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November 25th, 2022

11/25/2022

This weekend we celebrate the First Sunday of Advent...the beginning of the church’s liturgical year... so Happy New Year!

Advent is truly a “wonder-filled” season. We look to the dark, deep blue night sky...shimmering with a million stars, each one a reminder of the dawn of creation...a reminder of the promise of the long awaited savior.

There is something about staring up at the night sky... something awe inspiring and spiritual in nature; it calls us to look beyond ourselves. Advent is a time to “make time”...in the midst of all the commercialism, in the midst of all of chaos that we call “the holiday rush”, we are called to slow down, to stand back and to reflect...to take time to allow the wonder of the Great Christmas Event to settle into our souls...to shake us loose from the ordinariness of our daily lives and allow ourselves to be wrapped up in the awe and wonder of the Incarnation...the fact that our God so deeply loves us and that God’s very self became human to prove that love to us. That love is for you... just as you are!

This amazing love is for all of God’s creation, for all peoples and for the earth itself! This Advent we find
ourselves in the midst of growing humanitarian crises as our sisters and brothers flee war and terror, not only in Ukraine but other places such as Northern Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Myanmar -- they wander the earth in search of a home. And here in our own country many immigrants, people of color, women, Jews, Muslims, people of the LGBTQ community and refugees are fearful of being targets of hate crimes.

As we reflect on the wonder and awe of God’s amazing love for the earth and for all humanity let us raise our voices and act in ways to make sure that all of our sisters and brothers feel respected and safe. Let us not allow this national moral crisis to paralyze us and convince us we can do nothing, for in Christ we can do all things.

What can I do this Advent to help those feeling particularly vulnerable and fearful? How can I reach out to build bridges across the chasm of those who seek an inclusive and kind society and those who seek to exclude and demean “the other”? Let us “prepare the way of the Lord” through prayer and action!

Advent Blessings,
Fr. Tim

November 20, 2022

11/18/2022

As our scriptures speak to the end times it can be scary or cause us to be fearful, but that is not the goal of the readings. The goal is always to point to God being in power, even when we cannot see it or understand how He is guiding the world.

Given the current state of our national politics as well as the state of politics around the globe we may be filled with anxiety and fear, not sure what to do or where to turn. It seems like the far-right factions are gaining power in an ever-growing number of countries around the world. Our sisters and brothers of color, Muslims, immigrants, refuges and women and many others all feel vulnerable and at risk in this environment of racist, misogynistic and bigoted violence and rhetoric aimed at holding them down and keeping them from advancing in society.

In so many neighborhoods across this country people feel they are no longer safe to simply walk down the street or take public transport. We are called by our discipleship to stand with them and make sure that all those who feel vulnerable and threatened know that they are safe with us and that we stand with them.

We are called to reach out to and to raise up all those who feel threatened. It is our Baptismal call. Just as Jesus went to the margins, so too we must guard the most vulnerable in every way we can. We need to make known our stance and we need to do so bravely and peaceably. Whether we do this through public protest, through advocacy, through legal actions, through prayer or through personal reaching out to those who are being targeted, we must, each one of us, find ways to stand up and against all forms of racism, bigotry, xenophobia and misogyny.

Today we celebrate Jesus Christ as the Sovereign of the Universe. So let us not despair, let us recall that regardless of how corrupt the world might look, how many nations are at war or threatening war, Christ is at work in the world...and that Christ works in and through US! Let us take his earthly life as the model for our lives and follow his command to build up the Reign of God by loving and protecting all of our sisters and brothers as well as the earth itself!

Filled with the Holy Spirit what concrete action can I take this week to show my support for all those who are feeling fearful and vulnerable? What movement or organization can I join with to fight against racism, bigotry, misogyny and xenophobia? How will I live my discipleship of Jesus Christ this week?

Blessings,
Fr. Tim

November 6, 2022

11/4/2022

Have you ever noticed how in the Gospels Jesus seeks Happy 75th Anniversary of the Dedication of Our Lady Queen of Peace Church?! “For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes.”

I chose this quote from Dag Hammarskjold to be on the memory card from my religious profession and later on for my ordination memory card. I chose it because I believe it speaks of a profound gratitude to God and of a stance of openness towards God and towards whatever lies ahead in life and in death. And I think it is appropriate for today as we celebrate this anniversary and as we have just celebrated All Saint’s Day and All Soul’s Day.

November is traditionally a time in which we remember the dead. In some cultures people set up little home altars on which they place photos and mementos of their loved ones who have died and gone ahead of them to that which we call the afterlife, heaven.

We do not know exactly what lies ahead but yet we are part of it, promised resurrection through our baptism. As we careen towards the end of the liturgical year and towards the season of Advent, our readings turn toward “the last things”.
This is not meant to frighten us or cause us to be gloomy or sad; on the contrary, it is meant to offer us an opportunity to reflect on the transitory reality of this life in the context of the gift and the promise of eternal life. While none of us really knows exactly what it will be like, and the speculation has made for good reading over the centuries, some theologians today talk of it as something analogous to a glorious and knowable uniting, a joining with God in a new and spectacular way, beyond our wildest hopes and dreams! Heaven!

Down through history this belief in the resurrection has motivated many people to stand up and resist oppression and evil, not unlike what we heard in the first reading for this Sunday about the torture of the mother and the seven brothers.

And it is not unlike “what we have seen and what we have heard” in the lives of our Black sisters and brothers who during their nightmare of slavery clung to their faith in the God of their deliverance who would bring them home. And not unlike all of our Black sisters and brothers who lived through the hell of systemic racism, of post construction after the civil war and into the civil rights movement and right up to this very day where systemic racism still represses, holds down and steals the lives of our black and brown sisters and brothers.

And this systemic racism was the cause for a small group of 16 Black Catholics to band together in 1945 and ask Bishop Ireton to help them build a Black Catholic parish community in Arlington.

And Bishop Ireton reached out to the Spiritans and asked them if they would be willing to send a priest to be the pastor of this new parish in the midst of creation. And the Spiritans sent Fr. Joe Hackett, C.S.Sp., who the bishop appointed to became the first pastor. And that Black Catholic community gathered, in the home of one of the founding members, on Pentecost Sunday, May 20th, 1945 for the first Mass of Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish, but it was not until June 15, of 1947 that this Church building was completed and dedicated by Bishop Ireton.

And in that dedication was the celebration of the amazing labor of love and backbreaking hard work of those earliest Black Catholic members of this parish community, who built this church building in which we gather and celebrate each Sunday. They labored to create a safe and dignified worship space where they could gather and pray and celebrate the sacraments in dignity and without fear of acts of racist exclusion or segregation, or worse.

And as we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the dedication of this church building we also thankfully celebrate the lives and faith of those earliest members of our parish community here at Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church.

The readings today call us to ask ourselves what do I believe about heaven and the afterlife and do I fear death or dying? And, if I built a little home altar this November honoring my ancestors, whose photos and mementos would I place on it?

And given the current events of our times, our discipleship of Jesus Christ calls us to ask ourselves, in what ways can I stand up to the sin of systemic racism that was behind the need to found this very church in the first place.

Faced with the racism, bigotry and misogyny that beats down, holds back, and erases, and looks past our sisters and our brothers of color and seeks to deny them the dignity God has given them, we have to ask ourselves what action does my discipleship call me to in this day and in this place?

Amen!

Blessings, Fr Tim

November 25th, 2022

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