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The 20th century composer Arnold Schoenberg wrote a beautiful piece entitled Verkärte Nacht—“The Transfigured Night.” Originally it was a chamber piece for string sextet, later expanded to be played by a full string orchestra. I know you don’t care, but my recordings of these pieces are by the Juilliard String Quartet and Friends, and by the Chicago Symphony with Daniel Barenboim.

I hope and pray that the day after most of you see this essay, I’ll be “under the knife” (finally!) for the repair of a hernia. This surgery has been postponed since the end of January, as (again) most of you know. It’s not life-threatening (I’m not having a heart valve replaced), but it is necessary. I’ll take a couple of days to recoup, and after that, I expect to be back at full strength.

Married or not, the answer is not in our state of life but in the state of our adherence to Christ.

Pretty well everyone knows that “Mardi Gras” is French for “Fat Tuesday.” But this year is different (and hopefully will be the only year so marked). So I’m thinking we should call this coming Tuesday the title of this essay: “Thin Tuesday.” And honestly, I don’t think that’s such a bad idea, after all.

There are two Greek words that are of importance this weekend (even though only one features in the Scriptures for Mass): dynamis and exousia: “power” and “authority.” The latter word has special meaning in this weekend’s Gospel excerpt. We need to see their inter-relationship.

This Monday is marked by the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul. It also marks (among other things; more later on that) the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. There is a definite connection here—let’s explore it.

We have moved from the celebrational seasons of Advent and Christmas to “Ordinary Time.”  This is what the official description says about it:            Besides the times of the year that have their own distinctive character...

Today’s Feast is a joy-filled one, and a very gentle and peace-filled one (to those who don’t know “the rest of the story” at this point).  It’s especially beautiful when one learns that Epiphany once marked THREE events:  the Magi, the Baptism, and the Wedding at Cana...

The word “epiphany” is a virtual transliteration from the Greek word for “revelation” or “manifestation.”  It’s not an accident that our Liturgy celebrates 3 such events in succession (and once upon a time, all on the same day):  the visit of the Magi, the Baptism, and the Wedding at Cana...

The earliest images I have had of the Holy Family came from prayer cards that were (shall we say?) idealized:  Joseph gently rocking a plane over a board, Mary sitting and knitting, Jesus playing with the wood curls Joseph was creating.  One detail still stands out in my memory—not a one of them was breaking a sweat.  Somehow, I think there’s a disconnect between that image and the lived reality.  Even Norm Abrams breaks a sweat, and he has a table saw and powered lathe…

This marks the end of 4 Sundays of Advent—we end with the promise of a Savior announced by Archangel Gabriel to Mary, foreshadowed by Nathan’s word from God to David that his descendant would indeed build a “house.”  It is put into context by St Paul who begins and ends his Letter to the Romans with advocating the “obedience of faith”—living the life, not just talking about it.  We are led to recognize in the child of Mary a Savior to whom we should attach ourselves.  There’s nothing left for Advent to do, right?  Wrong…

I’m offering some reflections again from Pope Francis, in part because they resonated with my homily of a couple of weeks ago, using Fr Joseph Tetlow, SJ, as my jumping off point.  The Pope’s comments come from his “Message for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.”

The exercise in analysis that has been the last 7 bulletin essays was based on my conviction that Pope Francis has something important to say, that he says it in ways (and in length) that puts off most folks, and that my job is to be a presenter/interpreter of his thinking. 

I’m jumping to the end of the encyclical because I’m sure everyone is tired of me, IF you’ve been keeping up!  But there is much that is the core, at the end, to which the document has been building up. It has to do with legitimate conflict and forgiveness.

What is Pope Francis’ dream for our world?  It is a world engaged in and committed to “dialogue,” which means (for him) “Approaching, speaking, listening, looking at, coming to know and understand one another, and to find common ground” (#198).  Is this dream utopian, idyllic, Edenic, impossible?  If we think so, why?

Pope Francis longs for what he calls a “better kind of politics” (##146ff), one that can be responsive to the vision of a global community of fraternity based on social friendship (#154).  Do we need this?  One glance at the divisive results of our current politics makes the answer easy, the implementation very difficult.  It is a vision that wants to unify people into a genuine people, looking to long-term advantages rather than short-term benefits.  He thinks that unjust inequality can only be overcome and sustained by proper economic growth, the key to which is employment; “welfare projects” should always be temporary responses to crises (##161-162).  It’s a straightforward statement he makes: “…there is no poverty worse than that which takes away work and the dignity of work” (#162).  Pope St John Paul II would have heartily agreed.

Pope Francis next tackles an issue that is traditional in Catholic teaching (from the era of the “Church Fathers,” in fact) but which is controversial, to say the least, today.  It is the principle of the common use of created goods, the “first principle of the whole ethical and social order” (## 119-120).    Just in case you were wondering, the quote actually comes from Pope St John Paul II, in his encyclical Laborem Exercens.  The Catholic Compendium on Social Doctrine calls this “a natural and inherent right that takes priority over others.”  What’s the fancy theological word for this principle?  Sharing.   It is an explicit rejection of the sort of economic philosophy that says business is all (and only) about increasing shareholders’ profits, at whatever cost.

As you could see from the quote I used at the end of my last essay, the following is a meditation on the reality and practical applications of love.  Here, Pope Francis is following the lead of Pope St John Paul II, especially in the latter’s encyclical Laborem Exercens.  There John Paul wrote that there are only two kinds of human activity that require us to transcend ourselves even to the point of creating (or procreating) something other than ourselves—love and work.  Both involve production (or reproduction) that yields something unique and special.  And so Francis insists, “Our relationships, if healthy and authentic, open us to others who expand and enrich us. …we find that our hearts expand as we step out of ourselves and embrace others” (#89).  One important way of doing this, he suggests, is engaging in acts of hospitality, both as individuals and as nations.  Once again, this requires us to recognize the inherent dignity of the other as a person (or a group as a people).  Failure in authentic hospitality, he says, produces “existential foreigners,” including persons with disabilities, the elderly, and so on (##97-98). 

Chapter Two of the encyclical is titled “A Stranger On The Road.”  It comprises paragraphs 56-86.  I am suggesting that the rest of the document is an unpacking of the implications of this chapter, a meditation on the parable of the Good Samaritan.

This is a long encyclical letter; it’s why I’d like to summarize it for you and pull some important quotes for your consideration.  But first, I want to make a couple of clarifications.