Life’s Sacramentals

Posted on March 9, 2024 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

Every week we gather around our parish altars. We place on the eucharistic table bread and wine as our offering to God, who consecrates them and returns them to us as the body and blood of his beloved Son. But imagine a bigger table, an altar on which is placed not just the eucharistic elements, but the means of realizing mercy, compassion, justice, forgiveness in our lives.

Imagine placing next to the paten and chalice your favorite casserole dish, the one you use to prepare suppers for neighbors experiencing crisis or hardship. Set on the parish altar the book you read to your child every night, during those special moments of quiet grace. Include in your offering all the stuff of family life: the keys to the family van, the basketball you and your kids shoot hoops with after supper. Add to these gifts the smartphone you put aside when a friend needs to talk, the yarn you use to knit shawls for the parish prayer shawl ministry, the snow shovel you use to clean your elderly neighbor’s walk.

All these gifts are sacramental; they reveal God in our midst.

As the scribe in today’s Gospel says: God seeks no greater gift from us than our bringing God’s mercy to others. To embrace others in love as God embraces us is the heart of discipleship. With our eucharistic offerings, God accepts our most ordinary acts of mercy, our tools of reconciliation, our humble efforts to heal and reconcile. God accepts them and returns them as grace, blessing, and hope.

May we become what we offer at our altars: the embodiment of God’s mercy and peace, the vision of God’s compassion and justice to heal and lift up the broken, the fallen, the lost.

Deacon Jay Cormier

Jay Cormier, a deacon serving in the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, teaches at Saint Anselm College and Pope John XXIII National Seminary. He is author of The Deacon’s Ministry of the Word and editor and publisher of Connections.

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Funeral Sermon for Truck Driver with a Sense of Humor

Posted on March 7, 2024 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

(“I Know What God Is,” Perry Como, YouTube)

A miserable-looking guy is sitting at a bar one evening, intently staring at his drink. He’s been like that for over an hour.

Suddenly this big, trouble-making truck driver walks up to him, takes the guy’s drink from the bar, and drinks it all down in one gulp. The sad guy starts to cry.

The truck driver is a bit off-put by this and says to him, “Come on man, I was only joking. Here, I’ll buy you another drink. I can’t stand to see a grown man cry.”

The sad guy sobs, “No, it’s not that. This is the worst day of my life. First, I fall asleep after the alarm goes off and I’m late for work and my boss fires me. Then when I leave the office, my car was stolen. The cops said there’s nothing they can do. So I have to get a cab home. After it drives off I realize I’ve left my wallet and credit cards in it. So I walk into my house only to find my wife in bed with the mailman. I walked right out and came straight here. And, just when I’m thinking about ending my miserable, sad life, you show up and drink my arsenic.”

________________________________

It’s the mystery of life that we celebrate today. Not only Hal’s but each of our lives lived, so very often, within life’s contradictions. Scripture bounces us back and forth between birth/death, planting/harvesting, easily killing/difficult to find healing. And, that’s only Scripture’s first listing, there always seems to be more waiting between the wings of our births and deaths.

The best part of humor is taking the obvious and finding its opposite. It catches people off guard until it sinks in and laughter follows. I’m told that Hal had that gift. And a true gift it is when properly executed. The joke at the beginning, I found on the internet, after ignoring the site that offered “dirty truck driver jokes.”

Hal’s sense of humor may have entertained family and friends but, more importantly, it definitely had to assist him through life’s crying/laughing, grieves and dances.

Beyond a doubt, one of the greatest standup comedians is the one we turn to throughout all of life’s times. It’s not Jerry Seinfeld, it’s Jesus Christ. “A mustard seed becomes the greatest of plants?” (pause for laughter) “My good friend Lazarus is dead?” Yeah, right.

Scripture’s list continues. Time for searching but then faithfully and trust quit searching and live life as fully as you can. That time for keeping? That leads toward those necessary times for letting go.

“Ecclesiastes” was written by the good king Solomon. A man of quick wit. “Song of Songs,” his first act is full of natural sexual urges attempting to describe his relationship to God and his own personal faith. “Wisdom” is his adult scholarly work, full of heavy advice and counsel to show off his intelligence. Act three from the good king is the one we heard this morning where he goes on to say that life is really all about nothing; like Jerry’s TV show. Solomon says that life is “like chasing after wind.” Good luck with that.

People living without this gift of faith have got to be the most boring, stoic folks on the planet. Never, ever recognizing that all those contradictions solely lead to the faith’s anchor, faith’s perspective, and faith’s foundation. All of them provide us believers with those Holy Spirit Gifts of fortitude, patience, wonder, perseverance, and many, many others. That’s no laughing matter. Embracing life’s contradictions is not only living life fully but it is also the fullness of our faith.

Well, it is a laughing matter but it’s life’s serious undergirding. We’d all agree about that when thinking, remembering, and praying about Hal’s life.

The stupidity of the cross is our redeeming salvation? A piece of bread and a sip of wine bring us closer to Jesus, the Christ? A Jew yearning to eat the food of pigs? (Pause for laughter.) How about feeding five thousand men with meager fish and bread? And what about the women and children who went hungry that hot sunny day? (Pause for laughter.)

May God welcome Hal as God has welcomed all of those folly followers who were full of wisdom, insights, and understanding. All anchored in our beautiful Catholic/Christian faith.

Love/hate, war/peace, speaking/and a time to quit speaking. I guess that’s my cue.

(“Pabst Blue Ribbon” jingle, YouTube)

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Lent, Sunday Four, “B”

Posted on March 7, 2024 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

“Today’s New Testament readings regale us with that most fundamental of Christian convictions, that we have been loved into existence by a God whose very being is Love overflowing. St. Paul reminds us that ‘God is rich in mercy, because of the great love he [has] for us.’

…I experienced (anew) God’s outrageous love when I became a grandparent last year. When visiting my new grandchild, Elliot, I saw again the power of love at its most elemental.

As I watched my sleep-deprived daughter-in-law selflessly nursing little Elliot, the Gospel refrain echoed anew . . . for God so loved the world.

As I witnessed my son swaying with Elliot in his arms, gently crooning a lullaby . . . for God so loved the world.

As I gazed with wonder into his cherubic visage and held him close . . . for God so loved the world.

This is our God, drawing us into the Father’s divine bosom, bearing us up in Love everlasting.”

———————————

A reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians 2:4-10

Brothers and sisters: God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love he had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ—by grace you have been saved—, raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast. For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them.

The word of the Lord.

Richard R. Gaillardetz was the Joseph Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology at Boston College and the author of numerous books, including By What Authority? Rick died peacefully at home on November 7, 2023, surrounded by his family.

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Lent, Third Sunday, “B”

Posted on February 27, 2024 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

“We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to many.

Suffering sometimes seems unbearable. For Christians, the cross can make us very uncomfortable; it makes the temptation to “hide from suffering” more difficult. The cross reminds us that suffering is. It happens. It is part of life, and there is no getting around it. The only true spiritual path is the one that passes through suffering. By looking at the cross (sometimes it feels more like the cross is staring into us), we are given the courage to face our suffering and the suffering of others. . . .

Many years ago, one of my Dominican brothers, Fr. Jim Campbell, OP, was sitting in a Zen-Christian meditation hall in Japan, trying to [meditate] while suffering from excruciating back pain, for which he ultimately underwent surgery. Feeling he could go on no longer, he was about to abandon the practice when he glanced up and saw a small wooden cross on the wall. He said years later, “It all made sense—the cross, the pain, the promise of liberation. I knew then why I was a Christian.”

. . . [F]or many Christians down through the centuries, the cross has served as a kind of gentle mirror that helps us to see our sufferings and to touch them—not in a way that overwhelms us and leaves us feeling abandoned—but a seeing and touching that happen in and through and with our teacher, Jesus. By “watching him” embrace his suffering with patience and love, we see the path by which we too can journey forward.”

written by Fr. Brian J. Pierce, “We Walk the Path Together”

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Life’s Mountains, (2nd Lent Sunday, “B”)

Posted on February 23, 2024 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

(based on the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ)

Jesus climbs his way up along with his climbing companions to illustrate for them the union of his life. The union with Elijah and Moses is second only to hearing his Father’s voice simply telling those companions and to the world, “Listen to him.”

No wonder those guys “trembled.” No wonder Peter wanted pitched tents to spend the rest of their lives on that mountain called Tabor. Is it any wonder that we wish to tent ourselves around significant moments in our lives. To hold on to them as though time stops. But it’s midnight now and the place you rented for your special occasion comes to an end. The guests left, the workers want to clean up and return to their homes and you and your family need to come down from that mountain. It’s now Monday and the new work week begins.

Memories details may fade but the feelings and sentiment cement themselves as life continues, even and especially through life’s other mountain, Golgotha.

The Tabor that acknowledges Jesus as the Christ is on the way to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the Christ purpose for living. Our Jerusalem is our living daily in Christ-like manners and behaviors. The extraordinaries make the ordinary purposeful and full of meaning. Our Tabors make our inevitable Golgotha’s bearable.

Joy and grief are separated by three letters. Happiness and sadness have that same simple separation. A Christ moment can be the union of those two supposedly opposite mountains, because both embody life; life here and the eternal one.

One mountain faithfully carries us through life and the other mountain? The other mountain completes it.

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A Lonely Lent?

Posted on February 15, 2024 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

“A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew 9:14-15

When the bridegroom is taken from them, then they will fast.The disciples of John approached Jesus and said, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast much, but your disciples do not fast?” Jesus answered them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

The Gospel of the Lord.”

The sold out concert crowd quickly jumps up, cheering, and howls loudly for a one last song at the concert’s end, or as expected, at least a final bow. Nada.

His bodyguards and manger, as quickly as the crowd’s responses, hurries him through the long dark underground tunnels, holding him through every twists and turns.

He looks tired but still in costume. Limo door is opened and he’s clumsily placed into the backseat.

Bodyguard closes the door, taps the car hood twice and says, “Elvis has left the building.”

Welcome to the sacred season of Lent.

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Fifth Sunday, Cycle B or “The Doctor’s Visit”

Posted on February 3, 2024 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

The medical machine has cranked out its complicated tests and measurements. It’s taken many weeks and as you await that dreaded doctor’s visit with “the news” about your health as if all the local television stations with bright lights are stationed outside now waiting for your responses.

If cameras were awaiting you outside after that visit, the words of Job might just naturally pop into your head. “So, I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted to me.” Eager question from a reporter brings you to say more Job words,” When shall I arise? then the night drags on, I am filled with restlessness until the dawn.”

That doctor’s visit offered you overdoses of cute, positive platitudes about your condition (that’s been said countless times before), along with your possible prescription doses for the remainder of your life, along with your survival percentages (that rarely reach 50), Again, cue Job, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle” (Job’s words, yours may be crispier) Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.”

The TV cameras have left, the doctor went home and you go home. Perhaps alone, perhaps with others but not wishing to talk. Not wishing to talk? What a wonderful beginning of prayer. In the silence of your silence, God is able to soften those “p’s” of platitudes, prescriptions and percentages to strengthen you with David’s Psalm words of, ‘the brokenhearted experiences healing, wounds are bound up and raised into heavenly grace; forget the amount number of stars occupying the sky, no one knows how many but please know that your name is important.’

Jesus has his say from St. Mark by telling us that “He cured many many who were sick with various diseases, and drove out many demons.” Cured? Cured? Healing? Healing?

You prayerfully pray before the scheduled surgery. Putting yourself aside and like St. Paul declaring in similar words, ‘I have been entrusted with a stewardship. I have a recompence, I have a payment – free of charge-by offering myself and living the gospel to make full use of my right in the gospel.’

Medical predictions? Percentages, weighing the odds like vacationing in Las Vegas?

Faith? Unlimited in the wonder, unknowns, and most importantly the awesome mystery and complete peace and trust in God.

Scripture Readings for the “Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time”

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020424.cfmhttps://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020424.cfm

Check out books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS on Amazon.com

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Winter’s Snowman

Posted on January 21, 2024 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

It’s a new January’s whitest morning. Above reigns a crisply blue sky with the sound of quieting winds. Covering the ground? The earthly covering is mounds of white stuff.

Youth-filled eyes awaken to its wonder and their smiling faces already have their day planned. Mom and Dad look out the window, frown at each other, and turn to the other side for another thirty minutes of sleep.

The smells of Mom’s coffee couples with Dad’s noisy fourth pull for gasoline for his dreaded chore. Now arrives the growing energy and excitement offspring of those two. Although Christmas was a long memory past to these youngsters, it seems to have reappeared. The inside cedar is now outside. Appearing in their minds and hearts is the giftedness, wonder, and imagination that this day holds for them.

The barrier of breakfast becomes unbearable while staring all the while at all the bright whiteness resting on their lawn. “Dad did his job,” the children think, “I guess it’s time now for us to do our job.”

Frolic is the best describer of those kids jumping and falling on those white mounds. Neighbor children quickly join in the fun. Wearing every piece of clothing they possess, those minds and hearts turn to creation.

Following the previous night’s tremendous storm, children only think of beauty and creation. “What can we do with all this white stuff that Dad piled together?” One starts to make circular weapons out of it to fling to the neighbor he never liked. This happens for quite a while until finally, the children realize that this ice-balling back and forth has no end.

Another child, in a simple lying resting position, stretches out her arms and begins to wave them within the whitey stuff. Another sees this and yells out, “She’s making an angel!” Instead of a contest of throwing it at each other, the new contest is now creating a better, more beautiful angel. All experienced within the whiteness of a cold, sunny, January morning.

“Giftedness, wonder, and imagination.” Childish dreams? Ones that we happily outgrow and throw away to deal with the real realities of life? G, W, I.

From those three words springs the wonders of angelic blueprints fallen from the heavenly white stuff. And, their imagination moves from the ground upward. One says to another, “Let’s build a mound of three very large balls and see what it looks like.” “Good idea,” says the neighborhood shy kid.

So one huge ball placed upon another huge ball completes the G, W, and I. Dad’s charcoal for the eyes (so often darkened losing life’s beauty), lips that only widely smile. And, finally, inserted in the mouth? I pipe. (I never understood why always a pipe, but a pipe it is.)

G, W, I? Giftedness, Wonder, and Imagination. From a winter’s storm to futile aggression and combat; to imaging an angel, made in our image only with wings; to creating and recognizing the wonder of the person in each of us. All that wet, white stuff sent down from the heavens and recreated by young minds and hearts that hopefully will always remain youth-filled.

“Sorry guys,” the oldest says. “That’s my Mom yelling, it’s time for lunch.”

(Smoking it not healthy, just so you know.)

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Funeral for a Landscaper

Posted on January 11, 2024 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

“It’s but a moment.” That’s what the nurse told you twenty minutes ago waiting to see your doctor. Its length is unknown to us because time contains unknown moments and also contains those single, solitary moments.

One moment occurs and a new moment arises. Couple them together and they define our lives. The moments John enjoyed with family and friends became timeless, both in their time and remaining in memories. Time spent with your dentist? You figure that one out. My self-employed dad put a sign on his door at Noon that read, “Back in a moment.” Boy, did he have nice lunches.

John had his moments or should I say he had two moments. A beginning and an end. His final moment was the perfect moment for him because his death date matched with weather. His career was constantly absorbed with considering, planning for, and thinking about – the weather. Is it going to rain today and I need to reschedule? Or, as usual, is the weatherman wrong, once again; 80% of the time? Is the sun too hot today for those needing to work outside? Or, can this be done in winter because it just needs to be done?

The difference between the seasons of fall and winter? It’s how I began my moments with you today. It’s but a moment. December 21 is a moment between ending what began. Or, in faith, it is an ending and a beginning. Sound kind of like life? The fullness of life? We don’t know the amount of our earthly moments but we all know that that one moment will arrive. And, that’s the mystery and the beauty and all of the wonder of the timeliness of that one simple word. I don’t think I need to say that word again. Already said sixteen times with three more at the end.

Life’s beginnings is in the winter with the promise of many of the other three seasons through baptism. Through baptism, we are invited and welcomed to embrace all four seasons. We are never alone because of that sacrament and all the others. God provides and empowers us with the necessary divine strength to weather any winter of our lives. Like winter’s brain tumor. Don’t tell me that those extended years in John’s life didn’t strengthen his winters and truly embrace his bubbling springs, his warming summers of family and friends. Toward the end? With winter’s darkening of his eyes those glowing colors of the fall season he could see now with divine eyes, not only in nature but see all the colors possessed by family and friends. That’s the four seasons. That’s the four seasons that are so much more than the name of a rock group or that famous classical piece of music. John witnessed for all who knew him to live life’s four seasons in all of their beauties and prepared, through faith, their dangers.

“Put on love, perfect love” as Scripture says. “Perfect love” but I would qualify by saying, “as best you can.”

I’m at a resort in Los Angeles and meet a guy who’s a professional landscaper. We get talking and he tells me that Barbra Streisand is looking for bids to do some work at her home. I smiled and said, “That’s great, go for it.” He replied, “I would never accept a job like that because of her perfectionism and its effect on my future projects.” I smiled, once again, and knew. God doesn’t ask for perfection. God only beautifully requests that His creations do the best they can in beautifying themselves, those around them, and the world around them. Sounds like John?

In both health and decline, John lived a life of seasons. Just like we hope to live and honor as our lives continue. Hoped and honored because of our trust and mercy of our Creator.

I had Scripture passages to share with you this holy day but I suspect I’ve used up my moments. John’s holy day of ending and beginning is 12/21. That one final moment. His in-between moments were living and loving all of you.

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“We Can Be Kind,” Nancy LaMott

Posted on January 5, 2024 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

Is this just another new year or another repeating year only with the next number? Enlighten? The light of Christ living within is? The star that brought nations together? Or, the dark selfishness of ours?

The eternal song sings for us…

So many things I can’t control So many hurts that happen everyday So many heartaches that pierce the soul So much pain that won’t ever go away How do we make it better? How do we make it through?
What can we do When there’s nothing we can do?

Division makes me important and whoever or whatever you are makes you lesser than me … as much as saying that you are meaningless…

Those hope-filled lyrics continues…

We can be kind We can take care of each other We can remember that deep down inside We all need the same things And maybe we’ll find If we are there for each other 
That together we’ll weather Whatever tomorrow may bring

We love going to war. We stopped numbering them and conveniently, silently call them “presidential wars.” (Whispering) For the good of our nation in spite of how many lost lives…both theirs and ours.

Then the enlightened song continues…

Nobody really wants to fight Nobody really wants to go to war If everyone wants to make things right What are we always fighting for? Does nobody want to see it? Does nobody understand? The power to heal Is right here in our hand We can be kind We can take care of each other
We can remember that deep down inside We all need the same things

“Me win and you lose,” mantras nations all around the world. “I dominate and you subjugate” becomes our morning fear-filling news. That’s right, begin your morning with coffee and watch talk of destruction of everyone’s life…spirit, heart, mind, and soul…all promulgating their own, selfish, always-right, self-centered lives.

And that promising, light of faith’s music continues…

And maybe we’ll find If we are there for each other That together we’ll weather Whatever tomorrow may bring And it’s not enough to talk about it Not enough to sing a song
We must walk the walk about it You and I, do or die, we’ve got to try to get along

The Original Sin of idolatry from which we were all baptized now becomes the sin of nations and so many leaders…” me first,” identical to a two-year-old demanding more oatmeal.

Do we hear, once again, but now only with deaf ears…?

We can be kind, We can take care of each other, We can remember that deep down inside…We all need the same things And maybe we’ll find, If we are there for each other
That together we’ll weather, Whatever tomorrow may bring

Epiphany…insight, awareness, inclusion…light…lived with compassion, love and kindness…light.
Only piously spoken in church or living deeply within our hearts, living within our elected leaders, praying and living throughout our sacred, God-given created world?
Hearing the song’s conclusion is the true, bright, ever-burning presence and love of Christ as any single day begins or any new year beings us.

And maybe we’ll find, True peace of mind
If we always remember…We can be kind

(Song: “We Can Be Kind,” Nancy LaMott, hearable on YouTube)

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