRAYER AT ST. CECILIA 'S
The common prayer life of believing Christians is at the heart of any parish community, and at St. Cecilia's this is no exception, as we believe the liturgy is at the center of our mission as a parish. As believers and followers of Jesus Christ, the liturgy is the primary source of strength as we celebrate our faith and seek to follow him more faithfully. The quality of our liturgies has always been a hallmark of who we are. We welcome all parishioners and visitors to respond to the invitation to give thanks to our God through the many expressions of liturgy and prayer here at St. Cecilia's.
Our coming together on the weekends to celebrate Mass is the starting point and climax of our weekly life as a parish community. The Eucharist is the ongoing heartbeat of our life at St. Cecilia's. We also provide many other opportunities for prayer and worship throughout the various seasons of the liturgical year. These include sacramental celebrations, the Church's Holy Days, and other important celebrations and prayer experiences such as All Souls Evening Prayer, Thanksgiving, the Feast of St. Cecilia, Advent Evening Prayer, Lenten celebrations of the Way of the Cross, Taize' prayer and many other opportunities for prayer.
We believe that our small, intimate, and beautiful worship space provides a wonderful sense of community and connection, and every time we gather, we strive to be a hospitable and inclusive community. We have a strong involvement of parishioners of all ages, and we are especially proud of the many young people who serve as acolytes, lectors and in our music ministry. Our worship space is totally accessible to those who are physically challenged; we also have a system in place for those who are hearing impaired; and coffee and doughnuts after both Masses on Sunday provide a weekly time of ongoing connection for each other.
Our pastor, Fr. Mike Byron, provides us with strong prayerful leadership, and we are very blest by his preaching that truly touches our lives and experience as parishioners. His homilies are usually posted here on the website, offering an opportunity to share and deepen the challenge of God's Word beyond our weekend celebrations. Our weekend Masses are also the occasion for important sacramental moments such as Baptism, Anointing of the Sick, RCIA and Confirmation rituals, blessings and other important threshold moments for members of our community.
In keeping with St. Cecilia being the patron saint of music, we are particularly known for being a singing community - we raise the roof here at St. Cecilia's! Under the leadership of our music director, Jeanne Dold, and our singing pastor, Fr. Mike, we see music as an important and powerful way to pray. We are a community with a diversity of musical tastes - we sing and pray with everything from chant and traditional hymns to the most contemporary styles of music being composed for the church today. We are excited about our new Yamaha piano, and our parish hymnal, Gather Comprehensive: Second Edition , provides us with a rich resource of songs, hymns, psalms and acclamations that help us to sing, celebrate and express our faith. Our choir is a very dedicated group of singers and believers who help fill the church with a beautiful sound, and we have many who generously serve as cantors and instrumentalists as well.
St. Cecilia's is also dedicated to outreach and the sharing of our space for occasional liturgical music concerts and ongoing workshops and events on liturgy and music, serving as a site for annual workshops co-sponsored with GIA Publications and The Emmaus Center for Music, Prayer and Ministry. These workshops have brought together many parish liturgists and music directors throughout the Archdiocese, and those from other Christian faith traditions.
Most importantly, we honor the call of Second Vatican Council that the gathered community be formed, supported and empowered in their "full, active and conscious participation" in the liturgy. This value is primary above all others in regard to our liturgical life here at St. Cecilia's.
Liturgy is truly the engine that keeps us going as a parish community - we invite you to join us in our praise of God each weekend. Saturday evening Mass is at 5:00 p.m., and our Sunday schedule celebrates the Eucharist at 8:15 and 10:00 a.m. Know that ALL of you are always welcome. Come and pray with us!
What follows are some of the more intentional ways to be involved in liturgy here at St. Cecilia's:
Together with staff members Fr. Mike Byron, Jeanne Dold, and Marge Virnig, we have a very active liturgy committee, which oversees the overall worship life of the parish. This committee meets once a month throughout the year to determine and evaluate the overall liturgical policies and direction of the parish; to do the major planning and preparation for the liturgical seasons and other special liturgical celebrations; to help the pastor and music director plan and vision for the future; and to provide ongoing formation for our various liturgical ministers and the parish community at large. The monthly meeting times, meeting minutes, and important liturgical calendar items are published regularly here on the website. Jack Shea presently serves as chairperson for this committee. If you have any questions about the committee's work, or are interested in joining, contact the parish office. Click here to access the Liturgy Committee Minutes for
There are many opportunities for parishioners to become involved in the various liturgical ministries here at St. Cecilia's. Members of our parish staff and others in the parish provide initial training and ongoing support and formation for all who are involved. For more detailed information regarding these liturgical ministries, contact Marge Virnig at the parish office (651-644-4502, ext. 24) or at: marge@stceciliaspm.org .
Below are some of the ways in which one can become more involved in the liturgical life here at St. Cecilia's.
Lectors share their gifts to proclaim the Word of God, not only at our weekend masses, but also at the many sacramental and other celebrations that take place during the year. Women, men, young and old - all are welcome to be a part of this important ministry, where we encounter the stories and wisdom of our faith.
The Ministry of Eucharistic Minister
Eucharistic Ministers not only assist Fr. Mike in the communal sharing of the bread and wine at Mass, but they are to be a living sign of how all of us are called to be the "Body of Christ" every day of our lives. In addition to sharing in this important table ministry at Mass, many also choose to help bring the Eucharist to those in our community who are sick or homebound.
Sacristans have a vital role in helping the details of the liturgy go smoothly. They assist in many ways: coordinating the various liturgical processions and collections; and they help to set up and clean up before and after the liturgical celebration itself.
It is very important that all parishioners and guests feel welcome when we gather to worship, and our ministers of hospitality are at the front line in helping to create a friendly and hospitable atmosphere. They help create a sense of welcome; they also coordinate and make sure all receive the bulletin, coordinate the collection, and assist those seeking a place to be part of our community.
The Ministry of Acolyte (Server)
This ministry is open to youth and adults, male and female alike, to help with the various ministries throughout the liturgy: in the processions of the cross and candles; assisting with the Sacramentary (the book of prayers at Mass), and many other responsibilities during the celebration of the Mass.
We are very proud of our parish music ministry, and there are many opportunities to share one's musical gifts here at St. Cecilia's: as a member of our wonderful choir; as a cantor to help lead the assembly in song and in the proclamation of the responsorial psalm; or as an instrumentalist to help add solemnity to our musical prayer. The choir rehearses once a week (except for the summer months), and rehearsals for cantors and instrumentalists are scheduled with our music director, Jeanne Dold. We also have a youth choir for children of all ages, who sing at special liturgical occasions throughout the year. For more information about our parish music ministry, contact Jeanne at the parish office (651--644-4502, ext. 28) or e-mail her at: jeanne@stceciliaspm.org . Choir Rehearsal Schedule 2010-2011
This is a subcommittee under the direction of the liturgy committee, and their charge is to help create a visual environment for our community to pray. Through their creative work they help provide an atmosphere that reflects and gives unity and attention to the celebration of the various liturgical seasons and to our prayer together.
Homily 8/1/10
When I was in college I took a European history course from one of the scariest teachers I ever had. He was a Benedictine Monk—Fr. Alexander Andrews—who took absolute delight in the degree to which he could instill fear in students. He had spent his earlier adulthood serving in the military, and even in middle age he went about the campus with a completely shaved head and a big burly body. The only time he wasn't wearing a scowling looking face was when he was lecturing about some notorious despotic leader, like Stalin or Mussolini or Hitler. He's now advanced in age and has slowed down considerably, but when I ran into him last year at the monastery I recalled the only specific memory I have kept from that class. It was our final presentation project, on 20 th century Spain and the demise of the fascist dictator Francisco Franco. Fr. Alexander informed us that we had to work in groups of four-which he would assign-and that we would all get the same grade for our joint presentations. Up to that point in the course I had been carrying a straight A grade, so I was more than a little put off when he teamed me up with three of the biggest goofballs in the class. I knew that whatever we ended up doing together my grade was going to be lower than it was before. The goofballs lived up to my expectations and I was disappointed. Just before the class began on the day after our presentation Fr. Alexander called me out into the hallway. He told me that the group would be given a grade of C, but that he was going to give me an A, and that I had to promise to keep that a secret. No problem, I said. When I recounted that story to him last year he had no memory of it or of me, and his only response was “Well, just don't let anybody get the impression that I have compassion.”
That's the inherent limitation to any kind of teamwork, whether in school or on an athletic field or in an office or a lab or a factory—you can only be as good as the biggest goofball; you can only be as fast and efficient as the slowest one; you can only be as skillful as the least competent member of the team. (Read the comic strip Dilbert.) That's the risk you take in throwing in your fortune personally with that of the group…you rise or fall together.
That's how it is with being the church too, and in fact that's what it means to live in solidarity with every other human being on earth: We can only do as well together as the ones who are worst off. We can only be as content with ourselves as the most unfortunate people on the planet are content also. For most of us here today that means a necessary willingness to become less content than we now are. Unlike Fr. Alexander's interpretation of things, true Christian compassion comes not in seeing that every individual gets what he/she seems to deserve, but rather in tethering the fate of the greatest to the fate of the least. That is often at profound odds with the rest of our culture. We hate it when bad things happen to good people, and we protest when we see greedy gluttons get away with it and live in apparent pleasure. We resent it when life and its rewards too often seem too arbitrary, when there doesn't seem a necessary correspondence between virtue and happiness, between hard work and material success, between faith and solace. That's precisely the instinct that Qoheleth the preacher points out in today's first reading. That's what he means in his lament that “all things are vanity.” There's simply no way sometimes to account for the triumphs and tragedies of our lives—we can only do the best we can to try to live relatively wisely and safely and confidently.
So why have faith at all, if that's true? Why be attached to a community of believers? The very posing of the question that way is already a sign of misunderstanding. Nobody should be identifying him/herself with this savior, this Jesus, because of an expectation of earthly reward.—or really with any kind of predictable outcome in this life. To be church, to live in solidarity with the human family, is nothing other than to express the conviction that we belong together , that we are co-responsible for the well being of every person, and that God envelopes us in love in any circumstance, together. Christian compassion is not only often incompatible with a life of ease; it can be most nearly its opposite. To be made to care about the suffering and needs of others , as well as my own, is an exceedingly inconvenient commitment. To have to wait for the one who is the slowest—just so that we can stay together—or to have to put up with the goofball just because he/she has made the same commitment that I have and loves the same Lord—that is often decidedly not satisfying. Some people seek out religion because they believe it will be enduringly consoling to them personally. That's not a bad thing in itself, and faith often is consoling. But faith is not a consumer good or a promise of serenity, because at its heart it's not fundamentally about me . It‘s about us , the greatest and the least…the whole team, before God. That's wonderful news if you are counted among the least in this world—you are precious here. It's less great news for the rest of us. To be numbered among this team means being responsible. That's why that wealthy farmer in today's gospel (Luke) merited the rare and severe title of “fool” by God. He thought he'd gotten it all figured out—more than enough of this world's goods, blessings beyond what he needed, and he thought that the right question was all about making sure he had plenty of riches stored up in reserve—for himself.
Wrong. The question really was and is “Now that I have too much, who doesn't have enough? That's not a question that readily arises in the mind of one who is something less than a follower of this gospel. It occurs only to those who know themselves to be all bound up with the destiny of all of us, because that's who Jesus taught us that God is.
We belong together—and we'll all meet God together, both here and in heaven, or we'll fail to. And if we are consumed only with worries about our personal satisfaction and privileges, we're failing to, because we're not together.
So all for those seemingly prized possessions that would separate us from the rest of the team, from the goofballs, from solidarity, fellowship with the least among us…those are the things, the commitments, the attitudes, the anti-gospel convictions—that have to be pitched out…so that we might live--enduringly.
Homily 8/8/10
In a prayer gathering recently, I and several others were invited to reflect upon what it is that we most fear in this world. As the various responses were articulated it became evident that the fears were directly connected with the greatest treasures of these people's lives—the things upon which they rely the most for a sense of happiness and security. For a few, the great fear is that of going through life all alone. For others it is the fear of disappointing people whose love is treasured. Have you ever stopped to reflect upon that question for yourself? Interestingly, at least on that occasion, nobody mentioned death as the greatest fear—even though in many respects it would seem to be deserving of mention. Just before it was my turn to speak at that gathering I had formulated a response—and in fact I can't any longer even remember what it was. But the person before me said that his greatest fear was losing his mind and his memory—of growing old without any clear idea of who he ever was, or who everybody else is in relation to him. That sent a chill through me, and I changed my answer: That's my biggest fear too. I think I could somehow learn to live with almost anything else, but not that.
Most of us who have lived a few decades or more have experienced friends and loved ones with dementia or Alzheimer's disease or the like. It is heartbreaking to encounter. As I've thought about it, I've realized that pretty much everything I do in my professional life, my important relationships, my recreation, is contingent upon the ability to think, and to communicate somewhat coherently. I simply can't imagine not being able to do so. And on those occasions when I can't remember something, or somebody tells me that I've already told them this story before, or I'm at a loss for somebody's name, I'm aware of the fear. Last week a friend of mine sent me a video link to a feature story about a woman who was, until recently, a TV news reporter and anchor and who developed early onset Alzheimer's before she was even 40 years old. They were visiting with her in this video and she was talking complete nonsense. It was deeply disturbing to me.
But curiously, she wasn't unhappy, nor was she afraid, nor depressed. In fact, she was radiant. I've seen that many times before in such people. She didn't remember what she once was and once had, and had lost, so she couldn't be morose about it. She only knew that someone was taking an interest in her now, and that was enough to be happy and to feel safe. This week I had lunch with a friend whose grandfather was at a recent party, and who was excited to meet and get to know some of the young children there. They were his grandchildren, but he'd forgotten that. But he wasn't worried about that.
The point of all this is not that people should go through life unreflective, unthinking, unaware, detached from reality. Nor is it that matters of faith are for those who are otherwise unreasonable or demented. It is simply to recall that that thing, that trauma, that life circumstance that we are very most fearful of encountering in this world—that we are ready to do anything to avoid, that we believe will be our undoing if we are made to face it,…well, we just may be made to—and if and when it comes, we will be OK because we too have someone who has taken an interest in us, who always does and always will, and that is sufficient for our contentment and our security.
And not just a “someone,” but God himself, and when absolutely everything else fails us, God will not. And the reason that that can often be such a demanding and hard thing to accept as true is that, only too frequently everything else does seem to fail us. If our belief and our religion is tied up with a need to enjoy any sort of merely temporary or illusory kind of success, or reward, or pleasure, or freedom from fear—beware. Faith in our Lord does not come with assurances of health, wealth, sanity, public respect, exemption from struggle and sadness, and any other earth-bound consolation that could terrify us if/when it is put at risk. It comes only with the assurance that someone—more than someone—God—has taken an interest in us, is present to us, and won't ever let that end… even if the day should come when we can't understand that, or speak intelligently about that, or be free of doubt about that—in fact, especially when that day comes.
All of our scriptures today speak of biblical heroes who can live peacefully through and into relationships and circumstances that they can't entirely understand or explain…sometimes into what look to be preposterous circumstances, situations that could threaten to be productive of fear—but which don't have to be. Our first reading (Wisdom) speaks of our ancestors of ancient Jewish faith who were busy acting themselves into realities that they didn't and couldn't completely comprehend—and doing so by merely trusting in the God whom they knew to be near to them, even if they didn't sometimes have the words to name that God. They were—and we still are—encountering Holy Mystery when we are confronted with the real God. That need not frighten us; in fact it should have the opposite effect. It should be a joyful, consoling presence.
This is where sometimes even those of our loved ones who have lost their powers of memory and logic can be our teachers/sacraments into the ways of God. The whole point of all of our theological and religious thinking and reflecting about God is not to solve an intellectual riddle but rather to invite us into a presence, a disposition of joy and calm. If we can live out of that, then we have all we need. In that very rich and profound second reading today from the Letter to the Hebrews, we are reminded of Abraham—our 1 st father in the faith—who was asked by God, as a younger man, to go to a place that he didn't know, a foreign country, and to do so for no other reason than the faith he had in the One who was asking, who was present, who was taking an interest in him and in his posterity. Abraham didn't even know why he was there!
There might have been much cause for fear here—a farewell to home and security and familiarity…but there was only trust instead…an assurance of the one who was taking an interest. And then as an older man the same Abraham was visited again by God and asked to trust that he would have more descendents, more children and grandchildren than anyone could count. It was a request to trust a promise that was far more than simply illogical and unlikely. It was more nearly preposterous—a man nearly 100 years old, married to an infertile wife, was to become the father of a whole chosen race. One doesn't say yes to that on the strength of the evidence, but instead on the strength of the bond, of the trust, of the security. Fear has no place here. Even through death , the confidence of Abraham and his family did not waver. And so, in the beautiful prose of this reading, that faithful family of Abraham “did not receive what had been promised, but saw it and greeted it from afar,” knowing themselves ultimately to be caught up in a bond of love with God that could not be shaken by any circumstance, any disappointment or frustration of expectation or logic, not even death. Can we do that? So many of our beloved Alzheimer's patients can. What might that mean?
It's not about what prudent people logically expect or plan for. It ‘s about staying close to the bosom of the one—The God—who has taken interest in us, and won't ever stop doing so. Might we allow that knowledge, that confidence, to become bigger than our greatest fear on earth?
Homily 8/15/10
One morning last week I went with a friend to walk around in Oakland Cemetery, just north of the State Capital building on Jackson St. I never knew it was there until a couple of years ago, when our Tres Iglesias group of Habitat for Humanity was helping to put up a home just across the street from there. It's beautiful, it's historic and it's filled with the graves of many prominent people of pioneer and early statehood Minnesota days. There are also many large and impressive monuments to the dead. We'd been walking around for some time that morning when we were approached by the man who was mowing the grass in the cemetery on his industrial riding lawn mower. He asked us if we were looking for something in particular. We told him no, that we were just exploring around the place. He said that was fine, but then he told us of a couple of his most interesting grave stones in the cemetery, and suggested that we might enjoy having a look at them. We did look at them, and they were very charming—stones we probably wouldn't have stumbled across by chance on our own. For example, he told us to take a look at the stone of a man named Thomas—for whom I now assume that Thomas Avenue here in the Midway of St. Paul is named. He was a local railroad magnate about 120 years ago, and we were told that chiseled into his gravestone was a train engine and coal car. We checked it out, and so it was. You'd never notice it if you weren't looking for it, but we were looking for it and so we were delightfully rewarded by finding it.
More important, though, was the realization of how we came to stumble upon that slab of stone. We were looking to find interesting and unique and perhaps historically significant grave markers there. My first instinct, had we been more methodical and proactive about it, would have been to do some research at the Minnesota Historical Society or to have explored the cemetery's web-site (which does exist), and thus to have come up with a list of things to see. But why not just consult the guy who lives there every day? The man who mows the lawn. It would never have occurred to me—even though it's so obvious in hindsight—simply to have inquired of such a person, “Hey, what's important and interesting around here?” Instead of us wondering aimlessly—even though pleasantly—among the trees and markers, there's somebody here who knows things just because he is here all the time—armed not with a degree in history or a reputation of scholarship, but with an intimate familiarity with who and what is to be found in this place…because he cuts the grass.
That's sort of how it is with the Blessed Virgin Mary. By any scriptural account, Mary was—in her earthly life—a very young, rural, unsophisticated girl, who seems to have been without any significant formal education, or social standing, or any other pedigree that might recommend her to be the bearer of the Savior. If there had been a top ten list of people in Israel to consult back then about the ways and activities of God, it would be more than an understatement to say that Mary of Nazareth would not have been counted among those mentioned. And yet, here she is—2000 years later, as the most venerable of the saints—as the one to whom believers have looked from the very beginning to be solace for the weary, comforter of the sorrowful, example of virtue, heroine of the church, prophetess of the truth. What gives her the credentials to take on such exalted roles? Nothing other than the fact that she knows God, lives in and with God, is at home with God—not entirely unlike the man on the lawn mower at Oakland—and so she knows and understands things with a kind of clarity and intimacy that comes from just being there …unceremoniously, perhaps even in a manner that others could regard as crudely. Just being with God.
Today the church honors her Assumption into heaven at the end of her life as a way of holding up the dignity of the one who never knew fame or fortune or celebrity or any other kind of merely fleeting adulation. She simply knew God, and thus could recognize Him at work in the world in the midst of the most unexpected circumstances, and could even pronounce judgment and correction upon those who were too quick to preach a God who was/is confined to the limits of where all the research says he's “supposed” to be. To stretch a metaphor, Mary didn't do her research about God in the theology lab; she lived it; she mowed the lawn, and learned about the one with whom she was dealing simply by being there, day by day.
Thus it was that when she was asked to do something preposterous and bewildering—to be the Virgin mother of a Son who would save the world, she could say not merely “yes” but could offer a song of confidence, which is our gospel today. This is a confession of faith that is not rooted in surety about what's going to happen next, but is rather rooted in the intimate relationship with and knowledge of God —the one who's doing the asking. It's the difference between trusting a plan , and trusting a person , and loving that person in his desire to upend the presumptions of this world, believing that he can and will do that.
Mary literally and willingly and joyfully walked into a world that she didn't understand, and for which she could not always see the purpose, and to which she did not always see the end. She just “yessed” her way into the center of God's creative act, and was rewarded for that with glory. “And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed; for He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name. And His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with His arm, He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree; He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent empty away. He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to His posterity forever'." These are not the words of sober calculation. They are the announcement of a new order of things that can be known only by living into the love of the one who says that it shall be so. And this is the confidence and wisdom that comes not from going to the reference library, but from mowing the lawn…from being there, day after day, so as to discover what's interesting and important and what's not.
The invitation of this great feast day of the church is not to create one more occasion for putting distance between God and yourselves, or for creating one more go-between in an effort to link heaven and earth via Mary…making her into some sort of cultic idol and gatekeeper. Rather, the invitation is for us to live as she did…to just abide in God's delights and graces—to learn how to see what's already right here before our eyes and embedded in our experience. The Eucharist can help us do that—training us to see in simple things—bread, wine, word, community, mission—the very presence of God.
Homily 8/22/10
The old joke, of course, has it that if you ask a Minneapolis person where they're from they will say “Northeast” or “Linden Hills,” but if you ask the same question of a St. Paul person they will say “Nativity” or “St. Andrew's.” There is more than a little bit of truth in that. Many of us at St. Cecelia's may be particularly aware of that because a whole lot of us—perhaps a significant majority—have come here after having been active in other local parishes, so that the answer to the question “Where are you from?” can be somewhat complex. And it will become an even more complicated affair in about two months when the Archbishop announces the institutional reconfiguration for our Archdiocese. Nobody yet knows exactly what that will look like, but it is certain that some parishes and schools will be clustered, merged, or even closed. What happens to people when that takes place? Where will they be “from” in a new situation? Immigrants understand this sensitivity also. At what point, or after how many generations, is one no longer really “from” Mexico or Vietnam or Kenya, but is now from Columbia Heights or West St. Paul? I'm a full blooded Irish person, but I'd never think to say that I'm “from” Ireland.
It all begs the question what and where are our most fundamental sources of identity. What, at rock bottom, makes me who I am—and who are we together? That's more than a matter of idle speculation, because there is no shortage of examples of people who attach the very notion of who they are to tragically tenuous/fragile things. What happens if what it means to be Bernie Madoff is to be a billionaire investment broker, and then the market collapses? What happens if what it means to be Tiger Woods is to be a sports super hero and kid's role model, and then suddenly you're not anymore? Or, more mundanely, what if my very sense of who I am is tied to things that I do, or employment that I have, or even people to whom I am attached—and then they go away? Despair, bitterness, depression, disorientation. In the end, there's only one thing that will not and cannot leave us or fail us—the God of Jesus Christ, the God of scripture—so to ground our identity in anything else or anything less is to be a great risk of disappointment.
And to push the point even further, we need to be able even to distinguish God from religion. Some theologians make the distinction, appropriately enough, between religion and faith, saying that faith is what God gives as a free gift, while religion is all of the things that human beings do in an effort to get to God. Even religion , for as necessary and useful as it is, isn't God and isn't faith. Not quite. Faith nurtures and encourages religion, and vice versa, but they are not the same thing. This is part of what today's scriptures are attempting to hold up to our attention. Surely it matters a great deal to which religion we attach ourselves, if any, but even that consideration has to be relativized before the question: Who are you? Where are you from?
Our gospel of Luke today has Jesus continuing on his long death march to Jerusalem, ever the Jewish Rabbi, who will in fact be killed for being misunderstood by some of his own co-religionists. Jesus' religious commitments were clear and unwavering, but even these did not establish his identity before God, or condition God's dedication to him. And this is why, when he is asked by his fellow Jews about how they should think about people's prospects for salvation, the answer is a bit vague. It's not as simple as being able to point to the people of Israel and to say “It is they, this small minority of Chosen Ones,” or to say “It is the Christians, who today number in the hundreds of millions of souls.” Salvation is not ultimately tied to any external behavior or classification—even religion, because even religion doesn't determine who we are before God. Only God does that. So instead Jesus invites his hearers to consider their own most deeply grounded source of identity—the so-called “narrow door,” that single thing among all the other things that we are and do and love and believe that makes us who we are. Where are we from? We're from God—every one of us, and not finally from any other place or person. This is the reason for the Master's twice stated utterance in the parable that Jesus goes on to tell his audience: “I tell you, I do not know where you are from.” That being the case, absolutely nothing else matters when it comes to salvation. It makes no difference if you're from St. Mark's or Prospect Park or Judaism or Islam or the Vatican or Goldman Saks or the New York Yankees or the homeless shelter; if you're not from God, grounded in God, recognized and claimed by God, nothing else matters. And so there is great hope for the many that God will welcome them to eternity, whether they be, as Jesus says, from the north, south, east or west, and whether they be from among the people of Israel or from among some other religious tradition—or from none at all. And it's for just this reason that it is very difficult for anyone other than God to be able to know for sure whether those to be saved are plentiful or rare. The only thing that Jesus' words seem to hint at here is that when the day comes when all is revealed, we'll be in for some surprises.
Our first reading form Isaiah today is equally hopeful that the God we know is generous with his gifts, not permitting them to be obstructed or forfeited by any merely human circumstance or ignorance or error—even grievous error sometimes, and even error about optimal ways to behave and believe religiously. Isaiah has God announcing “I know them—who they are, where they're from, their deeds and their thoughts, and I come to gather them from every language and nation, from the coastlands, from Put and Lud and Tarshish and all the rest.” Whether or not those to be saved are many, there is absolutely nobody who has any reason to despair of the possibility and the invitation. It's all about our making way for God truly to know where we come from, and we do that by a choice to center our very being in Him —not in the parish, or the neighborhood, or the clan, or the culture, or even religion—but in Him.
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Church of St. Cecilia 2357 Bayless Place St. Paul, MN 55114 Contact Us Phone: 651.644.4502 Fax: 651.647.1445 Email: info@stceciliaspm.org |