I don’t mean to offend anyone, I’m just reporting the research. But it appears that they have proven this scientifically. They asked ordinary people just to take a look at a series of people who walked into a room and then left again, saying nothing, all dressed pretty much the same, and just looking at the people who came in, these ordinary people were asked to estimate the annual income of the people they had just seen. And I guess you could have predicted this, the short people were estimated to earn on average $30,000 less per year than the people who were taller. And not only has this turned…
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You have probably heard the story about the man who decided he wanted a parrot, so he went and found one on the internet, drove off and brought him home. But it turned out to be a horrible parrot, it was dirty, pecked its cage to pieces, destroyed furniture in the apartment, and worst of all, yes, it could talk, but all it said were the most horrible profanities, and when the owner had company over, it was even worse, shrieking the most awful things you’ve ever heard. And one night after an episode like that, the man grabbed the parrot off its perch, opened the freezer, shoved the parrot…
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You would have to excuse the rich man who just walked away from Jesus in today’s gospel if the lesson that he really took away from this encounter was not “Sell what you have and follow me” but “If you don’t want to know, don’t ask.” The young man is asking what he has to do to gain eternal life, and he is told to do something that goes far beyond anything he expected. I think the way we would probably phrase it today cuts even closer to the bone: Not, what must we do to have eternal life, but, does God love us and accept us the way we…
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As a deacon, I get to go to more weddings than the average person, and frankly I had gotten to the point where very few of them met my rather picky standards of excellence. But two weeks ago that changed. Two friends of mine, both of them getting married rather late in life, if you know what I mean, had a wedding I’ll never forget. It had everything. There was a Jewish ritual that brought tears to my eyes, so many words that reminded everyone about commitments and joy and sadness, and of the bittersweet taste of life even in the midst of such happiness. And then, what a party…
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Maybe you saw the study recently in the New York Times about what Catholics believe about the eucharist. Like many surveys of Catholics, it disturbed a great many people. It reported that more than 60% of Catholics said that Jesus was not really present in the eucharist as the body of Christ, but that the bread and wine were really more like a symbolic reminder of him and his life. Many people saw this and wondered what it is that’s wrong with people in the church, with the way we teach people, or maybe about how we do liturgy, that accounts for the fact that people no longer believe that…
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It doesn’t happen as often as it used to in business but it still happens. There’s a rather senior person where I work who as far as any of us can tell does absolutely nothing. I mean, nothing. He has been seen in his office at 3:30 in the afternoon calmly running one of those little electric shoe-buffing machines over his shoes, or, in a famous incident, sorting a little bag of Skittles candies into piles based on their colors. This is not out of Dilbert. I’m not making this stuff up. I know it never happens in the church, Father Tim, but in business you do find these scandalous…
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Tonight, I’m having people over for dinner, and I’m looking forward to it. In complete disregard for the last few sentences of this gospel, where the host of the dinner is advised not to invite his friends, in fact, I’m having dinner with very good friends. I couldn’t live without dinner with other people, people I love. That, really, is one of the points in this gospel reading— that none of us can live without meals, meals with others, meals where we are taken care of. They are the whole goal of life, really, they are why we are here around this table [tonight/today], for a meal like that. In…
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“This is a great mystery,” Paul says in the second reading, “a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the Church.” The mystery, of course, is what he could possibly mean trying to draw a parallel between marriage and the relationship God has with us, members of the church. The first thing that has to be said is that if it is true, as our tradition claims, that the church is the bride of Christ, there must have been any number of late nights over the past 2,000 years when Jesus asked himself if he married the wrong woman. It’s not just that we fight and pick…
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I don’t have to commute into New York every single day, but I do it often enough that my heart goes out to those of you who do. I take an early train in several days a week, and maybe you’re among those who have encountered what I did recently. Usually people waiting for these early trains around 6:20 are extremely quiet. Maybe it’s because they enjoy listening to the morning birdsong. No, I doubt that’s it. Maybe they’re just in deep mental preparation for the ruthless grab for territory that starts once the train decides it’s going to stop and open the doors. But recently this scene of quiet…
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One of my children has a gift that I don’t think is all that unusual in this parish, but I want to tell you about it anyway. Unfortunately, this gift is only really in evidence when she wants something. She is the most charming, persistent and relentless asker I have ever seen. Her approach has everything — great timing, endless, wearing-down frequency, cheery smiles, logical and not-so-logical arguments, moving examples of injustice, a little flattery when appropriate, very occasionally, when all else fails, even PowerPoint. The things she asks for aren’t always possible, much less sensible, and she doesn’t always get what she wants, at least as best I can…