Our readings for Sunday are here. 

These are the poem, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis Dillon SJ’s homily from the Mass of

• December 21, 2014 10AM

The poem Fr Dennis references this cycle are:

• From a Country Overlooked by Tom Hennen on December 21, 2014 10AM

In 2014, we reflected that —

• There is so much in these readings!!
• In the first reading, from the second Book of Samuel —
  • in Nathan’s response, as the prophet of God, to King David, there is all kinds of word play going on with the Hebrew word for “house” and some pretty ironic humor from God’s perspective
    • House as palace
    • House as temple
    • House as dynasty
  • It is this passage that the gospel captures when Gabriel tells Mary that God will her son / His Son “the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, …” (Luke 1:32-33) and makes real God’s words through Nathan that Jesus is (2 Sam 7:16)
    • of the line of David (both Joseph [Mt 1, Luke 3] and Mary [Lk 1, Elizabeth’s cousin, spouse of Zechariah, a priest of the Temple])
    • sprung from his loins
    • Messiah of all the ages
    • God’s promise fulfilled through Jesus.
  • The humor of the passage is David’s saying (paraphrased): I’m good; I gots the house of cedar, but … wait!! God in the Ark is in a tent!!  I need to do something!! … and Nathan, on behalf of God replies (paraphrased): YOU!?!  You’re going to build me a house when I’ve done all these things for you and the Jewish people?!?
  • rl note — thank you for pitching your tent with us, God.  🙂  the humor of this vignette reminds me of the Billy Collins’ poem, D2 shared, The Lanyard, in which a young child haphazardly creates a summer camp trinket and reflects back as an adult how implicitly the child version of himself thought it returned in measure his mother’s love.
• In the gospel, it’s striking how important the names are: Gabriel, David, Joseph, Galilee, Nazareth, Mary, Elizabeth.
  • This feels in contrast to God’s encounters with us without recognition or name
    • Example #1, the Samson story of this week in the daily readings, a man of God appears, terrible to behold, but knows not to ask his name or where he came from.  (Note: at the time, it was thought that knowing a person’s name and place gave you more control … and more relationship.)
    • Example #2, in the burning bush story with Moses, God gives a name that’s not a name: I AM WHO I AM.
  • And so … Luke gives us a very close / near placement / pitching of the tent of God with us / in us / among us / as the least of us of Jesus, our brother and Savior with the passage’s detailed lineage, names, and places. It is a reminder that Jesus is like us humans — with a genealogy, with parents, grandparents, and more.
• Tom Hennen’s poem, From a Country Overlooked (and unnamed, D2 added) offers an ordinary but grace-filled moment, like Mary’s encounter with Gabriel amidst her daily life:
  • “A frog calling at God”
  • a spot “so full of grace and being”
• This week’s image is The Annunciation (public domain) by Henry Ossawa Tanner, and held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. By Henry Ossawa Tanner – Philadelphia Museum of Arthttps://philamuseum.org/collection/object/104384, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=133819364
  • Mary’s visage is one of my favorites — wonder, engagement, humility but no fear, no shrinking from One who Loves us, Gabriel, the angel of God.
  • If Gabriel seems as brilliant as the tungsten of a light bulb; you’re right! Tanner painted this image after witnessing one of many Tesla’s public programs demonstrating this new light. He had also returned from trips to Egypt and Palestine. 
  • Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937) was one of the first African-American painters in the European tradition to gain international acclaim. He spent much of his adult life in Paris.

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

These are the poem, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis Dillon, SJ’s homilies from the Masses of

• December 17, 2017 Noon
• December 14, 2014 Noon

The poems Fr Dennis references this cycle are:

• Minnesota Thanksgiving by John Berryman on December 17, 2017 Noon
• The Place by Paul Zimmer on December 17, 2017 Noon
• December by Gary Johnson on December 14, 2014 Noon
• Wait by Galway Kinnell on December 14, 2014 Noon

In 2017, we reflected that —

• In the gospel, John the Baptist won’t say who he is!  It is almost like a legal language game:
  • “Are you ….?”  Nope
  • It feels like this familiar and frequent first question in a courtroom
  • It is happening with scribes and pharisees
  • He doesn’t deny or admit anything
  • And, on repeated listenings, it takes on the rhythm of a comedy sketch
• In Jewish rituals
  • lotsa water is used (ritual purity, drawing of water, blessing on water ….) but no baptisms
  • so the innovation of the baptism with water by John the Baptist may be why the Jewish leaders think he is the Messiah
• One reason the Jewish leaders may be unable to recognize Jesus as the Messiah
  • John the Baptist testifies to the Light, rather than the power and crampedness of scripture interpretation of the time, the heuristic of many Jewish religious leaders of the time, some Roman appointed
  • John the Baptist says, “I am not worthy to untie his sandal strap” —
    • The pharisees and the scribes (those of power) think John the Baptist must be beneath this unrecognized and thus earthly poor “Messiah” Jesus, whom they do not see as holy
    • But, we now know that John the Baptist is really saying that he cannot lower himself in heavenly humility as much as the one who will wash our feet and be hung on the cross.
• In Minnesota Thanksgiving by John Berryman, captures the sense of how gratitude opens the door to our perceiving God’s grace and sanctification in us … even in secular circumstances, even with Thanksgiving is a civic holiday.
  • “Dusk comes as perfect ripeness.”
  • “This is where you will go / At last when coldness comes.”
  • “At the end of your life / You remember and dwell in / Its faultless light forever.”
  • rl reflection: The Pope Francis Center in Detroit, serving central Detroit’s community of people who are unsheltered and/or food insecure, for some time shared a quote of one of their guests: I’m not grateful because I’m joyful; I’m joyful because I’m grateful. If there was a hallmark of D2, it was his contentedness — with a couple dozen at daily Mass, with near 600 lined up the aisles at Ash Wednesday (he quipped with his cheery smile, “We should do this more often” joking about the annual celebration.) And so I find myself turning to gratitude, not to avoid my life but to live it fully, not allow myself to be inured in any dark room that circumstances may have me in — but remember I am housed in a mansion of which most rooms have been filled with light and joy, even as the current one may not feel that way. Sometimes they are so in the very moment I live them, sometimes after the fact. When I feel gratitude, I am humble like John the Baptist (love this icon image for praying; Thanks!, Fr Peter Fennessy, SJ, for your icon class). A Friendly Reminder: icons are sacred objects — they are to be displayed in churches or in your home’s designated and attended prayer space. They are not art to be displayed in museums or printed out from a computer and left on a table. We revere or let them be. :-)

In 2014, we reflected that —

• We accidentally sang the Gloria at the Gaudete Sunday Noon Mass in 2014.  As he and we realized it, Fr Dennis cheerily noted, “Oops!  Ah, but we’re told in the second reading not to quench the Spirit!”
• The first reading focuses on Joy and Justice.  On reflection (by rl) it seems that qualities of God — justice, gratitude, peace create joy in us.  That resonance of our soul in God creates that Joy that shines from us.
• In the second reading, the line “Do not quench the Spirit.” stuck with Fr Dennis, even before our unanticipated Gloria!
• Several things came to him as he reflected on the nature of Advent —
  • When D2 was doing his studies at NYU, he was assigned to and living in the Nativity Parish on the Lower East Side of NYC.
  • On occasion he would visit the Catholic Worker House.  He noticed that Dorothy Day seemed completely present to whomever she was with; no sense of rushing off or other things to do — even when she must surely have had such demands on her time, as she had already become a national and international figure.  When a staff member approached her as she was engaged with a guest; her simple response — “Do you need to speak with one of us?” struck D2 as this John the Baptist humility.
  • His recollection from T.S. Eliot’s play “Cocktail Party” — a one character cocktail party in which one “waits and does nothing.”
  • And, so is Advent — being present, waiting, and, need be — do nothing, in this time of remembering.
• And so the poems are Wait by Galway Kinnell and December (a poem in English sonnet form!) by Gary Johnson.  The poems focus on what sustains us in the waiting — people, kids, hope.  They are how we hear “the voice of the angels.”

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

These are the poem, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis Dillon SJ’s homilies from the Masses of

• December 10, 2017 Noon
• December 7, 2014 8:30

The poems Fr Dennis references this cycle are:

• December by Gary Johnson on December 10, 2017 Noon
• Winter Grace by Patricia Fargnoli on December 10, 2017 Noon
• A Prayer At a Baptism by John Shea on December 7, 2014 8:30 (Sorry, I can no longer find a version on the web; I only have it in hard copy in my notes.)

In 2017, we reflected that —

• In the first reading (Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11)
  • the text is the libretto for Handel’s Messiah (“Comfort, give comfort ye my people”), i.e., don’t worry.  “Com” “fort” is with-strength from Latin derivations
  • just being with one another, with God, is a comfort and strength
  • presence is not about changing things, necessarily, but about being.  When we wait upon the Lord, when God comes, the very presence of God changes things.  The ground is leveled and we can then walk on the level –> 🙂  so preach the Good News, shout it out!  🙂 
  • Mark is the first gospel written and the first to use the term “Good News,” i.e., I’m writing Good News, Good News that Jesus proclaimed.
• In Gary Johnson’s poem December
  • we pass time with singing or humming, e.g., Handel’s “Messiah,” perhaps 🙂
  • a poem is a form of hymn
  • the everyday-ness of Jesus and Christmas, his coming, now, into our untriumphant lives
  • going forward into the dark, we don’t understand — it’s our going forward without head knowledge or certainty is what marks our faithfulness of heart to walk with Jesus.
• In Patricia Fargnoli’s poem Winter Grace
  • it is about asking for comfort without asking (“truth is found in silence”)
  • the passage of time, preparing for God, and how if we go out & turn to God, God is right there
  • bread — “piled up like a white beaver hat”
  • feast — “on the picnic table”
  • wine — “to be swallowed by water”
  • The Presence — “then you have seen beauty”
  • Transubstantiation — “and know it for its transience”

In 2014, we reflected that —

• In the Gospel according to Mark
  • there are no infant stories
  • it is the shortest gospel
  • the most used word in this gospel is “suddenly.”  It gives this gospel a very edgy feel relative to the other gospels. “Suddenly” Jesus went here; “suddenly” Jesus went there …
  • in Mark, John the Baptist points the way to Jesus
• The Isaiah reading
  • has excerpts used as the libretto for Handel’s Messiah, which happened to be being performed at Hill Auditorium that same weekend.
  • and, it is always a good reminder that Handel’s Messiah was originally composed and at first performed at Easter time.
• John Shea wrote a very long poem about John the Baptist, “The Man Who Was a Lamb,” (which rl couldn’t rummage up on the web at this point) and plays with almost every gospel passage about John 🙂 but, since it’s so long, D2 shared a shorter John Shea poem about baptism, “A Prayer At a Baptism” (which rl also can no longer find on the web, only hard copy in her notes).
  • We recognize and respond to the prayer to be God’s people and recognize each other as our own in the verses “We made you [wee baptized Johnny] our own // by making you God’s [through the Sacrament of baptism]”

Our featured image is one of the works of Professor Bill Burgard‘s. It is the lamb of Isaiah and the Messiah, and the image for one year’s production of Handel’s Messiah by the University Musical Society. Hill Auditorium (acoustically perfect) usually sells out all 3300 or so seats; the stage is filled with orchestra, the UMS Choral Union, and more.

Bill Burgard is on the faculty of The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design. I always loved this design and am realizing he also did one of a holy king for the production in another year. I use both as part of my nativity scene at home, a Peruvian ceramic set (Mary, Joseph, the three wise guys, a couple llamas, no shepherds, and one baby Jesus — not added until Christmas morning, of course!). I use a Tibetan silk fabric of the richest blue as background and set all in one of my book shelves (I guess that makes me go with the theological option of Jesus born in a cave rather than a stable). I add stars (lights) and angels, but the two Burgard images add the lamb, king, and prophecy of sacrifice and divinity.

I use this image of Bill Burgard’s with his written permission; do not copy or otherwise use or separate it from this site, please. Here is the link to Bill Burgard’s personal website in which you can peruse more of his (secular) art, if you wish!

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

These are the poems, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis Dillon SJ’s homilies from the Masses of

• December 3, 2017 Noon
• November 30, 2014

The poems Fr Dennis references this cycle are:

• Only This Morning by Dan Gerber on December 3, 2017 Noon
• For Jessica, My Daughter by Mark Strand on November 30, 2014

In 2017, we reflected that —

• In this liturgical season, we celebrate three comings, the three “Advents” of Christ:
  • The second coming
  • his birth
  • right now, in this very moment today
• We are beginning the Gospel of Mark, called Cycle B, of
  • Cycle A focusing on the Gospel according to Matthew,
  • Cycle B focusing on the Gospel according to Mark
  • Cycle C focusing on the Gospel according to Luke

with the Gospel of John scattered throughout the three Cycles, but predominating during the Triduum gospel readings for all three cycles.

• The Gospel of Mark is
  • the earliest recorded, canonical gospel with a ~70 CE date
  • the approximate date is determined in large part because it references the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in ~70 CE (and was never re-built)
  • the final loss of the Temple was a major blow to Jewish identity and a major event in their history, as Yahweh (God) was in the Temple and was defeated.  Of course, this was exactly what Jesus was offering, is that God abides in us, too, and indestructible.
• The event inevitably created what we would call PTSD in individuals and in cultural identity.
• So, in that context, the “Watch!  Be on the lookout!!” (Mark 13:33-37) is about the “how” of the second coming and reflects this contemporary cultural trauma for 70 CE listeners: Where is that God (with the Temple now destroyed)? How can we be more alert?
• The Dan Gerber poem Only This Morning reflects on the end of all time, being orphaned, a filly (indicating a relatively new birth) on the only day that matters — now.
  • We go ahead with our lives knowing all things will die
  • And, yet, the gesture of helping, support leading us in the right way is the “Advent” of thanksgiving, and ultimately the Eucharist.

In 2014, we reflected that —

• the themes of light and dark, watchful waiting
• In the Mark Strand poem For Jessica, My Daughter
  • He writes austerely, a bit darkly about that mystery of making connection when we aren’t certain when and how it will occur.

And, of course, we’re starting the season with Celeste’s beautiful design — which should actually be for the second week of Advent (Peace), but here we are!

The Solemnity of Christ the King Cycle C

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

These are the poem, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homily from the Masses of

• November 24, 2019
• November 20, 2016 5PM
• November 24, 2013 8:30AM

_______

The songs Fr Dennis Dillon, SJ references these years are:

• 2019 homily — When the Stars Begin to Fall (trad) sung by the Tannahill Weavers
• 2016 homily — Give Me Jesus (trad) sung by Jessye Norman
• 2013 homily —  Give Me Jesus (trad)

In 2019 notes, we reflected that —

• The end time themes, like the traditional When the Stars Begin to Fall, embed new hopes (“what a morning”) with the endings.  This is what we know from Christ’s life and death; it all brings newness and salvation.  There are no promises about the Way, just that it is the Way to and with Love Loving.

In 2013, we reflected that —

• The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, is an observance originated in the 1920s by the Church as a statement against the totalitarianism of Russia, Germany, and Spain, which were persecuting and murdering those who weren’t syncophants to the state.  No personal dignity or sacredness.
• With Christ as King, each of us has dignity.
• The United States can feel different, but we had sanctioned and institutionalized slavery (no personal dignity or sacredness) which has simply changed form in our culture over the centuries; it has not been eradicated.  Racism remains a great weight.  Yet Christ was a huge call to Africans for freedom from exile, from slavery (Moses), for the Good News, for Christ’s Kingdom, and thus they could not be kept down in spirit because of Christ the King. Or perhaps more accurately, Black spirituality and abiding faith in Jesus raised up in dignity and love and forgiveness those who believe.
• D2 played one of Jessye Norman’s versions of “Give Me Jesus.” 
• The simplicity but power of the message, particularly arising out of the African-American … or any marginalized or oppressed people’s experience.  Jesus is enough.
• The featured image is the original art, “Glimpses from the New Creation,” created by W David O Taylor.