In the reading from Genesis, Melchizadek prefigures Jesus, and this is his only mention in Hebrew Scripture. The prefigurement arises in three notable ways:
Both offer bread and wine
Melchisadek blesses Abram in doing so; Jesus offers his blessing in doing so
Melchisadek is a king and priest of the Most High; Jesus is son/descendant of David, king and priest
Our Corinthians reading of today is the (historically) oldest written reference of the Eucharist, as the Letter of St Paul to the Corinthians (53 – 54 C.E.) predates any of the written Gospel accounts (~70 C.E. –> 120 C.E.).
In our gospel reading (Luke 9:11b-17, the Feeding o’ the 5,000), it shares how we have the Sacraments, and they comprise sacred moments of our lives … but, also, how they also reverberate through them. E.g., Baptism denotes new life in Christ, yet every birth is thought to be a blessing of new life as a result of the Sacrament consecrating some births.
And so, Jesus is God all the time through all the events of a human life, and by his becoming human, he made all these everyday events sacred.
Alden Nowlan’s poem captures this sense of everyday events sacred for three friends in Great Things Have Happened.
This blog week feels full, so here we go!
I don’t have many memories, if any, of Corpus Christi Sunday from when I was a wee lassie. Having left the Church in spirit by the time I was 13, that’s not surprising. However, on my trip to Rome in 2017, as part of an intensive field trip for my Church and Mission course in pastoral studies with Loyola Chicago, a bunch of our class went to the Corpus Christi Mass and Procession (which also happened to be my birthday) with Pope Francis presiding (what a gift!!).
We arrived about one hour early at St John Lateran Church for the papal Corpus Christi Mass. We were in the second row standing on the grass with a clear view of the outdoor altar, albeit across the road and steps, etc. It was amazing to have such a large Mass feel so personal spiritually, though being with my Loyola peeps helped lots! A wonderful liturgy guide was provided and a beautiful choir, shared through an incredible sound system. There seemed like a bazillion communion ministers (and even then not everyone could receive), but being so close, we did receive. In my notes, I had written how I can still go to that communion space.
But, interestingly, what I remember even more now was the procession of all of us, filling the street like blood fills an artery — purposed and full of life, and following the Eucharist to the plaza of Maria Maggiore on the Via Merulana.
I still have my candle wrapped in wax paper and wax catcher. Almost all of us had one and had it lit, as we walked the street with music from speakers along the way. It felt like there were more people in the procession than there were at the Mass! Christ literally walking the streets with us and in us, all in so much Love. We all end up squishing together in the plaza of Maria Maggiore where Papá met us again.
“We are one body, one body in Christ, and we do not stand alone.” 🙂
And that’s what it felt like, and Christ’s sacrifice on the cross made more sense for receiving that every day and mystical experience of the Body in motion.
This Friday night our parish is offering prayer in the Stations of the Cross: Through the Lens of Racism. The Stations and the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ feel all the more resonant in such proximity with each other.
Also, Dad’s birthday would have been on the 11th, and this past weekend (feeling a little early with the 2025 calendar), of course, Father’s Day. The following had been a stanza in a poem I wrote in the early 2010s. Now … this excerpt is a tighter and better-fitting poem and match to my Dad’s dadditude and an “everyday sacred” moment.
Evening Mass, When All the Others Were Asleep
by Lorraine Lamey
In tribute to Seamus Heaney’s When All the Others Were Away at Massand my Dad
My bedroom door was closest to the kitchen.
He rarely woke me in his late night sojourns —
the shufflings of a legal brief or scrapings of sandwich-making.
But, oh! the milk jug sliding off the refrigerator shelf and
the tink-ings of the extra-large cookie tin
filled to the brim with Mom’s holiday sables —
Jackie Kennedy’s recipe, you know! —
woke me in overeager joy.
Feigning sleepiness, I fake shuffled to the kitchen table.
Why do I always remember a place already set for me? I know there wasn’t.
We ate, crunched, dunked, and slurped cookies with cold milk
in a companionable duet for a half-century or better.
I have not one memory of what we said or didn’t say,
except that once we downed a half gallon of milk
and a half gallon of cookies to match,
consuming and consumed by the sugary host and milky cup.
Across all years … and many celebrants, the constant acknowledgment is that the Trinity is a wondrous theology but doesn’t package up into a homily very well!
One of the reasons for this homiletic challenge is that we have the Mass which celebrates the Trinity, but “the Trinity” is not mentioned directly in the Bible. There are a couple “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” references in the Christian Scriptures and the Jewish ruadh occasionally referenced in the Hebrew Scriptures, but no author of any of the books writes “the Trinity.” So the Trinity, our Triune God, is a theological understanding derived from personal and general revelation about and through God, that became captured in tradition of the Church. It is one of our few conversations with God that isn’t centered in the Bible.
In 2019, we reflected on —
Alas, I do not have my notes but I recall the poem was offered for Father’s Day, Robyn Sarah’s Fatherhood hits a man, unsurprisingly, but in keeping with the mystery of Love present in the Trinity.
In 2016, we reflected on —
In Psalm 8,
the focus is on God at the beginning (8:2-4) but then the rest is about us humans (8:5-9) and returns to praise of God (8:10).
Fr Dennis used it as a gentle reminder that glorifying God in our daily lives (praise) is one way into the Trinity; the Glory of God is a human being fully alive.
Also, too, owning that our individual extraordinariness is somehow an expression of God is a path into the mystery of the Trinity.
The second, the Shakespeare excerpt, is a poem that’s not a poem. From Hamlet, like most of Shakespeare’s plays is written in meter. BUT, this passage is text/prose and sounds like Psalm 8 — starts with praise of creation (including humans) and then focuses on human misery (Hamlet’s to be exact).
We can rejoice to be one of God’s creations, and because of God’s Love we can also rejoice in the world and Glory of God.
With this, I’ll offer a brief homily cameo from Fr Michael Rozier, SJ, PhD, who was then completing his PhD from the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health. He spoke that relationship is fundamental to understanding God, beyond knowing or believing. The heart of the Trinity is relational, being Three in One, One in Three. He also offered the reminder, taken from the Proverbs reading, that part of our relationship is “taking delight” in one another.
This idea of being a community of unity, a dynamic relationship … a dance, if you will captures the sense of the Trinity, of Love Loving. And, as I enrich my relationship, the love of the mystery and abiding in it is more and more attractive than the study or the explanation of it. Taking delight in the Trinity as much as the Trinity takes delight in us seems a most marvelous way to pass an eternity together.
In 2019 and 2016, I didn’t collect any notes, mistakenly thinking since 2013 was a “complete” capture of homily and poem the latter years notes wouldn’t be missed or topped. I’ve included a few snippets that I recall regarding the poems, or are at the least consistent with what Fr Dennis offered.
In 2019, we reflected on —
Fr Dennis re-used Laura Grace Weldon’s How to Soothe poem from Divine Mercy Sunday as an example of the Spirit as comforter. The second poem, Portrait in Nightshade and Delayed Translation by C. Dale Young, shared a more complex aspect of the Spirit and Jesus of moving us in and beyond our own understandings — often without knowing the path, just our humanity. And, as we are wont to forget our humanity and the humanity of others in a blur of accomplishments, goal-settings, and self-focus, this unbidden reminder of our humanity is a precious gift of the Spirit.
In 2013, we reflected on —
How Wilbur Rees’ poem captures that feeling of when Spirit asks too much, or when we have fallen asleep.
Fr Dennis had altered the poem, originally written in ~1971 and using solidarity with people of color and immigrants as signs of our “not-so-challenging-or-close-to-you-o-God” limits and conditions on God’s Love, and switched it to “homeless.” In a brief reading of a poem during the homily it would be difficult to explain the original language and context. Our parish hosts a Daytime Warming Center for a month in January and supports a variety of local ministries of homelessness, so the example of a “homeless” person as God stretching us was a better fit for the brief moment of a homily. Also, our parish has a strong accompanying and advocacy with immigrants, particularly those of Latinx identity.
As usual to his kindness mode, Fr Dennis did not make any mention of this. After the fact, when I found the original version of the poem, I noted the original text and the spoken change he had made. I did not ask him about it. D2 pastored in a predominantly African-American parish in Columbus, was known for his kindness and easy goingness, and had clearly and seamlessly incorporated Black theology and culture within his practice of Catholicism. I didn’t ask him because all my experience of him already told me he had found the word change to be the appropriate edit to walk closely with his best friend, Jesus, and call us to reflect on how to do the same in our relationship with Christ. Too many words for how he handles Christ’s Love simply.
The second poem, String Quartet, captures the sense of tongues and how the Spirit made a unity of them, in contrast to the babble of the Tower of Babel. We know we are in concert with the Holy Spirit when we are called and act in One Love, One Voice, and One Listening. This is a Spirit in community of body and hearts, and on our lips and tongues.
On a popular culture note (RL chimes in), in the current Obi-Wan Kenobi series, young Leia asks “Old Ben” “What does the Force feel like?”
He replies with an analogy — “Have you ever been afraid of the dark?” This was no small question as Leia had just been abducted across the galaxy as a 10-year-old and placed in a dark room and/or had her head covered.
“How does it feel when you turn on the lights?”
She says, “Safe.”
“Yes, it feels like that,” Obi-Wan replies.
In Ignatian spirituality, the sense he describes is called consolation. That in abiding in the Love of God, even in challenge, we have the peace … the “safety” if you will, of knowing we are in and with Christ, in Spirit. Consolation has been thought to explain the stories of Christian martyrs whose countenance was filled with radiance and peace at their deaths (St. Stephen, Acts 6:15, Ste. Jeanne d’Arc). I also think of US Rep. John Lewis (RIP), when asked why he was smiling in one of his civil rights arrests booking photos: Because I knew I was on the right side of history.
Unlike the STAR WARS universe, Christian Spirit is not a body measurement (no midi-Chlorian counts, sorry), nor is it a light switch, nor a wizardly incantation (no matter how much I like the consolation-type explanation of the Expecto Patronum charm that Lupin offers).
It is the silent deep joy of being in Communion with Love Loving, a communion which may bubble out of us humans in all kinds of wonderful and unique ways. Come, Holy Spirit!
The images for this weekend are one wondrous peony from my garden and the Peony Garden at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor Nichols Arboretum. It is celebrating 100 years with ~200 plants and 10,000 blooms at peak season. Watching the peony and the people blooms intermingle with the buzzy flying things, four-footed friends, and each other — peacefully (albeit some of us need masks) was one of the most Spirit-filled and treasured “normal” moments in quite a while. Beauty rang out in all directions, filling us all. And, in that, not unlike the wonder of Pentecost for all those present.
The day that had to happen, that I didn’t want to happen (all love of our theology and the Resurrection aside) … has happened. Father Dennis Dillon, SJ, died at peace on Monday, April 21, 2025. Yes, Easter Monday, and the same day as Pope Francis. His are the homilies and poem selections that form the main content for the liturgical entries in this blog.
I’ve delayed posting this for all kinds of reasons, but it seemed fitting to do so as we begin the 13th season (in-person) of the parish film series he began at St Mary’s (St Mary Student Parish in Ann Arbor, Michigan) in 2012.
I’ve included the various notes and materials below of his Vigil and Funeral Mass at Colombiere Chapel in Clarkston, Michigan. It was a one-time Jesuit college and in its hey-day filled with budding Jesuits. Now — the Colombiere Conference and Retreat Center runs side-by-side with the Colombiere Jesuit Community — a retirement and healthcare facility. We should all be so graced to receive such love and care in our final days.
In the Vigil, you hear wonderful testimonies of friendship & family and the overwhelming memory of relationship with him — kindness. And, as his adult nephew said, somehow, no matter what was going on, if Dennis was around, it just felt like everything would be alright. Not because of any particular acumen on his part (though he was accomplished as priest, prophet, and magician!), but because of his faith and how he walked with Jesus.
Prelude to Funeral Mass
Prior to the beginning of the funeral Mass, Fr Mark Luedtke, SJ, superior of the Colombiere Jesuit Community, queued up Odetta’s version of “Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold This Body Down.” This was one of D2’s requests, as his final two full-time assignments prior to semi-retirement at St Mary’s had been to predominantly African-American parishes in Ohio. Unfortunately, the prelude was not captured on the livestream.
“Ain’t No Grave (Gonna Hold This Body Down)” (originally by Claude Ely)
There ain’t no grave can hold my body down. Ain’t no grave can hold my body down, my body down. When the blues trumpet sound, I’ll be gettin’ up walkin’ round. Ain’t no grave can hold my body down. Well, I heard, beautiful sinner, well its Jesus’ words takin’ me home. Been I headin’ out, headin’ a-headin’ O lord, I been told when I call this Throne of Grace it’s gonna coin my soul in place. Ain’t no grave can hold my body down. When Jesus hangin’ on the cross well it made poor Mary [??]. Then he look down on his disciples and take my brother home Ain’t that a pity, dark shame How they crucified his name Ain’t no grave can hold my body down. Ain’t no grave can hold my body down. Ain’t no grave can hold my body down, my body down. When the blues trumpet sound, I’ll be gettin’ up walkin’ round ain’t no grave can hold my body down.
Alas, it falls to me to carry the lowly prose section of this. I hesitate to even say anything following those beautiful words. I’ll begin with a story of my third to last visit with Dennis. He was still in the hospital in the throes of co-vid. He was not lucid and couldn’t really speak at all. But, part way through the visit he suddenly snapped to alertness and looked me right in the eyes. I thought, “Ah! A moment of clarity!” And I said, “You know who I am!” “Yes, of course! You are the Pope!” And to this day, I don’t know if he was hallucinating or just being his usual playful self with me.
But I can assure you, he was not being playful in choosing these readings today. These selections from scripture give a wonderful window into the soul of Dennis, a wonderful way into his spirituality.
Last night at the Vigil Service many of us spoke about how gentle a soul Dennis was, how kindly, how compassionate. But, I found the first reading from the Book of Job today to be almost defiant in tone, not like Dennis at all. “O that my words were chiseled into the rock forever. I know that my Redeemer will live and stand upon the dust of the earth. And from my flesh I will see God.” He’s almost like a defiant proclamation to us, of Dennis’ own belief in God and a life beyond this one and in the Resurrection. But I think it’s more than a belief in the Resurrection. He’s also saying something about our destiny, our purpose in this life as human beings, which is to see God. “From my flesh I shall see God” that we might see something of the divine mystery that gives birth to all of us, that is our life, that is our destiny, and our calling.
In the second reading today, from the Letter of St John, I think Dennis is making clear that that seeing God is a lifelong process of transformation in us. That every time we get some glimpse of the divine mystery, some glimpse of the depth dimension of our lives, we are transformed, and we become more like God ourselves. The reading says that we know we are God’s children now but we don’t know what we will be then, bespeaks of that process of transformation. But we do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him … we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.
Now those are wonderful thoughts and we know Dennis would never leave us there with some lovely theological truths that are somewhat abstract. And, so the gospel today, I think, brings out the human dimension, brings out the human story, and a narrative how we do see God and find God in our very human, our everyday experience. If this gospel were a movie, as Dennis might look at it, I see in it three scenes that are critical for our reflection.
Scene 1: there, the disciples are walking along the road on the way to this village, and it is said they were conversing about everything that had happened. And this stranger comes up, and it says he walks with them, he walks with them. And, it seems to me, this captures a great deal of the life and even the ministry of Dennis Dillon: conversing about everything that’s happened.
I know I first met Dennis when we were assigned to live together in a Jesuit community in 1972. And over 53 years, we conversed a lot. Many of you knew him as a priest, as a pastor, as a spiritual guide, I just knew him as a friend. And we talked and talked and talked and talked. It was a lot of conversation. And I’m sure you enjoyed conversation with him. And I think he had a deep trust that in that conversation Jesus would come up and walk with us. Maybe we didn’t recognize him but Jesus was there in the conversation.
Scene 2: Jesus begins to reveal himself to them, and he begins to explain the scriptures to them. And I think this was an essential part of who Dennis was, he explained the scriptures to us, but NOT by talking about the Bible. <chuckle> He explained the scriptures through poetry, through film, through the arts. He gave us a way in to words and to thoughts that helped us articulate what our lives are really about in this world, with one other, with our God. And, I think in this, Dennis was really exercising a prophetic ministry. I think we all know today religious language is lost on most people. It’s just not heard any more. And I think Dennis very deliberately developed, as it were, a second language, an alternative language, other words to give us a way into the sacred, into the sacred words, into some understanding of our faith and of the life that we live.
Scene 3: They arrive at the inn, they go in, and they sit down to eat. And there, Jesus takes the bread, says the blessing, blesses it, and breaks it, and gives it to them. This was another dimension of the ministry of Dennis, of his life — sharing meals with his friends. But above all sharing the sacred liturgy. I think of all the years of Dennis’ life as a Jesuit and all the many different assignments that he had; he was never far from the altar. He was never far from the altar. And I’m sure many of you sitting here from his various parishes may remember him primarily as one who celebrated the Eucharist. Who called us together at this table, and Dennis was the one who took the bread, and said the blessing and broke it and shared it with us. And, I think in that, we could recognize who Dennis really was, just like those disciples finally recognized Jesus who he was.
In the Eucharist, I think we see, really, the deepest part of Dennis, his most real self, what he believed and lived most. It was a world of symbols, signs, sacrament, that went beyond words, in which we are called to experience the presence of God with us, in his Christ, and experience that call to be broken and shared ourselves to give our lives to one another.
This came together for me in an image, a memory that came back to me recently. One week ago yesterday it was Holy Thursday, and at the time I didn’t realize how close Dennis was to passing. At the HT service, my mind was just filled with the memory of Dennis presiding at a HT service many years ago when he was the pastor at Gesu parish, and I was sitting in the congregation. At the end of that service, the priest takes the communion, the Sacrament the blessed Sacrament, and makes a solemn procession through the church preceded by candles and incense. This memory came back to me and just filled my mind and my heart because that day many years ago when I watched Dennis come down the aisle toward me somehow time stood still for a minute. And as it were I saw into another dimension of Dennis, and in that moment he became for me an icon, of the human being bearing the presence of Christ as he walks through the world. That was Dennis, an image of Christ walking through the world.
And if it is true that we are all called to be other Christs, and, if it is true that we believe that Dennis now is moving more deeply into union with Christ, then, it isn’t a scandal for us to say of Dennis what we might say of Christ. And so I want to end by quoting an Easter hymn that is addressed to Christ that we sang at that Holy Thursday liturgy so many years ago.
Dennis, we remember how you loved us to your death, and still we celebrate for you are with us here. And we believe that we will see you once again in your glory. We remember. We celebrate. We believe. —***—
Offertory: Jesus, Let All Creation Bend a Knee to the Lord
Closing: Jesus, We Remember
Take and Receive (Old Melody)
Song at Final Commendation of our funeral Masses (Song of Farewell, Dennis Smolarski, SJ)
Thank you, Dennis, for your many, many gifts of kindness to so many; for a spirituality of humbleness and gratitude as a way to learn to walk with Christ; and for all the shared and sharing love of poetry, film, and the arts.
Our readings for this Sunday, the Ascension of the Lord are here.
Ascension on Thursday, May 29, would mark forty days from Easter. However, many dioceses in the United States (and elsewhere) moved the observance to the following Sunday (this year, June 1) to increase participation in its observance. In the 1990s, the dioceses of Australia, Canada, and the United States moved their observances to Sunday, as did England and Wales later. However, England and Wales have since reverted to a Thursday observance.
These are my notes from Fr Dennis’ homily from the
May 12, 2013 Mass
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Fr Dennis did not reference a poem in 2013! However …
in 2013, we reflected that —
The Ascension is all about Jesus. Easter is our resurrection. Pentecost is the Spirit in us. But the Ascension? Jesus! Be happy for Jesus — He made it! His work is over.
His power & Spirit now convert all things in this world to His Kindom.
St Ignatius has one meditation, bridging the First Week and the Second Week of the Spiritual Exercises, called The Two Standards in which one presented two kings and their standards and the choice of whom you would follow. He ends the Spiritual Exercises with a meditation on the Ascension of Jesus in Week 4. (Spoiler Alert: Jesus is represented in the Two Standards by the king in the muck with us, whose love calls out our very best giving and being selves.)
RL confession — somehow and definitely NOT captured in my notes, Fr Dennis lucidly took us to the following story and insight, which I assure you made perfect heart and soul sense during my experience of the homily. I can remember the feeling of God’s Love and consolation, but not the homiletic transition. Sorry!
St Ignatius’ conversion and his sharing of his story with his brother Jesuits (eventually, after a long time and much prompting by his companions) has much charming quirkiness. For example, when he finally succeeded in making his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the Franciscans who held the authority position in Christendom there, for the Church, essentially booted St Ignatius out. However, St. Ignatius then bribed his way back in, first trading a penknife and then a pair of scissors(!), to the place on Mount Olivet near Bethphage that was marked as the place from where Jesus ascended. Apparently, even back then (in 1523) there was some plaque marking the “footprints” of Jesus Christ. Ignatius wanted to return a second time to see “the direction in which the right foot was pointing and which way the left” (Tylenda transl., 2001, A Pilgrim’s Journey)
Dennis thought that these kinds of unique quirkinesses in us are just the sort of thing our parents and our Loving God love in us, tenderly.
In that spirit … or Spirit, I found a replica of the Ascension footprints and used it as the blog image. 🙂
Sunday’s gospel passage has one of my all time favorite phrases: μετὰ χαρᾶς μεγάλης with great joy (in some translations — “with exceeding great joy”). While, of course, it made sense on one level — “Jesus Ascended and we saw it!,” there are some additional layers.
With apologies to the variety of uncited theologians and historians who have helped me form this understanding: 40 days after utterly and completing abandoning Jesus in Jerusalem and running for their lives, all of the apostles and disciples went back into Jerusalem to praise Him and share the Word of Love.
At that time, there had been all kinds of “messiahs” running around. The disappearance or death of one more was not a big deal. But one historian, perhaps Josephus, noted that it was this act — the return of the disciples to the scene of the crime if you will, joyfully, filled with presence and consolation, and a scenario in which they could reasonably believe THEY would also be put to death — this is the act that convinced many of the Resurrection and Jesus as the Son of God, the promised Messiah. It is a humble reminder and compass setting across the millennia.
The readings are meant to encourage the participation in Christian life of the new members of our community.
The gospel and second reading offer a sense of fullness; we should be delighted that Jesus is gone because this is the restoration of Jesus, to where he came from.
In the second reading from the Book of Revelation, Jerusalem is coming from the heavens because God’s very self is the fullness of the city, the very light of which is never extinguished.
In the first reading from Acts, “because there arose no little dissension and debate among them,” as to whether Gentiles can be in the church — Yes!, they can! However, if the Gentiles are no longer separate from the Jewish-Christians, are the Jewish-Christians still a segment of Jewish religion? What is the common ground, particularly with regard to the many Jewish rules? This is all about the nascent community and its members trying to find their place in their world as it is and also as Christ calls us to live.
The NY Times obituary for Fr Daniel Berrigan, SJ included the basis for his persistent radicalism, paraphrased If I don’t have faith, then I couldn’t give myself knowing that probably nothing is going to change.
Ultimately, these readings are about what does it means to be “our family” in this world of the Resurrected Christ?
In Thomas Lynch’s poem, West Highland, he includes his sense of envy of people who seem to have it all together, but it is also a good reminder that Jesus offers Peace, not a solution. Our focus on outcome can be a distraction from a focus on being, being in Christ — however that may manifest. Thomas Lynch is a Michigan poet and part of a family providing undertaker and funeral services for generations now.
In 2013, we reflected on —
D2 used the Gospel reading from Cycle B (John 15:9-17). That we remain in God’s Love so that our joy and God’s joy in us may be complete.
In the poem Transportation by Kristen Lindquist, Fr Dennis found that it captures the shining from within of the Gospel Cycle B and Book of Revelation readings, how the Love of Christ will illuminate the shining from within —
Everyone in O’Hare is happy today / The sun shines benevolently …
RL’s musing and reflection: With different relationship but same enthusiasm at Lindquist’s verse: I like the way [he] moves! What immediately leapt into my mind (so to speak) at the thought of illumination and transportation from within was North American hoop dance (history within link). I had seen one particular video captured at a school, but instead, I’ve used a video link of the same young man, Nakotah LaRance, dancing at the 2016 World Championships. In the link I share, he uses five hoops in a more rapid and creative fashion than during his dance at the elementary school, in which he used eighteen hoops (and, yes, at one point, is engaged with all at once.) At the 2016 World Championship, he dances sage grouse, alligator, eagle, and even some moon-stepping. 🙂 The life and joy shine out of him and his dance, it resurrects and is kept alive at the same time. I like the way [he] moves!
Interestingly, very early on (more detail in the history link above), the Hoop Dance Championships decided on age divisions but no gender divisions. In 2000, Lisa Odgig (Seneca) became the first female dancer to earn the World Championship; she repeated in 2003. She continues to dance in the open and senior divisions, but I couldn’t find a video from those early years.
And I suppose this theme of dancing — of all kinds, captures the dynamic peace in the Resurrection for me, the one created by the Lord of the Dance.
The Salvador Dali image featured in this week’s entry is one of two in his New Jerusalem suite; this is image 1, entitled The Messiah; The Harbinger. You can see Golgotha and Jerusalem in the background. I chose a human community representation this time, though I am one of those who steps into nature and meets God immediately. However, Brian Matz in his book on St Gregory of Nazianzus (2016) had an insight that profoundly impacted me:
Nature is excellent for meditating on God’s invisible attributes but engagement with other people reveals God’s visible image. Church communities help us witness the power of God’s grace to bring order out of the chaos of our lives; the church of nature cannot do that (Matz, 113).
St Gregory the Theologian taught that humans are most made in the image of God when we love other humans, especially the poor (Oration 14, Love of the Poor, c. 370 C.E./A.D.).
Our readings for this Sunday, the Fifth Sunday of Easter, the Resurrection of the Lord are here.
These are the poem, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homily on April 28, 2013, unknown which Sunday Mass time at St Mary’s (St. Mary Student Parish in Ann Arbor).
From the second reading taken from the Book of Revelation, D2 found engaging the declaration from the throne “‘Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race.'” I (Rainey) find this simple statement powerfully resonant in St Gregory of Naziansus’ oratory in which he declared humans are most made in God’s image when we love humans, particularly when we love the poor.
D2 (aka Fr Dennis Dillon, SJ) paired Revelation’s “‘Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race'” with the Gospel’s “As I have loved you” to create the understanding that we are created/made to give, and we know this when we are giving. But we can become locked or marooned into a “not-giving” state of doing … or being.
In a quote from Alice Waters, one of the prime forces of the farm-to-table food movement in the United States and noted chef, author, and restaurateur, D2 shared a simple and ordinary practice of this love, when Ms. Waters wrote:
Our full humanity is contingent on our hospitality: we can be complete only when we are giving something away; when we sit at the table and pass the peas to the person next to us we see that person in a whole new way.
The poem by Richard Wilbur is written in commemoration of what would have been Robert Frost’s 100th birthday and in a Frost-like style. Wilbur uses a rhyming couplet with iambic meter, mostly octameter. D2 found that the final four lines of the poem capture that gentle sense of God’s call, of when we really listen and are released from those places of “not-giving” …
Our readings for this Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, the Resurrection of the Lord, also known as Good Shepherd Sunday are here. And a Happy Mother’s Day to all who mother in the many ways we are blessed to do so and receive.
These are the poems, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homily on April 17, 2016 at the 8:30 Mass.
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This post is dedicated to the many Good Shepherds of our lives who have emptied themselves and turned over their lives to Christ for the sake of the Kindom.
The Cycle C gospel reading is brief, making it difficult to get a warm sense of being part of the flock.
“The Father and I are one” is a very direct identity statement for Jesus to make.
The first reading from Acts seems more Lenten in the hostility and threat that Paul and Barnabas face, ultimately being expelled from Antioch Pisidia. The Lenten readings are selected to help the catechumens understand the potential consequences of their faith and commitment. With the reading of excerpts from Acts in the Eastertide readings, we are reminded of the sometimes high stakes of the Way, even after the Resurrection of Jesus.
The post-Resurrection readings often describe persecution and the differences between the Gentiles and Jews.
We tend to think “our” group is loved by God but not “yours.” Fr Dennis offered the joke in which various religious groups (all flavors) meet St. Peter at the gates of heaven and are welcomed but asked to be quiet as they pass “Room 8” (or the like), but always the same room number. When someone finally asks “Why?”, St. Peter checks around and confides quietly to the newest member of heaven that “Room 8 is the Catholics room, and they think they’re the only ones here.”
All this is to say to each and every one of us: God Loves us, As We Are.
Tom Hennen’s poem captures a richness about sheep we often disregard, as well as the implicit safety of holding close in the barn from the threats of a winter’s night.
rl notes that: the poem captures the variety of ovine-Christian references in today’s readings with
the dangers of being Christian/proclaiming Christ (Acts),
we as God’s flock (psalm and Revelations),
Christ as sacrificial Lamb (Revelations), and
Jesus as the Good Shepherd of the reading from John’s Gospel (we know his voice and follow him).
Today’s image is a Salvadoran painted & lacquered crucifix of the Good Shepherd. The corpus and attending figures are two-dimensional in the manner of the San Damiano crucifixes of Assisi.
The crucifix reminds me of Fr Dennis and his gentle call for us all to follow Jesus, the Good Shepherd, and as he would wish, of his Jesuit friend, Fr Dean Brackley, SJ, who discerned he would go to El Salvador following the 1989 assassinations by the Salvadoran Army of fellow Jesuits and their friends, including the housekeeper and her daughter. Brackley served as Professor of Theology and Ethics (link to Marquette Liberation Theology lectures & videos) and Director of the School for Religious Education at the Central American University, San Salvador until the year before his death in 2011.
In the original film version of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (1973), the director Norm Jewison insisted that Ted Neeley (the actor portraying Jesus) NOT be visible in the end scene at all — not as an actor boarding the bus home, certainly no resurrection in the character of Jesus, and not left on the cross. This directorial choice is one that led to some theological criticism. However, unbeknownst to all, at the end scene of landscape, a shepherd and his flock walk in silhouette against the hill, rather than easily observable against the sky like the empty cross. Apparently God decided on the final director’s cut! (Pope Paul VI loved the film and its potential to draw people to find out more about Jesus Christ.)
If you’d like a taste of North American sheep herding, you might try the film SWEETGRASS. It is a documentary filmed over eight years and depicts one of the last private sheep drives on a federal grazing permit through federal lands. The sheep are driven to access the high sweet pastures in the Absaroka-Beartooth (Montana) lands.
The older shepherd, the gentle-toned one is John Ahern, who passed in 2019; Pat Connolly is his younger partner on the trail. Two of my favorite quips in the film are the coining of “sheep wreck” for the pile up of sheep in a narrow mountain trail. And, after scaring off a night-time visit by a bear and her cubs:
John: I know one thing worse than a bear.
Pat: What’s that?
John: A wolverine.
Happy Easter to all and to all your Good Shepherds, earthly and heavenly!
Jesus in the resurrection is no longer a teacher or miracle worker, but a friend who spends time and shares food with them; as noted last week — as one of us.
What we see witnessed by Jesus in this gospel reading is straightforward:
You’re going to make mistakes
But know you are loved by and the beloved of God
Tend, feed, and serve others.
==> This is the resurrection in our lives and the resurrected life.
As usual, a graceful and rich, but simple homily.
I didn’t have any reflections from Fr Dennis on the poem in my notes. Here are mine, in light of his homily.
In the poem, No Longer a Teenager by Gerald Locklin, a father-poet recounts an adult meeting, a shared family meal, when his daughter came for a visit as a 20-year-old. The early and stressful father-daughtering behind them, the companioning of each other is still important — “but i realized now how long it had been / since i had felt deep emotion.”
Those emotions born of relationship and trial are all part of love … and life, whether quietly or even silently expressed in gesture (“and slid over close to me / so i could put my arm around her shoulder / until the food arrived”).
It is so easy to go numb to or avoid darker experiences, forgetting their link to the richness of the moments full of light. Perhaps the nature of Christ’s Resurrection and his appearances are also captured in the complexity of Locklin’s final line, “i stay alive for her.” The Resurrection assures us that Jesus Christ, the beloved gardener of our souls, though always with us is also outside whatever tomb we may be in and “alive for [us].”
On a different note, in some Cycle C year or one of the daily gospel readings on a Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter (odd-numbered years), Fr Dennis noted some interesting twists on this passage when you look at the Ancient Greek. (There’s a possibility this was a Fr Joe Wagner, SJ or Fr Richard D’Souza, SJ homily, but the memory seems more D2-y.)
A small table is below, but the gist of what he noted was that Jesus moves from asking Peter the question of deep love (ἀγαπᾷς) to dear love (φιλεῖς), in other words, matching how Peter has responded to Jesus the prior two times. The former is the unconditional Christ-like Love, while the latter (φιλεῖς) is relational, more of human than divine nature.
Likewise the interlinear Greek passage uses “shepherd” for the translation of Ποίμαινε, rather than “tend.” Hunh. Now that I’ve reflected on this … it’s also interesting that Jesus reduces what he asks of Peter. Much more difficult to feed lambs than it is to feed sheep! It is also a greater challenge to shepherd sheep than feed them.
One more example of our Jesus meeting us where we are.
I couldn’t find a gospel story image for this week that I liked though there are many good ones.
And, for this, the Third Sunday of Easter, there is no Big. Catholic. Theme. 🙂
However, the tenderness of A Red, Red Rose written in Scots English in 1794 by Robert Burns has struck me as fitting of God’s Love between Divine Mercy and Good Shepherd Easter Sundays. The version sung by the University College Dublin Chorale Scholars from their Perpetual Twilight album is ethereal. Our return love might be more akin to Both Sides Now – “we really don’t know love at all,” or just if you like popular culture or 21st century suggestions!
Our readings for this Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter, the Resurrection of the Lord, also known as Divine Mercy Sunday and, colloquially, as Rebound Sunday, are here.
These are the poems, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homilies from two different Cycle C years. Since the readings are the same each year, we’ll enjoy a feast of the poems, some notes, and a reflection or two of my own. The Easters we are visiting are:
All the Eastertide (post-Easter Sunday) gospels are Jesus’ post-resurrection experiences.
The first reading, always from Acts during Eastertide through Pentecost Sunday, presents the Holy Spirit’s gifts of preaching and healing. Note that people were healed by folks placing themselves or the ones they loved where Peter’s shadow might pass over them!
(rl reconstruction from a shoddy note-taking moment) The ancient Greek word for being healed from spirits and physical ailments, ἐθεραπεύοντο, we recognize now as the root for our word, “therapy.” In ancient times, it came to mean healing, cure, and treatment, but also originated from a second meaning of serving, to wait upon someone. How often in my life has someone’s patient waiting been a healing for me? How often is our physical, emotional, and spiritual healing a matter of engaged waiting?
In the gospel, Jesus offers “Peace” and reassurance (“Don’t be afraid”) to his friends.
RL notes that Tom Florek, SJ commented that the ancient greeting of Shalom! (Peace!) was also often accompanied with arms up and bent, hands open, and palms directed outward. This would mean the loose sleeves of ancient times would drop down toward the elbows, and for the resurrected Christ — his wounds, in what we now call the wrists, would be showing as he reassured his friends.
In Laura Grace Weldon’s poem, How to Soothe, she captures this form of healing from the gospel, her father carrying frustrated babies and “walking inside to out” in the Spirit with soothing words of love and hope.
In 2016, we reflected on —
Only the Gospel of John has anyone at the cross, the Marys and the Beloved Disciple; the other gospels make it clear everyone ran and, at best, gathered at a distance in or around the crowd.
Jesus hardly ever says “Peace be with you” before the Resurrection, but it is a standard part of his greeting after the fact. It is a simple way of modeling that taking it easy and forgiveness are the Christian standards of the Resurrection.
It bears considering — what did we think he would do? Because
there are no teachings in the Christian scriptures about the “death experience” from the consummate teacher
no miracles (that we know of, beyond a big catch of fish)
no manifestation or appearance to Pilate or the Pharisees, i.e., Jesus doesn’t appear, say “Peace,” and eat with them.
What does Jesus eating all these meals signify? Why did he do it?
Perhaps in part to prove he’s not a ghost
Perhaps, as discussed above, he wanted to be with his friends.
One of Us by Wendell Berry captures this sense of remembering Jesus as one of us at table — not as a miracle worker, not as a teacher … but just one of us, the ultimate act of mercy and forgiveness.
rl notes that we often read this later passage including Thomas in isolation from John 11:16, in which he is the only apostle to exhort that they all proceed with Jesus to Jerusalem, even to the death. In isolation, the John 20:24 passage easily creates “Doubting Thomas.” When I read the two together, I find “Wounded Thomas” more apt, the invisible wounds when we are so certain in our faith but the lived outcome does not match our imagined one. No warrior-prophet-priest-king fulfilling scripture for these Jewish believers. Instead, they witnessed a donkey-riding child welcomer, subjected to the lynching of his day, failed by systems, the mob, and followers alike. He didn’t even defend himself. Prophesy fulfilled?!? I found I am more inclined to think of Thomas now as a believer who doesn’t want to suffer such anguish again until he can put Jesus to the test … as if Jesus hadn’t been already!!
Fr Eric Sundrup, SJ also had thoughts on Thomas as modeling faith as a verb rather than a static noun experience. Let our faith be alive. And in classic fashion, Fr Eric also offered a mnemonic to differentiate Divine Mercy Jesus (“Star Trek Jesus,” with the prism rays from his heart) from Sacred Heart of Jesus (“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Jesus,” with his enthorned heart often with symbolic drops of blood). Funny, a bit quirky, but I never misnamed either icon image again!
The Divine Mercy Chaplet has been available to us for almost a century. For our continent, you might visit the film JUST MERCY or the book of the same name by Bryan Stevenson, or Nobel Prize for Literature winner Toni Morrison’s A Mercy.
For our musing this week, I’ve once again turned to Jim Hasse, SJ, and his image of the Road to Emmaus, titled The Strangers We Meet. In this image, Jesus is depicted as Black in an African-American household, the roadwalkers look more Caucasian. It is in the vestibule of St Leo the Great in Cincinnati. It is also interesting to note that Hasse went with the scriptural interpretation that it was the married pair of disciples, Mary and Cleopas, whom Jesus met on the road! The website honors and names the 2004 models for this painting.
I mention this because when John Thorne, creator of the rotating Black Lives Memorial and, prior to his move to Atlanta, a former UDJHS Theology Teacher, Pastor Associate Sacred Heart Church Detroit, and Director of the Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance, came to speak at our parish as part of the greater Martin Luther King observance, he mentioned that it’s the shared kitchen and meal that will mark healed racial relationships, the kitchen being the inner sanctum of Black homes. Understandably, in this country, the invitation into a Black person’s kitchen and home must be one of great trust.
In this light, Jim Hasse, SJ’s painting in this setting and the North American continent also struck me as a depiction of the mercy or compassion we hear about in The Prodigal Son and the other four instances in Christian scripture.
The Surest Sign 