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" Bread Of Freedom" Today’s readings are all about ‘choice’, the ability to make decisions which the good Lord gave us, the ability to navigate the world on our journeys through life, the ability to select what we have determined through the decisive assessments of our complex minds what is the better or best foot-forward to a certain situation, or the more or most constructive option to approach a positive or negative need. The action we decide to take can be productive or creative, or unhealthy or destructive, positive or negative to ourselves, to others, but it is ultimately our choice.
To be able to choose is the driving force behind Free-Will, bestowed upon us by a God who loves us, desiring us to be as close to his image as possible. And Free-Will is the driving force behind Freedom. In his love and mercy, guidance and compassion for us, God would then send his son, Jesus, the true Bread of Freedom to challenge and excite our Free-Will with the option to choose right or wrong, good or evil, life or death. But ultimately it would be and is our choice. Some of us might question this ability to choose when it comes to our faith commitments, since many, if not most of us, are ‘cradle’ Catholics, and did not have the option to accept or reject the Christian faith. We were baptised as a baby by our parents who accepted our initiation into the faith for us, particularly because they belonged to it, and were probably also baptized as infants. The Christian community is in many ways a cultural community as well as a faith community. Therefore, some people question their membership in the Christian church. In a world which is growing smaller and smaller everyday because of swift and intense technological advances in global communications, we are now more familiar with the faith structures of various other cultures and communities, plus discovering very great worth within them. Indeed, Thomas Merton, Jean Vanier, Mother Teresa and Henri Nouwen, important religious thinkers from our century, have commented and written about many aspects or directives of these other faith practices which have served to greatly enhance our own. The International Inter-Faith Ministry of the Catholic Church has been alive and well since the mid-1800s, and we have profited greatly from the sharing of our beliefs and practices with each other. Of course, the International Ecumenical component in our Christian Faith has a counterpart in our own local community, Saugeen Shores Ministerial. The irony is we tend to discover, not so much the differences between us, but the similarities. For example, both ourselves and our Indigenous brothers and sisters share a mutual love and reverence for God present in all creation. Many of us have children, in fact, some of them adults with children of their own, who may or have fallen away from the faith. Some have done so because of disappointment or disagreement with Church teaching. Some dislike the ‘patriarchal nature’ of the Christian faith, a result of its connection to another people, time and place quite different from ours in which we honour the equality of men and women. But this departure from the Faith is also because many chose to ask themselves: Who am I? What do I believe in or what do I stand for? What ideals and morals do I uphold or try to follow? Do I even believe in God? Do I believe I just happened? And this is a very healthy thing, a valid use of our God-given Will to choose. Yet, there are many who have no faith roots at all. Anne Landers, the advice columnist, once received a letter from parents who said they had decided not to bring their children up in any particular religion, but let them choose themselves. Anne replied, “Don’t be surprised if they choose nothing at all!” The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama, is widely respected for his deep, contemplative faith which seeks to nurture the spirit within. When people approach him with a desire to convert to Buddhism, he asks them, “Do you belong to a religion already? How well do you know it? Explore your own faith first, since all have the same law: to love God and love one another.” Thomas Merton who met the Dalai Lama was delighted to discover the Catholic faith has its own meditation tradition, long hidden in monasteries. After bringing this good news home, our own contemplative practices swelled within the Catholic church. Parents, don’t worry about your children. You’ve done your best. Now, just pray for them. Jesus gave the Bread of Freedom to each child to find their own way, and on this journey, even the good thief was welcomed at the end in paradise. – Rev Fr Christopher Tracey, Saint Joseph Parish, Saugeen Shores, Ontario
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" Mary, Mother Of God " I have just had a wonderful Christmas celebration with family. Now, it’s time to head back home. The weather is sunny, the roads are supposed to be clear, although we hear on the news the temperatures are far below freezing. Standing in the doorway, having said goodbyes with hugs and kisses, my mother says to me: “Now, where’s your hat? You shouldn’t be going out in that cold without something on your head!” “Mom, I’m in my fifties! I’m not a child! You’ve got to stop treating us like kids! We’re all adults now!” “You will always be my children, no matter how old you are! So, get used to it!” It is strange what small, seemingly insignificant, yet deeply meaningful moments with our mothers and fathers are remembered with affection when they are gone. This one is particularly significant, because it reminds us our mothers in particular saw and experienced the very beginnings of our lives, the arrival in the world we can’t remember: our first breath, our first cries, our first walks and our first falls. They watched us leave the safety of home, sending us off with prayers and humble guidance and reminders to put on our hats, boots and gloves in bad weather. Always close even if distant, mothers watched our first successes, our first failures, our first loves, our first heartbreaks, and the unfolding our first dreams. Luke tells us Mary treasured all these same things our mothers treasure, pondering them in her heart. She also would have realized how blessed by God she and Joseph were that their little boy lived, because records of the time say about 25% of newborns died in their first year, while 50% died in infancy from disease, malnutrition, starvation and harsh conditions. She would remember her son’s first breath and his last. Mary is important and critical to the whole foundation of the Christian faith in countless ways: with the birth of her child, Jesus, the promise of salvation was born. Just as Christ was considered the new Adam, Mary is now considered the new Eve. As the Arc of the Covenant held the Word of God on two stone tablets, Mary is the New Arc of the Covenant holding the Word of God made flesh within her womb. She, in fact, becomes more than the Mother of Jesus who fulfilled his Father’s call to be our Saviour. Mary, in reality, is the Mother of God, the Mother of the actual Saviour of the World who is God himself. “My spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.” Jesus is the ‘human and divine’ ‘Emissary’ for God, his Father, who is the true Saviour, inviting us to relinquish sin and seek his Father’s Way of love; while Mary, though born free of original sin, is not divine, but only human. She is like us, understanding our mortal condition, and thus becomes our perfect ‘Advocate’ and ‘Intercessor’ for God and her son. She becomes the Mother of All Humankind. But today, we celebrate something especially remarkable about Mary: her ‘assumption’ into heaven, or her dormition, meaning ‘death resembling sleep’. It is this event which lays to rest the argument that the body is of no importance after death. Many suggest when we die our soul leaves the body, and our flesh is simply disposed of while we enter the veil in spirit form. But this is not so. Somehow, our body is transformed and remains in union with our spiritual nature. It is a mystery we cannot understand, but a truth nonetheless. A friend of mine is a Third Order Dominican who became a minister and preacher after what he witnessed in his youth. His grandfather was in hospital nearing death, and his parents were alone with him, having convinced grandma to go home and rest awhile with her grandchildren. From the basement recreation room, my friend and his siblings heard the screen door of the kitchen open upstairs. He rushed upstairs to welcome his parents, but saw from a distance his grandfather hugging grandma! He turned and shouted downstairs, “Grandpa is Ok!” But then his grandma came and said, “Well, your grandpa just came to say ‘goodbye’.” Moments later a phone call came telling them that Grandpa had just died. We are both body and soul, ‘one’ entity! Like Mary, our beloved, human, Christian Advocate, we, too, as St Paul tells us, will be changed, in the twinkling of an eye, and be raised imperishable. Mary, Mother of God, pray for us. – Rev Fr Christopher Tracey, Saint Joseph Parish, Saugeen Shores, Ontario " The Bread Of Hope" “I have had enough, Lord. Let me die. I have suffered enough. I am only human like my ancestors. I don’t want to go on anymore. Lord, let me die,” says Elijah.
Elijah’s challenges were unique, the result of answering the Lord’s call to address the sins of the people of Baal at Mount Carmel. Their powerful, idolatrous Queen, Jezebel, wanted him dead, why he fled for safety in the desert. Elijah is known as the greatest, ‘most resilient’ prophet of the OT, but even he cannot stand any longer the trials he has been facing. He wants to end it all. He wants to die. This passage should speak to all of us, because in one way or another, we have all been suffering over a year from the negative effects of the pandemic which have been ‘layered’ upon what would be our more typical trials and difficulties. Many are shouldering the burden reasonably well using the resources of a lifetime. Others seek various distractions from the turmoil which has entered their lives, while others may be in a kind of denial. Still, some may have given up like Elijah. The clergy certainly understand this suffering, and with great empathy, since like their parishioners they are suffering as well. Elijah especially speaks to them. Unable to provide pastoral help as they are accustomed to, they have had to seek new ways to be present to people who troubled, ill or dying, using communication tools like Zoom, Facetime, and Google-Meet. Some have less or no staff, but they try to keep up with paperwork, finances, directives from the diocese, building and property concerns; also taking the mostly supportive calls, but also the complaints. “Your church should not be open! You are spreading the virus!” Later in the day, “We need to trust in God and open up our churches again.” Meanwhile, numbers are starting to fill our hospital ICUs again. The middle-way is hard to maintain. But we know that everyone is suffering, dealing with emotions we may never have had to deal with before. We are all suffering from a world-wide complaint! Like Elijah, we long for a safe, quiet place to rest. In an online ‘Wellness Seminar’ we learned how humans react to stress through the day via our two nervous systems: ‘parasympathetic’ which relaxes and calms, and the ‘sympathetic’ which rapidly responds to anything resembling a threat. Because of the pandemic, our normal daily experiences have changed. They are now ‘layered’ with concerns re Covid-19. This ‘layering’ first creates ‘uncertainty’, then ‘fear’, followed by deep ‘concern’, then ‘fatigue’. Unfortunately, this leads to what psychologists call ‘disconnection’ from normal life as we knew it. Our ‘Window of Tolerance’ is shattered. The thinking part of our brain, the ‘frontal cortex’, abandons its logic for the ‘primitive core’ in our brain which causes us to ‘fight, take flight, or freeze [now more commonly recognized].’ So, what can we do to create a healthy resilience? The Crisis Trauma Institute says: - Reach out to others: our relationships bring us meaning and security. Together we put things in better, more positive perspective. Love your neighbour as Christ said. - Stay open-minded and flexible. Let the experts handle the virus. Let God help the experts to help you. - Reconnect to what matters: pray, meditate, listen to God, trust God, stay active, forgive, replace negativity with positives, stay informed, laugh often and love a lot. - Accept that we all have unique limits. Limits are healthy. They keep us balanced. - Pause and breathe regularly. Breathe in to count of 5, breathe out 5. Do 5 times. - Engage your Five Senses: 1.) Sight: take time to behold beautiful things, sunsets, pictures of loved ones. 2.) Touch: hold the hand of someone in your bubble, a spouse, child, or friend. 3.) Hearing: listen to sounds of nature, gentle music, wind-chimes in the garden. 4.) Taste: enjoy food which comforts the heart and brings loved ones together. 5.) Smell: scents strongly connect us to the world. Stop and take note of newly cut grass, burning leaves in the Fall, fresh baked cookies, grandma’s favourite perfume. ** Let the five senses take you to rest with Elijah under the shade of the broom tree. Elijah was revived in the desert with bread and water from heaven. But Christ gave us the true bread from heaven, himself, the ‘bread of sacrifice and hope’. And although it is not possible, understandably, for many to receive the Eucharist at this time, remember it is the ‘bread of hope’ which Christ gave us through his death and resurrection and promise of new life which is the ultimate food for our souls. – Rev Fr Christopher Tracey, Saint Joseph Parish, Saugeen Shores, Ontario " The True Bread Of Life" A young teenager has run away from home. They’re not sure why, and it’s the worst time do so, given the world is locked down in a pandemic. But all they know is that something is missing. A kind of loneliness and sadness fills their days which leaves them hungry for affection, acceptance and understanding among their peers, and a sense of where they’re going in life. They are seeking an answer to their hunger for love and direction, a hunger for hope in a seemingly hopeless world.
Their mother is distraught. It has been three days and no word from their child. She tells herself many parents go through this. Her child just needs freedom to figure out who they are. The teen years are a difficult time for them. They’ll be fine. Yet, the mother knows something is missing in her life, in her family’s life, and perhaps in her child’s life. A kind of desperation and despair from too many commitments at work and at home are overwhelming her. She even experiences a kind of loneliness. Mainly, she seeks an answer to the hunger for peace which she so earnestly desires, peace from the monotony of her day-to-day life, freedom to enjoy more loving time with her husband and children. She is seeking something, but it’s not entirely clear what it is. And now her child is missing, and the pandemic has made it all the more difficult to search for them. She seeks an answer to her hunger for love and peace. The father is also distraught, but also angry. Why now? Why did his child have to disappear at such a disastrous time when everyone is locked down and finding it difficult to do anything but sit and wait? A kind of frustration and exasperation fills his thoughts from hour to hour as he tries to stay focused on critical data entries. Later he will struggle to stay focused on the path of his tractor as he pulls up fresh furrows of soil for a new crop they decided to invest in on their hobby farm. But the stress keeps bearing down. Even a kind of loneliness pervades his thoughts. He seeks an answer to his hunger for freedom from the daily pressures of life, a freedom which could bring him closer to his wife and family and peace of mind, something he can believe and be confident in. He seeks an answer to his hunger for love, for truth, for freedom, his hunger for true faith in life. He would like to find this truth, this faith in life, to share it with his child. But he hasn’t had enough time for them. Now they have not come home for three days, and the search for them is made even more difficult by the barrier of an unexpected pandemic! Now, what might solve their dilemmas? Maybe by examining ourselves we might find some answers e.g. what are we seeking in life? Is it also true faith, peace, hope and love? Or do we hunger too much for material things far beyond the food on our plates: hungers for safety and security, for control of the environment, for wealth and prestige, importance and acknowledgement. Are we caught up in the material world forgetting that we are first ‘spiritual beings’ who need bread for our souls? The crowd wants Jesus to perform more miracles, not understanding they must make the miracles happen for themselves in their own lives. Christ warns them that they must not seek to satisfy only their hunger for bread for the body, but for bread for the soul. Indeed, bread for the body is paramount for survival, but are we to fatten ourselves for slaughter at the end of life, or are we to satisfy our body’s basic needs, and then focus on feeding ourselves with the bread of life, bread for the soul, the bread which is Jesus Christ himself. This spiritual bread, our Lord, will clearly bring us peace, hope and love in full measure while we seek to live productive and caring lives in our earthly existence. We must seek Christ first, and all else will be put in perspective and fall into place. Hope will emerge like a spiritual life-line during even the most difficult and challenging and frightening of times. Faith will reign triumphant, giving us unshakeable confidence in a God who is in control, watching over us always. Above all, love will fill every crack and crevice of the foundation of our lives with spiritual, sacred energy. Love will hold every family together. Love will bind every wound, solve every issue, answer every question a teenager, a mother and father may have. Where there is love, there is peace and hope and true freedom. Where there is love there is light which will be the cement of in the building blocks of our lives, not darkness. The light of Christ will permeate our entire being, so much so, that the material needs and busyness of this world will not worry us like it used to. Seek Jesus Christ, the Living Word of God, and he will satisfy all our hungers. He can be found in the silence of prayer, in the doing of good works, and in the love and support we share with each other. – Rev Fr Christopher Tracey, Saint Joseph Parish, Saugeen Shores, Ontario |
Father's Blog
Rev. Fr. Christopher Tracey
St. Joseph Parish Pastor Archives
January 2022
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