Homily – Pentecost – Follow The Whisper In Your Heart

GENESIS 11:1-9 – ACTS 2:1-11

ROMANS 8:22-27 – ROMANS 8:8-17

JOHN 7:37-39 – JOHN 20:19-23

When we walk in the spirit, we walk without fear.

Every Thursday evening, our Operation Nightwatch homeless street ministry team ventures into “The Jungle” to bring Jesus to some of the most marginalized people in Seattle.  “The Jungle” is a large area of homeless encampments under and around I-5, south of the city. It stretches for miles, has 400 residents and can be a dangerous place. A shooting there earlier this year claimed two lives.  (Read about people who live in "The Jungle" at this LINK)

Last time I was there, we met a woman who was shot during the ordeal. The bullet is still lodged in her spine. She had just taken off her back brace and left her walker behind a few days before. She admitted she still falls navigating the steep hillsides around “The Jungle.”

Her sad, timid smile lit up her face in the darkness as she described the events of that night.  As someone who spent 20-years working at a fire department, she’d been trained to run toward danger instead of away from it.

Instead of running away from the sound of gunfire that fateful night, she came running toward the bullets and ended up spending a month in the hospital as a result.

She’s still living in “The Jungle” because she has nowhere else to go.

The spirit called her to respond that fateful night – to help her friends. Her first-responder instincts nearly cost her her life.

When we walk in the spirit, we walk without fear. 

Working with our area’s growing homeless population can be a scary at times. We’ve encountered tense situations, but always listen to that tiny voice in our hearts as we navigate “The Jungle” and the streets of downtown Seattle.

Blessed Mother Teresa talks about her call by Jesus to be a light in the darkest places. For her it was the slums of Calcutta.

When we walk in the spirit, we walk without fear.

What is the Holy Spirit?  The Holy Spirit is that “tiny whispering voice” that exists in all our hearts. It prompts and guides us as we do the ministry of Jesus in the modern world.

Noted author Fr. Richard Rohr wrote this about the Holy Spirit,

“We are always waiting for the Holy Spirit – somehow forgetting that the Spirit was given to us from the very beginning. The Holy Spirit has rightly been called the forgotten or denied Person of the Blessed Trinity. We cannot sense the Spirit, like we cannot see air, silence, and the space between everything. We look for God ‘out there’ and the Spirit is always ‘in here’ and ‘in between’ everything.”

 When guided by the Holy Spirit we can do incredible things for our Lord and Savior, especially when we take care of the people he was most concerned with during in his ministry, “the least of our sisters and brothers.”

SATURDAY -- (In today’s Gospel of John, we hear Jesus preparing us for the arrival of the “paraclete,” the Holy Spirit. He’s preaching in the Jerusalem Temple on the Jewish feast of Tabernacles. There, guards are in the crowds sent by the High Priests to arrest Jesus. The scene is electric. Is this the messiah? The Pharisees think a messiah cannot possibly come from Galilee. He’s a nobody. Jesus knows what’s on the hearts of the Pharisees in the crowds. On the last day of the feast priests carry out an elaborate water ritual. Jesus is telling the crowd, “If anyone thirsts, let them come to me and drink from rivers of living water.” He says this to foreshadow the arrival of the Holy Spirit which He will give.)

SUNDAY -- (In today’s Gospel of John, we see Jesus breathing on the fear-filled disciples, giving them the “paraclete,” the Holy Spirit. They’re locked away in hiding, scared that what happened to Jesus might happen to them. Jesus brings them eternal peace in the way of the Holy Spirit, giving the Apostles the courage to spread the Gospel to the world. All, but John, will suffer a similar fate as Jesus. Thomas a week later will voice the doubt he has about Jesus being the messiah.  Jesus will breathe the peace of his Holy Spirit on Thomas in that exchange. And Thomas will have the courage to bring the Gospel to India and die a martyr’s death.)

The spirit allows God’s word to penetrate, like an arrow, deep into each human heart.

Each Sunday or each Mass, and every time we open the bible and read the word of God, we hear the voice of the Good Shepherd leading us to places we’d rather not go.

When we walk in the spirit, we walk without fear.

 There was an article recently in the Seattle Times that was a particularly poignant illustration of who our homeless brothers and sisters are today.

  The article was entitled “The Hidden Homeless: families in the suburbs.” It featured the picture of a father and his four young children living homeless right here in Everett.  (Click here for LINK to the story)

  Zach Weber is a single father with four kids. His plight highlighted a heartbreaking fact: More than 35-thousand students in Washington schools were homeless in the past year.

  Think homelessness is only an adult problem involving people with mental illness and addiction issues? Think again.

Many of the area’s homeless are children, living in cars and shelters in places like Edmonds, Mukilteo and Everett.

The number of homeless students has nearly doubled since 2007-2008, when the Great Recession hit our country’s economy.

One school nurse in the Mukilteo School District says students try to hide being homeless.  You may remember how cruel kids can be about fashion and hygiene.

She says, “In every school, there are families in transition that try to keep it confidential and only tell a select few” the truth about their homelessness.

She says there are many reasons for the homelessness she encounters. Some parents may be dealing with alcohol or drug abuse, some may have mental illness. Some have moved outside the area, leaving the kids behind to finish school while living in a shelter.

But this school nurse says the number-one reason for homelessness is “economic misfortune,” a lost job, a sick kid and large hospital bills, an eviction.

She tells of one family she knows with two adults and nine children. They were living in their Suburban in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

This is the face of homelessness today. It’s not just the scary people we see pacing the streets of downtown Everett ranting and raving at traffic.

The problem is more complex than that.

This is why our parish community will give birth to a new homeless street outreach ministry this fall. We’re holding an information night on our project this coming Wednesday evening at 7pm at Hensen Hall.

If the spirit is speaking to your heart, we welcome you to join in our efforts. Come find out how you and your family can be a light in the darkness and bring Jesus to our sisters and brothers and their children living homeless.

In the second reading from St. Paul to the Romans, Paul is saying something quite profound about God and the Holy Spirit that rings true even today.

When we walk in the spirit, we stay connected to God and forget our human inclination to think of our own selfish interests.

When we think about homelessness, do we dwell on our own self-interests or on God’s interests?

In essence, St. Paul is saying, “Focusing on self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God… That person ignores God and what God is doing. And God isn’t pleased with being ignored.”

 Pope Francis said something quite profound last week about what we Christians are called to do in the world today.  While receiving the prestigious Charlemagne Prize for European Integration he said, putting our faith in action is what counts. “Christianity, he seems to believe, is best defended not by fighting battles over symbols or verbiage (or waging war against secularism), but by putting (our Christian) convictions into practice at moments when the world needs them most.”

This is what Christians have done throughout the ages and this is how best to make Christ present in a broken world.

When we walk in the spirit, we walk without fear.

Homily – Fourth Sunday of Easter – The Ministry of Presence (Launch of Homeless Street Outreach in Everett)

ACTS 13:14, 43-52

REV 7:9, 14b-17

JOHN 10:27-30

I recently was asked by a dear friend what she can do to help a homeless woman who lives on the streets near her home. She’s been taking her to the store for groceries, offering blankets and other needed survival items, but wanted to do more.

I told her the most important thing she can do is be her friend, walk with her, continue to offer her the ministry of your presence. This was the best medicine for her ailing new friend. Let her know she’s not alone.

This homeless person has one thing going for her: she now has a friend.

In the winter of 2005, L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez was a writer in search of a good news story. He never expected that his life would be forever changed, or richly blessed, or that he’d have a new lifelong friend in a homeless man.

As he was sitting in a downtown Los Angeles park one sunny afternoon, he heard a homeless man playing a violin. The instrument only had a two strings on it, but the music being played was remarkably beautiful.

Lopez struck up a conversation with the man and quickly discerned he was mentally ill since his rapid fire speech made little sense and seemed completely disconnected from reality.

But the man did make a reference to once being a student at Julliard (Julliard is the nation’s premiere music school based in New York City).

Lopez thought, ‘Now that’s a good news story: A former Julliard student now living homeless on the streets of L.A. playing a violin.”

So after his brief encounter, the columnist contacted Julliard and found out that in fact Nathaniel Anthony Ayers had been a student there in the early 1970s, but dropped out after only a few years.

In his early 20’s, Nathaniel suffered a mental breakdown at Julliard due to the onset of schizophrenia.

Since then, he’d been living on the streets, surviving day to day by raiding trash bins and living off the throwaways and scraps of our society of abundance.

No one chooses to be homeless.  It’s never a choice.  Life circumstances lead people to the streets: abuse in the home, addiction, mental illness, poverty.

Often, these people feel frightening to us. 

But every one of these people living on the streets is somebody’s daughter, somebody’s mother, somebody’s son or father or sister or brother.

They were not born mentally ill. They were not born addicted to drugs or alcohol. They were not born homeless.

There’s a story behind each and every one of these human souls.  And their story will break your heart if you take the time to listen and learn it.

Homeless people are the most disenfranchised and neglected people in American society.  And they don’t have a voice.  You could be that voice.

The problem of homelessness is huge here in the Pacific Northwest.  Our region has the third worst homeless problem in the nation.  And 97% of the homeless in our area are native Washingtonians.

Homelessness exploded on the American stage in the 1970s and 80s with the defunding of mental institutions. It exploded when broken men coming back from Vietnam found themselves rejected by America for an unpopular war. It exploded when some in the youth culture embraced hard drugs like heroin, becoming hopelessly addicted.

Most recently, it exploded with entire families forced from homes due to the Great Recession of 2008.

There are a million reasons why people live on the streets. There are no easy answers, no simple solutions to the problem. 

Experts say the homeless crisis is not going to go away until we resolve as a society to provide permanent housing for our sisters and brothers living on the streets.  It will end when we have the political resolve to spend our tax dollars on drug treatment and mental health counseling. It will end when we start to truly SEE the people living on the streets as people -- instead of turning our heads, looking the other way and ignoring the problem.

Some experts say, “It costs just 16-thousand dollars a person a year to provide an apartment and social and clinical services. It costs 100-thousand dollars a year if we leave people on the streets and they cycle through the public health system and jail. And when they cycle through they always land back on the sidewalk and there’s been no resolution to their long-term homelessness and no improvement to their health.”  Some experts say, “We can end street-dwelling homelessness in about two years with the right investment and in the short-run it will actually save taxpayer money.”

Steve Lopez ended up doing not just one story about Nathaniel, but a series of stories that touched the hearts of millions of people who have now seen the movie and read the book “The Soloist.”

In one touching scene, Lopez finds his friend Nathaniel as he’s bedding down for the night amidst the chaos of the night streets of Skid Row.

As he’s preparing to go to sleep, the homeless man starts to pray for all the troubled men and women around him, the mass of humanity that occupy a few square blocks of downtown Los Angeles, “a lost colony of broken, homeless souls.” He prays a simple and poignant Our Father. 

Lopez wrote of this scene in one of his columns, “Every night my friend Nathaniel tucks his instruments away and lays his head among the predators and hustlers, among fallen drunks, sprawled on the streets, as rats the size of meatloaves dart out of drains to feed off the squalor.  I tell him this is no place for him.”  

A line from second reading from Revelation was read at a Memorial Service in our parish in February for Rudy, the homeless man who died on the streets of Everett.  Our homeless sisters and brothers were the sheep who heard the Good Shepherd’s voice with the line, “and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

The promise of eternal life, a life free of pain and suffering is promised to us all, even our brothers and sisters living on the streets of our community.

As we heard in the first reading from Acts of the Apostles,

“For so the Lord has commanded us, ‘I have made you a light to the Gentiles, that you may be an instrument of salvation to the ends of the earth.’”

In the end, Mr. Lopez and Mr. Ayers became friends. And his homeless friend, thanks to the power of their friendship, no longer lives on the streets, but in permanent housing.

Steve blessed Nathaniel with the ministry of presence and the relationship richly blessed both of their lives.

The ministry of presence is what we offer every night to our sisters and brothers living on the streets at Operation Nightwatch in Seattle, in addition to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sleeping bags, backpacks filled with needed survival supplies, and socks.  Lots of socks.

In September, we’re bringing this homeless street outreach ministry to Everett. We will initially base it out of our parish community.

If you’re interested in finding out more or being a part of this, we’re holding an information night on Wednesday, May 18^th at 7pm at Hensen Hall next to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Everett (Ceder and Everett Ave).

The idea of joining us on the streets may seem daunting or overwhelming to you. That’s OK. There many other ways you can help us behind the scenes.

Families can help by making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Students can help by launching sock drives at their schools.  Our prayer shawl ministry will be making hats and scarfs.

There are lots of ways to show loving presence to our homeless sisters and brothers besides being present to them on the streets.

This week also kicks off the Annual Catholic Appeal, the effort to fund the many ministries in this Archdiocese.  Among them is the Mission office which will be helping us to launch our homeless ministry.

The Annual Catholic Appeal also funds deacon and priest formation and many other important ministries in Western Washington.

Please give what you can to our Archbishop’s efforts.

 

 

The day will come when we all will be joined together amidst “a great multitude, which no one (can) count, from every nations, race, people and tongue.”

We will stand wearing our white robes, holding palm branches in our hands before the throne of the Lamb.

“The one who sits on the throne will shelter (us).  And (we) will not hunger or thirst anymore.”

 

Homily – Holy Thursday – Christ-Inspired Leadership

EX 12:1-8, 11-14

1^st COR 11:23-26

JOHN 13:1-15

             In the popular and controversial movie “The Passion of the Christ” the virgin Mary asks a powerful question on Holy Thursday evening.

She has just awoken from a dream on the very night her son Jesus is captured and taken to his executioners, and asks Mary Magdelene,

“Why is this night different than any other night?” 

Tonight we commemorate the institutions of the eucharist and priesthood and begin the sacred Triduum. This night is about love, sacrifice, solidarity  and suffering.

“Why is this night different than any other night?” 

The question is perhaps best answered in what Jesus is doing in today’s Gospel passage, or better yet, what Jesus is commanding us to do this Holy Thursday.

He’s demanding us to adhere to a new model of leadership that goes against the grain of our current culture in the United States and in much of the world today.

It’s a model often criticized by those who want decisive leadership from people who are “in charge.” The world says we need strong leaders.

Christ’s model is servant leadership.  And His model of leadership was so threatening to the powers of His day that,

“He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; by His wounds we are healed.”

As we prepare ourselves for the coming of Easter, and as we go through these painful days of betrayal, denial, and anguish, I offer these words from a favorite author about Holy Thursday.

These words should help us all to wrap our heads around what Jesus is calling us to do.

            The words come from prolific Catholic writer Henri Nouwen.

            Here’s what he had to say about Holy Thursday:

“The servant leader is the leader who is being led to unknown, undesirable, and painful places. The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross . . .

It is not a leadership of power and control, but a leadership of powerlessness and humility in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ, is made manifest.

Jesus sends us out to be shepherds, and Jesus promises a life in which we increasingly have to stretch our hands and be led to places where we would rather not go.”

A parent’s love is perhaps the most powerful model of servant leadership.

In a bittersweet moment in “The Passion of the Christ,” Mary sees her son struggling with His cross on the streets of Jerusalem, falling a third time. 

She’s terrified by what she sees, nearly frozen in fear.  But in that moment she remembers a time when Jesus as a little boy fell down, hurting himself, and goes running toward her son to comfort Him, goes running toward the cross.

As she tenderly embraces Him, saying, “I’m here,” Jesus says, “See, mother, I make all things new.”

In another scene, another mother Veronica comforts her daughter troubled by the horrifying scene of Christ being marched to his death. In that moment, she pours a glass of water for Christ and brings it to Him in the streets, brings it to the cross, taking off her veil to let Him to wipe off his bloodied face. As she takes away the cloth, she sees the face of Christ imbedded on it.

Then there’s Simon, the Cyrenian, who tells his child to stay put and wait for him as he’s forced by Roman soldiers to help Jesus carry the cross. His compassion for Christ grows as he watches this innocent man led to his execution, mocked and ridiculed by most along the way.

In this most Holy Week, these parents are modeling for us what a servant leader looks like: to go to “places where we would rather not go,” to selflessly serve the needs of others, to help others carry their crosses, to love with an unending reservoir of love and compassion. This is the way of Christ.

As a reflection, I’d like to share part of Henri Nouwen’s Holy Thursday prayer. I pray it will have meaning for us all.

“I am looking to you, Lord. You have said so many loving words. Your heart has spoken so clearly. Now you want to show me even more clearly how much you love me.

Knowing that your Father has put everything in your hands, that you have come from God and are returning to God, you remove your outer garments and, taking a towel, you wrap it around your waist, pour water into a basin and begin to wash my feet, and then wipe them with the towel you are wearing …

You look at me with utter tenderness, saying, ‘I want you to be with me. I want you to have a full share in my life. I want you to belong to me as much as I belong to my Father. I want to wash you completely clean so that YOU and I can be one and so that you can do to others what I have done to you.’

I am looking at you again, Lord. You stand up and invite me to the table. As we are eating, you take bread, say the blessing, break the bread, and give it to me. ‘Take and eat,’ you say, ‘this is my body given for you.’ Then you take a cup, and, after giving thanks, you hand it to me, saying, ‘This is my blood, the blood of the new covenant poured out for you.’

Knowing that your hour has come to pass from this world to your Father and having loved me, you now love me to the end. You give me everything that you have and are. You pour out for me your very self. All the love that you carry for me in your heart now becomes manifest. You wash my feet and then give me your own body and blood as food and drink.

Sweet Jesus, words cannot express my love for you. Thank you so much for pouring out yourself in love to wash me and feed me. Please refresh and feed others through me.”