June 30, 2008

In the gospel reading for today's liturgy, we read that Jesus wants to cross over a body of water to get away from the crowd.

He gives us two thoughts: no place to rest his head and leave the dead for others to bury. What meaning is there for us in his teaching?

First, let's consider why he wants to leave the crowd. The impact of the crowd deprives him of needed quiet time. What is the crowd in my life? Always being busy? Letting people or things distract me?

Now to the thoughts. Both suggest a freedom from something or someones. But suggest we consider what distractions challenge our spiritual life, some time for prayer. Having no place to rest his head ultimately suggests freedom from material worries that might impact our lives. Not dealing with the dead could easily suggest that we need to be free of what no longer offers us life.

The reading forces us to ask: Do we truly understand the significance of our spiritual journey, a bit of traveling that we should embark on each day? If I cannot be free of things and persons that are not good for me nor that which no longer gives me life, do I really understand the spiritual life that God has called me to follow?

Can I write down in just a simple sentence what I believe God wants me to do? Read that sentence several times and then ask, "Am I willing to live that life?"

NEW ADDRESS

Hello, again. Moving has been less than enjoyable, as you can imagine. However, each day I find items that escaped my memory.

The new name for the blog site is Prayer on the Hill. The address for the blog site is as follows:

http://prayeronthehill.blogspot.com/.

It is my intention to close down the DC OLV HAPPENINGS within a week. So, a word to the wise ....

St. Joseph's on Capitol Hill

313 Second Street, NE

Washington, DC 20002

202-547-1223

www.st-josephs.org

Raymond Honda: Change in Funeral Arrangements

Raymond died sometime Friday evening, June 6th. His body was not discovered until Sunday afternoon. During the terrible heat of that weekend, Ray's body lie on the floor. The consequence of this was significant decomposition of his body.

After discussion with the family, it was decided that there will not be a wake on Friday evening, as mentioned at the recent weekend Masses. His body will be transferred to New Jersey for burial with his wife, his parents and two predeceased brothers.

THE FUNERAL MASS WILL BE, AS ANNOUNCED, AT 10:00 AM on Saturday morning at our parish church, Our Lady of Victory Church, 4835 MacArthur Blvd., NW, DC, 20007, which truly was this man's home.

RIP: Raymond Honda

This is a difficult announcement to make to you.

One of the genuine pillars of our Lady of Victory Parish has died.

Ray Honda was found dead in his apartment on Sunday evening. Apparently he had died earlier during his sleep.

More information will be made public as soon as Ray's family has time to absorb the surprise information. He had not shared with him that he had had a recent angioplasty or that the had not felt well for the last two months.

All of us who work at the parish know how many different ways Ray Honda worked for all of us in the parish. The parish and the Knights of Columbus were his life. The parish and the Knights were his love.

Let us remember Ray in our prayers. I know it will seem unusual not seeing him taking care of the ushers, making the weekly Mass count, hearing him say "Places" to get everyone ready for the procession into the church at the beginning of each Mass.

Here is the big surprise: Ray Honda was 79 years old! Who would have guessed that!

Here's a significant reflection: Imagine how many people's lives Ray Honda has touched in his life here at OLV. Can one candle light the world? Well, we know this: one man surely lit up a parish with his love and devotion.

God, we entrust to you our beloved brother, Raymond. He was a man who believed in his baptismal promises to follow your Son, Jesus, as he lived his life --- service to your people. We can only imagine what a wonderful reunion there must have been for Ray and his beloved wife.
He truly was our brother ... he cared for us. We are confident he is with you. Thank you for the gift of his life in the life of our parish. Eternal rest grant unto him, Lord.

Suspending My Campaing!!!

To adopt a few words from the contemporary scene, I am notifying you, faithful reader, that I will be suspending the posting of reflections until the week of June 23rd! At the present time, wrapping up affairs at Our Lady of Victory parish and moving my belongings to St. Joseph's Parish and a few days away for vacation, I will not be publishing.

Effective the 25th of June, I will be serving the Church in Washington DC just a few blocks from the Capitol building as a Senior Priest at St. Joseph's Parish. I will resume the reflections ... with a new title that is yet to be determined ... but not until you have been notified of the new title. So, the recent birthday picture serves a good purpose with the change of name and assignment.

Enjoy the respite. I look forward to the return with you.

Fr. Milt Jordan

Reflection: June 6, 2008

Testing has always been a part of every person’s life: not only in the qualitative or quantitative aspects of life. Our faith is often tested by our culture ... and, I suspect, that has always been God’s plan for humanity. Today’s gospel event recounts that even Jesus was tested and also tested others. More often than not the test was about the content of his preaching, his teaching his followers about the Father’s will. He was always speaking out, always promoting the kingdom of God which was not the same as the Roman Empire. He was not afraid to teach his faith, as we might say.

In just three short verses, Jesus not only plays the role of the Scribes themselves. He does it with a sense of humor. He seeks to understand how they, the Scribes, interpret how an ancestor of King David could be David’s lord. How could a relative of David, the great king, rule over David?

The crowd was delighted to see the Scribes defeated at their own game. The followers of Jesus had come to see that the kingdom of God was not at all like the kingdom of Caesar. They realized that the rejected stone would become the cornerstone. The one to be crucified as a criminal is to be our salvation.

Our defending our faith, when we are called up to do so, is not different. That is the challenge of our baptism.

Yesterday’s entrance into silence and solitude were presented for prayerful consideration because the usual summer schedule usual lends itself to some relaxed time. As for Jesus and ourselves, the journey into silence can be frightening because we know we have to surrender control for a short time. Prayer in silence is a challenge because we have to acknowledge that God is the initiator in the spiritual life. His is the invitation to sit quietly, waiting and listening.

Isn’t there a genuine fear that we are not suitable, not fit for God that underlies some of the challenge of silently waiting to "hear" God in prayer? Don’t we back away because for whatever reason we are afraid God might not become involved with us? Perhaps, for some, there is a genuine lack of trust in God. What I desire might not become a reality. When we can come before God with trust, we are springing from the diving board. We allow ourselves a true free fall. When we trust, God will be with us in silence and solitude. We will there find the experience of genuine intimacy.

In those moments of intimacy with God, we stand before the true object of all our desires. And, as well, we stand in total vulnerability. We are willing to allow God the right to direct us where he wants to lead us. Here we encounter the greatest challenge of prayer and the spiritual life. It is as if we spring from the diving board and remain in suspended animation, as if we are like a kicked football with an extraordinary amount "hang time." The fears we might have, the demons that surface in our hearts and minds, accomplish a remarkable transformative power. Seeing these fears which can overcome us, also can assure us that we are soon to discover, as never before, something truer or stronger than our fears: the yearning in our hearts for genuine intimacy with God.

Monday Reflection: June 2, 2008

Today's readings are an opportunity to consider the value of virtue that we can add to our faith. The selection from the Second Letter of St. Peter specifically instructs the hearers and readers "to supplement your faith with virtue."

One way we can supplement our faith is to work at seriously become more familiar with silence, especially the silence that comes through prayer and solitude.

When Jesus went off into the wilderness -- those days of prayer -- he found himself confronting the demons that tried to distract him with temptations. For most of us there is something about our world that blocks our efforts to feel comfortable with silence. There is a very human reaction to silence. Perhaps it may be likened to the person on the diving board for the first time --- even if the board is only a few feet above the water's surface. That first dive is long in coming because there is an fear that one spring off the board and control is lost. The moments of the small, preparatory jumps that do not result in the final springing into the air and falling into water are much like the hesitation that challenge one's experiences at the doorway to silence.

When life is busy, most often the encounter with silence "involves slamming to a screeching halt" (Ruth Haley Barton, Invitation to Solitude and Silence). So many concerns of daily work and living weigh down on us. This burden of what you cannot touch becomes so real as we think about entering into prayerful quiet. Modern humanity it seems is so afraid of solitude. We know that we are going to encounter our own demons from the past there. So often fears spring up trying to keep us from crossing the silence threshold.

More is to come about the fears or challenges of entering solitude. Enough for today. Suffice it to give thought to this: adding virtue to our faith needs an openness to God and his voice that will become audible to us in the quiet when we surrender control of our lives.

Sunday Reflection: June 1, 2008

Words from Deuteronomy used in today's first reading:

"... take these words of mine into your heart and soul.... I sent before you here,m this day, a blessing and a curse: a blessing for obeying the commandments of the Lord, your God .... a curse if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord, your God."

We read so much. We hear so much. Today our minds often are set upon multi-tasking that consideration of how we live our lives is often impossible. How often do you feel drawn to prayer only to realize that even getting a dinner is only a sandwich experience.

Last weekend we initiated the beginning of "summer". Memorial Day, remembering great personal sacrifices of dedicated armed forces, was always the first bookend of a collection of picnics, vacations and more relaxed times.

Perhaps these upcoming days are much more than a vacation time. Perhaps these next three months are a God-given experience for us to reflect on our own faith journeys. Summer freedom is often a time to become a wiser person who builds a house on solid rock.

During his recent visit to the USA, Pope Benedict called upon the American Bishops to make certain that prayer is a mainstay of their usually busy life. He reminded them how much their lives had to be built upon the solid rock of prayer. Our lives, also, need the reinforcement of prayer in our daily life.

As a priest, my life is challenges every day. I cannot image how challenged the life of married couples, especially with children is. And this is not to say that the single life is a bowl of cherries or a roof top place of easy living. We are, all of us forced to encounter rains, floods and winds that seem to overwhelm us.

So, sometime in spiritual reading and prayer -- even a daily Mass when possible -- all make for the building and strengthening of our faith, our relationship with God. Have you thought about how you can use the upcoming summer months to become a person of prayer?

Friday Reflection: Sacred Heart of Jesus 5 30 08

Today in our Church we celebrate the gift of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is a solemn feast for us. Whence did this feast become a facet of our devotions? Surely most know about Sr. Margaret Mary Alacoque and relate her to this feast. However, this seventeenth century mystic is a second comer to the devotion. Four centuries earlier Saint Gertrude also brought the devotion to the public. The characteristic of St. Gertrude's piety is her devotion to the Sacred Heart, the symbol of that immense charity which urged the Word to take flesh, to institute the Holy Eucharist, to take on Himself our sins, and, dying on the Cross, to offer Himself as a victim and a sacrifice to the Eternal Father (Congregation of Rites, 3 April, 1825).

The devotion to the Sacred Heart seems to make some Catholics uncomfortable. Pictures of a heart, often surrounded by a corona of thorns bring about reactions. And here is an interesting thought for you today: as a priest, this blogger wonders why such symbolic pictures and devotions create upsetness. During the last year I was asked to officiate at several weddings. I was genuinely surprised that there were no reactions to "sights" that I encountered as many bride's maids or matrons came down the aisle almost flaunting their breasts. It was almost a show of mammary nudity. I recall one young "usher" about twelve years old, standing there, open-mouthed staring at one particular woman whose dress -- or the lack of it -- was showing entirely too much of "God's leather to the weather," as a Jesuit friend used to say in such circumstances. Yet, yet. No one said a word of uncomfortableness. Even when I ask older women at the reception if they had seen the "sights" and, if they did, what there reaction was. In every response, "Oh, that's the way they dress now." Sorry, hardly a suitable answer.

The feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a devotional practice -- probably for very few -- that

can bring us closer to an understanding of the incredible love Jesus has given us in his own suffering. The following are two parts of a lengthier prayer to the Sacred Heart.

Divine Jesus, You have said, "Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you." Behold me kneeling at Your feet, filled with a lively faith and confidence in the promises dictated by Your Sacred Heart to Saint Margaret Mary. I come to ask this favor: Mention your request).....Sacred Heart, whatever may be Your decision with regard to my request, I will never stop adoring, loving, praising, and serving You. My Jesus, be pleased to accept this my act of perfect resignation to the decrees of Your adorable Heart, which I sincerely desire may be fulfilled in and by me and all Your creatures forever.