The Surest Sign

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

These are the songs, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homilies from the Masses of

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

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The songs that 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, 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 2016 & 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 sycophants to the state.  No personal dignity or sacredness.
• With Christ as King, each of us has God-given 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.

RL notes that in 2025 the United States Bishops recently addressed this loss of human dignity in immigration matters, the full text provided in America Media.

Our readings for Sunday are here for the 32nd Sunday OT and here for Feast of the Dedication of the (St John’s) Lateran Basilica in Rome. 

Sooooo, why is the Roman Catholic Church celebrating a building dedicated in 342 C.E.? The abridged version, based on this excellent article in America Magazine is … home. In John Shea’s wonderful poem, the “A Prayer to the God Who Fell From Heaven” he ends with, “for by now / the secret is out. / You are home.” We are celebrating that we have a home in God, really, the only true home we have, but it can be symbolized and present in a magnificent building yet most importantly in our hearts, wherever we go, whenever we turn to God.

Kind of like the starlings of our featured image today somehow know to turn and remain with each other in the dynamic movement of their bird lives.

These are the poem, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homily from the Mass for the Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time which we would otherwise be celebrating …

• November 10, 2013 9PM

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The poem Fr Dennis references this year is:

• 2013 homily — Starlings in Winter by Mary Oliver

In 2013, we reflected with Fr Dennis that —

• At the time of the Maccabees , the Jewish people began to believe in resurrection (~200 to 100 B.C.E.). But, of course, humans being human — not all Jewish people did:
  • the Pharisees became the branch of Judaism that did believe in the Resurrection, and so this is the tradition Jesus was a part of.
  • the Sadduccees did not believe in the Resurrection and stuck tight to the first 5 books (the Pentateuch), which is why they begin their conversation with Jesus with “Teacher, Moses wrote for us …”
  • In a book D2 recommended to me the year before he passed, The History of the Primitive Church by Jules Lebreton, SJ and Jacques Zeiller (1949), pp 60-65, Lebreton offered a helpful description of Pharisees and Sadducees.
  • The Sadducees structure to Jewish society was more like a caste system of lay priestly and aristocratic people with an almost exclusionary focus on written law (and near neglect of oral tradition). So the written law was supreme, especially for those who were not of the ruling caste. We can easily imagine this structure opened the path to cruelty by the Sadduccees to the every day Jewish people. Without the consideration of oral tradition, the Sadducees and their followers did not have a belief in resurrection or angels.
  • The Pharisees sit on “the chair of Moses,” i.e., and serve as magistrates of sorts. In contrast to the Sadducees, all classes of people are Pharisees, e.g., priests, scribes, and the simple folk. The Pharisaic tradition is rabbinical, i.e., a master-disciple transmission of the law and faith in the tradition of the elders, more so than a current scrupulous reading of the law in Scripture (i.e., the wisdom of the elders prevailed in interpretative disputes). They also believed in angels and the resurrection of the body AND scrupulous conformity to the law, e.g., observing the Sabbath and legal purity.
• The Jewish people were not unique in this regard.  The Greeks of the time continued to press an engraved coin under the corpse’s tongue (only one side of the coin was engraved — cheaper production cost that way!) to pay the ferryman Charon for passage across the River Styx.  This is just one cultural example, among many, indicating how the Spirit or soul lies beyond corporeal death.
• This sense of disintegration, flying away in spirit, and re-configuring in hope of new life is captured in Mary Oliver’s “Starlings in Winter.”  It reminds us of our hope in the life in the Resurrection.
• This action of the starlings is called murmuration.

Our readings for Sunday are here, for All Souls’ Day, and here for the regular Cycle C readings that Fr Dennis’ homilies were based on.

Well. And on reflection, I think D2’s 31st OT homilies fit well with the readings for All Souls’ Day (though they understandably don’t capture the richness of a specific commemoration!). Still … good, and on we go!

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

• October 30, 2016 8:30AM
• November 3, 2013

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The poems Fr Dennis Dillon, SJ references this year are:

• 2016 homily — Fall by Edward Hirsch
• 2013 homily — Harmony by Stuart Kestenbaum

We also remember that, in phrases of our time, Jericho was considered a “den of iniquity.” So, as Fr Dennis points out below in one abridged telling about our God, the “Lover of Souls,” is that this amazing God loves each of us, anywhere, anytime. And that is a reassuring thought.

In 2016, we reflected on —

• D2 visualizes scene with short, scurrying Zaccheus (Zuh-KEE-us) played by Danny DeVito.
• D2 had thought it might have been an original notion, but then one of the websites he uses (Left Behind and Loving It) also mentioned it, and then more.  He found it reassuring that others thought the same thing.
• Blog Point 1: it’s unclear in the original Greek whether he climbs the tree because Jesus is short or Zaccheus is short.  Changes the reading a bit … and our sympathies some, too.  Reassuring to know Jesus might have been short.
• Blog Point 2:  the tense of his compensation is in the present tense, as in “I am [currently] giving four-fold” rather than the future tense, “I will pay four-fold.”  The former is a mark of enthusiasm rather than conversion, the latter of which is often how the passage is read.  (rl note — this is also discussed in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary.)
• Zaccheus comes down from the tree right away, another mark of this enthusaism.  And, from the blog, Jesus calls him by name … by nickname!!  “Zacchi” rather than “Zaccheus.”
• So … we love a personal God, who loves us.  This took D2 (or at least rl’s recollection of where it took his homily!!) to the phrase from the Wisdom reading “lover of souls.”  Loving us as we are.  Zaccheus’ story fits with this.
• D2 chose a poem by Edward Hirsch about autumn starting with “Fall, falling, fallen.” 
• It reminds me (rl) of being on my bicycle in autumn going down our beautiful wooded roads in the Michigan autumn.  The scene is available for everyone, but it feels like it’s right there, just for me, because I’m with God — using the eyes, heart, senses, legs, lungs, and bicycle God gave me the money to buy, … all of it — to share it back with God.
  • And, I leave the experience feeling beloved and loving in return with an open heart, filled with gratitude quietly overpouring, which seems how we ought to feel after Eucharist, too.
  • D2 celebrates a great Eucharistic Rite, too.  Bottom-line is that it feels like he loves us (or at least loves being with us), and rightly or wrongly, it then is easier to imagine Christ wanting to be close to us.

In 2013, we reflected that —

• If it was a film, he’d have Danny DeVito play the role of Zaccheus — self-important tax collector, short, wealthy, but wanting to have different experiences.
• So!  In D2’s Ignatian Contemplation of the scene:
  • It was quite a sight to see a wealthy man up a tree!
  • When a person in the gospel is called by name, it usually means the person became a Christian (as the gospels were mostly written for Christians
• Zaccheus’ story is traditionally thought of as one of coming to faith
  • Seems like he climbed the tree out of sheer curiosity (rl — maybe the same kind of attitude that King Herod in JC SUPERSTAR had — just wanted to see a miracle).
  • Jesus calls him out of the tree so Jesus can be a guest and, of course, people complain in one translation “stood there” but it can also be translated as “stood his ground.”
  • Zaccheus knew his scriptures and has not turned his back on them.
    • The penalty for fraud was 2x the valued restitution.
    • The penalty for thievery was 4x the restitution.
    • Zaccheus has been paying the more serious restitution as an act of faith and repentance.  (See 2016 notes discussing that this was declaration of what he was already doing not a pledge of behavior to come.)
• D2 thought this story is a reminder that the oddest circumstances lead us to God, natural curiosity to God’s grandeur, and how God intervenes and gives meaning.
• Noted that a musing on how John’s gospel would have told this story would have Jesus intending to go to Jericho to find Zaccheus;  Lucan Jesus happens to need to go to Jericho, and Zaccheus happens to be the soul he finds and saves.
• Kestenbaum’s poem of Harmony captures this Lucan vision of salvation.

The featured image today is one of autumn (because it is!), leaves (because of the poetry), and the trees (because of their beauty, their grace in letting go, and because “Zacchi” is climbing one to connect with Jesus).

Happy Halloween!, A blessed All Saints’ Day of many thin spaces and places for you, and a consoling All Souls’ Day.

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

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

• October 16, 2016 10AM
• October 20, 2013 8:30AM

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The poems Fr Dennis references this year are:

• 2016 homily — Sabbaths 1999, VII and For a Five-Year-Old by Fleur Adcock
• 2013 homily — Great Trees by Wendell Berry

In 2016, we reflected on —

• In the first reading, Moses as intercessor for Israel’s survival and triumph
  • Moses needed help and God did respond, and it resulted in real action.  Moses went to the mountain top, closest to God (as God was seen as heaven above).
  • His staff is raised, almost reminding us of a human lightning rod through which God’s action will pass, an image that he is conducting God’s power to Earth.
  • Moses gets tired
    • he needs to sit, so they bring him a rock (now his knees are bent)
    • his arms grow tired, so Aaron & Hur hold up his arms
    • Moses has gradually taken on the posture of the Crucifixion, foreshadowing Jesus’ crucifixion.  Jesus as the new Moses (think of the Transfiguration).
    • This is a clear powerful image that all of us need help.
• In the second reading, from Paul to Timothy
  • rl’s notes are far more colloquial than Fr Dennis would have said, but the gist is: s’okay if some of the older folks disagree with you, you gots da Spirit ==> so carry on and preach the gospel “in season and out”
• In the Gospel (Luke 18:1-8),
  • It was normal for judges to have their palms greased
  • The widow has no money at all, let alone for palm-greasing, so she has to convince a judge, who “neither feared God nor respected any human being,” on the merits for a “just judgment”
  • He gives her a righteous/just judgment … but he is still an unjust judge!  🙂
  • God will save us so much more quickly than the judge.  There are different aspects of truth.
  • In the final line, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” D2 can imagine a somewhat discouraged Jesus.
  • Faith is/as a personal response, sometimes it feels like “Is this worth it?”
• In Berry’s poem VII, he writes how the smallest works allow God to return in us, be pleased, and rest.
• In Adcock’s poem, kindness is a vital part of our lives and to survival.

In 2013, we reflected that —

• The decisive question in the Sunday readings is not whether God will vindicate his persecuted community (after/during his absence); the real question is whether Jesus’ disciples will remain faithful in his long absence — “will he find faith on earth?”, i.e., will they persist in prayer?
• Parables are never simple allegories, e.g., we are the widow, so & so is the dishonest judge.  Parables are supposed to be complex and multi-layered, open to multiple viewings.  🙂  That’s why it’s called the Living Word.  🙂
• This persistence in prayer — what is it?
  • staying with it, even in the dry spells; repetition or habit
  • rootedness in the earth and reaching for the stars & heaven (traditionally, going to the mountain is symbolic for meeting God or being close to God)
• In the first reading, Moses
  • goes to the mountain to do his part — pray! –with Aaron and Hur
  • raises his arms with the staff of God (which handily doubles as a walking stick), and he gets tired
  • but Aaron & Hur, like our church community helps us to pray by helping make each other and the body whole, help Moses persist in prayer
  • our friends can help us persist in prayer like Aaron & Hur, holding up Moses’ arms in wide-open supplication … like Jesus on the cross, the ultimate intercessor
• In Great Trees by Wendell Berry, we hear of rooted earth ready for life, creating life of leaves from earth, air, light, and water — so we can receive light and share it with others.

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

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

• October 6, 2019
• October 2, 2016 10AM
• October 6, 2013 Sat 5PM & Sun 8:30AM

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The poems Fr Dennis references these years are:

• The More Loving One by W.H. Auden
• Sonnet 19 (On His Blindness) by John Milton
• We Who Are Your Closest Friends by Phillip Lopate

In 2019, we reflected on —

• I do not have any notes.  I think by 2019 I had returned to more still listening  (particularly since I already had two sets of notes from 2016 and 2013 for these readings from D2!).
• He chose the poem The More Loving One by W.H. Auden.  “If equal affection cannot be, / Let the more loving one be me.”  He found this an apt and succinct a summary of Christianity offered by Christians.  🙂  God is always the more Loving One to us!  🙂

In 2016, we reflected on —

• From seminary to now, he went to the Jesuit vacation house near Omena for breaks.  Back in the hey-day of Jesuit numbers, they would go 150 at a time!  D2 entered the Jesuits in 1956 around 18 years old. He had just been part of his novice group’s 60th reunion.
• So, when he was reading today’s gospel, it reminded him that “we waited table for each other” – bringing out food, etc.  Family style, rather than the cafeteria style many larger Jesuit residences might have now.  During lunch and dinner, someone read a relevant text to the gathered Jesuit dining community, e.g., Life of a Saint, the Constitutions of the Society.  The readings were sometimes a source of humor, e.g., when a Jesuit pronounced “manor” as “manure.”  Breakfast was silent — which was okay! 
• But, “when we served as waiters … we waited a lot because it was family style serving,” not the restaurant style serving of today with much more running around by the servers.  (rl — notes that maybe a Downtown Abbey visual of the servants waiting near the table is closer to Jesuits waiting to serve those at table than our late 20th or early 21st century visuals are!)
• So.  It was a remarkable experience to serve … and wait.
• Sunday Mass is a bit of the waiting upon the Lord … maybe we encounter God, maybe not.  But we need to be available to God in our heart, waiting attentively with a desire to hear God’s voice (like our Psalm 95:8 refrain today!)
• We are wait-ers.   In Habbakuk, our first reading: For the vision still has its time, / presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; / if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late. /
• Where might that vision be coming into focus for each of us?
• John Milton (1608-1674) was a poet and civil servant.  He was a Puritan and political activist, who advocated for Republican government in Great Britain.  He became blind relatively early in life, around 50 years old, and the experience engendered this poem.
• On His Blindness is a sonnet, 8 lines / 6 lines with regular rhyme, in which the problem itself is a form of its resolution.  The sonnet takes on, what is a very personal question to the poet, what’s going to happen to me and my talent(s) [gifts] now that I’m blind?

RL remembers this difficulty of growing into waiting as serving from being Server at one of our parish’ Holy Thursday, Mass of the Lord’s Supper masses, in which the Jesuits and Dominican Sistahs, served the foot basins as each congregant who wished came up to have one foot washed by the person in line in front of them. It was still a lot of up and down, crouching, and what-not for the footbasin attendants to hand towels, mop floors, and exchange the empty water pitcher for a full one.  As Server to Fr Dennis as celebrant among concelebrators, I found my desire to help, rather than “just wait,” pushed me to the insight of how God waits for us to return (just as at the same time God is right with us wherever we are exercising our free will!).  Ever since, when offering the Server ministry, I wait in Mass — attending in hopeful tenderness of the congregation and what I felt for, particularly, our aging Jesuits and religious.

One of the kindest things said to me occurred during my graduate pastoral studies and “waiting” to graduate, still equating “waiting” with “wasting,” unfortunately. I was having major FOMO and guilt about “not contributing.” Fr Tom Florek, SJ offered a kindly reminder that we serve our communities by learning and engaging with our education.  Thanks, Padre Tom! Remember that, younglings!  We serve God and community by learning our ABCs and more.  🙂

In 2013, we reflected that —

• In “Increase our faith,” the “increase” is the first aorist imperative in Greek (Πρόσθες (Prosthes)), almost a command, a one-time command, — so this is the apostles “commanding” Jesus to increase their faith!

• One of Fr Dennis’ summer internships while he was completing his PhD in Film History and Criticism at NYU was at Catholic Film Reviews, in which he would screen new films — empty of any expectation or slight skewed to “I hope it’s good.”  Literally, no audience had seen the film, outside the studio!, so a very different film viewing experience than ones we have in theaters after release.
• This internship experience helped him experience that positive expectation was a part of faith.
  • A positive sense about God being in charge,
    Hoping to see God,
    and sometimes faking it until you make it.
• The latter reminds him of GALAXY QUEST, a goofy spoof on sci-fi films, but particularly STAR TREK (the original series in the 1960s).  If you aren’t familiar with this (hilarious) film — a group of actors from a televised series are recruited (and unintentionally abducted) by a galactic species, the Thermians, who are being subject to genocide.  The Thermians mistook the intercepted signal of the Galaxy Quest tv show for a documentary, rather than fiction.  The gallant command crew of the tv show grows into believing they can aid the Thermians, and so they become able to, amidst much uproarious laughter as both parody and homage to STAR TREK.  And where else will you see Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, Missy Pyle, and Darryl Mitchell together?  🙂
• Faith is something that the more we have the more it grows, so no problem starting with a mustard seed
• In the poem, We Who Are Your Closest Friends by Phillip Lopate, is a humorous capture of how the vulnerable (and insecure) among us may be the center of social community — for reasons uplifting and not so.  Yet, still, the grace of community grows and flows.

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

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

• September 29, 2013 10:10AM

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The poem Fr Dennis references this year is:

• To Dives by Hilaire Beloc

In 2013, we reflected on —

• “carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham” — the bosom is the choice position at a banquet, e.g., John leaning his head on Jesus’ chest at the Last Supper.
• There is a revelation of Jesus in the gospel reading in the final two lines, the stone the builder rejected.
• The New Jerome Biblical Commentary shares that a parable akin to the one about Lazarus is known throughout the Middle East and is thought to have originated in Egypt.  The main elements are the rich / poor reversal in the afterlife and that justice is somehow righted in the next world.
• However, the gospel version doesn’t include the gloating of the Egyptian version, and the Egyptian version doesn’t include the Abraham-Dives/Rich Man dialogue. NJBC Comment 43:151, 2nd edition, p 708.
• For the Hebrew people in ancient times God is God of the people and the land itself; God is the owner, everyone else is a tenant farmer and all tenants had to return a share of their harvest as rent.
• Thus, the relationship between wealthy and poor, something is owed, e.g., the extra cloak in your closet belongs to the poor.
• In the poem, To Dives, the word “Dives” means “wealth” and a Latin derivative, essentially “To Rich Man.”

You might have noticed the notes are from the 10:10AM Mass. When I first returned to the church, St Mary’s had nine Masses per weekend (“Come to the monster Mass rally at St Mary’s on Sunday! Sunday!! Sunday!!!“) including an overflow Mass for the 10AM Mass in the main church, which might regularly have 600 people. The overflow Mass stagger-started at 10:10AM in the basement and had a following among those who loved being with kids (their own and others!) being kids, and that included Fr Dennis. Two hundred or more folks might fill the hall, but sometimes it was smaller and more intimate.

The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (NJBC) referenced in one of the bullet points is a verse-by-verse Catholic commentary on Hebrew and Christian scripture, incorporating the most recent historical, scriptural, scientific, and literary analysis into one 1,000+ page volume.  The First Edition was published in 1968 (part of that breeze from the window opening of Vatican II), and the Third Edition — this year (2022) with a foreword by Pope Francis.  A certain D2 (aka Fr Dennis Dillon, S.J.) introduced me to this work.  It was good to be invited into the three millennia long conversation with and about God and how it was captured in the NJBC.  When reflecting on the Sunday’s reading (or any other), and I find myself stuck or unclear what was meant — specifically or as context, the NJBC often has a comment that clarifies or illuminates.  We are not alone in our questions and questing.

On a roll with James Janknegt, who also offered this entry’s featured image — his version of Lazarus and the Rich Man parable in today’s gospel.

Lastly, this gospel (though a different year, I think) also prompted D2 to share the Mary Lou Williams musical version of this gospel, “Lazarus”, from her Mass for Peace, a jazz setting for a Catholic Mass.  There is more context on this entry of the blog.

But for now, enjoy! The music of Mary Lou Williams was a gift I could share with my Dad who introduced me to boogie, rag, and stride piano. After a lifetime, us amateurs didn’t find “new” artists often, but Ms. Williams’ music and stories were a jewel to sharing during what turned out to be our last ten years together.

Our readings for Sunday are here. 

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

• September 22, 2013 5PM

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The poems Fr Dennis references in these years are:

• Starfish by Eleanor Lerman

In 2013, we reflected on —

• Jesus approving of a dishonest servant?!  What’s he gonna say next?!  🙂
  • To be clear, the steward is reducing other people’s debt to his master (not to himself, the steward) in the hope that they will treat him well when he is no longer under the protection of his master.
  • The steward makes use of worldly means for worldly ends; he is not expecting a “heavenly” outcome — just a better time here on earth.  Jesus reminds us of our call to him, so often God’s crazy path for the Kin-dom, which requires of us different manner and means than the steward witnessed — and not as sequential an outcome!  In each moment, we are making this choice.
• Jesus usually explains God’s Love by looking at the world around him.
• Like the Starfish poem does.