Lent: Season of Grace

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

The 40 days of Lent begin this Sunday.  For 40 long days we are not allowed to say the “a” word.  I wish I could tell you what the “a” word is but then I would tell you what I’m not supposed to say for 40 days.  (Whispering, But I can tell you that it begins with the letter “a.”)

God has partly abandoned us by denying our use of the “a” word before the reading of the gospel.  So, we sing a filler refrain that we’d rather not use but have no choice in the matter.

While denying the singing of the “a” word, God has bolstered the use of another beautiful word, the “g” word.  Grace.

Lent is a season of grace.  If Advent prepares us for grace then Lent delivers the goods – wholly and completely.  For me, the “g” word is more beautiful and powerful than the “a” word.  “A” word just announces but “g” is a commodity, the real stuff.

Grace is a product, invisible agreed but still a real product.  Picture a card game where faithful people wager a bet with “raising you three graces to your two.”  I’d say to myself, “That guy’s got a good hand to risk those graces.”  (If only the Church could sell grace then we’d be all set.  Oh, wait.  The Church did try but called it “indulgences” and it back fired because you can’t sell what someone already possess.)

You don’t think that grace is a product?  Just listen to two of our prayers.  I tell you each morning that the “grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be upon you” and you all dutifully respond to me in the urban slang, “And back to you, bro!”  We say that Mary is “full of grace” when that it is not even true.  Mary was not “full of grace,” she was grace – from her pregnancy to holding her dead son.

The Trinity is grace and from our baptism has blessed us with all the grace that we need to get through this journey of life.  That’s right!  We already have all the grace we need.  We just tend to forget, ignore or deny this grace filled product we call grace.  Lent is the opportunity to renew and return to the grace filled people that God created us to be.

That’s my other problem with how we use grace.  We keep adding letters to an already perfect word.  We add the letters “filled” and “full” as if to make more important what is already of utmost importance.  It is simply and powerfully “grace.”  You don’t need to make it “graceful.”  That’s like saying “most unique” which drives my fingernails down the chalkboard or “awesome movie” when an Israeli and Palestinian union would be a more fitting time to use that word.

We are already full of it, this beautiful word that we can say everyday, year round.  It is the word and product and power given to us at baptism that is never totally spent or exhausted.  It is grace.  Remember, it’s the “a” word that’s on hold for 40 days.

God’s grace to us and our grace to each other and to ourselves knows no season.  The season of Lent is reserved to renew and return us to who God wants us to be.

May you have a grace filled, no, I mean a graced Lent.

Posted in Lent, Spirituality | Leave a comment

The Lost Belly Button

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

A&EIn a outpatient medical procedure my friend will lose the most physical connection to his mother.  (Where’s Freud when he’s needed?)

It’s aptly named because we know exactly where it resides above our belts and on our bellies.  “Femur” doesn’t provide a clue about its location.  The belly button is the necessary nourishment that brought us into life and after birth it represents the first of many cuts throughout life – like leaving home after college, that second mortgage request, the short (2 years) return home after the divorce, babysitting the kids while he starts dating again and the yearly “Mother’s Day” cards which could have been the same card each year, “You’re the One, Mom!”

How many cuts can a mother have with her child?  Depends on the mother and depends on the child.  (Just watch the movie “Terms of Endearment” or “Mother Dearest” and you’ll understand.)

Truly a relationship second to none is the one between mother and child.  She is gravity (Mother Earth) and every other occupation she assumes for the benefit of her child.  Psychologists say that a mother can never leave her child, it is the child who needs to leave the mother in order to become an individual, an adult.

The belly button served its purpose at birth and its present purpose of collecting lint.  What is left now is motherly memories.  Isn’t that what lint is, bits and pieces of life gathered together in the most intimate and united of ways.  The belly button.  We all have one.  Adam didn’t have one and on Thursday my friend will lose his.

Posted in Spirituality | Leave a comment

Life Is Not That Difficult

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

WSProdLG_ZENITH AM-FM RADIOCirca 1969, AM radio: my first real job spinning records on a Saturday night as a high school junior like I’m home but instead entertaining Manitowoc, Wisconsin.  Dream job, mistakes and all.

Sometimes there would be callers with comments like, “I don’t like the music you’re playing.”  I would then need to guide them through this carefully constructed, sequential process that I share with you now.

“I’m sorry to hear you say that.  Are you in front of the radio right now?  Good.  Do you see two dials in front of the radio.  There should be one on the right and there should be one on the left.  Do you see them?  Very good.  We’re on a roll here, you’re doing very well.  Now…I want you to look at the dial on the left, only the left.  Please do not look at the dial on the right.  Are you with me on this?  Good, very good.  We can take a break whenever you’d like, if you need one.  You’re okay?  Okay, good.  Now I want you to carefully move your hand to the left dial and place it firmly on it.  Would you do that for me please?  Great.  You’re doing great.  Now…slowly turn the left dial toward the left – yes, left and left – funny how that works.  Slowly turn the left dial toward the left, which is away from you.  Keep doing this until you hear a click.  Take your time, there’s no hurry.  You’re doing fine.  Did you hear the click?  That’s great.  Wonderful.  I think our problem is solved and thanks for calling WOMT radio.”

I resumed playing the 1969 hits which I still hear today and wonder if he’s okay.

Posted in Radio, Spirituality | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The “Walking Dead”

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

LPTitleThey are the ones breathing and moving about but their breath is old oxygen and their movements are circular.

Their appearance to us seems normal or expected but inside them only lives the regrets, remorse or rehashed failures or losses.  A simple word from us about the future lowers their heads and droops their shoulders as they submit to our comment knowing it does not apply to them.

Consuming used air keeps them going while their daily motions look to be similar to ours.  Their behavior exhibited whether at work or home can have numerous aberrations – stern without compromise, compliant with no self regard, passively acting behind aggressive actions, sluggishly pleasant – the mingling of opposites they can display is countless.

The image we all have of an 80 year old plagued by the worst of her past is crystallized in their lives.  Words of “hope, forgiveness or peace” are as lost to them as the Christmas cards we throw away without reading because we already know the sentiment they contain.  If those three words escape these mournful walkers suppose what the words “bliss or joy” would do to their beating but lifeless hearts?

If their future is considered it has already been decided, judged and weighed down heavily by their past.  Tomorrow is truly a repeat of yesterday that is dreadfully endured today.  For them, life’s balanced division of three segments is summarized and controlled by one.

Meaning-well-do-gooders attempt their imposition of good upon those anguishing.  The sorrowful walkers may perform the asked for motions but inside are laughing at its futility.  “Less” is the added letters to words like hope or joy.  The hole in which they daily circle leads back to the place where they began; without resolution, understanding or a simple yielding.

What easily moves us from bed to work and back to a restful sleeps not only escapes but scares the misery walkers.

A happy ending to my sad description would only make me one of those do-gooders.  I don’t judge the sad walkers but are joyful (and hopeful) that I can write about them without being in their circular, lifeless hole.

Posted in Spirituality | Leave a comment

Empty Yourself

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

Empty Yourself.

Posted in Spirituality | Leave a comment

“Sometimes”

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

SITEsometimesemail01Sometimes I’m happy and other sometimes I’m irritable and quick with the quip.  What a wonderful word for those in-between times of life.  By “in-between” I mean we faithful  Church folk have a stern doctrine and beliefs to follow with no questions asked when I could also end this end after “follow” with “to the best of our abilities.”

If you want to make mainline Christian leaders wince at you just try beginning a sentence with, “Sometimes…”  They’re eyes will look down in their totally-academic-training-of-why-is-she-doing-this-to-me-before-I-even-have-lunch-and-make-an-appointment-like-everyone-else-does-who-wishes-to-see-me…in my office.  (Smoke emitting from their eyes is reserved for the real fundamentalists.)

The Church says “always” and we believe that to be important, prayed about and reflected upon but sometimes in life “sometimes” creeps in and needs a “sometime” response against an “always” Church belief or policy.

Is “sometimes” sinful?  If a selfish end is the end then its pretty clear.  Does “always” always means “always?”

This reflection on this beautiful word of “sometimes”  resides within our consciences.  The Catholic Church, if not all mainline Christian churches hold dearly to the personal conscience which can be (“sometimes”) in contradiction to the objective truths of a Church.  Even our last two legalistic popes (J2P2 & Benedict) have held the “indissolubility” of the conscience although their behavior hid it.

I contend that, at least, the Catholic Church still doesn’t trust the “keys to the kingdom” in the hands of those not ordained, let’s call them – what do we call them – how about “laity,” a word that I never cared for.  The definition states, “as ordinary people distinct from experts and professionals.”  (This is where I enter the room as the expert.)

Besides honoring the word “sometimes” we need a new word for those who faithfully sit in the pews who have far more experience in parenting, friendships, life’s ups and downs and the “sometimes” of life that happen and give them a more fitting name for their baptismal place in the Catholic Church.

A quick example of “sometimes.”  A family of four children, all in Catholic schools with a stay-at-home-mom uses contraception.  “Sin?”  Easy when you sit in the sanctuary’s prominent chair and stare at issues you know nothing about.  “Sometimes?”  Well, sometimes, it is the time to weigh the sums and decide that the some of the time is not now.

Funny because sometimes I’m not happy and shouldn’t I always be happy?

Posted in Spirituality | Leave a comment

“What Happens When…”

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

746223It was a card table covered with a white cloth in the back bedroom of our Manitowoc, Wisconsin home that served as my sacred altar.  10 years old with no audience (I mean congregation) allowed to participate.  11:00 a.m. every Sunday until high school I honored the obligation to praise God on Sunday.

A tablecloth over the table along with a dictionary (Sacramentary), my oldest sister’s graduation ribbon to mark the pages, paper hosts carefully cut out and used every Sunday, my mother’s milk vase that served as a Chalice.

The piece de resistance for this third grader was the plastic vestment my parents bought for me from Columbia Magazine.  It was a chasuble, stole and manipule (no longer worn) and for me it completed my imitation but mindfully authentic reenactment of what I was forced to attend each day through school and Sundays with my parents.

I mumbled through most of my solitary Mass which the priests did in Latin but I said in gibberish hoping that God would either forgive or accept my lone yet aspiring offering reenacting what I saw enacted by the real priests each week.

Being an altar boy I carefully weighed the priest’s every movement because during those days one move amiss would miss the action and the presence of Christ would not arrive.  One arm lifted higher might have caused a crisis for the real congregation and a sudden pause in this youngster’s mind in his sister’s bedroom.  The sacrifice needed to be done right and you only had this one opportunity to do it.  (It was my sister’s bedroom and she needed to use it soon, of course….ohhh, those laity always getting in the way?!)

My sermon was reading the Sunday bulletin I had received from the real Mass.  Since I was unable to unravel the beauties of the Scriptures with my thoughts geared toward 4th grade looming largely, the Sunday bulletin was a wise solution.

I’m not bragging but I was truly faithful.  I allowed my sister to be an altar boy (acolyte was not invented yet) but only perhaps on High Holy Days.  She knelt dutifully but I’m sure she wondered what I was doing in my sister’s bedroom and how long this would take.

To add to my imaginary imaginings, we had a dead light switch in the hallway that I would turn on as if to alarm the bells and the world that I was about to preside at this sacred reenactment where you take the “re” out and have a 10 year old wearing plastic in front of no one yet imagining everyone.

35 years later, the marvel and wonder has only sometimes left me.  I smile now at the acolyte (now a Catholic word) carrying her cross at the entrance of Mass knowing that she has no idea who’s walking behind her.  She will have dreams of her own that hopefully will be honored and fulfilled.

Plastic has been replaced with cloth and the feelings are same for me – people listen, people watch (I can talk and preach to them as best as I can), the hosts are not made of paper and that young dedication and enthusiasm of a 10 year old continues.

How could it not continue?  It was never about me in the first place?

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged | 1 Comment

“Bits & Pieces” of Our Lives

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

th“It happened this way…I remember her saying to me…It was rainy the night that we…I wanted to say more but thought that…”

It’s the bits and pieces of life that gathers so many memories and then holds on to them, as best it can, especially to those that are significant.  The problem with memory is the remembering part.  The beauty of remembering is what touched you the most.  You may not known it at the time but the remembrance found a permanent place and actively lives in your mind.  No, that’s not right, it’s not your mind that holds the memory, it’s your heart that keeps yelling to your mind to never forget your life’s important moments.

Is the remembering accurate?  More than likely, it is not.  Time has a way of hits and misses when it comes to details.  A movie I love begins with the warning message, “This may not have been how it happened but it is how I remember it.”  It’s just the bits and pieces.

I was looking for a piece of paper tonight that I wrote a long time ago to use in a sermon on Sunday.  While looking for that piece, I found more paper pieces than I wanted to see.  “Just one piece to do my bit on Sunday,” I thought to myself.  One bit of a piece of my life is want I wanted and strewn around me were bits and pieces of a lot of my life.

I thought, “Someday I’ll have to read all this stuff from my past,” knowing that I probably will not because the piece I wanted to find was not to be found so why bother with the rest.

I can look through other places for the piece but I doubt I’ll find it.  Finding a piece in a whole lot of stuff is like that hidden needle.

The funny part is that I know what’s on that small piece of paper containing a sliver’s piece of my life.  I can easily recall it but I wanted to see it for myself to fully remind me of what happened when I wrote that piece of paper.

Alas, I am left to my memory which I’m beginning to mistrust as the years continue to add up.  Driving to work this week it took my half the trip to remember what movie I watched the night before.  I remembered it and remembered that I loved the movie that I couldn’t remember 9 hours later.

I don’t mind all of this because the details never mattered to me even if they appear to do in my aging mind.  It’s the feelings, the weather that night, the food eaten, the conversation as I best as I can recall that linger and that now form the bits and pieces of that time, that place and the person I spent that time with.

After a long while of life we only have bits and pieces to retrieve.  We often lose the full and complete story but we don’t need that now, years later and in this present time and space.  We only have bits and pieces of what we hope adds up to a meaningful and full life.  The full and unabridged episodes in our lives if left to the TV miniseries that follows our death.  The actually doesn’t matter but it’s how we remember it that does.

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged , | Leave a comment

22 Seconds

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

thHe sits underneath the traffic light at 76 and Capitol (Milwaukee) on my drive home.  He’s been there six or seven times over the past two years.  The cardboard sign he holds says, “Homeless, will work” or something like that, I don’t remember.  The same spot as he squats in front of the 22 second red traffic light.  (Squatters rights?)

He looks at me as I look at him but then I look away but I see he’s between 18-22 years old and I wonder what his story is.  Is he truly homeless or a millionaire seeking to past the time or a college student writing a paper on “real life”?  People must respond to his sad sitting posture or why would he continue to return?  But it’s not everyday or week so someone must be assisting him.  (I’m sure colder weather brings better results.  He’s praying for a cold front and I’m praying for a miraculous Wisconsin heat wave.)

Would throwing $20.00 out my car window help him?  (I’d need a receipt.)  Calling the police would mean my really getting involved and who’s to say he’d stay for interrogation and interview, or me for that matter.  (I watch TV, I know how this is done with the one way window and the good/bad cop routine.)  It’s a sad look he gives me as I pretend not to see it but I do see it clearly.  “He could add a few pounds,” I think to myself as I light a cigarette pretending not seeing him.

Thankfully the red traffic light is only 22 seconds so my life has only been interrupted by less than 30 seconds.  22 of them.  22 of wondering if Obama is the culprit.  He lowered gas prices, why can’t he get this kid away from this traffic light and into some warmth?  Awful president.

“Ohhhhhh, that’s it, he’s a free loader who does this for a living!”  While in the sixth grade he dreamed this up and decided it would be a life’s career.  He’d beg with a cardboard sign whose message I can’t recall but one that clearly seeks shelter, help, job or two Packer tickets (50 yard line) for next season’s games.  I truly cannot remember what his cardboard message read.

“He’ll drink the money I give him,” I conclude during the red light’s 22 which seems longer than waiting for paint to dry. “Or, gamble” is my other choice when I’m considering scenarios wonderfully seated in a comfortably heated car and in 22 of those seconds have weighed/judged/evaluated someone.  Since I’ve seen him more than once I have the added advantage of heaping even more judgments upon my red-traffic-light-cold-sitting friend.

I could take him home with me which years ago would have been welcomed by a priest but now with the priest abuse policies I can barely have my 72 year old sister with me alone without her suing me for brushing her shoulder.  (“The policy is to protect the individual,” we are told when we all know it’s too protect the institution.)

“Lazy, that’s it,” I conclude after 19 of my 22 second passes.   “He must be a student who couldn’t cut it and now he comes here to bother my 22 second wait.”  Monies dried up?  Parents said, “No more!”  “Girlfriend rejection.”  (You’d be surprised how much thinking can go on in 22 seconds.)

If you want two evil words these days, just thing “government programs.”  We’ve grown or been inducted to reject and despise those two words most often because we don’t benefit from them and we know few, if any, who do?  So why have them?

Just think.  My $20.00 thrown out of my warm window to salve my 22 second guilt or a system to aid and assist someone with a cardboard sign I can’t remember because I don’t know him.

But there he is couched down in front of my traffic light at 76th and Capitol in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on cold winter night.  He did not ask me for anything.  He looked at me and I looked back.  I had 22 seconds to read his cardboard sign but I don’t remember what it said but I think it was something about helping him.

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

“Is There Salvation for the Old?”

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

happy-old-people1Our U.S. culture was right all along.  It’s all for the youth preferably under 30.  Baby Boomers and those older may spend all the healthcare but there’s a reward for the young in heaven.  Heaven is reserved for the young.  Running, walking straight, perfect vision and hearing, limbs all in tact, always awake and alert with a crisp mind…who does Jesus think he is?  (Didn’t he live just 33 years?)

Just listen to your Bible and decide for yourself.  St. Paul says “he’s run toward the goal and he’s run a good race.”  (I don’t like walking to my car!)  St. Matthew says, “If you have ears to hear.”  (What’s all this about “years.”  I don’t get it!)  He also says, “God has blessed you, because your eyes can see and your ears can hear!”  (Thirty years ago that passage might have meant something to me.)  “If you have ears, pay attention!”  ( I have ears but that’s not the problem!)  St. Mark wisely asks, “Are your eyes blind and your ears deaf?”  (Yes!  That’s what I’m trying to tell you.)

Back to Matthew, “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, chop it off and throw it away!”  (If I could feel it, I would.  Or, if I could reach it, I would.)  Matthew again, “And don’t carry a traveling bag or an extra shirt or sandals or a walking stick. Workers deserve their food.”  (Then let me starve because my cane is my new-found friend and I don’t want my “foot to slip” as the Bible says.)  Matthew once more, “A little while before morning, Jesus came walking on the water toward his disciples.”  (Water’s easy.  Try walking  down the hallway toward the dining room without stopping!)

“Stay awake for you know not the hour!” the Bible says.  (Good luck with that.  That’s the best part of my day is the slow slumber with a book in my lap. Most days I think it’s afternoon when it’s still morning.)

Cut out your eye?  Life’s already done that for me regardless of my past sins.  Cut off your hand?  I knew I shouldn’t have had all those Florida vacations.  There’s no need to cut it off.

Thankfully there’s little mention of a dwindling mind since mine is frozen in the 60’s.  (Peter’s three-time denial of Jesus would have me say, “What did I say the first time?”)

Hearing can be relative when I announce that Confessions are Friday at 4:00 p.m. and there’s not a peep.  I say Friday’s Cocktail Party is cancelled and suddenly a hearing miracle occurred.  “Praise the Lord!”

Faith tells us when there’s less of you then there’s more room for God to enter our lives.  Boomers and those even far older have a lot of room for the saving and loving presence of God to fill in emptying eyes, selective hearing, wobbling legs, a slow, staggered walk but also have strong hearts for a body that is growing old but is always ready to receive the Body of Christ.

Posted in Spirituality | Tagged , | Leave a comment