Our readings for Sunday are here.
These are the poems, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis Dillon SJ’s homily from the Mass of
- November 16, 2014 Noon
_______
The poem Fr Dennis references this year is:
- It Is Enough by Anne Alexander Bingham
In 2014, we reflected on —
- Fr Dennis regularly went up north to help catalogue a collection by “The Doctor,” a medical doctor who collected seemingly the largest number of unrelated items imaginable — until the institute had D2 and others begin cataloguing the items. A treasure trove – the Harrisville Cultural Institute (or sometimes Institute of Cultural Learning)! When he visited Harrisville, D2 stayed with the diocesan priest, 80 years old, who served four parishes. (Difficult but not uncommon nowadays, it seems — a distant Lamey cousin priest does a circuit of 240 miles between several parishes over the weekend in northeast Montana.)
- The Anne Bingham poem offers what is enough to give meaning at the end of our lives, at the end of the world (as we approach the celebration of Christ the King next week). We belong, and we all belong to God.
My (rl) personal reflection on this gospel was that the master, God, offers Mercy or Love, and the only thing to do with this gift is to offer it to others or to praise God. The servant who received one talent didn’t know or understand God’s Love, didn’t understand the talent itself was a gift. At the time one of my favorite motivational pop songs was Jewel’s Christmas rendition of “Hands.” I think of it as sung more to the forces of the world that would have us feel we can’t do anything, that small things don’t matter or change the world.
The Christian spirituality I learned from Dennis was kind and the exact opposite to the bullying of the world (including the Church) — small kindnesses do matter.
Or, if you’re a STAR WARS fan, remember … there are more of us who believe in Love and Light than those consumed by darkness, we simply have to offer our hands and share the Light of Christ, given to us in the Spirit of Love and Mercy by our Loving God. Northern hemisphere is growing dark, let your light through Christ illuminate these days!
A cameo by Dan Reim, SJ at the 9PM Mass (yes, 9PM! — a beautiful split liturgy in which the Liturgy of the Word was at one end of a consecrated basement hall, and we processed as a congregation — around 200 of us — to the other end of the hall with the altar, to celebrate the Liturgy of the Body; as Communion ended we returned to our original seats) offered that through God and abiding in God’s presence, ordinary acts are sanctified to help build the City of God with God’s hands, the very hands God gave us.
In a world at war (but, God be praised, not World War yet) — the peace and vision of the heavens that the astronomers are creating for us through the James Webb Space Telescope and now the European Space Agency’s Euclid Space Telescope is a wonderful contrast, and reminds me of the promise of the star who started three spiritual seekers on a caravan, in faith, to find a King, and adored the babe nonetheless. And so, two heavenly images of the Crab Nebula for us this post!
The Surest Sign 