Picture in front of Prep on Snow Day, Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Homily for a gathering of Prep parents, February 1, 2009


Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“He taught them as one having authority and not like the scribes…. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” Mark 1: 21-28

All of us who are parents, or teachers or speakers here at the Prep imagine how wonderful it would be if our sons and the students who heard our words could say the same thing about us that the crowds said about Jesus Christ: “he or she speaks with authority.”

Our students indeed might use the phrase “speak with authority” about those of us who speak backed by the power of jugs and suspensions.

But those who referred to Jesus “speaking with authority” did not mean that he was some kind of policeman or judge. Rather they meant that the power of his teachings did not depend on some oft-repeated traditional rabbinic thinking. True His teaching was rooted solidly in the scriptures and was faithful to the tradition; but his teaching was also new and it addressed the situation in which people found themselves. Jesus spoke to a people burdened by the minutiae of religious practice and suffering the indignity of a foreign occupation. To them Jesus spoke the good news about God’s love for them and about the response that this love should nourish in them.

He also taught them out of the nature of his personality and the passion that he himself possessed. His first followers listened to his words, yes, but more importantly they listened to him and found themselves moved to change the way they lived their lives. Yes, they heard the verbal message but they changed out of amazement at him and the love that he brought into the world.

For us to teach with authority, our teachings must be at the same time rooted in a tradition but also addressing the new situation in which our young people find themselves. In addition if God gives us any other personal gifts, we need to put them in the service of the message. But clearly the message is about the Lord and not about us.

Here at the Prep and in our households, we want to teach with authority, we long to enkindle in the hearts of our young men some great desire that will focus the immense potential they have for true charity, for faith, for the building of a more just society. I imagine most often that my best efforts at this are not equal to the task at hand.

I do have stories about Prep boys who hear the word and then go out and practice it in a selfless way. But let me tell about a more remote teenager who turns into a leader: John Lewis, the present Georgia congressman who was one of the early champions with Doctor King in the civil rights movement. He grew up in rural segregated Alabama. He worked as a sharecropper with his parents. They made a happy home for him and, as long of they worked hard, they had no needs surviving without indoor plumbing and electricity. He realized when he was 8 years old in 1948 that there was something wrong with the fact that he could not go into the town library like the white kids because of his race. He realized when he started in high school that the segregated school system was clearly unequal, the black school physically inferior, the books hand-me downs from the white school, etc.

On Sundays it was the family custom to listen to the sermon on the radio preached by some Alabama preacher. One Sunday in 1955, Lewis reports in his autobiography, they heard for the first time Doctor Martin Luther King, a new pastor in Montgomery. This was the first time that the young Lewis had ever heard about the gospel having an important relationship to the social conditions in which people lived. Doctor King’s sermon was rooted solidly in the Bible but it also said something new to this son of a sharecropper who had experienced the indignities of his racial status. Dr. King spoke with authority. His words changed John Lewis’s life. Not many years later John as a college student became one of Dr. King’s young protégées. Now 55 years after he heard that sermon, he still serves in the Congress of the United States.

Perhaps some parent among us with some word or action will powerfully influence a son or a teacher our students with a message like that of Jesus or that of Dr. King, a message that has the power to inflame the imagination and create lasting contributions to the common good. More likely the environments that we have created at home and at school will be the deciding influence. Rare it is that a single sermon or a single experience has such power to change people’s lives.

We would like to have this power to encourage a sullen teenager, to heal a lovelorn kid, to free kids from whatever bondage holds them back from using their talents. And we know that the gospel offers a hope that we can do such things. Jesus tells us that we heal the toughest situations only with prayer and fasting.

But whatever we say or do here at the Prep to be a positive influence on our students, we need to remind ourselves of a wonderful line spoken in a Flannery O’Connor short story. The story is about a young preacher in rural Georgia who has miraculous powers and speaks with authority. People flock to the river where he preaches on Sundays. They have hopes of being healed of all their troubles. But the young preacher admonishes them with this line: “If you ain’t come for Jesus, you ain’t come for me.” (repeat) It will be well if we remind ourselves and in some way our students that there is little point in choosing the Prep over any other school if they ain’t coming to learn more about Jesus and to hear an invitation to follow him in the healing of this troubled world.

The house on Jericho Road, Abington

(My parents owned this, our family house, for about sixty years. Then the house lacked the extension on the rear and, when I was young, the other houses in the picture had not yet been built.)

Visiting my grand-nephew’s bedroom at Christmastime reminded me of the room that I shared with my brother while growing up in the house on Jericho Road in Abington. Over the years the house and neighborhood appear in my dreams as the most desirable geography in this world. But, of course, the dreams also identify it as a place to which it is not possible to return, a place that has long ago disappeared. How can I describe entering the house on a cold winter’s evening when the sun light is setting over the snow and dinner beckons? We stomp our way into the basement through the side door and plaster a snow ball against the iron-walled coal furnace just for the pleasure of hearing the hissing and watching the steam.

Those who now live in the house purchased it from my father’s estate in 1993. The new owners transformed the house and even put a large addition at the back, an extension easy to see in the photograph. What my father and mother purchased as a simple house for $6,500 in the middle of the depression is now transformed into a home worth several hundred thousand dollars.

My Prep-student grand-nephew has a small study desk in his room where he tackles his algebra and Latin homework. His desk reminded me of my dad’s renovations in the bedroom that my brother and I shared, the room on the third-floor front. (Our window can be seen in the picture and a story can be told about the window, too!) When we were small the room had no electrical outlets, no desks and no closet. But my dad remedied all of these things with his own hands. He built two small desks in along the north wall opposite our twin beds. As my brother and I sat at the desks, we could turn on lamps plugged into convenient outlets installed at eye level. My brother and I often studied side by side, he working on college math that I found mysterious and I handwriting some clumsy essay that we Prep students were required to grind out every weekend.

My father loved the house and spent many a weekend on maintenance, repairs and renovations. What would he think of seeing it now, the silver maple he planted on the front lawn towering above the house, the brick and stone patio we built together at the back of the house destroyed with the extension? Whatever he thinks of Jericho Road, I know he prays for his thirteen great grandchildren with the hope that they all continue to grow in nurturing households like the one he and my mother created for their five children.

Saint Malachy Church decorated for the season.

This Christmas story begins with the vanity of my mother. She was born on July 4, 1909. When she was about thirty-five she met the mother of a classmate to my sister and discovered that this woman, too, was a Yankee Doodle Dandy. The woman, Margaret DeMacedo, asked my mother the simple question, “What year were you born?” and my mother, thinking that this woman was surely younger than she, trimmed a few years off her age and said, “1912.” And Margaret said, “Oh, I’m older, I was born in 1909.” Several days later my mother called Margaret and owned up to the lie. The two women not only shared a birthday but became fast friends.

Later in life, after Margaret’s husband and one daughter had died, Margaret used to come to my parents’ home for Christmas dinner with our family. I remember the dignified way in which she lived through her widowhood and the loss of her one child. One Christmas at dinner she told us that the sermon at the early Christmas Mass had given her some comfort. The priest told the congregation that, if indeed they had a sadness on Christmas Day, they ought not feel guilty about their failure to share in the joy of the Lord’s birthday. Like so many widows and widowers who attended the early Christmas Mass, Margaret would always miss her spouse and child at that celebration. That sermon convinced her that her faithfulness was true even if she could not feel the joy of Christmas.

Advent altar at Church of the Gesu; site of student Christmas Mass December 19, 2008

The Catholic Youth Organization in Philadelphia collects and wraps thousands of presents for underserved families in a program called Operation Santa Claus. On Christmas Eve the presents are distributed by teams of Santas with their elves. These young men are Prep students about to go out to distribute presents.


Dec 19 Student Mass before the dismissal for Christmas Break

First I wish you a Merry Christmas and all the blessings that go with celebrating the birthday of our God in Christ Jesus. Our God loves us entirely and becomes one like us, a child who is completely dependent on us.

A priest or teacher greeting is always a prelude to assignments. I give you three assignments for the Christmas break. I relate the first one with a story:

Some years back I went to the grocery store a few days before Christmas. I don’t do the shopping any more; Father Maivelett takes care of it. I used to go to a store over on Aramingo Ave. and I was always eager to finish. The shopping went quickly and I got the grocery cart out to the parking lot. I was focusing on getting home as soon as I could get the bags of groceries into the trunk and go on my way. A boy of 12 or 13 years old approached me and offered to help me. Preoccupied with my own thoughts I waved him off indicating that I could take care of it. He looked at me as if I had lost my mind and he said, “Mister, it’s Christmas.” I thought to myself “what is the matter with me?’ He was right to call me into reality. Sure, it’s a great line and he probably had been using it all day. But, after all, It is Christmas. I had no reason to put the kid off. I asked him to do the job and gave him an extra tip.

So the first assignment, brothers, is this. Do not get so lost in your own self that you ignore the season. Don’t get so self-absorbed or pre-occupied that you ignore the people that are around you. Jesus comes to us so that he can be around us and have our company. So in imitation of him we ought to welcome even the stranger.

The second assignment is based on another story. Mr. Magree tells this one and he can tell it better with all its detail. But I will give the main outline. One Christmas Eve Mr Magree and his brother were driving across New York State on their way home to Ohio where their family was gathering at home for Christmas. They had some trouble with their car, got off the interstate and sought help at a rural gas station. But the mechanic needed a part and could do nothing to get the car back on the road until after Christmas. They were stuck on Christmas Eve far from home and far from a car rental agent or an airport.

Somebody at the gas station saw their plight and took pity on them. He had an extra pickup truck and lent it to them so that they could drive an hour to the Buffalo airport and there rent a car for the trip to Ohio. The man asked only that they bring the truck back on their return trip. We know Mr. Magree and we would trust him with our lives but this man only saw these two strangers, strangers who could have wrecked, stripped, stolen his truck. But he takes a risk and lends his truck for a few days to two college boys. Perhaps he knew the story about the travelers Mary and Joseph, far from home, who had a hard time finding a place to give birth to their child. In any case he took pity on these two brothers and made it possible for them to celebrate Christmas at home with their family.

Your assignment is to do something generous like this for your family or friends. This might mean taking time with your family, taking time to help an older relative or a young cousin. Whatever you do for them, you do for Christ.

Finally I have an assignment without much of a story. This is the season when we men ought to take a particular interest in babies and toddlers. This is the best way for us to get an understanding of the extraordinary event of God becoming a baby. Last Sunday Prep staff and faculty brought their little children to the Prep, to the Sauter Dining Hall, to meet Santa. Among the children were several babies. I took the opportunity to hold Mr. Daniels’s baby in my arms. Now Mr. Daniels, knowing I am childless, kept a very close eye on me making sure I knew how to hold his little child. She was completely dependent on me. My instruction for you is this: if you are lucky enough over the holiday to be with a relative or friend who is a baby, take the opportunity to hold him or her in your arms and realize that this child depends completely on you and trusts you. This is what God does in the Christ Child. God entrusts himself to us.

And if you have no baby around, find a toddler and play a game with him or her. Toddlers thrive on attention from teenagers. It is easy to imagine Jesus the toddler seeking the attention of teenagers. It is easy to imagine Jesus the toddler idolizing his young relatives and other teenagers who perhaps could recite sections of the Torah or run like the wind along the streets of their hometown of Nazareth.

So three instructions:
1) Put aside any preoccupation with yourself. God is not preoccupied with anything but you and me and did not shut himself off from us but out of love came to us as a child.
2) There will be needs during the Christmas season that you can meet with a generous spirit. Be generous like the man who risked losing his truck.
3) Finally enjoy the experience of holding a baby in your arms so that you can understand better that God placed himself at our disposal. Realize, too, that Jesus was once a toddler who looked in amazement at the talents that teenagers displayed. Amaze him now even more by making good use of your talents.

And don’t forget to get your rest, your exercise and your protein.

Staff and Faculty at the Prep have their kids come to meet Santa at the school. The event begins with Mass and ends with the annual Christmas concert with concert band, jazz band and chorus.

We had a good time and ate lots of potluck dessert treats.

Twin brothers, Asa and Tucker Collins, freshmen at Saint Joseph's Prep School

The poem below was written by Tucker on the 2-month anniversary of their mom's (Andrea's) death. Andrea told her story of cancer on her blog "punkrockmommy." She was a wise and witty wife and mother. Even those of us who did not know her personally now miss reading about how she loved her family and friends, how she fought for more time with them but eventually came to know that God would take care of their future.

A Man for and With Others

September 5, 2008

I am no longer a student
But a scholar
A follower Of the teachings of Ignatius
My life is changing rapidly
To transform into a new
Being of competence
To show the world my best
What am I to become?
What am I in four short years?
What am I in my prime?
What am I when I move on to the other half of life?
I answer you now
I shall become
A Man for and With Others
I will be
A Man for and With Others
I shall succeed as
A Man for and With Others
When I leave this place
I will be still
A Man for and With Others

Advent decorations in the Church of the Gesu

When I was a small boy and trying to understand the meaning of Christmas, my mother taught my siblings and me this little “advent” poem:

“Christmas is a comin’ and the geese are gettin’ fat.
Time to put a penny in the old man’s hat.”

Such little couplets carry a world of meaning. Always the future is comin’ at us filled with the same kind of promise as Christmas. Always we have the talents and resources, whatever it takes to fatten the geese. Always there is time and in the time given we are to be generous.

I remember asking my mother about the old man, “who is he?” Was he the Santa standing outside the store and ringing a bell? Later I realized that he stood in for anyone in need.

Postscript: Someone reminded me during the season of the second couplet:

"If you haven't got a penny, then a halfpenny will do.

If you haven't got a halfpenny, then God bless you."

The lack of halfpennies in my world also caused a question! And how to pronounce the word, too!