Children

Children

Have you taken time to consider the source of life,

The unfathomable mystery of our being?

The richness of our breathing rife

With gracious gifts for our finite seeing.

Consider the children of our affection

Helpless but unwittingly trusting in our arms,

To nurture and provide protection

From the world’s devious charms.

What can a God-less society provide

As basis for the moral life?

Its secularist pendulum sways to one side,

But its return cuts as a knife.

The secular is never permanent

It changes with the winds

Bringing to our detriment

No stable community, our chagrin.

So how do we protect His little ones,

The Holy Vulnerables He loves so dearly?

For the good of our daughters and sons

Our tasks can be stated clearly.

'Roe v. Wade' is a prison,

Its legal cuffs allow no room

For the pre-born children of the One Risen,

He Who walked away from the tomb.

Now is the time

To turn the legal table.

A time now ripe and prime,

A sinful law to disable.

2017

Mary At The Cross

Mary At The Cross

At the Cross her station keeping,

Stood the mournful Mother weeping,

Close to Jesus to the last.

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,

All His bitter anguish bearing

Now at length the sword has passed.

Oh, how sad and sore distressed

Was that Mother highly blessed

Of the sole begotten One!

Christ above in torment hangs,

She beneath beholds the pangs

Of her dying, glorious Son.

Is there one who would not weep

‘Whelmed in miseries so deep

Christ’s dear Mother to behold?

Can the human heart refrain

From partaking in her pain,

In that Mother’s pain untold?

Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled,

She beheld her tender Child,

All with bloody scourges rent.

For the sins of His own nation

Saw Him hang in desolation

Till His spirit forth He sent.

O sweet mother, fount of love,

Touch my spirit from above,

Make my heart with yours accord.

Make me feel as you have felt;

Make my soul to glow and melt

With the love of Christ, my Lord.

Holy Mother, pierce me through,

In my heart each wound renew

Of my Savior crucified.

Let me share with you His pain,

Who for all our sins was slain,

Who for me in torments died.

Mix’d with yours let my tears be,

Mourning Him Who mourned for me,

All the days that I may live.

By the Cross with you to stay,

There with you to weep and pray,

Is all I ask of you to give.

Virgin of all virgins blest!

Listen to my fond request:

Let me share that grief of yours.

Let me, to my latest breath,

In my body bear the death

Of that dying Son of yours.

Wounded with His every wound,

Steep my soul till it has swooned

In His very Blood away.

Be to me, I Virgin, nigh,

Lest in flames I burn and die,

In this awful judgment day.

Christ, when You shall call me hence,

Be Your Mother my defense,

Be Your Cross my victory.

While my body here decays,

May my soul Your goodness praise,

Safe in heaven eternally.

AMEN.

Source: Rev. Hugo H. Hoever, S.O.Cist., Ph.D., ed. Saint Joseph Daily Missal. (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Company, 1961, New Edition), 252-253.

This sequence hymn was established for Friday in Passion Week. It is included in one of the seven sorrows (dolors) of The Blessed Virgin Mary.

A sequence (Latin: sequentia) is a chant or hymn sung or recited during the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations, before the proclamation of the Gospel. 

Per Omnia Secula Seculorum

Per Omnia Secula Seculorum

 After seventeen hundred years

Western man, enlightened,

Challenged ecclesial peers

With reason, new life to heighten.

Birthed in the tradition

Of The Way,

This rational ambition

Aimed to keep the Church at bay.

No longer any authority revealed,

No transcendent absolute.

A new rationale to wield

Fluid thought making the Word moot.

Indisputable benefit from

This thought-provoked alliance

New depths to plumb

Discovery of modern science.

Though great its gift

To humankind abound,

It began its drift

From absolute ground.

Progressive thought

Lives in the abstract,

Its moorings fraught

With no absolute truths to transact.

Enlightened people crown

Themselves with scientific certainty

Using governments and law to drown

Out any opposing views fervently.

They decide to call

Themselves secular,

To distance from all

The religiously spectacular.

The secular don’t want to hear

Of any tradition in the public square.

Rhetoric is what they fear

From traditionalist who dare.

Diversity is the thought of the day,

A tolerance for almost any.

But listen closely to what they say,

Because they tolerate not the many.

If Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh,

Or Yellow, Brown, or Black,

The secular consider them weak

Because of the Christian historical track.

The secular controls the square

Admitting only what it allows.

While denying who gave it air

To the ungodly it bows.

But there is no secular,

So to this thought make a moratorium.

God’s universe is bound molecular,

Per omnia secula seculorum.

WENjr

My Musing Reason

My Musing Reason

At seventy-three I find

My thoughts and writings emerge

From my mind

With hardly a surge.

Then there are times

When an unknown Source

Creates lyrics of rhyme

Like water flowing its course.

That Spirit might hover

For hours, days, or weeks at a time.

Any writer covets this Lover

With powers so sublime.

In the low country of the tall palmetto

With that Source an artist wrote

A prose, a fluid libretto

Painting life from within an encircling moat.

But at the yellowing of his physical frame,

Came a visit from his Guide.

At first acknowledging his prosaic flame

 He then said, “Come home to Me, abide.”

There is a time for everything under heaven,

For everything there is a reason.

His artistic life was literary leaven,

Never a losing season.

Jesus and the Woman at the Well

Jesus and the Woman at the Well

John 4:5-26, (29-38), 39-42

Link to John 4

 March 19, 2017

Today is the Third Sunday in Lent and for those of us in the Anglican tradition we are in Year A of the three-year liturgical cycle in the Lectionary.

This is the Sunday when we read about what many call “The Woman at the Well.” I prefer “Jesus and the Woman at the Well.” It is a very interesting story, a story that can be taught or preached from many points of view. Indeed, today I preached from an historical perspective, and in another church this morning my youngest son preached from a person-to-person perspective. 

Preachers use many resources in preparation for a homily of ten to fifteen minutes or sermons from twenty to forty minutes. Yes, even in some Anglican parishes we have clergy who preach for forty, even fifty minutes. But with a story like “Jesus and the Woman and the Well” it simply must be preached regardless of sermon length. The story is about an encounter. 

Today I preached for 21 minutes, my son for nine. Hear the Nine Minute Sermon, an eloquent presentation.

STORY-TELLING PERSPECTIVES

Both sermons provide a touch of biblical history, something necessary to place the gospel reading into perspective. The longer sermon’s perspective was one of "God seeking us." The shorter homily’s perspective examined personal prejudices that we all hold, prejudices similar to those held by the Woman at the Well and even Jesus’ own disciples.

HISTORY

We read of Creation in Genesis 1 and in John 1. And God made man(kind) in His image. So from the beginning of time God is seeking humankind, seeking us to live in Him and to follow Him. Later God created the Israelites and brought them out of slavery so that they would be His earthly vessel carrying and proclaiming His Word to the rest of the world. The Israelites were “chosen” for this purpose. But over the centuries this broke and Israel split into two kingdoms. By the time of Jesus the "northern" kingdom consisted mostly of Samaritans. The "southern" kingdom was Judah. They were distant cousins who deeply disliked each other.

AT THE WELL

“Give me drink,” Jesus said to the Samaritan woman. Shock. Given the vitriolic history between the Jews and the Samaritans, why would the Jew Jesus even talk to her. More shocking, Jesus was talking to a woman. The disciples upon their return to Jesus with food after leaving him alone at the well wondered why he was talking to a woman, but they would not ask. They remained silent on the obvious breach.

The Samaritan woman came to draw water at the noon hour. That was an unusual time of day to draw water. It was hot at noon. After all, they were in the desert. She was alone, too. Drawing water was usually a community affair in the cooler mornings or evenings. Community women would come as a group. Several different conclusions could be drawn from these circumstances.

INTERPRETATION

One interpretation concludes that the woman was a public sinner. How so? Jesus was offering her "living water" and she became interested. Jesus then invited her to bring her husband. She told Jesus that she had no husband. Jesus then told the woman that she was right because she has had five husbands and the man she lives with now was not her husband. That insight of Jesus was enough for the woman to take pause and notice of who Jesus might be. He knew too much about her. Now the dialogue was beginning to get sensitive or touchy. That is one interpretation.

Another interpretation of this Bible passage examines what is not known or what the passage actually does not report. The nine-minute sermon mentioned above poses questions about other possible reasons for the woman’s multiple marriages. Was she widowed (even more than one time); did her husband(s) leave her; was she deliberately made destitute? This homily focuses on the person, a perspective which drives home a question about making assumptions about the woman or any other person’s situation in life.

How do we treat one another? Are our actions or attitudes about other people based on faulty information? Are our actions toward others based upon assumptions or about what we might have overheard? 

Jesus, in this reading, does not dwell on the Samaritan woman’s circumstances. Jesus is SEEKING her. Her life can be transformed regardless of circumstances. His is the eternal “living water” and not the finite water in the well. 

Though the language in this passage seems cryptic, it expresses the eternal love of God through His Son Jesus to the Samaritan Woman and to us. The Samaritan woman and we must respond to Jesus' calling appropriately by surrendering our old lives and taking on the new. We drink forever the "living water" of the New Reality.

THE NEW REALITY

The timing of the story about Jesus and the Woman at the Well occurs only days prior to the cosmic redefinition of reality. In other words, Jesus’ death on Good Friday and His resurrection on Easter Sunday fundamentally changed reality - the core of the Gospel. Jesus became the fulfillment of Israel – Jesus indeed became/was/is Israel. At the encounter by the Well this was not yet known. But a glimpse of the new reality emerged.

God the Holy Trinity is THE seeker of human hearts. Nothing short of a transformation of each individual human heart will bring us to Him when He seeks us. Our transformation is a turning around – a metanoia – of our lives into living within the heart and light of God.

Chuck Berry 1983

Chuck Berry 1983

The year 1983 was a year of transition for me and several of my distant co-workers. For years we worked for The Singer Company – the venerable sewing machine manufacturer. The transition was not personal, it was business.

The president of the air conditioning division of The Singer Company acquired the assets of the division and formed his own company. Singer gave this new company one year to transfer its business records from the mother company’s data processing system to its own. My data processing friends from Auburn, New York; Carteret, New Jersey; Red Bud, Illinois; and Wilmington, North Carolina, worked diligently for eleven months to make a successful and seamless transfer of data from the BIG system to our new little system.

It took us one month to complete the transfer with one day to spare. We took the evening of the “spare” day to celebrate our efforts at the home of the data processing manager who lived in Red Bud. Our new headquarters would at first be in Red Bud before moving to Dallas. Well, to say the least, we partied all night. Our host had only Chuck Berry records. It was an all-night Chuck Berry festival with only eight of us. We imbibed too much, but we didn’t care, even though seven of us had planes to catch the next morning at the St. Louis-Lindbergh Airport. Red Bud is only about 30 miles east of St. Louis.

Tired, sleepy, dragging, and slow moving, the seven of us departed from the same gate, but at different times. We just sat there. After about 30 minutes I stood in order to stretch. As I looked up and down the concourse I thought I saw Chuck Berry. But, no, I thought. I’m just Chuck Berried to death after last night. As the figure came closer I blurted “Chuck Berry!”

Chuck Berry stopped, turned toward us, and walked over. My six companions and I could hardly believe who we were seeing and were now talking with. For about two minutes we were in “Chuck Berry Heaven.” We tried to tell him that we listened to ALL of his music the night before. He sensed that we might still be subject to the effects of intoxicants, but he was gracious and personable. He signed autographs – and then he disappeared into the crowd.

I learned this morning that Mr. Chuck Berry passed away yesterday, March 18, 2017 at the age of 90.

Rest in Peace.

Legitimacy, Law & Order, Union

Legitimacy, Law & Order, Union

When a sustained continuum of actions such as:

SECESSION

By municipalities, states, and commonwealths from the national rule of law

Followed by

DENIAL

Of the results of a legitimate electoral process

Leading to

ANGER

Over the results of that legitimate electoral process

Resulting in

OBSTRUCTION

Of other legitimate processes

Generating

DISRUPTIONS

In civil discourse and debate

Thereby attempting to justify

IMPEDING

The free flow of commerce and traffic

And

RIOTING

On campuses of education and elsewhere

To

FOMENTING

Fear among minor school children;

There will come a point when the legitimate, established government or authority

Identifies those actions as sedition, subversion, and insurrection

And then

Takes legitimate action to quell the uprising to preserve and maintain the Union.