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Saint Doorkeeper

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Originally published by Celebrate! Magazine, September 2010
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Every morning various groups of people anticipate the unlocking of the front doors to our parish building. People seeking a change of clothing or fresh hygiene products line up beginning at 6:00 a.m. Members of the staff arrive one by one beginning at 7:30, but struggle to approach the only door their key will open because a man is sleeping under a tarp in front of the door. Volunteers line up before 9:00 a.m. greeting one another and meeting the new group of nursing students who will volunteer in our morning hospitality center.

The unlocking of our red steel doors at our urban parish, the Downtown Chapel in Portland, Oregon ritualizes the opening of our two-hour weekday hospitality center. After one of the large doors is propped open, over a hundred people stream single file to our front office. They inquire about emergency travel, money for prescription drugs, or wait to receive a pair of clean white socks. People living in the single-room occupancy hotels gather to socialize or to receive a weekly voucher to a local Laundromat. A staff member then opens the hospitality center leading everyone in prayer so people may voice their pain and needs.

On Friday evenings, our parish community hosts a soup line in our very small lobby. Strangers and friends gather to socialize and to feed on a banquet of homemade soup and peanut butter sandwiches. We serve the anticipated food at our front door because some people suffering mental illness may feel trapped by coming into a public building. At our red doors even runaway teens who fear the church trust the hands that offer them hearty soup and hot chocolate.

Opening our parish doors ritualizes our ministry among God’s people living in poverty because the Congregation of Holy Cross staffs our parish. On October 17, 2010, my religious community will celebrate a man of weakness becoming a saint for everyone in the Church.Blessed Brother Andre Bessette, C.S.C. from Montreal, Quebec, in Canada whose only formal ministry was being a porter, will be the first canonized saint in the Congregation of Holy Cross.

Brother Andre officially welcomed all people at the door of Notre Dame College in Montreal beginning in 1872, the year of his profession of vows as a Holy Cross religious. Andre’s humble presence to strangers and firm devotion to Saint Joseph compelled him to believe in God’s healing power. Saint Joseph is the patron of Holy Cross Brothers as he humbly lived in the presence of Jesus. Brother Andre believed that our lives on earth should reflect this humble posture of living, working and serving always in the presence of Christ Jesus.

Brother Andre (Alfred) was born eighth of twelve children. His parents baptized him immediately after birth since he was so tiny and frail, and wasn’t certain to survive. He grew up with fragile health and became an orphan at twelve years old. The Congregation of Holy Cross even postponed his religious profession because of his ill health. He lived with the sensitivity of illness that turned him to greater reliance on God. He was singled hearted in his life of penance, simplicity and devotion believing that healing was possible for all kinds of pain and illness. By May 9, 1878, the first written testimony of five cures attributed to Brother Andre was published.

The ministry of our many volunteers, staff and parishioners teaches me that faith must be grounded in real suffering. Our work among people living in poverty and brokenness is not pious, fake or self-indulgent. The issues we face in our parish starkly remind us that we carry no real answers to people’s addiction to drugs. We do not have sure-thing answers to people living with severe mental illness as a result of being sexually abused as children. We cannot protect the short-skirted street princess, the stoned dealer roaming ruts in our front sidewalk or the strung-out Iraq veteran shouting obscenities on our corner. I cannot even protect myself from the loneliness I feel living in the midst of my homeless neighbors. However, people’s suffering must lead us all to greater faith and service no matter on which corner of the world we find ourselves.

I cling to the image of Andre welcoming strangers at the door. He stood for hours each day speaking with people for just a moment because he believed in God’s compassion to those who are suffering. This image forms our ministry here at the Downtown Chapel and should form the core of every parish no matter how much we want to hide our individual anguish from one another. The model of ministry of this humble man opens the doors to every worshiping community and crosses the boundaries of race, culture, education and national borders, and any other way we might seek to divide ourselves from one another.

Celebrating sainthood is never easy for the rest of us on earth. We tend to create new images of these people because we are afraid of how they challenge us today. I see this in how we reinterpret Brother Andre in art. He was a sickly, illiterate man, short in stature. In stained glass in our Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland, Oregon, Andre sits among other North American saints looking healthy and robust. In the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels in Los Angles, California, an image of Brother Andre processes in the communion of saints woven in tapestry. There the image of Andre is six feet tall, broad-shouldered and looking as if he worked out at Muscle Beach. The image of Brother Andre in our midst must be grounded in the humility and love he personified on earth.

Even in my own religious community in the United States, as members of our American culture, we struggle to be changed by Brother Andre’s work among the poor. We prefer most often the well-educated rather than the illiterate, the prosperous rather than people suffering poverty, and the wholesome student rather than the addict or person suffering mental illness. When we honestly celebrate the saint’s mission in the Church, then we have to change our lives of privilege into greater dependence on God. We have to translate our community’s politics into real mission among the poor. We have to cultivate our vocations of love over our desire for self-promotion.

Brother Andre worked tirelessly to build Saint Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, Quebec. Yet, he really opened the door there for the sick, lonely and poor to find a home in the healing power of Christ Jesus. When he died in 1937 over a million people made a pilgrimage to Montreal for his funeral. Miracles of healing still occur today. I witness these miracles welcoming people suffering poverty, isolation and illness every day as we open once again our red, steel doors of our parish and rely on God alone. Our holy doorkeeper still lives among God’s poor. Saint Andre of Montreal, pray for us.

Besmeared

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, August 2010
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I cringe when I notice the dirt on the door windows leading into the chapel. Our janitor cleans these windows daily and staff members occasionally wipe them spotless during business hours. However, by Sunday morning, handprints, coffee, food, body grease and makeup keep the windows smeared and dull. I often think that these greasy windows reflect on the staff and our ability to keep our chapel clean and appropriate for people to pray.

As I reflect on the Gospel passages beginning on the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time until the 29th Sunday in Ordinary time (September 19-October 17), I see through my own ego. I also see through the smears on the windows and some aspects of faith much more clearly. I see the reasons why the greasy, ugly prints show up in the first place. The grunge on the windows speak loudly about our ministry among those who sleep at our doors, the dozens and dozens of people who come to us needing our attention and the basics of life.

Luke’s Gospel reminds me that to be concerned with my own ego is to serve two masters. When the besmeared windows cast a light on our staff, we serve ourselves rather than the people we are called to befriend in the first place. We must not fritter away our property and not squander our accountability of our stewardship. However, the real property and the authentic stewardship are the people who struggle for clothing, food and a warm place to rest on weekday mornings. To see these people clearly is to become trustworthy in small things. Jesus reminds us that we will become children of light when we see through the opaque nature of our mistrust. When I see through my own foibles, insecurities, failures and moments of self-protection, I serve God and not mammon. I see then more clearly even through the dirty windows to the people who are looking back at me.

Another passage in Luke’s Gospel challenges me to see Lazarus at my door. Jesus’ story is also reflecting back to the fact of my physical safety, emotional comfort and abundant resources. Jesus tells the story of the rich man encountering the poor man at his own door. This story retells itself every day at our urban chapel. Not only Lazarus, but Ethel, Joe, Irene, Bill, Big-Feather, Isaac and Beshawn come waiting at our red steel doors. Some of these people sleep at our doors, leave food, press their greasy foreheads to the windows to peer inside and even urinate on our doors. Pet dogs provide companionship to many homeless people but they also leave their waste near the entrance to the chapel.

The parish doors remain dirty all day because of our hospitality, our welcome to the Lord’s Table. My preoccupation with having clean windows remains a deterrent to my place in the bosom of Abraham. The place in the next world is already being prepared for the staff and the people who wait at our doors. This relationship of those on the inside and those on the outside remains important to the salvation of everyone. This Gospel story reminds me again to listen to the one who has already risen from the dead, the one who will provide a place of welcome for everyone in the next world, Christ Jesus.

The apostles want to know for sure how to increase their faith. They think it will be all up to them to finish the race. Instead, Jesus tells them to put on an apron and get to work. There are more people at the door, more food to prepare, more hospitality to provide, more kindness to offer, more clothing to give away. He asks us to be servants of his Word and stewards again of his real property, the people at the door. The call to serve will always be our obligation, our way into the door of heaven.

Jesus also touches lepers and heals them. He breaks down limits, boundaries and borders to get to people in need. Jesus shows us that getting dirty, touching sores and seeking after the afflicted will provide for us a new way of life. He calls us in the meantime to be grateful. Jesus warns us to be careful whom we consider a leper. It might just be people who remain ego centered, caught in the trappings of cultural expectations, preoccupation with appearance, and people who cannot recognize the value of people.

I peer through the besmeared windows of our doors and see the dignity of dirt, the purpose of our community and the need for my own growth. As I invite people into our chapel, I see the light. In the chapel sanctuary itself there are no windows. I cherish the bright light of my relationship with real people.


Wheels of Misfortune

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Originally published by Celebrate! Magazine, July 2010
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I often catch myself defining my life by my possessions. Sometimes I identify my success through labels of priesthood and the privileges that ministry offers me. I can measure my life and work by clerical perks. I can hide from others and myself by never paying taxes and not being responsible for another person or a family. I take my health insurance for granted in the present and my secure retirement in the future. The label of priesthood even offers me the ability to overindulge on food at our common table.

These external possessions do not provide the reasons for priesthood. If I live in this shallow clinging to benefits, then I miss my true self and my relationships with people. Ministering among people living with profound uncertainty changes how I relate to the external securities of my profession. I discover that other people’s struggles define my priesthood much more than my earthly possessions and privileges.

Each weekday people line up at our parish door asking for some basics of life, a toothbrush or underwear, a cup of coffee or a haircut. Recently a man in his early thirties came up to our front office window and asked a staff member for a backpack. She kindly offered him a small bag with wheels. He insisted on a backpack with growing frustration in his voice. The staff member assured him the bag with rollers could accommodate his belongings.

The exhausted man started to cry. He did not want to give into accepting the bag with wheels. He slowly explained that if he took the bag with wheels it would lead next to acquiring a shopping cart. If he possessed a wheeled cart, that would lead to pushing his belongings around the city. If he found himself piling his possessions on a metal cart, then he would have to admit to himself that he was homeless. He just did not want the label, the identity of being a homeless man.

Nearly every person struggles to find the appropriate relationship with what we think we own. The liturgical gospels from the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time until the Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time prioritize our belongings. Jesus invites his disciples into an abundant life. The only scarcity is the number of laborers. He challenges his disciples to focus not on sacks and sandals but on the peace that will change people. He calls them to move around from house to house carrying little on their backs. Jesus assures them that the message of the Kingdom of God will be the real priority to share with everyone who pays attention.

Jesus shows us that we must be attentive to people on this journey. Focusing on too many earthly possessions keeps us from recognizing people in need who are directly in front of us. The wholehearted love that we are to offer God is the priority and it is to be lived out serving the needs of people. As I listened to the man who did not want a wheeled bag, I took my own personal inventory of what I consider my true possessions. I know well that my earthly stuff offers me an identity that often keeps me on the opposite side of the street from people who most need help.

Theses gospels reveal to us that our real possession is Christ himself. Our frustrations and concerns often stem from not being in relationship with Jesus in the first place. Martha and Mary battle for his attention with their activity and their contemplation. As I minister among people struggling for daily bread, I evaluate at sunup my relationship with God who first gives me the gifts to be attentive and active. I understand that if I am to be at the feet of Christ with my brothers and sisters in poverty, then I must change the way I see my life and all my resources.

Jesus warns us in these summer days not become greedy. He touches us with love so that we will believe that our lives are not based on what we own. We do not need bigger storage units and more closets, larger barns or plastic containers; we simply need a new priority to recognize what is enough in our lives. The man who did not want a wheeled cart unfortunately faced dire times and had recently become homeless. He was still learning to prioritize his needs in order to just survive. Jesus calls us again to look beyond the value of our possessions. This message is difficult to hear for many who do not possess the basic essentials of life.

Jesus tells us not be afraid. That request from our Savior is always difficult when we are faced with daily hunger, a lack of medication for depression, threats of nightly assaults and no money. He asks of us again to give away what little we have and to not be afraid of how we will live. The man at our window was so afraid to enter into the phase of his life in which he found himself, being homeless. He did accept the bag with the wheels. He just needed someone to listen to him. He needed someone to catch the meaning of his tears. I still learn lessons from our experience with him, to not be afraid to enter into the real issues of my life, the next phase of grace even when I am most afraid.

We cannot enter the narrow gate with all our possessions in hand, not even if we push them through the gate in a wheeled cart. Jesus continues to show us that the last will be first and the first will be last. If we realize that we do not create our identity from our many possessions, then we will rest humbly in God. We will discover that our real identity comes in knowing God and befriending our real selves.

No matter in which community we worship, God invites us to take a seat among the humble. As I reevaluate my attachment to my possessions, I see in our common prayer that I do not own these possessions anyway. All that we have in life is a gift from God. No matter how we live in the world, no matter how we store our supplies or find our identity in designer labels, God gifts us with all life. As the man left our parish center, our staff member assured him he was always welcome to park a wheeled cart at our door anytime in order to pray with us.

Lifting Up

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, June 2010
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Ministry in our parish introduces me to some threatening forms of power. I see the pecking order for dominance and survival each day even among people our society claims have no power. People who sleep in their cars look down on people who sleep under the bridge. People living under the bridge often ignore people living in the doorways along our street. People who are not addicted to alcohol or drugs put down those who are stoned or drunk standing in line at our church door.

Every day I observe the deep human need for people to look down on other people. This moment of control defines so many human situations. This power struggle is seen in prostitution, child abuse, drug use, gangs, wars and even on a grade school playground. The misuse of power happens in marriages, workplace relationships and among children of wealth as well as children of poverty. These struggles for control and dominance separate the employed and the jobless, the well educated and the illiterate, and the dominance of one race over another. This battle for power happens among siblings and between adult members of religious communities.

As I read the Gospel passages beginning on The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary through the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, I see Luke assessing our use of power. Luke puts very strong words into the mouth of Mary, “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly.” These prophetic words place opposing people on the same plane, on the same level ground, with the same view of life. To live a life of faith then, we must be able to look other people in the eyes, to recognize their worth, to honor their dignity, to serve people simply because they are human beings.

These Gospel passages help us all, even in the Church, to sort out how we may put other people down by our unkind words, knee-jerk reactions, obsessive thoughts and threatening gossip. Luke reminds us when we think our way is the only way that some who are last will be first and some who are first will be last. Luke’s message is not just that we need to watch out for people living in poverty, but that we need to quit putting down others whom we think are beneath us. He is asking us for a change of attitude, a conversion of heart, a transformation of reaction and a new way of living our faith.

Jesus invites people who have chosen the place of honor at a banquet to sit elsewhere. He unseats the proud and haughty. He offers a new seat of honor to the man who humbled himself. Jesus lifts up those who know their real place in life. These stories remain not just proper etiquette, but invite us to a deeper conversion of how we live our faith in the world. These passages mold our view of how we see the stranger at Mass and the kinds of judgments we place on people who look different from ourselves. These Gospel words form us into true believers when our automatic response is to put others down. This changes our instinct when we think false power makes us look better, or feel more worthy or deem us more acceptable.
Jesus says to us, “Anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple”. These possessions are not only physical, but even include negative thoughts that cloud our judgments of people. These are not just possessions we store in our hope chests, but the dreams of other people that we destroy by prejudice, bigotry, sexism and homophobia. Our possessions include all the ways in which we speak about people, making them less than ourselves.

Jesus runs a mile for a lost sheep, leaving the rest. He expects us to search our homes for the lost coin and to run far and wide to embrace our lost child. This is the real mystery of God, to ponder the unthinkable, to retrieve the cast-off, to reunite the lost and to forgive when forgiveness is unthinkable.

We risk letting go of false power because of Christ’s dying and rising. The Paschal Mystery is not just a way of worship and belief for us, but a radical new way of thinking and treating other people. The power that Jesus broke through was death itself, so there are no other deaths of put-downs, biases, threats, bullying, abuse or neglect that will ever win. Our parish communities must find our balance of power again after scandals, sex crimes and our judgments of people.

Every day I observe people striving to claim their place in life through false power. As followers of Christ we can live beyond our instincts to put people down, to put destructive labels on others to make us righteous. My ministry among people living in poverty shows me these power struggles and teaches me to love.

Behind Illusion

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, May 2010
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I wake up to the reality of my own selfishness every day. People living under bridges or under caves of cardboard reveal to me how I take for granted the easy life I live as a priest. People suffering severe illnesses of the mind model for me a sincere trust in how life unfolds.

I worry about my own survival even when my religious community pays for my health insurance, even when I sleep in a safe, heated room on a clean bed each night. I cling to my internal fretting even though I overeat each and every day. I remain anxious even though I have friends to shelter me from the bitter cold of loneliness and self-pity. Each day I see more clearly beyond my illusions of fear as I look into my own heart, as I ponder the incredible gifts God gives me.

Living and working among people suffering poverty allows me to realize that I cling to my external possessions and fears. I hold on because I believe that these possessions identify me in the world. Without these labels I fear I would lose my place in society, my status in the Church, my image among my friends. I live the labels of priest, preacher, friend, writer, or cook because without these names I fear I would not be known to God or to myself.

I listen to the Gospel of Luke in these four weeks of mid-July through mid-August realizing our possessions do not name us. Luke invites us again to examine our relationship with all that claims us. Our real identity rests in letting things go to discover God behind our illusions.
Jesus tells us to not be afraid any longer even when we are asked to sell all we own and give alms. Jesus promises us that our lasting treasure, our authentic identity and relationships will come in this action. In fact, we will also find our genuine selves, our hearts’ desire and even eternity in Christ.

Many Church leaders live in fear today. It is our natural instinct to want to protect our children after the crisis of the sex crimes of the clergy. We worry over fewer young people attending Mass, and we fret over vocations to the priesthood when we bury our aged clergy. We agonize over the rules of the Church in days when our faith seems watered down as we struggle to find our authentic Catholic identity. We stew over mixed- culture parishes when downsizing and consolidation seem to be the only answers for survival.

Luke invites us not to worry over our struggles, our identities and our futures. He challenges us to view even our faith as a possession. We are called to welcome those who challenge us, love those who hate us, and offer hospitality to those who cannot repay us. Luke shows us that we must rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way of living the passion, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.

If we listen carefully to these passages of Luke’s Gospel, we will learn to rely on the daily bread that is offered us and even in turn offer it to someone who begs at nightfall. He teaches us in these summer weeks not to worry about the externals of the church and not to hide our deep trust in God’s love for us. We may fret and be anxious as Martha was serving the person of Christ. However, we must realize that the true presence of Christ is within us forever.

We must learn from people in poverty who Luke calls us to serve. This knowledge offers survival to our communities of faith. We give alms to realize our trust in God. We do not give alms to make us feel better about our own generosity. We offer people faith and love so we may be converted to even a deeper love. We do not offer the marginalized food, shelter, clothing and communion to show other people how much faith we have or to make us look good to someone else.

If we are to live the model of the sacramental church, then we must be converted when the Bread of Life is broken and shared, when the Cup of Salvation is poured out for the many. This sacramental action will allow us to release our grasp on many of our possessions and allow us to become the people we claim to be, followers of Christ who gave up even his life for our sake. The action of the Eucharist becomes Luke’s message for us to give up our pretense, our security and everything we own to become people of authentic trust and deep love.

People who live on the edge of survival teach me to trust this genuine life God gives me. This process of self-stripping, of letting go of my false identity, gives me courage to live out the gospel message to serve people in poverty and to receive my portion of God’s offering of daily bread.


Someone Else’s Clothing

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, April 2010
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I still hang on to several pairs of jeans in my closet that do not fit me anymore. I should say I have gained too much weight to fit into my old jeans. However, I cling to the illusion that someday I will learn how to take better care of myself. This is the self-talk that keeps those perfectly good jeans hanging out of my sight. I do not want to admit that they need to be given away to people who need them today, to survive the cold springtime of Portland, Oregon.

The longer I minister among people who live outside or who suffer beyond my imagining with diseases of the mind, I realize my sickness of clinging to clothing that does not fit me anymore. I have yet to fully comprehend that it is not only the clothing that does not fit me anymore, but my view of who I am as a person and as a priest that has changed ministering among our society’s fragile, vulnerable and physically naked.

I evaluate the contents of my closet every Saturday evening as I unlock the chapel door on our urban corner in downtown Portland, Oregon. I open the steel doors and Irene is always waiting there to enter. She carries with her in a wire cart the contents of her entire closet. All the clothing she owns from her single-room-occupancy apartment is wadded up in the shopping cart and in several bags she carries on her shoulder. She tells me she brings her belongings to Mass because she fears someone will break into her apartment and steal everything. She lives in great fear that her second-hand clothing will become another hand-me-down to a thief.

I do not know if the thief is coming. However, she provides for me serious reflection about what I carry with me, not only the clothing on my back but the attitudes, values and lived reality of my priesthood. She stands every Saturday as a reminder that I do not own my possessions. I am not what I wear. My true identity comes from my real nakedness, the intentions of my heart and life.

Several years ago after welcoming Irene into the chapel and helping her carry her clothing to her pew, I entered the sacristy to vest for Mass. I opened the closet in the sacristy and reached for my alb that is twenty-eight years old. The familiar beige cloth comforted me and reminded me of these many years of liturgical prayer. I have clothed myself with the same alb to bury strangers and family members. I have worn the alb to witness the commitments of hundreds of couples and to receive the heartfelt confessions of strangers. The dark stains on the sleeves reveal the illnesses of people who have been anointed with holy oil. It smells of sweat and aftershave. I have stood at the altar in dozens of churches amidst varieties of circumstances. Holding the garment next to my body, I realized how I have been changed, not from what I wear, but from the many people who have challenged me, taught me, and shown me how to become a real person beneath the alb of prayer.

I reached for the green chasuble that the parish owns. I stopped, held the garment, and realized for the first time in all my years of priesthood that I was wearing someone else’s clothing. I am also a person of poverty. Not only did I realize I did not possess the garment, but I understood that the garment would never be fully owned by any person. This garment belongs to everyone. This garment has been handed down for centuries, not as a sign of separateness, but as a witness that nothing belongs to us. At that moment, I felt profound joy and relief that I have not physically grown out of the clothes I wear to celebrate the Eucharist.

Now, every time I reach for a colorful chasuble, I am reminded of all who are naked, those who wait in lines and have to ask for the basics of life. I bring to mind the grueling fact that so many people in our country of privilege have to ask someone else for clean underwear. Everyone in church leadership should witness the humble faces of people who have to ask another person for such personal items. These people’s humility and courage would teach us all how to relate to the entire worshipping assembly.

My liturgical vesture calls me to prayer by showing me that so many people own only the clothing on their backs and another person first owned that clothing. These vestments tells me not to claim false power, or find privilege in leading prayer, or get caught in the trap of how some people want to treat me with privilege.
I wear a stole for liturgical prayer that calls me first to stand emotionally and spiritually naked in moments of quiet, personal prayer. I must be ready to acknowledge the source of my life in God before I can lead other people to the mystery of Christ’s dying and rising. I must know firsthand that the piece of cloth around my neck does not provide for me places of honor. I cannot place burdens on people that I would not carry myself. The longer I wear the stole, the more I see it as a means of self-stripping, letting go of so much that separates me from real people. The stole calls me to prayer so I may become more honest in my life as a priest and as leader of the Eucharist.

The stole, a yoke around my neck, speaks to me now in ways it never has before. I live a life of advantage, education and benefit. The yoke that I carry around my neck must be connected to the suffering of people who wait in line, not only for the Eucharist, but also for every daily meal. The heaviness of that simple piece of material around my shoulders must connect me emotionally to people’s suffering. I must join my prayer to people locked in the chains of prison. I must begin to feel the weight of unemployment on the shoulders of a single mother and her little girl. I must hear the story of people and feel their lost dreams of education and a solid future in this downturned economy.

Before I was ordained a priest, my mother hand sewed two chasubles for me. Her gift to me was the joy of dressing me as a priest as she had dressed me as an infant. I remember purchasing the white light-wool material, the thread and the decorative banding. My mother figured the cost of each chasuble was $9.00. I certainly did not realize the true value of those liturgical garments at the time, the handmade vestments for Eucharist sewn by my mother.

I wore both chasubles for years being reminded that ordination is so deeply rooted in the garments of baptism. Every time I put on one of the vestments over my head and on to my body, I am reminded of how my parents clothed me for many years. The vestment shows me again that I will never really out grow my baptismal garments that have called me into a life of service.
I draped one of the chasubles over my mother’s casket when I celebrated her funeral. The funeral director tucked it into her coffin before burying her. I had to let it go. In some ways I had to grow out of the garment and into another phase of life. I needed to leave it with her as a reminder of her years of love and care for me. I knew it really did not belong to me, but to her support and encouragement for my ministry.

I connect my Eucharistic vesture to many moments of ministry and to many ways our bodies are covered with gowns of suffering. I see my vesture calling me into service when I encounter an elderly man wearing a hospital gown just coming out of surgery. Finding our bodies in someone else’s clothing no matter how new or clean is always difficult. Wearing such garments is difficult for patients when the material does not completely cover the naked body. These strange gowns are always associated with body pain, loss and bland hospital food. When I see someone in a hospital gown, I pray for them when I cover my own body in the garment of love and sacrifice at the altar.

I pray for newborns in diapers, the garments that create fathers out of ordinary husbands. I connect my prayer with the clean white handkerchief I give to the young woman on the streetcar because her nose is bleeding and she has enough trouble navigating her mental illness. I associate my vestments of service with the white bandages the medics use to stop the bleeding of a man too drunk to stand up near our chapel door. In all these moments I see in my heart the white cloth that was tossed aside in the empty tomb on that morning when the disciples could not find the dead body of Jesus. The living Christ, the Spirit of God, connects me to that garment first worn by someone else.

I recently noticed a runaway teen and his girlfriend sleeping on bench near the river in downtown Portland. As I walked by I noticed the young man wearing a T-shirt that read, “The University of Notre Dame.” By seeing his tattered, baggy pants, and large over-sized shirt I realized that his clothes were obviously first worn by someone else. They both looked as if they had been living on the streets for years. I wondered if my religious community, the Congregation of Holy Cross, knows where the clothing from Notre Dame goes after the football games have ended and the students have gone home. I would have ignored this youth before realizing that I also wear clothing that once belonged to someone else.

I was ordained at the University of Notre Dame but I have deepened my formation into the Gospel by entering the mystery of people’s suffering. The T-shirt was just a T-shirt to the lad on the bench. It covered his body. The shirt looked stained with vomit from over drinking alcohol. He did not wear the shirt to prove an affiliation as a football fan or an alumnus of the school, but for sheer survival. I saw the shirt and immediately connected it with the vestments that call me into working for justice and to care for people like the youth on the park bench.

I risk being spiritually naked in front of people at the altar every day. The ancient vestments protect me from the holy fire that stirs on the altar, the Real Presence of God. This fire creates community from suffering, pain and longing. At the altar of God there are no distinctions of rich and poor, we are human beings longing to experience our real identities in Christ Jesus. The vesture is a sign of our common lives clothing us in the dying and rising of Christ. The liturgical clothing becomes our baptismal dying to human power and rising to the real presence within us of God’s healing and saving life.

Even after all these years of priesthood, I am still growing into the clothing that has been passed down to me for centuries. These hand-me-downs teach me not to get stuck in my human ego and false concerns. My vestments clothe me in overwhelming humility. Vesture is not a liturgical carapace, but a connection to our lives of human poverty. The vesture hanging in the sacristy shows me the connection I have daily to people living in poverty and who have no choice as to always wear someone else’s clothing.

I will be buried in a chasuble. I will wear someone else’s clothing for all eternity. However, my ill fitting jeans may still be hanging in the closest waiting for someone else to benefit from my inability to let them go.

The Deep Prints of Secrets

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, April 2010 –

I hold sacred many people’s secrets. The elderly mother whispers in my ear after Sunday Mass her dreams for her handicapped son. The eye-shadowed addict stops me on the street and confesses amid the blurring noise of a passing bus the reasons why he does not enter a church building. I hear the hushed voices in our confessional on weekdays admitting with deep wounds their personal grievances of the past. The parish volunteer catches me before the morning opening of our weekday hospitality center to entrust to me the secrets of his weekend.

All these holy encounters teach me to walk the path toward God’s healing and mercy. The only path I know to carry these fragile encounters is the path toward the Eucharist. Some days I am weighed down processing to the foot of the altar. There I find the deep prints of the secrets I carry with me. Often I am overwhelmed with love for the people who share their complex lives of suffering with me. I also worry about many people who are asked to carry burdens beyond which their hearts can bear. At the foot of the altar, I leave the dusty prints of my body carrying the grief, hardship and tragedy of so many people.

I carry people’s heart disclosures to the Eucharist because the Gospel of Luke teaches me to do so. These stunning passages we proclaim during the Sunday Eucharist in June open up for me the profound grace hidden in each of the secrets I carry.

A woman from the city comes to the table where Jesus is eating at the home of a Pharisee. She carries an alabaster flask of ointment in her arms and her secrets in her glass heart. Her secrets seem to be known publicly in the village. Word is on the street about her life and how she lives. Nevertheless, she carries with fragile reverence her secrets to the place where Jesus is sharing a meal.

She makes her way to his feet, grasping her flask at her chest to protect what is inside of her. At the sight of Jesus, she breaks through; her secrets spill out along with her bottled-up tears of regret, shame and years of being isolated. The sacred flow of water and secrets intermingle and together cleanse the dusty feet of Jesus. She seems to understand already that her life will be carried by Jesus along with other people’s lives to the cross. The path to the cross will bear the deep prints of sin, known and unknown. She realizes already the depth of forgiveness and mercy that comes from his unflinching presence.

Jesus also reveals love to the Pharisee. Simon believes the woman’s identity comes from her sin. Simon sees her only through the label that he and other people have placed on her. Jesus says to Simon that he did not wash his feet or give him a kiss or anoint his head. Jesus reminds him that the woman bathed his feet with tears, kissed them and anointed them. In this encounter, Jesus teaches Simon and everyone at the table, that the woman crying at his feet is worth more than her sin.

This profound story teaches me that Jesus wanted the woman to be restored to real joy. This joy is not a label nor is it fake or flashy. This joy comes from the honest love of God where all of us are more than our sinfulness and more than the everyday mistakes we make in our relationships. This joy is not a label. This joy comes from being at the feet of Christ and knowing and believing in our inherent worth as a child of God.

I know firsthand how our labels keep people separate, at a distance from our sense of belonging. The person with mental illness is easily labeled incapable of understanding life so is not taken seriously by others. I hear a wealthy executive blame a man experiencing homelessness for the man’s inability to keep a job. I see a responsible parent not wanting her child to associate with people living in poverty because her child might be exposed to “those people”. The long-time parishioner’s opinion is cast aside, the young tattooed youth who meditates daily receives disparaging looks at Eucharist and the pregnant thirteen-year-old absorbs her portion of stares – and more. We easily cast our worries on others and put public blame on the weary and the downtrodden.

We are all servants of God who asks us to lose our lives so to find the joy of life. Even our deepest secrets and unresolved pasts cannot keep us from the tender heart of the merciful Body of Christ. At the foot of the altar we learn to rest our pride, our arrogance, our prejudice and our corruption because of those who teach us that tears and remorse reveal the real presence of Christ Jesus.


Heavy Lifting

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Originally published by Celebrate! Magazine, March 2010
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I often feel embarrassed standing at the altar alone on Sunday morning. I lift my arms out from my sides, hold my palms up and offer verbal prayers on behalf of the community. My body assumes this posture while everyone in the community is kneeling. I sense my feet on the ground, my hands raised up, my voice projecting and so often I feel alone.

I experience this deep loneliness because I take seriously this responsibility to offer people’s lives to God. When I feel my arms weaken and hear my voice quiver, I know that the emotional weight of people’s lives bears down on me. Every Sunday I feel this profound body workout as I lift up my heart in prayer standing at the altar of celebration and communion.

Ministering among people who suffer poverty and loss in our urban parish has formed in me a deeper understanding of celebrating Eucharist. Praying with people who have no power in our culture strips me of any assumption that being at the altar is about my own authority, talent or ego. I come to realize that the gesture of opening my arms in prayer is my real work, my daily confrontation with God and myself.

At the altar I come to grips with the fact that people suffer beyond my ability to offer solace, change or even consolation. Praying amid people suffering homelessness connects me to real human need. Here, I am united in heart and soul with people who kneel in prayer. I do not think more of myself as the only person standing.

Looking into the faces of people bent over the pews during Mass changes me. I stand at the altar on behalf of people who do not know where to turn with their pain, uncertainty and challenges of life. I feel in my bones a deep connection to people’s unanswered questions. I pray every Sunday that there will be enough grace to fill the void in every heart.

I look to the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ for solace among people starving for the basic needs of life. The disciples knew of the hunger of the crowd gathered to hear Jesus. They approached him, scratching their heads about how to feed the vast number of people. Jesus tells the disciples to give people food, taking responsibility for helping people get through their hunger. Of course the disciples complain to Jesus that only a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish will not be enough. Jesus offers a blessing on the measly portions. Everyone finds satisfaction, and leftovers fill twelve baskets.

I complain weekly to Jesus that people need more than what I can offer them. In our small parish, hunger for companionship fills the chapel on Sunday. I often wonder if Jesus is listening to the parents who have just lost their lonely, gay son to suicide. I question the compassion of Christ when I hear of the gang rape of a teenager after a school dance. I want Jesus to be around for the elderly man who was beaten by his son for a measly inheritance.

Standing at the altar on Sunday, I feel the weight of all these needs on my outstretched arms. This is the heavy lifting of my ministry as a priest. I learn from the hungry disciples to bring these needs to the person of Jesus. I trust even in moments of profound hunger and need that together we will all be fed; we will all discover love and we will all find the healing we need.

As I pray at the altar on Sunday, I also view people torn apart by the judgment of other people and the condemnation of society. This need for reconciliation bears down even more on my extended arms and open hands. I realize every Sunday that my posture at the altar remains so countercultural. Here, my open hands must also be a gesture of hospitality and welcome. This goes against our human instincts to clench our fists at drug users, prostitutes, street teens or people who threaten the status quo.

In Luke’s Gospel, a woman comes uninvited to the home of a Pharisee. She arrives with an alabaster flask of ointment because she knows that Jesus is dining there. Her reputation as an outcast threatens everyone. She bends down to the feet of Jesus and weeps. She dries his feet with her long hair and kisses them. She anoints the person of Jesus, the feet of the Savior. She peels off the labels that people have placed on her as she reveals the love within her. Her action of love and tenderness becomes our moment of reconciliation.

I learn from this woman that if I am to remain at the altar with open-handed prayer, I must also wash the feet of our culture’s outcasts. I must learn even more to bridge the gaps among people who judge others. I must anoint people’s fear when unkind labels condemn them. I must kiss the feet of people abused by our society’s outpouring of hate.

My arms outstretched in prayer modeling the sign of the Crucified also tells me that I must take up my cross daily. I carry this burden when I welcome the lost sheep and embrace the homeless veteran. This heavy lifting will never end. I see in my gestures at the altar on Sunday the connection of how I live the limits of my life during the week. I discover at the altar that I am to lose my life in order to save it.

I understand now amid drug users and people suffering mental illness that standing at the altar on Sunday is not just a perfunctory rubric. This is the place of genuine love. Jesus tells me to keep my hand on the plow and never look back. So I keep my arms out from my side and my palms empty. I keep my eyes on the faces of people kneeling in the pews. I enter more deeply into my loneliness and discover again the people of God, the Body of Christ.

The Spirit’s Note

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Originally published by Ministry & Liturgy Magazine, March 2010
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When I lived in Southern California, I walked every week along the promenade between Santa Monica and Venice Beach. The famous beach pathway is not only well-known for its sunshine and beautiful sand, but for all the colorful people who make their living selling unique items. Many people will also offer their small or individual talents in exchange for a money offering. Some people who are homeless ask for a donation of coins or paper money dropped in a bucket or hat or tossed on a blanket.

One Friday morning as I was making the return trip to Santa Monica, I noticed a homeless man blowing on a trumpet with a small, rusty coffee can at his feet. He caught my attention because his trumpet looked as if it had been run over by a truck. The smashed instrument looked unplayable at best. However, my fascination became centered on the fact that he was playing just one musical note. I stopped in my tracks and watched him play for awhile. I could not believe my eyes or ears. After listening to his one note concert for a few minutes, I moved on along the path back to my car.

After walking about a half-mile away from the horn player, I stopped cold. All of a sudden something dawned on me. I said out loud on the path, “Now I get it! It was not that he was playing just one note on his trumpet, the man had the courage to play his note!” I am not sure what the people around me must have thought when they heard me talking to myself. However, the new insight sent me racing back to the one-note gentleman to put some money into his rusty container. Unfortunately, he disappeared before I could make a donation to his flat trumpet.

As I look back to my experience on the beach that day, I hold this man’s courage firmly in my heart. He was so humbled by his communication with his trumpet, yet he was fearless in offering to the world what only he could offer. This note speaks to me now of our upcoming celebration of Pentecost.

On Pentecost Sunday, we will proclaim from 1 Corinthians, “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.” This is manifest in my friend’s trumpet playing. The cumbersome note grasped my attention. It was not a note from a wealthy person, or an educated musician, a cleric or a teacher. This sound of belief and even longing came from a homeless man struggling for a dime in the hot sun.

Because I heard this man’s trumpet, I only imagine how many people I have ignored before him. His dire poverty struck me. I catch myself judging people for expressing themselves, or discounting their voice because of their background, their financial status or their lack of formal education. His humble poverty changed me and my belief about how the Holy Spirit changes me.

At Pentecost we must reconsider the people crying out to us who long for our attention, who beg to be heard, understood and accepted. We must welcome the teenager lost in the foster care system, the elderly suburban woman being abused or the manic housewife caught in addiction. If we believe that the Spirit is not dead, then we must be able to hear the Spirit in the lives of people we have ignored, shunned or have turned a deaf ear.

Many parish communities are paralyzed with fear faced with people in poverty. We have built fences around our schools, locked our church doors and protected our parish gatherings from strangers. We are called again this Pentecost to break free of our fear to welcome the lost, the smelly, the ragtag and the neighbor next door. Pentecost is not a past experience; it is an explosive grace capturing the hearts of people today, in our time and generation.

The Spirit still blows the hinges off our doors, still knocks us off our pedestals, still whips the wind out of our preconceptions and heals our hurtful judgments of one another. The celebration of Pentecost must create the Church from the lives of those who are waiting for a new dignity of life, for those who long to be accepted and for those who cannot wait to pray with us.

The golden age of the Spirit does not exist. We must not believe that a certain time in history is more infused with grace than another. We cannot get stuck in our parish communities believing that the Spirit was more present when we had the cute pastor, or when we had stricter rules, or when priests wore cassocks, or when we wore tie-die.

The gift of Pentecost costs us our thinking that we are in charge, that life will be better without the stranger or that our false security will bring us peace. Pentecost reminds us all as individuals and worshipping assemblies that our lives are a mystery and we are made lovingly in each note of the Spirit’s love.