The Meaning and Purpose of “Church”

Posted on July 11, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

imagesI don’t know about other denominations but the Catholic Church made the Mass life’s centerpiece, it is its center as though it’s an oasis or isolated island carefully tucked away from the life of the world.

Having fun with pronouns, let’s try this out.  There would be no “this” (the Church) without “there” (beyond Church walls) and without “this” (the Church) “that” (the altar) would be rendered meaningless.

Growing up we’d goof around for an hour, grab a church bulletin and go home.  “Did you go to Mass?” mother would ask as we showed off the bulletin.  Never asked was “Did you pray, worship your Creator, thank God for the past week or pray for a successful new week?”  Nope.  Never asked in all my years with all ages.  The question is always, “Did you go,” followed by the bland response, “Yeah, I went to Mass.  Go and went are the Catholic verbs giving thanks and praise to God.  Catholics have made the Mass the end instead of the means which it was created to be.

Priests having a Mass alone, I hope are over but very popular in its day.  What a contradiction between the word “mass” or assembly and doing it privately.  “The Lord be with me,” “And also with my spirit” just sounds weird to me much less the sign of peace and two of the same hands from one person trying to shake as well as the awkwardness of the final blessing with the hand turned inward.  Whewww.  Who needs exercise after those contortions.

We have the this because of the there which gives meaning to the that.  (I hope no one read this paragraph first.)  A favorite story is vacationing in London with a priest friend and his urgent need to find a Church on Sunday.  I still smile at the episode.  A man comes to confession and tells me that his last confession was a month ago and that he’s missed Mass four times.  I think to myself, “I think that’s a perfect record for missing the this.  I wonder what’s going on out there that this and that isn’t important to him yet it is for his confession?”  (Yes, I do have thoughts like that in the confessional.)

When the means becomes the end then there is really no where to go except keep coming to the end hoping that your end ends up in eternal happiness.  Like any organization, the Church has a product, the Mass.  Making missing just one of them a “mortal” sin, right along side murder then the organization misses what Jesus was trying to tell us when he said that his “kingdom was not of this world” and how many other passages trying to link there with this and that.

I love that we have this and that to ground and renew us each week or each day but I hope we never miss the linking of the purpose and meaning of this and that was to transform and renew there.

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“When I’m 64”

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

indexIf I don’t pass away tonight in the next 52 minutes my obituary will say, “He quietly (or violently) passed away at the age of 63.”  62 sounds as bland as 63 when the Beatles made “64” a milestone when only half of them made it… John was 40 while walking home and George was 58 while at home and how often do Ringo and Paul meet except for an occasion that celebrates how close they are (not).

If you’re waiting for an article theme there is none.  There are no ten wishes that I wish on anyone.  There is no ultimate secret to loving and living life that I would share except to tonight’s receipt.  (Remember, if you share a secret then it’s no longer a secret.)

My pending birthday only occurred to me  a couple of times today and now, as the clock ticks away, I’m left with 42 remaining minutes before my number changes.  Many kind people reminded me about tomorrow but I don’t seem to return its gesture to them.

I thought I’d have a “James Dean” kind of ending but it did not happen since I’m still here and he was gone at 24 (but what faces he could create from that young face?)  I recall the U.S. death age for men is around 78 so I could always move.  If Japans’ is higher than I may gain a few years but lose them quickly in trying to adapt.

We don’t talk about death or our own personal demise because it appears to wreck the cocktails before dinner.  If it’s a shared joke or two then it’s fun as long as no name is mentioned.

Growing up my friends thought my parents where my grandparents because they married late so the end time has been a common thought for me.  I didn’t mind because, after all, I was James Dean!

Well, I beat James Dean and two Beatles and it’s now 32 minutes until a new digit is added to be pending obituary.  I mention obituary because my old Dad and I wrote his before he died.  He made several corrections about dates but otherwise thought it was good.

His didn’t mind viewing his entire life in a few paragraphs of coming from these folks, marrying her, doing this and that as a doctor would read a patient’s chart.  He looked up at me and he smiled.   He was satisfied with its brevity.  All of his stories, episodes and nuances would be left out because it was no one’s business but his.

I smile at the long newspaper obituaries that attempt to prove someone after that someone has been proven.  I smile tonight at my Dad’s simple details, accurate dates and nothing else.  I’m sure he supposed it was enough for him to be remembered.  I expect nothing less from my remaining 26 minutes.

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Now, Then, Forever

Posted on June 24, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

outsourced-order-fulfillmentYou could call them the “ion’s” of life.  They are gratification, satisfaction and fulfillment.  Oh, sorry.  The last doesn’t seem to fit my cute threesome of “ion’s.”  Although it is a part of the list it has a kind of cement-ending to it as though there’s a completion.

That’s the problem here.  All three words do fit together but the first two can’t achieve the cement of word three.

Gratification is instant and satisfaction is fleeting.  Fulfillment has a sturdy sound that fulfills what it means.  Christians would reward fulfillment to the visitation service our family will hold for us while we’re horizontal (with candles on each side of us) while they are all vertical and chatty.  That makes it too easy to dismiss fulfilling fulfillment from our lives and postpones its happy rewards in this life.

Fulfillment is now.  More than a fleeting feeling or an instant taste, fulfillment slowly becomes an attitude until it then becomes a value until it then becomes cemented throughout our lives.

We treat ourselves to ice cream on a hot summer night, gratified until the next hot night appears.  We receive a compliment for a job well done on a project and we feel satisfied until we make the next mistake.  Fulfillment’s cement is what carries us through all the parts of our lives – relationships, work and personal stuff.  In our occupations it does not matter (actually it does matter) what it is but what we bring to it each day – our gifts, passion along my two favorites words, meaning and purpose.  Each task completed with a known purpose and meaning dismisses the two “ion’s” and embraces the cement that captures, captivates and causes creativity.  (Five “c’s” in one sentence!  I’m getting the hang of this writing stuff.)

My job gratifies and satisfies me as far as it can, usually a two hour lifespan.  The fulfillment of my work – in meaning and purpose – carries me through a lifetime.  It also makes getting up in the morning a little easier.

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Buttons and Bows

Posted on June 22, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

13759399They are the connections that bring the two parts of your shirt together or the decoration on your blouse.  They are the four things on a sport coat that serve no purpose but to play with during a boring meeting.  A red-haired comedian had the name and Brad Pratt played one backwards which always brings tears to my eyes.  They are most importantly the buttons gained after many years with someone you care love.

Family or friendship, we can silently list the buttons at our ready to pull off at any given moment.   The  longer the relationship the more buttons from which to choose.  A heated argument can trigger a button to be tossed but then wisely refrained.  A friend throws you a button and you toss two buttons to him.  With another drink between the them, they peacefully hug and tug those buttons away for another occasion.

We desperately need gun control and we also need button control.  You’ve garnered buttons private stories shared twenty or more years ago and you haven’t forgotten them.  A shared episode between two friends becomes a button ( or is it a bullet?).  When a button is retrieved and thrown while in frustration or revenge it pierces greater than a bullet because there is no ER doctor to help.  Its powers sears through you and makes you numb.  You consider slinging a button of your own but pause or forget the pause and pitch one button back at him.

Twenty years of marriage creates lots of buttons that are safely tucked away from children’s use until a divorce arrives and all the buttons are tossed and turned and strewn all around a lawyer’s desk, as though he cares.

I don’t recall ever throwing a button with long time acquaintances but only they can tell if I’m wrong.  I’ve had buttons thrown back at me but usually in a heated moment when my forgiving and healing is easy.

We know the bonds that bind us while we always have our two shooter buttons strapped to our hip.  The trick in friendship or marriage is to know that the buttons work and the power that they have but to work more earnestly on creating bows that outnumbered them.  The buttons we hear or tell hurt greatly and the bows we see are beautiful.

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The “Shadow” Knows”

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

shadow_generatedIt’s behind me all day no matter what direction I walk.  Sometimes it’s lean, unlike my growing girth and other times it’s wide as ever finally showing my present colors.  Van Morrison sang about a “Moon Shadow,” a wonderful song but somehow still difficult to see.  Ted Lewis combined my shadow with me as his big band theme song.  Maybe he saw his more than I see mine.  It even spawned an old time radio show whose title suggests more than the creators thought.

In psychology it is the unknown, neither good nor bad just a lot of stuff that is unknown to you but the more willing you are (or unwilling) it will stop shadowing you and become a part of you because it already is an active and living part of you.  The Catholic Church would call it your guardian angel without all the complete stuff that makes up a shadow.  Guardian angel only knows good and reminding you that that chocolate only enlarges that shadow behind you.  The angel’s touch was good in grade school but the shadow becomes more apparent and meaningful as age creeps its way forward.

The shadow can be that unknown task that you said you would tend to shortly but it’s been twenty years.  That shadow can be that spark that you’ve been extinguishing for years because of its unknown and sticking with the comfortable present even if uncomfortable.  It’s not a technical word but I like the word “stuff” because it is things that are unnamed, un-judged or categorized.  We cannot give meaning to any of it because we do not know what any of it is until it reveals itself in any number of ways.

A back ache can revisit a personal relationship ache, a sleepless night can trigger some alone time for personal growth, a sluggish year at work says just what I just said.  Shadows live because we live.  Shadows reflect what only is given to them in and through time: ourselves.

Try following or catching your shadow as a young person.  It doesn’t work.  The shadow can only follow you and follow you in influences, dreams, regrets and undone work that your guardian angel would envy.

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Carrying Another’s “Stuff”

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

Jesus-sleeping-during-the-storm-610x351“A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling.  Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.  [The Apostles] woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Don’t you hate it when someone doesn’t feel the same way you do?  You’re experiencing havoc and your friend is calmly having a cup of coffee and you simply can’t understand why this person isn’t feeling the same havoc that has you havoced.  (Not a word but you get the feeling.)

What’s with this?  Your time of panic does not coincide with someone’s beautiful day.  Your friend’s helplessness about her daughter does not fit the joyful feeling you’ve just received from your daughter.  The syncing is missing.

The apostles are going nuts and Jesus is doing his nails.  Jesus is throwing stuff out of the temple and his apostles are waiting for the Bingo numbers to be announced.  There’s that syncing problem again.

We’re supposed to be united and one in faith but the separations can be severe.  Obama wins his first term, I come to work beaming only to see numerous gloomy faces.  I kept my mouth shut..but only for a while.  I couldn’t resist exhibiting my joy in the midst of their forlorn faces.

So how do we do it?  How do we validate the experience of someone that may be unlike our own?  Arm wrestle?  Too barbaric.  Argue about whose experience is more important?  Too television these days.  Ignore the person?  Too much like being in high school when you’re in your 80’s.

So how do we do it?  We fake it.  I can act forlorn while being happy.  I can pretend to be abiding while keeping to myself.  I know you all can as well.  I like to call it being buoyant.  A buoy is grounded securely in the water while being able to move from side to side, sometimes even with a bell.  We are all grounded in Christ and the mission and purpose he fulfilled for our salvation.  The “Christ” part is all below the water, the grounded part.  The part of the buoy that is seen is the bobbing that we do everyday.  One encounter meets an upset person and your next is a smiling person dying to tell someone the news she’s just heard.

You respond as best you can to both.  Whether calling it “faking it” or being a “buoy” doesn’t matter because of the grounded Christ, the unifying Christ, the Christ who suffers with others, the Christ who models the best for us.

Jesus doing his nails while the apostles are ballistic is his excuse.  He was a teacher, trying to teach a lesson.  Our task is to be “buoy people” to each other – not to teach, change or rearrange anyone but to buoy as best we can for each other.

The “bell?”  I’m not sure how to apply the bell but let’s just say that it’s the bell that triggers our un-felt empathy toward someone’s true feelings.

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The “End” of Us?

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

how-to-unlock-cell-phone-1How many “end times” have there been in your simple lifetime or the lifetimes of those before you?  (Notice I used “you” twice in one sentence because that seems to be the “end time” these days.)  Our society begins and ends with the most important and unique snowflake to fall from the sky and inhabit our universe: you.

Tweet “you” to all those eagerly waiting to know whether you’re about to do something or ask for advice whether you should to do this something or something else.  The news of your day is whether that blouse, that TV show, whether to drop that dead-end boyfriend or to take a nap awakens the attention of those who follow you.  “Follow you” is the Tweet expression and I love it.  “Follow you” where ever you go and whatever you think and more importantly why are these people following you?

The car people still text at stop signs and I can still hear the 35 year old husband ask his wife on the cell phone whether it’s the large or small ketchup bottle that she wants (his life is half over and he can’t pick a bottle on his own!) while I think he’s talking to me because he’s so loud and he gives me a dirty look like I’m intruding on a moment between he and his wife.  (The new bedroom appears to be the grocery store.)

Waiting for my connecting flight is a hoot with my cigarette-friends and their phones front and center and squarely in their faces as though they’re solving mathematical equations.  Is it ISIS that concerns them at the moment?  Is it their bank balance that’s low?  The lowest part of me believes it’s killing time without engaging with the live persons in front of them.

Community engagement decreases these days including church, civic groups and neighborhood gatherings but volunteerism seems steady which impresses me.  A six year old grows up with both parents texting each other or someone else at supper time (that is, if there is still a family dinner).  A 90 year old triggered this insight to me that I was already thinking about.  (Isn’t aging great?)  She called it our culture’s “Tower of Babel” with a cacophony (I’ll use that word any time I can) of voices that leads to no one else except the sender or the speaker.

She called it our Tower of Babel, idolatry while at the same time claiming God as our Creator in every survey sent to you when the essence of your creation is squarely squared around you.  The cell phone, for all it beauty and power, like other inventions ends up being used for the basest of purposes.

Instant, important information can be gained by a quick tweet to a friend and a Skype can reduce the distance between two continents.  She also told me that she’s glad that she’s old because it is so sad to witness this happening.

It should be sad for her because the times have changed and there is no reason she should change with them.  Her glorious, growth times and eras are in the past and those enduring memories are crystal clear to her as they should be.  For someone who’s in her 90’s and with technology changing every three to six months, I’ll be joining her soon.

Technology brings so many special advantages to our world – connecting us in ways unknown before.  There’s been numerous other “end times” that did not end the way the end was meant to be but technology’s vision of connecting us has downgraded us into a daily use of projecting and promoting the “me” which for some reason I’m unable to do promote within myself.

I wanted to tell the “ketchup guy” to hang up the phone (which you can no longer do, by the way) and buy the large bottle and then let his wife complain about it when he got home.  That’s the way it was meant to be.  Those are the days that I remember.

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“Father’s Day,” With a Silent Blessing

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

UT8IIWLXlheXXagOFbXuFather’s Day.  It’s an added date because Mom had her day so it was bound to happen for dads.  “Grandparent’s Day” was not far behind and “Cousin’s Day” waits in the wings.

Dad.  Daddy.  Pop.  Pa.  The name doesn’t matter but the character does.  TV’s Dad depiction is the guy who just doesn’t get it with the family gathered around the dinner table; sometimes goofy or silly and slightly out of touch.  It’s a humorous twist to a real truth about Fatherhood.

“Absent father” is used to describe him whether he lives in the home or not.  The irony is that he needs to be an “absent” because he represents the outside world where home bound mother does not venture.  (Don’t get caught up in contemporary understanding because these psychological principles do not change.  Think “masculine” and “feminine” instead of male/female.)

Mother’s world will always be encapsulated by the four-walled place we call home.  Dad’s world is that unknown outside world that is gradually unveiled to growing children.  “We know what mom does but what does dad do all day?” is the unspoken question of a young person.  Mine rarely travelled behind twelve miles of our home but still represented that awesome risk to leave the home every morning and return tired in time for supper.  Mother is the known and Father is the unknown.

If Mother is grace as we hope she will always be then Father is wisdom as we hope he will always be.  At five years old I imagined he held awesome powers.  He became somewhat lame when I was a high school sophomore but after graduating from college he regained the adjective “awesome.”  Did he change?  I doubt it.

“Let your mother take care of that,” was my dad’s response to a domestic situation.  His life was “out there” somewhere which provided for our means.  (Put Mother in the workplace and you’ll still have the same dichotomy.)  The parental combination works because it envelopes the two worlds that we often have difficulty enveloping: our personal world and our place within the world.  To say it another way, Motherhood is a gift and Fatherhood is a task.  Both roles are important and both find it difficult to replace the other while remaining true.

When I began I meant to write it was meant as a prayer for “Father’s Day” as I did for “Mother’s Day” but it’s harder to write.  He’s been gone from me for many years but his one sentence responses to my life’s questions and his lingering cigar scents with a hint of “Old Spice” remind me always that there is a bigger world out there than I can ever comprehend.  I want to go the thirteenth mile because he showed me the first twelve.

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It’s the Journey, Not the Destination

Posted on June 6, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

The-bread-becomes-the-body-of-christ-through-transubstantiation-where-consecration-changes-the-substance-of-the-bread-but-not-the-appearance-Microsoft-Clip-ArtColonel Potter on “M.A.S.H.” gave a classic line that I’ve never forgotten, “If you aren’t where you are then you are no where.”  With that, the conversation between Hawkeye and him ended

So much of religion is concerned with preparing ourselves for some place we know nothing about, heaven.  Oh yes, we can speculate and postulate until we’re blue (or purple) but at the end of the book or lecture we are still left with this inevitable end to our lives and this “some place” of a destination that follows.  (Actually, loosely used, heaven is only after the second coming of Christ.  In the meantime graves are visited by family and friends twice a year to change the flowers.)

Unfortunately the unknown and vague destination provides excellent fodder for anyone, anywhere to say anything about heaven’s pathway and then pass a collection basket to compliment the speaker on speculating better than others have on something the speaker has no personal knowledge of yet spoke eloquently about.  (Is religion great or what?)

Focusing on the journey rather than the destination tasks us with more immediate concerns because the journey focuses on today and the day after the next.  This is where I have a degree of control and influence.  It is here that my life is lived and presumably pathed toward hopefully the upper half of my eternal resting place.  If we could only cease with destination talk and focus on journey themes then something exciting and life-giving certainly occurs.

Terrorists are promised a special place in eternal life for their misguided “sacrifices.”  I’m always surprised more Catholics don’t commit suicide because of the next life’s bliss.  (I guess making suicide a mortal sin delays our eternal delight so we just need to keep solidering along.)

How we constantly miss the point of the person in front of us baffles me.

The person in front of us in this life wishes for a listening ear, a genuine smile and attentive eyes.  We spare a moment and we listen.  We smile or grimace depending on the nature of the story.  We wish the person well and promise a remembrance in our prayers.  There is no reward nor no merit.  It is this journey, not that destination that is lived and celebrated during that brief moment and, by the way, every time we gather for the Eucharist.

The new Mass prayers of the Catholic Church has the word “merit” pop up a lot; way too much, if you ask me.  It is heresy, as I remember which places our deeds, prayers or actions to somehow cause that “unknown” place to someday be ours.

Nothing can get us to our final destination – earned or rewarded.  Heaven is not granted on a point system or number of hosts eaten or rosaries said. The Psalms tell us that “sacrifice and burnt offerings” is not what God wants but a “contrite heart.”  I think Catholics have a more difficult time with this thinking than other Christian religions because we somehow were taught that heaven is a place that is worked toward.  You work to earn the rewards of eternal life.  The destination can never be achieved because of our accumulative actions and deeds.  That’s why the old joke about those who ate meat on Fridays are now in hell is a senseless belief because that’s not the salvation Jesus won for us.

What we all do know, what we all cherish and what we all appreciate is this life that we’ve been graced with this day and hopefully for several more tomorrows.  What comes after, “Who really cares?”  Can’t we give God at least something to do?  After all, He is God!

I began with the fictional character Colonel Potter so I close with another fictional character, Jiminy Cricket,  “Be good for goodness sake.”

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“Lefty” and loving it

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

I think “Lefty” should be my nickname because it fits my politics and handwriting. The grade school nuns didn’t break me and those on the right only convince me more that left field is the best place to hit the ball.

What I’m left with is my right-handed bowling which I never understood but it just felt, well, right. Which brings to the last word, right. “You were right” is an affirmation we all like to hear as though “You were left” meant being wrong.  Jesus enjoys the rights of sitting not left of God and owning the copyright to that position. “No Child Left Behind” was a hopeful use of that hand even if it was created from the right to right the course of education.

When I left for work this morning, I happily made more left turns than right ones just to prove my point. What’s left of my little tale is my grandmother called me Linkshänder because my left hand never quite made it on those stupid right-handed grade school desks.

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