Where Is Eucharist Celebrated?

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
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St. Martins in the Field

My priest friend and I were finishing a hiking tour in Austria and spent our last days in London.  We saw a Broadway show on Saturday night and then Sunday morning arrived.

We walked to St. Martin in the Fields square complete with pigeons, a coffee shop and an old Episcopal Church.  We enjoy our morning coffee and he tells me that he looked online for Catholic Churches in the area and found one nearby whose Mass would begin in thirty minutes.  I look at him as if to say, “And your point is?”  He said that I was welcome to join him but that he was going.  I said, “Just look where you are and you want to go to church?”  Well, he left for his church and I was alone; or was I?

10:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, St. Martins in the Field (where Neville Marriner has recorded more classical music than Andrew Greely characters), the pigeons fly and flop around the fountain as more people gather, I’m holding the London Times and a cup of coffee along with a nearby ashtray.  It slowly begins a misty rain (the Irish call it a “soft rain”) and I wonder if I should go inside.  I think to myself, “I’m from Milwaukee, Wisconsin; I’m not going anywhere!”

The rain moistens my newly unread newspaper but soon leaves as softly as it arrived.  The people continue to gather, the pigeons do what pigeons do and I’m on the steps of an ancient Episcopal Church with my coffee and a cigarette pondering the meaning of life that I’ve pondered for decades now with little comforting results.

The pondering stops and I think to myself, “Wow.”  Just that.  It reads the same backwards as forward.  I just think, “Wow.”

My priest friend returns after fulfilling his Catholic obligation and told me that the sermon was long and boring.

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Life’s Legacy

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

ImageWe see the fresh snow falling after supper and immediately bundle up and head outdoors.  (Boy, have I changed!)  We purposelessly run around and achieve no achievement except the sheer fun of being a part of this upcoming storm.  It doesn’t matter how much, it only mattered that it was drifting down and we were a part of it.

It isn’t long before we throw ourselves into the white stuff and stretch out our arms and legs.  We made angels.  We opened our mouths to capture a few of the flakes while our creation continued to be created.  The difficult part came in the exodus.  We didn’t plan that far ahead but if our creation is to be then we must someone release ourselves from this newly created imprint.  Slowly we rise to what would be the angel’s stomach and in one quick jump we’ve succeeded in leaving our angel in tacked.  We stare at our new creation for ten seconds until the next attraction attracts us.  It’s still snowing and there’s more time remaining before the adult curfew.

Years pass by and “legacy” becomes our new adult word for that snowed angel.  What imprint will remain when we’re gone?  Will new snow just cover the angel that we’ve painstakingly spent years creating?  Will that new young guy they just hired shovel over our joyful angel?  Or better yet, will he even see the angel that we created?

Was all our stretching for nothing?  The previous generation gave us a hard time for new ideas and the next generation now smiles at us without even knowing our name.

I stretched out many angels in my life and the beauty of any angel is that it is never recognized or acknowledged to me.  The angel is discovered and lived in the least place and person I know.  Someone comes up to me and says, “What you said in a sermon ten years ago has stayed with me since then.”  I have no idea what I said or who she is but I know that my stretching helped to stretch her.  Happy angel making.

books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS, available in paperback or Kindle at Amazon:
“Soulful Musings”
“Living Life’s Mysteries”
“Spiritual Wonderings and Wanderings”
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Jesus says, “Mean Yes When You Say Yes.”

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
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It’s a simple question. What is your answer?

I hate when someone comes up to me and asks, ‘What are you doing today?”  I have to answer, “Nothing.”
“Oh good,” she says.  “Would you clean the toilets?”

“Damn, I think to myself.  Tricked again.”  If only she asked me the second question first, “Would you clean the toilets today?”  Then my answer can quickly become, “Oh, that’s too bad, I’m completely busy today.  Sorry.”

What Jesus ask?.  He asks the first question and none other.  No details or duties.  Jesus says to each of us, “What are you doing today?”

Details and duties, Jesus doesn’t seem concerned about them.  As if he’d say, “They’ll work themselves out.”

Who would say, “Yes” if the questions were life’s second ones?

“Hey how would you like to be a widow and raise your three children alone?”  “Wow, Jesus, really!  I’d love to do that.”  Hardly.

“Hey…
— how would you like to be cancer free for one year only to have it return?
— how would you like to know that your mind is fading away with each passing week and there is nothing anyone can do about it?
— how about having an inoperable tumor and the doctor says, “Let’s just wait and see?”
—how about a stupid car accident leaves your son a paraplegic?

Or simpler but just as complex ones…
“Hey…
— how about carrying a big chip on your shoulder that weighs you down daily?
— how being stuck in a job that you hate but having children to feed and clothe?
— how about finding something wrong with everything because you’re right about everything?
— how about being bored at 80 years old as much as a 12 year old is on a rainy Saturday afternoon?

If Jesus asked us the second question first, how many of us would say, “Hey, great, bring it on!”  Instead Jesus only asks us the first question first, “What are you doing today?”

You know, this “yes” and “no” stuff of Jesus doesn’t make any sense.  It doesn’t matter in life whether we say “yes” or “no” to Jesus because stuff will happen to us either way.  You’ll still have that cancer or you’ll still have that shoulder’s chip.

But saying “yes” to Jesus begins a partnership.  A true value, as the Alexian Brothers tell us, partnership is a mutual and beneficial exchange and experience between two people.  

We tend to think of God as the “Big Guy Up There” and we’re His tiny puppets puppetting through life.  Yet as God’s creation, as God’s creatures we are hardly puppets attached to a heavenly string.  St. Paul calls us “ambassadors” for surely we are that in making God known and present in our world.  That’s our part of the partnership.

God fulfills His part of the partnership by providing us with every possible gift (religious word) or tool (earthly word) that we need to make it through this life:
mercy…kindness…forgiveness…patience…an extra cheek when the first one was smacked… left eye because we  plucked the right one…
and most importantly the grace (religious word) for the strength and stamina (earthly words) to answer Jesus’ first and only question to us, “What are you doing today?”

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A String’s Strength

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
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“I’ve got the world on a string, sitting on a rainbow…”

“I’ve Got the World On A String” was a popular song declaring satisfaction, ease and comfort during a time of its opposites.  The reeling depression years prompts Harold Arlen’s 1932 song of supposed victory and newly found strength.  He cleverly uses as an image not a rock or mountain or religion’s certitude but what, a string.

The flimsiest of substances, a string can be broken by a single lit match, a quick tear or a tangling that causes many of the string parts to become enmeshed.  Confidence based on a string.  “Wow, is that future secure or what?” we say to ourselves.  As the song goes, the string is even “around my finger.”  “That’s supposed to make me feel better?  The string holding your security is tied around your finger?” we say to ourselves once again.  I guess leaving the Depression Years meant everyone is alone making due on his/her own.

Due.  What a great word.  What is “due” me?  We use the word “entitlement” these days to describe everyone receiving something that we’re not while we’re receiving all sorts of our own societal entitlements.  There is always the “dew” that falls from heaven and then there is the “due” that is horizontally shifted to us.  What is “due” us?  Our Christian faith says rightly absolutely nothing.  Arlen was correct by using a string as an imaginary personal strength.

Employees these days feel as secure as a piece of string.  Older adults live on a string, everyday.  If you’re in you’re 90’s, you may even feel that string getting caught up sometimes in itself but you continue to move the world, or least your world, with the your string.

“What a world,” continues the lyrics, “what a life, I’m in love.”  A string separates us from one element to another; be it our due or our death.  A string.  The weakest of images but its best to keep us stringing along in this world that we feel owes us its due; or better yet its dew.

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Frank Almond’s Stolen Violin

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
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Stolen but not forgotten

Gilda Radner said it best, “What’s all this I hear about violins?  What’s the big deal?”

It was a big deal in Milwaukee when first stringer Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Frank Almond lost a borrowed $5 mil. string leaving a concert.  Two days later the culprits were found, one named Universal Knowledge Allah (you couldn’t make this stuff up as hard as you may try.)  He’s 36 so he should know better but he’s also Universal Knowledge so one would think a little bit of the universal might have filtered into his knowledge.  “Allah?”  It’s like Smith to Christians.

Frank’s Stradivarius was on loan to him so Frank was able to take it where ever he wanted to go – a concert here, Starbucks for a quick latte, Dairy Queen because the wife wanted ice cream, Pick ‘N Save for a gallon of milk.  How many places can one visit carrying $5 mil of something?  (And I worry about my nice wrist watch?)

Frank was Tasered which left him stunned by more than the loss of $5 mil.  The day the news hit about the theft everyone at work was convinced the violin was out of the country the same night.  There was no question about it.  (Too much “TV drama” for that bunch?)

What my fellow employees didn’t realize was that it was a hostage situation.  Universal and Salah (the other guy) would have held up the violin on a YouTube video for Frank to see and then cry about waiting for the financial release figure.  (What do you feed a Stradivarious while in captivity?  “We’ll kill your family as well!”  Although the Stradivarius family is dwindling in numbers.)

The police rounded the “usual suspects” (who originally said that line?  Say the man’s name in the comment box) and found it on a south side home in an attic suitcase, still breathing $5 mil.  The violin had no apparent wounds but apparently was badly shaken by the ordeal.

“Gilda,” says the news anchor, “it’s violence, not violin.”  Gilda looks at the camera with her great, confused face and says, “never mind.”

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“Why?”

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
The least but always first question

The least but always first question

It’s the perfect question to answer with no further questions needed.  It is the one that needs no defense nor can it be argued or dismissed. Full proof or fool proof?  It is totally of our own making which makes it solely lacking (or soul lacking?).  A sole question from the one asking the question that has no answer.  What could this question be?  It’s only three letters followed by the sentence that your circumstance created and now needs an explanation.  It is “Why?”

“Ohhhh, I love it.  Now we can happily ramble on with countless and unsubstantiated statements that support and attempt to answer our “Why” question.  There is no defense for our “Why” answers if asked “Why” by others because we’ve provided all the information that they need to piece our “Why” explanation together.  It was because of “this or that” (fill in the blanks) that completes our sunny yet sordid explanation.

And the strange part is that we accept our explanations with no further thought or reflection.  If we have good and hearty friends then they will see through our shallow “Why” and probe a little deeper until they hit a dead end because we are so convinced of our “Why” explanation.  We blind ourselves to our “Why” and seem surprised that good folks surrounding us just don’t seem to buy it.

A good news reporter will ask the five questions that we all know.  Guess where “why” is?  That’s right.  Number 5.  The least answerable.  “Law and Order” lasted this long on television because the “Who” is always first with the “Why” unraveling in the last two minutes.

But in our personal lives it is usually the “Why”  that comes first and conveniently stays there because we find it so difficult to answer the first “W,” “Who.”  “Who are you?”  Occupation is the first response followed by who your parents are until you’re out of breath and out of filler words.  The bottom lines finally bottoms out and you’re let with the simplest and most complicated question someone could ever ask you, “Who are you?”

A common path is to identify ourselves in relation to others.  We respond to the question thinking of how others perceive or how we think they perceive us.  Tricky stuff because both observations may be entirely wrong.

“Who are you? In one sentence.”

The “Why” can never be unfolded and understood until the “Who” is revealed.

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The Gratitude Reminder

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.

A gentle reminder for us all.

Aun Sukijjakhamin's avatarAunearthed

The first full work week of 2014 was full on. It is never easy getting back to your work routine especially after you had such a relaxing break. My body did not adjust too well to this change of pace either. I ended up having headaches and was lacking in energy on and off all week. This condition carried through until yesterday where we had a day trip to the Blue Mountains. Our exciting plan to do some bush walk turned into nothing more than a leisurely stroll. I went to bed last night feeling frustrated with my body and was unsure whether it would ‘hold up’ enough for me to join a picnic at Rose Bay earlier today.

When I woke up this morning, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the headache is gone and the energy is back. Once we arrived at Rose Bay and the majority…

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The Power of Grace

Posted on February 9, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
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Gracefully graced each day of our lives.

She gracefully entered the room and graced us with her presence as she said Grace by saying that we are “full of grace.”
How many words can act as a proper noun, adverb, verb and noun?  I can’t think of any other.  Perhaps that’s what makes “grace” so flexible and fluid.  You never know in your life which way grace will act or show herself.  One of the most important religious words because of its power and influence in our lives is grace.  It is also a great American word because we get something for nothing!  (Is there anything more American?  “Wow, you mean I get a free tote bag just for stopping by your booth?  How many pens can I take with me?”)

Be that as it may, one day we just feel in a rut.  You love your job but it’s just one of those fleeting feelings that seems to overwhelm you.  Well, grace the verb is just what you need.  Call it a spiritual vitamin that enriches and renews the job that you love.  That same day you may notice something new about someone or your routine will be broken and a new challenge awaits you.

You feel competent and confident.  You’ve got life’s things pretty well figured out when along comes grace the proper noun in the person of someone who enlightens and inspires you.  (You didn’t know that was possible any longer but it happened to you and you welcome the new insights.)

A task quickly becomes a chore for you.  You’re not sure which direction to pursue to complete your project on time.  The deadline is heading toward you and you’re not ready until grace the adverb offers a quick suggestion that loosens your anxiety and turns it into creative energy.  You find that you’ve finished the project ahead of schedule.

40 years of your life passes or even 60 and that crazy transition time rattles your head and releases new questions that now baffle you.  Never asked before, you wonder where these questions come from that now fill your quiet time.  In just the nick of time you forget about the pondering questions and just sit in this in between time that we all experience at different times in our development.  Slowly by emptying ourselves of unanswered questions, we find ourselves getting filled up with new revelations, a new twist to an old way of thinking, a different perspective solving an old problem and a renewed sense of what’s important to you in life and what is just silly thoughts.  For this you can thank the giver of grace, God.  I think God loves personal development and an evolution to become even more fully the person that God created.

Flexible and fluid – grace – in whatever part of speech you may need it.

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Obsessed In Wisconsin

Posted on February 8, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Even named a trophy after him

Even named a trophy after him

Shopping Freedom
Twenty special days throughout the long year are ideal for shoppers who like to browse uninterrupted and without the crowds. Whether it’s clothing or grocery, the ease of shopping is made easier at least twenty times a year.  Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee’s main downtown street, can conveniently be used for bowling, if you wish to keep your swing fresh. The younger crowd can skateboard. There is no worry about traffic or even pedestrians for that matter. A rolling bush down the main drag would make for a great western movie opening.  Who would provide for such tranquility for these days? Who would think of assisting others in such a serene way?

The Vengeful God
Our God, Vince, has donated these twenty precious days to Wisconsin folks. Our God, Vince, is lessor known than the other God, except on those given days. On those days our God, Vince, seeks to destroy the enemy making the Old Testament God look like a wimp. Our God, Vince, takes no prisoners and exhibits no mercy. His followers were taught that success is only found in total annihilation.
Perhaps that is why those who adore him empty city streets and malls during those precious four hours on Sundays. The taverns and homes occupied by these cult followers are intently quiet for some duration only to loudly roar during the times when an unusually shaped object is either thrown or given to a fellow disciple.  Many of the people observing this action are at least two times larger than the other God intended them to be but what else can happen to one’s body during twenty devotional days of doing nothing.

Generations of Salvation
Unlike the other God, our God, Vince, has had many incarnate sons over the years. First, there was Bart who proved to be almost as great as his Creator so he needed to be reduced to a car salesman in some southern state.  Then there was a Zeke and a Scott, a Lynn, a David, a Randy and a Don, a Brett.
Oh, wait! Brett was favored as much as the car salesmen. Revered from every Wisconsinite’s mouth for years. No ill was ever linked with this especially gifted son of the Creator. Until, until the son decided to take half his inheritance and retire and then not retire and then retire and then not retire. Disdain entered those same mouths as quickly as the first snow falls before Thanksgiving.  After
becoming ignored and forgotten, our God, Vince, turned to the ignored and forgotten Aaron who turned out to be better than both the car salesmen and the retiring, retired guy. Salvation is ours once again in Wisconsin. The faithful, remaining son remains.

Obsessed
What word is stronger than “obsession” to describe those who isolate themselves in taverns (now called “Sports Bars”) and living rooms with televisions the size of their beds? “Consuming passion” would be a positive expression, can’t use that one. “Addiction” is overused so let’s just stick with obsession.
Those of us who have a life are truly grateful for these shopping and eating days. These days are not a lot over the course of a year’s time but during these times great comfort is found in knowing that the obsessed are all safely in one place.

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Friday Night TV, 1966

Posted on February 8, 2014 by Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
6:30-10:00 p.m.

6:30-10:00 p.m.

Friday nights over forty years ago is as crystal clear as if it were today. Piano

lessons right after school with the nuns. Many bruised knuckles, but I guessed I deserved them. I had to walk downtown for the lessons. My grandmother lived only two blocks away.

The evening was saved by watching color television with her. (The first that I had ever seen.) It was a real treat. A sandwich to eat and a Friday night of television to devour.

6:30 was “Wild, Wild West,” the theme music still haunts me. 7:30 was “Hogan’s Heroes,” just fun. 8:00 was “Gomer Pyle,” still haven’t matched his acting voice with his singing voice. 8:30 was “Mr. Roberts,” this was a thirty minute break for me; don’t know why I didn’t care for that show. The highlight of the evening was last, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” an engaging drama that I’m sure I’d now laugh at compared to today’s programs.

Then I would make the long walk back home.

Silly? Yes. Enduring? Absolutely. My grandmother? Accommodating with her color television.

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