Laetare Sunday: Rejoice in God's Grace and Renewal This Lent

Readings for Mass and Virtual Homily for March 30, 2025, Fourth Sunday of Lent; Those Baby Robots Are Driving My Teens Crazy; April Schedule

Dear Friends and Family,

Readings for Mass this Sunday:

• Joshua 5:9-12

• Psalm 34:2-7

• 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

• Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Once again just the reminder that the readings above are Cycle C; parishes which use the Cycle A readings for the third, fourth and fifth Sundays of Lent will have that set of readings, not these.

We are right at the mid-way point in Lent; three weeks past the first Sunday and three weeks yet to Easter.  The Fourth Sunday of Lent is also called Laetare Sunday -- the word is Latin for rejoice.  This Sunday has for centuries been set aside as a "day out" from Lenten practices of austerity; it mirrors Gaudete Sunday, in mid-Advent, in this regard.  

It follows that today's readings are bright with joy and hope.  The first reading, for instance, tells us of how, having crossed at last into the Promised Land, the Israelites celebrated their first Passover in Canaan.  This celebration was notable for several reasons; first of all the fact that God assured Joshua, Moses' successor, that "Today I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you" (vs. 9).  The sins of the Israelites, in other words, had been excised in their long desert trek; they entered the new land a new people, cleansed. purified, reconciled.  

The reading from Joshua tells us as well that the day after that first Passover in the new land, the people "ate of the produce of the land, the manna ceased" (vs. 12).  This occurred on the fertile plains of Jericho.  "That year," the passage continues, the Israelites "ate of the yield of the land of Canaan" (vs. 12).  One senses the joy of the people in being able to do so, after forty years in the desert.

The psalm, too, encourages hope and joy in the Lord and his love for us.  "I will bless the Lord at all times," the psalm begins, "his praise shall be always in my mouth" (vs. 2).  "I sought the Lord and he answered me, delivered me from all my fears" (vs. 5).  "Look to him and be radiant," vs. 6 advises, and the psalm continues (beyond today's passage) to encourage an ardent and joyful confidence in God's loving plans and abounding graces.  

The second reading picks up on both the first reading's theme of reconciliation, of being purified and made new, and also reflects today's general theme of joy.  "So whoever is in Christ is a new creation," verse 17 declares.  "The old things have passed away; behold, new things have come."  In language which echoes the prayer of absolution recited by the priest in confession, Paul writes that "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them (meaning, the peoples of the world) and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation" (vs. 19).  Paul goes on to write, beautifully, in my view, that "So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us" (vs. 20).  

The Gospel passage, the parable of the prodigal son, encapsulates the themes outlined above.  The son is reconciled to his father, but that is only the start.  Expecting to assume the role of one of his father's servants, the wayward son is taken back with open arms and great rejoicing.  He is restored to the family.  He is basically made new.  Like the Israelites who were purified by their journey through the desert, the prodigal son returns from his misadventures to find himself acquitted; the "reproach of Egypt" (in his case, the reproach of deep personal sin) is banished.  As the Israelites rejoice at their first Passover in the new land, the prodigal son rejoices at the banquet his father spreads for him.  

The clear take-aways for us in today's readings include finding hope and joy in reconciling with God; in becoming "a new creation" in Christ; in rejoicing, even rejoicing radiantly, in God's saving graces, God's overflowing bounty of mercy and love.  It can be so very easy to lose sight of all of this -- to lose sight of how God is, in fact, effecting our salvation through our trials and setbacks, as well as our joys and accomplishments.  

Today's readings emphasize the bright side; they encourage us to embrace a sunny joy and confident hope, not just in life's brighter moments but even as we negotiate difficulties and sorrows.  These experiences serve to remove the "reproach" of sin in our lives; they serve to purify and reconcile, they make us new in Christ.  Made new, we become emissaries of Christ; ambassadors of hope and joy to a world very much in need of both.

I mentioned a couple of weeks back that my students this semester are flocking to the opportunity to "have a baby" for twenty-four hours.  That is, one of the options for a major assignment in the Marriage and Family sections is "taking care of" a robot infant, which robot infant is programmed to start crying when it wants to be fed, burped, have its diaper changed and so on.  The twenty-four hour period of custody guarantees that the "baby" will wake the teen up at least once at night; and they also go off in class, in the gym, on the practice fields, during meals and so on.  It is very much a semblance of the experience of having a real baby and...

Well...It's downright funny, some of the reactions my students are having.  "I'll NEVER have a kid!" one of my girls, a junior, told me, after the baby woke her up three times overnight.  "This is torture!" another of my girls, this one a senior, groaned, lifting the robot carefully into her arms to take it out into the hall, when it started crying in class.  

I was surprised by how many of the boys want the baby experience; more surprised yet that the only 100% score any of my students have so far received was earned by one of my boys.  (The robot generates an e-mailed report on its handling.)  Another male student, sporting an "O'Dowd Dad" sweatshirt (his father's, I guess) managed an 89% -- a very good score.  Some of the kids aren't just getting F's in terms of their handling of the baby's needs, they are actually in negative territory -- their scores are below zero.  This can happen in a number of ways -- if the student misses too many feedings (or is late with them), for instance, if the baby has been roughly handled, if the baby's neck is not constantly supported and so on.  

The Marriage and Family class is, as I have discovered, teaching it for the first time this semester, really a "life lessons" class (as opposed to a rigorous academic course) and with these little baby-robots, my students are absolutely getting a lesson in parenting.  They are generally being very good-natured about it, even the ones who are getting the lowest scores.  The grade for the assignment is weighted heavily on the student's written reflection on what it was like, "taking care of a baby;" so a negatively scored report from the robot does not doom the student's grade.  But it definitely gives the student something to reflect on!

It is brisk, grey and windy out as I am wrapping this up Thursday afternoon.  The forecast is for rain tonight and then again at least two or three days next week.  With the April 1 snow survey right around the corner, I hope that all this late season precipitation is bringing the snowpack to normal or above-normal levels.  We've had three wet years, but I have not forgotten the last drought.  I'll be glad to welcome the dry season when it arrives; I prefer the sun.  But I will not be complaining, from under my umbrella; neither tonight nor next week.  

Hope this finds you well and happy.  Hope your Lent is progressing serenely.

Take care and God bless.

Fr. Brawn

April Schedule (All Masses English except where noted):

Palm Sunday, April 13 
8AM

CATHOLIC COMMUNITY OF PLEASANTON, Seton Campus
11 AM

Holy Thursday, April 17
630 PM (bilingual; concelebrant)

Good Friday, April 18
5 PM (English; main celebrant)

Holy Saturday, April 19
8 PM (bilingual; concelebrant)

Easter Sunday, April 20
630 PM

Weekday Masses (all 8 AM; English)

Mon., Apr. 7
Fri., Apr. 11
Mon., Apr. 14
Mon., Apr. 21
Fri., Apr. 25
Sat., Apr. 26
Mon., Apr. 28

Third Sunday of Lent Homily: Trusting in God’s Mercy and Timing

Readings and Virtual Homily for March 23, 2025, Third Sunday of Lent; On Retreat With the Class of 2025; Hitting Our Stride at San Gabriel Media

Dear Friends and Family,

Readings for Mass this Sunday:

• Exodus 3:1-8

• Psalm 103:1-4, 6-8, 11

• 1 Corinthians 10:1-6

• Luke 13:1-9

Before I say anything about this week's readings, I suppose I should remind everyone that if your pastor has okayed the Cycle A readings for the next three weeks (to accommodate those in the RCIA process) those readings are, of course, different than what I have posted above and on which I am speaking, below.  Here at St. Clement we do not do the Cycle A readings except in Cycle A years, so my homily is based on the Cycle C readings, listed above.  

I confess, as I have done on other occasions, that I am hard-pressed to see any unifying theme in today's readings that cannot be reached short of artificial means.  I know the "committee in Rome" which provides the lectionary for us deliberately pairs the first reading and the Gospel, and in general arranges the second reading according to the principle of continuous reading, that is, the second reading is not chosen according to the theme that is supposed to unite the first reading and the Gospel passage.  But there are times, and this is one of them, when there is to my mind no clear connection between any of the readings.

When I hit a wall like this, in terms of identifying a theme, my general tendency is to simply take each reading as we find it, and identify relevant aspects in terms of our experience as twenty-first century disciples.  So...here goes.

The first reading is famous.  You have likely seen it acted out by Charlton Heston in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.  Moses, having led the flock of his father-in-law Jethro to pastures below the "mountain of God, Horeb," sees an amazing sight on the slope -- a bush that is on fire and yet which is not consumed by the fire (vs. 2).

It is important to remember just how little likely education in the Jewish faith Moses had, at this point in his life.  It is, actually, important to remember just how primitive the understandings of the Jews themselves were, with regard to their God and his promises, at this time.  This was before the Jewish priesthood (that started with Moses' brother Aaron -- Exodus 4:27-28, and beyond).  This was before the writing down of Scriptures (that may have been started with the song of praise sung by Moses' sister Miriam, on the far side of the Red Sea following the defeat of the Egyptians -- Exodus 15:20-21).  This was before God gave the people his law, at Sinai (that is, Horeb) in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17).

What the Jews knew (and which Moses may not have known) was that God had made a covenant with their remote ancestor Abraham.  The people would be held captive in a foreign land for several centuries but God would deliver them (Genesis 15:13-14).  They knew that God would bring them back to the land he had promised them; they were, by the time of Moses, eagerly looking for their deliverer.

Moses himself was sufficiently unschooled in Judaism (he had been raised to honor the gods of Egypt) that he has to ask God his name.  This is Exodus 3:15-16, a bit beyond the passage for today's Mass.  God promises Moses that he is now about to keep his long-ago promise to Abraham: The time has come for the descendants of Abraham to be set free of Egypt and brought to the land God first promised them (vs. 8).  

A takeaway for us today is to realize that God keeps his promises.  God is faithful when we are faithful.  But in fact, God remains faithful, true to God's word and intent, even when we have strayed.  If the Lord wills it, whatever "it" is, it will come to be, one way or another, with or without our cooperation.  It is generally a lot easier on us, if we cooperate -- "cooperation with grace" is one of the Church's strongest recommendations for not just our spiritual health, but our temporal well-being, as well.

The psalm encourages a joyful confidence in the love and mercy of God.  It contains some fairly well-known verses, for instance, verse 8: "Merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger, rich in kindness," and verse 12 (beyond our passage today): "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us."  The psalm urges a bright and grateful trust on our part, in God's abundant love.

The psalm's considerations on the fathomless mercy of God may, of course, be readily connected to the promise of the Lord to Moses, in the first reading.  God has heard the cry of his people in Egypt and in his mercy he intends to rescue them.

The second reading recounts the experiences of the Jews and Moses in the desert.  It reminds the new Christian converts in Corinth and all of us today of the mercy of God, but also of God's righteousness, and of God's judgments.  Paul uses the example of rebellion among the Jews in the desert to admonish Corinth's large and growing Christian community (vss. 5-6).  The connection for us today is fairly obvious.  God desires our salvation, and provides us with a roadmap to attain it.  It is up to us to use the map.

Finally, there is the Gospel passage from Luke, in which Jesus assures his hearers that acknowledgment of sin and repentance are necessary; that it is a mistake to assume that people who have suffered calamities are being punished while we are exempt (vss. 1-5).  Calamities happen; regardless of whether they happen to us, everyone is in need of forgiveness and grace. 

Jesus encourages his hearers to throw themselves on God's boundless mercy, just as the psalm does, when he offers the parable of the fruitless fig tree (vss. 6-9).  God wants us to thrive, to succeed in his plan for us as disciples.  Our way will be much easier for us if, again, we cooperate with grace, but God is patient and God is kind, as the psalm says, and God will give us many opportunities, if we are far from him, to find our way back.  

As most of you know, I have deep personal experience of the truth of this dynamic; I wandered far from God for most of a decade (the decade of my twenties) but the Lord was kind and merciful, slow to anger and rich in forgiveness, and, as Jesus assures us in the Gospel passage, God continued to "cultivate" the possibilities of my discipleship until they did indeed begin to bear fruit.  God did not cut down the fruitless fig tree that I was in my twenties.  He kept cultivating the soil.  And oh my gosh am I forever grateful.

So...I guess if there is any unifying theme among today's readings, it would be to trust in the love and mercy of God.  

And that is as far as I can go, with this set of readings, in terms of working up a unified, thematic, message-oriented homily.  As I say, some Sundays, to borrow from Ringo, "it don't come easy."

I am finishing this homily late Thursday night at San Damiano where we are on retreat, yet again, this time with the seniors -- a retreat geared to help our soon-to-be-graduating class consider imminent major transition in their lives, within a context of faith, hope and trust in God's plan for them.

I have to admit to feeling a little bittersweet, at this retreat.  The Class of 2025 stole my heart like none before here at O'Dowd.  I have had special classes here at O'Dowd before, specifically, 2019 and 2022.  And don't get me wrong, I have loved all my graduating classes here; it is just that with some years, there is, for one reason or another, a special connection.  

With the Class of 2025, "special connection" is insufficient wording.  I have so many "favorites" among them that it renders the meaning of the word "favorite" basically inoperable.  They are the only class I taught here as freshmen.  They are the only class I have had as students now, three years: as freshmen. as sophomores and now, this spring, as seniors.  They are the only class I ever -- in ten years at the high school -- yelled at.  That memorable moment was when they were freshmen.  It was in fact through that experience that I so bonded with them, and they with me.

I told my small group here this morning that I do not want to see them leave.  Then I said that, of course, I DO want to see their graduation day.  I greatly look forward to it, because I want to see these amazing teenagers advance into the next exciting stage of their lives.  I told my small group that I understand that we -- the high school faculty and staff -- have met our responsibilities to them.  We have done our best to form them for the next stage in their lives, and I look forward with real anticipation to what they will accomplish.  

But I will miss them when they are gone.

Then I told my small group -- "You know what?  It is all good because I am going to be gone, too.  I will be on sabbatical, next fall, when the high school returns to business and the Class of 2025 is not there.  I won't be there, either!  All good."

The kids loved that.  

I will be on sabbatical this summer and next fall, and certain developments at San Gabriel Media assure me that this year, not last, not 2023 (which years had also been candidates for the date of this sabbatical) is the year that it was meant to be.  Leave aside the fact that I came to realize that the sabbatical could not happen until the Class of 2025 had left O'Dowd.  The fact is that San Gabriel is at a point now where we can use me full time (by which I mean, 50-60 and more hours a week).  As recently as last fall, this would not have been the case.  Far too much to go into here, and it would likely bore you in any event.  But developments at San Gabriel this past half year now augur for a highly productive sabbatical in a way they could not have, had I taken the time off earlier.  My love for the Class of 2025 was evidently fore-ordained; precisely to keep me at the high school until San Gabriel was ready to fully utilize my time away.  

We have been prepping for a marketing launch at SGM for well over a year now.  We are ready, this spring, to take the initial steps in that effort.  This fact dovetails unmistakably with my leaving the high school for a few months, to attend to our efforts at San Gabriel Media. 

I am marveling at God's timing with it all.  

And I am consoling myself that -- though my beloved Class of 2025 will not be at the high school next fall, it is all good, because I won't be either!

So, yeah...The classes of 2026, 2027.  I've taught them and oh yeah, I love them.  I am NOT abandoning them!  But this is the year for the sabbatical.

Gonna wrap it.  Hope your Lent is deepening in wonderful ways.

God bless.

Love,

Fr. Brawn

Second Sunday of Lent Homily: Transformation and the Glorified Body

Readings for Mass and Virtual Homily for March 16, 2025, Second Sunday of Lent; The Class of 2026 Has a Question for El Padre; Paying it Forward for the Marysville Youth

 Readings for this Sunday

• Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18

• Psalm 27:1, 7-9, 13-14

• Philippians 3:17-4:1

• Luke 9:28-36

 Dear Friends and Family,

The Gospel passage this Sunday is Luke's account of the Transfiguration.  The readings in general may be said to focus on transformation.  In the first reading Abraham, childless and of advanced age, is promised an astonishing transformation -- he will have more descendants than the stars in the dark-night ancient sky.  In the Letter to the Philippians Paul speaks of the transformation of the human body at the general resurrection.  I want to spend some time with this last; I want to make the glorified body the real subject matter of this homily.  But I also want to make a few observations about the first reading, remarkable as it is.    

One of the things to remember, when we read Genesis chapter fifteen is that, at the time of Abraham, every nighttime sky was what we today refer to as a "dark sky."  That is, there were no urban light haloes obscuring the Milky Way.  When God told Abraham to "count the stars, if you can" (vs, 5), Abraham was looking into the bright and shining heart of the galaxy.  He was not just seeing all the stars "out our way," that is, the ones in our neighborhood of the Milky Way.  He was seeing the galaxy itself.

The closest I have ever in life come to seeing a true "dark sky" was on the beach at Bodega Bay when I was in college -- the annual September RA retreat (RA standing for Resident Assistant, that is, student staffers in the dorms).  I remember being astounded at how many stars we could see -- I had never seen Orion's scabbard, for instance.  But even there, we had the lights of the retreat center to contend with; it was not truly a "dark sky."  What Abraham saw was something still more impressive.  It would have been an impossibility, of course, to count the stars, but that was the Lord's point.  

Among the Jews alone, from the time of the Patriarchs to our time, the number of descendants given Abraham and Sarah is uncountable -- very likely scores, perhaps hundreds of millions.  And when we consider that not just the Jews but Christians and Muslims as well call Abraham father, and that followers of those two faiths have, over the centuries, numbered billions...well, you can see why God gave Abraham this metaphor.

The encounter with God seems to place Abraham in something resembling a trance-like state (vss. 12, 17) and a change in mental state also is reported in today's Gospel for the three apostles witnessing the Transfiguration.  Peter is so "transported" one might say, by the experience, that he wants it to continue indefinitely (vs. 33).

Brilliant as the Lord's appearance becomes in this moment, the three apostles are not seeing Jesus in his full majesty; they are not gazing upon the unveiled Second Person of the Trinity -- mortal eyes could not withstand such a vision.  It has been speculated that they were seeing Jesus in his glorified, that is, post-Resurrection, body.  This is only speculation, but it seems reasonable, in that all three Gospel accounts of the Transfiguration tell us that Jesus' appearance was changed, became radiant (Luke vs. 29; see also Mark 9:2-3 and Matthew 17:2).

Which brings us to the second reading.  Paul tells us that, at the general resurrection, the Lord will transform "our lowly body" to be like his in glory (vs. 21).  This bright promise is echoed in a preface to the Eucharistic Prayer at funeral Masses.  As this is not a topic I have addressed previously in a written homily, I am going to spend a little time today, discussing our future, glorified, eternal bodies.

The glorified body will be incapable of injury or disease.  We will only possess it, of course, in a place (Heaven) where injury and disease themselves are banished, but all the same, it will be impervious to either.  

We will not have to eat, to maintain our glorified bodies, but all indications are that eating -- feasting, more like it -- is a frequent activity "over there" on the Other Side.  Never fear if, once you find yourself safely beyond the Pearly Gates, you decide to go ahead and indulge at some banquet or other -- the glorified body will be so ordered as to utilize all nutrients by some perfected mechanism of metabolic processes about which, this side of Paradise, we may only speculate.  Not that gluttony is a possibility among the saints, but...you will be able to feast as you please and you will never regret it, you will never find yourself out of shape. 

The glorified body will be capable of some of the miracles the disciples witnessed, in terms of Jesus' earthly body.  He could walk on water; he could pass through locked doors.  An understanding of particle physics helps us today to explain that, in fact, if we could simply line up all our molecules the right way, we too could walk on water or pass through solid objects.  This is, of course, because those objects, and indeed, our own bodies, are not, actually, "solid."  At the quantum level, matter is far more open space than not.  To give an example, if the nucleus of an atom were Dodger Stadium, the first electron in orbit around that nucleus would be in the San Fernando Valley.  That is how "spacious" matter actually is, at the level of its building blocks.  If we could simply "line up" our molecules with those of the door, so that none of ours touched any of its, we could pass through it, just as Jesus did.  

The glorified body will be in full harmony with the mind, with the soul.  As such it will be so ordered as never to be "in rebellion;" it will not know stomach aches or headaches or fever or any other kind of disorder.  It will not need sleep -- and I have to admit here that my own research on this point falls short.  I do not know if sleeping, like eating, will be an option, "over there."  I have to admit that sleep, at times, to me, feels like Heaven!  But in the eternal moment, who knows?  We may look back on our earthly lives from there and say, "Oh yeah!  Remember sleep?"

The glorified body is one built literally to last forever.  It will be incapable of aging.  Thomas Aquinas speculated that in Heaven everyone is 33 -- the age we believe Jesus was, at his death.  Only speculation, and personally, I preferred myself, physically, I mean, at 43, in fact, at 53, to 33.  (I was too skinny at 33!)  I suppose that the age we experience in Heaven will be one we find ourselves right at home with, one that eminently suits us, one we can literally "live with" forever.

C. S. Lewis, in THE GREAT DIVORCE, described the saints as having vibrant youthful appearances, but when you got up close and looked into their eyes, you were suddenly aware of age -- at least among those who attained to middle- or old-age here on earth.  This is solid speculation, as we take everything (but our sins) into Heaven with us.  All our experience is there with us, in us, through us, making us, well, making us the saints we will be.  It is just that, from Heaven's perspective, all of our experience is transformed -- we might even say, transfigured -- it is shot through with light, a light which finally makes full understanding possible.  Lewis and others argue that from Heaven we will look back on the most difficult experiences of our time on earth and bless those trials deeply, for we will see the graces set flowing in those times, see how those graces moved us through the darkest moments, see how those graces forged in us our very sainthood itself.

I could go on, but you get the idea, and in any event, this one is long enough!  Gonna wrap it here.  Just something to think about -- as we consider Jesus transfigured.  One day we shall be, as well. 

I spoke with Fr. John Prochaska, our Vicar for Clergy at the Diocese this week about my upcoming sabbatical.  It is slated to start June 1 and to run through New Year's.  It has begun to get around among the students that "Father Jim is not going to be here next semester," and I am getting some alarmed questions from members of the junior class, the Class of 2026.  Next year, after all, is their senior year.

I deliberately delayed the sabbatical in order NOT to miss any part of the senior year of the Class of 2025.  I have a lot of love for this year's juniors, as well, but if I am serious about this time off (and I am) then it just comes down to this: I am going to miss the fall semester of one class's senior year or another.  And the way it has shaped up, that class is the Class of 2026.  

Generally, the anxiety I hear in a student's voice derives from a misapprehension; they breathe a sigh of relief when they hear that not only will I be returning next January, I am also going to be on all the retreats next fall.  There are four retreats scheduled for the autumn semester and the senior class will be involved in three of them...Retreats are a substantial part of an O'Dowd education and I do not want to miss these experiences with next year's seniors.  

I am deeply touched, though, to have members of the Class of 2026 coming up to me, wanting to know the score.  The day will come when I really will be saying good-bye to the high school.  This is not that day.  

Finally, some really cool news from my hometown and home parish came my way this past weekend.  One of the leading members of the old Marysville youth group texted me Saturday evening to say that he had been asked to consider taking the youth ministry position at St. Joseph (Marysville's parish).  He said, basically, "after all I got out of it, because you said yes to it, and thinking about our teens in Marysville today, how could I say no?"  His name is Fonz and he is himself the father of two teens in the parish.

I practically levitated, reading Fonz's texts.  I texted back assuring him that I will be his number one backer, with energy, with ideas, with advice, with money.  He texted back that he had said yes to the position in part relying on just that support.  The first thing I have to do for him and the Marysville teens is cover this effort in prayer.  A second generation of Marysville teens being guided by one of MY Marysville teens, now in his early forties!  (Just the age I was, in fact, when I ran the youth group.)  A brand new intention for my daily Rosary.  I'll report on developments regarding this joyful turn of events.

Talk about paying it forward!  Go Fonz!

Hope this finds you well and happy.  Hope your Lent is going well.

Take good care and God bless.

Fr. Brawn

Lenten Reflections: Understanding the Three Temptations of Christ

Readings for Mass and Virtual Homily, March 9, 2025, First Sunday of Lent; Retreat Season; My Teens and Their 'Babies'; March Schedule

Readings for Mass this Sunday 

• Deuteronomy 26: 4-10

• Psalms 91:1-2, 10-11, 12-13, 14-15

• Romans 10: 8-13

• Luke 4: 1-13

Dear Friends and Family,

Well, it is the first Sunday of Lent and we find ourselves in the desert, facing temptation, with regard to the readings.  The passage from Luke this Sunday is that of the temptation of Jesus.  This experience (omitted by John) is also reported by Matthew and Mark.  It is testament to the humanity of Jesus, among other things.  And while there is a variety of possibilities, with regard to structuring a homily this weekend, I want to just stay with the three temptations themselves.  Between them, I think, most of us can find resonance with Jesus, in his humanity, in his susceptibility to temptation.  That fact should comfort us.  As the author of the Letter to the Hebrews points out, Jesus was tempted in every way, just like us -- but never sinned.  Having himself been tempted, though, Jesus is able to identify with us in our temptations and he is eager to forgive us our sins (Hebrews 4:14-15).

The first temptation, not surprisingly, given that Jesus has been fasting for forty days, is to turn stones into bread (vs. 3).  Jesus would have known genuine hunger, maybe also thirst, and the fact that he COULD turn stones into bread evidently tempted him.  

Something to be aware of here: the demons know our weaknesses.  They know them because they have tempted us and have seen where we are vulnerable.  No tempter angel worth his damnation is going to bother trying to tempt a person with a naturally calm, easy-going and forgiving temperament with the sin of anger.  But seeing that this same person is weak in the invitation to lust, that is the sin the demon will work with.  

After forty days of fasting, it could reasonably be assumed that Jesus was hungry.  The devil knew as much; reasoned that Jesus would be susceptible to the temptation to break his fast.  Hence, the first temptation.  

Jesus replies simply by quoting Scripture (vs. 4).  There might be something in this for all of us, when facing temptation.  In any event, Satan moves on to a more elaborate attempt to get Jesus to sin.  

The second temptation, of course, is that the devil shows and offers to Jesus "all the kingdoms of the world" in an instant (vss. 5-7).  It may be speculated here that it was not just the first-century kingdoms that Satan showed Jesus, but all the nations, all the empires, all the kingdoms of the world for all time.  It may be inferred that Jesus was shown the empires of the Aztecs and the Incas, the caliphates of twelfth-century Islam; that he was shown sixteenth-century Spain when Madrid ruled the seas, shown Victorian England and the extent of the British Empire, shown contemporary America, China, Japan and Western Europe.  The kingdoms of the world, the devil assures Jesus, were his to give to whomever he pleased (vs. 6).

In this event, Satan would have been offering a different sort of "deal" to Jesus -- a co-rulership that would go on 'til the end of the world.  All that Jesus needed to do, to receive this "kingship" was go down on his knees and worship Lucifer.  Again, Jesus answers with a reference to Scripture (vs. 8).  

It is a question to which there is (to my knowledge) no definitive answer, just whether Satan recognized in Jesus the Second Person of the Trinity.  In the event that the devil really did know just who he was trying to tempt, it says something about Satanic ambition.  I am personally inclined to the line of argument which says that the demons did NOT recognize the divinity of Jesus.  They did not recognize it, that is, until it was too late.  This is a substantial argument and a deep theological reflection and more than can be supported by the limitations of a Sunday homily, so I will not go further with it.  Whatever may be the truth with regard to the demons realizing that Jesus was God incarnate, certainly, Lucifer did understand Jesus to be the Messiah, as is evident in the third temptation.

From the parapet of the Temple in Jerusalem, Satan dares Jesus to leap into thin air, and quotes Scripture which assures the Messiah of God's protection (today's psalm, Psalm 91:11-12).  Lucifer assures Jesus that the psalm seems to guarantee that he will land, hundreds of feet on the pavement below, intact and unharmed (Luke 4:9-11).  That the devil quotes the psalm is clear evidence that, whether or not he knew Jesus was God, Lucifer knew Jesus was the Messiah.  He knew the Scriptural passages which referred to the Messiah, and here he accurately quotes one of them.  

This third temptation sometimes leaves people baffled.  St. Augustine, if I am not mistaken, referred to it as the temptation to (or of) the thrill.  I think a more relevant interpretation of it is that we can be tempted, at times, to get out over our skis.  We can sometimes charge out ahead with some mission or vision or plan which we have assumed to be of God, and...find ourselves, to use a military metaphor, stretched beyond our supply lines.  An army on the march needs supply lines -- of food, of water, of medicine, of basic infrastructure and support.  March too fast, charge ahead with a confidence that looks like recklessness, and the army might find itself stranded and starving.  

I know this temptation inside out.  Depending, I suppose, upon one's native degree of self-confidence, and too, on one's intuitive sense of being able to discern God's will, this temptation can trip up the best-intentioned, hardest-working, most dedicated disciples.  We need to let God be in charge.  When we charge ahead, certain that we "know the plan" and how to execute it, we open ourselves up to crash-landings on the pavement hundreds of feet below; to being the army that has moved like lightning across the frontier, only to find itself stranded and without sustenance, because the supply lines are hundreds of miles behind.  I've lost count of how many times I have experienced this dynamic -- that is, this temptation.  I'd love to be able to say that I have "learned my lesson" in this regard, but I can't.  What I can say is that when I do get out over my skis with some plan or hope or ambition or vision which I assume has been given me by God, and I find myself stranded, without the supplies needed to complete the job, I have learned to sit down and...wait on the Lord.

Jesus, in any event, answers the devil here in just the way he has in the previous temptations: He quotes Scripture (vs. 12).  Again, there may be something in that for all of us, going to Scripture, I mean, when we are facing temptation.

Well, we have dived into Lent and true to the season's traditions, I have four (count 'em, FOUR) retreats over the next two weeks.   The reason I have only got the Sunday evening Mass this weekend is that I am at St. Clare Retreat Center in Soquel Friday evening to noon Sunday, giving a women's Lenten retreat.  The theme, one I developed a decade ago, for a Shalom World Television presentation, is the Psalms in Lent.  

Next week, the high school is holding our final three-day Kairos Retreat for the juniors at San Damiano.  The following week, we will be back at San Damiano for the second (and last) retreat for the senior class.  And the weekend of the 15-16, the parish is sponsoring our Confirmation Retreat in Redwood Glen, near Pescadero.  I will only be at this last retreat Saturday evening to help our pastor with confessions, but it will be all Saturday evening.   We have eighty students making the retreat.  

The retreat this weekend came about as a result of my having been at St. Clare last fall, to give the weekend retreat for the women's group at St. Bonaventure (Clayton).  The sisters who run the center liked my presentations and asked if they could put me on their short list for retreats without a priest.  I so much enjoyed the Bonaventure experience that I told them yes; in addition to the retreat this weekend, I have another at St. Clare in May.  

I am reticent to re-engage the sort of speaking-engagement-retreat-parish-mission schedule I kept for several years before COVID, in part because I want the time and energy going to San Gabriel Media.  But as I say, I really was myself blessed by the October retreat with the women of St. Bonaventure, and so I am signed up at St. Clare's for two additional retreats this spring.

Finally, news from the Teen Front: My students this semester have got babies.  That is, the students in our Marriage and Family course (which I am teaching for the first time this semester, as I mentioned a few e-mails back) have the opportunity to take responsibility for a mechanical "baby" for 24 hours.  The "baby" is better called a robot than a doll.  It cries when it wants to be burped, fed, have its diaper changed and I forget what-all else.  Students have to figure out what the baby is crying for and provide it; and the babies are programmed to cry regularly over the 24 hours, including in the middle of the night.  The robot then generates a computer report which is received by my colleague (and fellow M & F instructor) Liz Remigio.  The robot "grades" its care over the 24 hours.  It is a pretty sophisticated piece of equipment.  

Given that "having the baby" is only one of four options for this particular assignment (students may watch three films about marriage and family life and write up a report, for instance, as just one of the other options), I am really surprised at how many of my kids want a baby -- including the boys!  The robots cost over a thousand each and we have eleven of them, so starting this assignment in early March, we should be able to accommodate all the requests by May.  Were I one of my students, though, I would choose to watch three films!

Okay, that'll wrap this one.  My prayers and best wishes for a blessed and serene Lent.

Love,

Fr. Brawn

March Mass Schedule

Sunday, March 9
6:30 PM (English)

Sunday, March 16
CATHOLIC COMMUNITY OF PLEASANTON/Seton Campus
11 AM (English)
St. Clement
6:30 PM (English)

Sunday, March 23
8 AM, 11:15 AM (both English)

Saturday, March 29
5 PM (English)

Sunday, March 30
6:30 PM (English)

Weekday Masses (all English, all 8 AM, except where noted)

Monday, March 10
Monday, March 17
Tuesday, March 18 at 8
Tuesday, the 18 at 7 PM (Spanish)
Monday, March 24
Friday, March 28
Monday, March 31
Saturday, April 5

If you are wondering, given the schedule above, whether I am ever going to have a Sunday Spanish Mass again here at St. Clement, well...actually, so am I!  I love celebrating the Mass in Spanish and certainly have some good friends among our Hispanic parishioners, but Fr. Jesus (our still-new pastor) does the scheduling himself, and I abide by his decisions.  He is a joy to work with and he is the boss. 

Why Integrity Matters: Lessons from Scripture

Readings and Virtual Homily for Mass March 2, 2025, Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time; Lent's Attractions

Readings for Mass this Sunday

• Sirach 27:4-7

• Psalm 92:2-3, 13-16

• 1 Corinthians 15:54-58

• Luke 6:39-45

Dear Friends and Family,

A general theme of the importance of integrity informs today's readings, or at any rate, the first reading, the psalm and the passage from Luke.  Integrity is equated with, among other things, truthful speech and self-awareness.  In each of the three passages, moreover, the person with integrity is compared to a tree that bears good fruit (Sirach 27:6; Psalm 92:15; Luke 6:43-44).  

The passage from Sirach warns against judging by appearances, and advises us that "speech discloses the bent of a person's heart" (vs. 6).  This corresponds to Jesus' observation in the Gospel passage that "from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks" (vs. 45).  As "the furnace tests a potter's vessels," Sirach continues, "the test of a person is in conversation" (vs. 5); adding that people's faults appear "when they speak" (vs. 4).  

This emphasis on the importance of our words is necessary in any discussion of personal integrity.  If you stop to think about it, we are really only as good as our word.  If we keep our word, people know us and know that they can trust us.  If we do not keep our word, people cannot really know us -- except that is, as someone who is unreliable.  Our words must be lined up with our behavior, with our actions in the world, if they are going to be worth anything.  

Words exist to communicate -- they are stand-ins for reality.  If, for instance, I speak the words San Francisco Bay, an image appears in the minds of my hearers.  The image, of a large body of water along the California coast, is true; the words have produced an accurate impression.  The words, meant to convey the bay, do not produce an image of Lake Tahoe. 

Words do more than merely communicate -- they may be said to actually reveal reality to us.  The words San Francisco Bay reveal to us the reality that is that body of water.  They reveal the bay to us in a way that the words the Empire State Building do not; the words San Francisco Bay conform to the reality of that body of water.

To reflect just a bit further on this business of the significance of words...John tells us that Jesus is "the Word" of God (John 1:1).  When I ask my sophomores why John might so speak of Jesus, we inevitably get into a discussion of just what words are for.  When we reach the point where we can agree that words have a revelatory power -- the words "San Francisco Bay" evoke the reality of San Francisco Bay -- the teens suddenly get it.  Jesus is the "Word" that reveals God to us.  As Jesus himself puts it, if we have seen him, we have seen the Father (John 14:9). 

What is more, God spoke the universe into being through the Word -- that is, through the Second Person of the Trinity.  "Through him all things were made" we recite in the Nicene Creed; the Creed itself simply echoing John 1:3, Colossians 1:16 and Hebrews 1:2, all of which say God created the universe through the Second Person.  At the heart of reality we find -- a word; THE Word through whom reality, the universe itself, was spoken into existence.

This is why it is so important to tell the truth.  Lies are a direct and deliberate misuse of the very nature of words.  Words are meant to convey reality, not to distort it, not to hide it nor to confuse it.  It was through a lie, of course ("you shall be like gods" -- Genesis 3:5) that the human race fell, and Jesus himself intimates the destructive power of lies when he refers to Satan as "the father of lies" (John 8:44).  

That, for now, is enough, in terms of a disquisition on the power and revelatory clarity of words.  The readings also urge self-reflection and self-awareness as irreducible components of personal integrity.  And this consideration, of course, takes us right back to the power of the truthfully spoken word: If we are selfish at times, and can name the fault honestly, we have integrity.  If we can be lazy, haughty, dismissive, uncharitable, quick-tempered, ungenerous, lustful, gluttonous, greedy, unfair in judgment and so on, and we at the same time are able to name these faults and own them, we have integrity.  Integrity does not mean we are perfect.  It means we are honest.  Honest about our weaknesses as well as our strengths.  It is the person who excuses a fault with a self-flattering deception who lacks integrity.  

Jesus is crystal clear on this point: "Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?" (vs. 41).  Jesus rightly calls such people out as hypocrites, instructing them to reflect on their own failings, to own them and take responsibility for trying to combat them, before they go about trying to set anyone else right (vs. 42).   

Finally, there is beautiful imagery in Psalm 92 regarding the man or woman of integrity; there is a promise, a deep promise of good things to come for those who strive to live with integrity.  Here is the quote in its entirety.

The just shall flourish like the palm tree, shall grow like a cedar of Lebanon.  Planted in the house of the Lord, they shall flourish in the courts of our God.  They shall bear fruit, even in old age; they shall stay fresh and green, to proclaim, 'The Lord is just; my rock, in whom there is no wrong (vss. 13-16).  

One of the things I particularly like about this passage is the way it honors, in our youth-obsessed culture, advanced age and the blessings it can bring.  Integrity, the psalm assures us, deepens and strengthens with age; it keeps us fruitful and life-giving because it keeps us connected to the source of life itself.

Integrity is a big topic.  We could say a lot more about it here.  But again, as this is a Sunday homily and not a chapter in a book, I think I will leave off here.

Lent is just around the corner.  I don't always give something up in Lent, but I am planning to hold myself to what I call the "Venezuelan fast" most of the next seven weeks.  I typically eat one meal a day (dinner) and the Catholic guidelines for fasting (one regular meal and two smaller meals which together do not add up to a second) would actually have me eating MORE than I usually eat, if I followed them.   

So I don't follow them.  There have been Lents in the past where I said, "Forget about fasting -- on your regimen, it's impossible.  Find something else to give up instead."  But several years ago, maybe as far back as a decade, now that I am thinking of it, I said to myself, "Actually, you CAN fast.  Anyone can.  All it means is that you eat less than usual, and do so on a regular basis.  So...you typically eat one meal a day.  Plan to eat less than one meal a day four or five days a week."

This is what I call the Venezuelan fast -- because so many folks in that country are on it involuntarily.  I am meanwhile mulling something extra that I can do, during the season.  Whether or not I mark Lent with a fast, I always try to mark it with a little extra effort in some good direction or other.  It can be something as simple as twenty bucks a week to some good cause someplace.  

In any event I look forward to plunging into the season.  Lent, as I know I have said before, is my favorite liturgical season.  Part of that could be as simple as the fact that it coincides with my favorite months of the year.  But I think it goes deeper than that.  I inevitably associate Lent with the Triduum, with the Passion of the Lord, and despite all the Marian aspects to my piety, I am, at heart, passionist in my spirituality.  My favorite day of the year is Good Friday, and has been, since I was a little guy.   

Lenten Fridays period rank among my favorite days of the year.  I have deep and treasured memories of being in St. Joseph's in Marysville with my mom or grandmother or uncle, or all three, maybe with a sibling or two as well, on breezy Friday spring evenings, watching the priest and the altar servers as they made their way round the side aisles, leading us in the Stations of the Cross, then my favorite devotion.  (The Stations rank second with me, today, after the Rosary.)  

I think it was the heroism Jesus displayed that first Good Friday afternoon, that most deeply spoke to me.  Young as I was, I did not need to have explained to me that Jesus' physical suffering was unimaginable.  And his grace, his courage, his strength spoke deeply to me -- passionist at heart as I even then was.  

I hope, in any event, to get Lent off to a good strong start and maintain the momentum, as the season progresses.  "Bright sadness," a seminary professor of mine once described the atmosphere, the "feeling" of Lent.  I like that description.  It strikes me as apt.  

Gonna be it for this one.  My best wishes for the start of March.

I don’t have the March Mass schedule yet, but I do know this much about it: One, I have no Masses at St. Clement this first weekend of the month; two, if I have one the weekend of the 8-9, it will only be the 630 PM on Sunday the 9th, and I will confirm that, next e-mail, when I have the schedule.  

I will LIKELY have the 6 PM bilingual Mass on Ash Wednesday and I do have the 11 AM Mass, at St. Elizabeth Seton in Pleasanton, on Sunday, March 16.  

I'll have the full March schedule out with next e-mail.

Take care.  God Bless.

Love,

Fr. Brawn

Biblical Mercy Explained: How Forgiveness Opens the Heart to Grace

Readings for Mass and Virtual Homily, February 23, 2025, Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time; More Thoughts on February, My Favorite Month; Sabbatical on the Horizon

 Readings for Mass this Sunday

• 1 Samuel 26:2, 7-8, 12-13, 22-23

• Psalm 103:1-4, 8, 10, 12-13

• 1 Corinthians 15:45-49

• Luke 6:27-38

Dear Friends and Family,

The general theme of the readings this week may be understood to be mercy -- both that of God and that which we are asked to show one another.  Both the first reading and the psalm exemplify this quality.  

In the passage from 1 Samuel, David, given the opportunity to defeat his tormentor King Saul, passes on it, preferring to let the king know that he might have killed him while he slept, but didn't.  David, in other words, showed Saul an exceptional mercy.  There is, alas, little evidence in the Scriptural accounts, that Saul returned David's graciousness.  

The psalm repeatedly extols God's abundant patience, forgiveness and love for us, all of which adds up to God's mercy.  "Slow to anger, abounding in mercy" (vs. 8).  "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us" (vs. 12).  God created us for heaven and wants us there.  God is willing to come a very significant distance in our direction, in order to effect our salvation.

The Gospel passage from Luke is one of my favorite in the entire Bible, for the way it encourages us to be merciful, to be generous of heart, to be forgiving.  "Do not judge," the passage assures us, and we will not be judged.  "Do not condemn," and we will not be condemned.  Give and it will be given to us (vss. 37-38).

Verse 38 in particular resonates with me for its joyful assurance that any generous act on our part will be repaid by God, and in abundance.  Here it is in full.

"Give and gifts will be given to you, a good measure, packed together, shaken down and overflowing, will be poured into your lap.  For the measure with which you measure will in turn be measured out to you. 

I love the imagery here -- "a good measure, packed together, shaken down and overflowing."  God, who will not be outdone in generosity, stands ready to be abundantly generous with us, if we are generous with others.

We are not particularly talking about money here, though of course, monetary gifts and mercy may be coupled quite easily.  The passage has more broadly to do with judgment; rather, it has to do with non-judgment, with non-condemnation.  Avoid condemning others and we will avoid condemnation.  Forgive others and we will be forgiven.  Show mercy and mercy will be shown to us.  

Not just shown to us.  Abundantly shown to us -- a good measure, packed together, shaken down and overflowing.  This passage from Luke reminds me of the passage from 1 Peter which assures us that charity covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).   

There is an important spiritual and emotional dynamic at work here -- specifically, to the extent that we open our hearts to forgive, so shall we be forgiven.  Forgive us our trespasses AS we forgive those who trespass against us (Matthew 6:12).  To the extent that we refrain from judging we will not be judged.  To the extent that we give, it will be given to us, a good measure.

This is not a matter of God playing tit for tat with us.  It is a description of a deep spiritual and emotional dynamic.  To the extent that our heart is open to forgive, that is the extent to which it is able to receive forgiveness.  To the extent that our heart is open to show mercy, that is the extent to which it is able to receive mercy.  To the extent that our heart is generous and giving, that is the extent to which it will be able to receive generosity, to receive gifts.  

Jesus encourages us to open our hearts to our fellow man, to be generous in our judgments, just as God is, in his.  To the extent that we can operate under this dynamic -- non-judgment, non-condemnation, forgiveness, generosity, mercy -- to precisely that extent will our own hearts be open to receive these blessings from God.  

I have read more than once, in the mystical tradition of the Church, that one of the sins which keeps a person in Purgatory longest is unforgiveness.  Again, it is not because God is playing tit for tat.  It is because it is precisely to the extent that we open our hearts to forgive others that we ourselves are open to receive forgiveness.  God would gladly forgive us everything in an instant.  But if the graces needed for our forgiveness are many, and if our heart is open only a little, either to forgive or to receive forgiveness, well, then God has to pour those graces slowly through a very narrow opening.  

He will get the work done, one way or another, as the Lord, who is kind and merciful, slow to anger and rich in kindness, wants us with him forever.  But it is up to us, just how quickly the Lord will be able to shower that mercy upon us; up to us how much of that good measure, packed together, shaken down and overflowing, we are able to receive at once.  "If today you hear his voice, harden not your heart" (Psalm 95:7-8).

Happy to see a forecast that shows sun and temps in the 70s for the weekend and coming week -- about time!  Though I was very grateful for all the rain the first half of this month, I am glad to see as well some dry weather ahead, not just dry but with temps reaching more typical February levels.  It has been COLD this first half of the month!

The fact that it is February has got me thinking about June.  Don't ask me -- it is an association that goes back to my childhood, perhaps precisely because of many boyhood memories of bright and sunny and mild February afternoons, flying kites in the fields beyond our house at Marysville's city edge, or of bright and sunny and mild February afternoons grabbing lunch at a patio restaurant along Telegraph Avenue with friends and colleagues at my office at Cal, in the 1980s and 1990s.  February, typically, brings the first stretch of 70-plus temps and that, I guess, has always gotten me thinking about June...

I will be starting a seven-month sabbatical in June.  It is not a travel sabbatical, not a study sabbatical.  It is a work sabbatical (the work being our efforts at San Gabriel Media).  But I will be traveling a bit, this summer and fall, and I am beginning to sketch those plans now.  Among other joys, God willing, I will return to Paris and Casablanca for the first time since the shutdowns.  I have good friends in both cities and have missed them despite texts, e-mail and WhatsApp.  

The sabbatical itself, being work-oriented, will have me here at St. Clement the entire seven months.  There will be several trips to LA, as that is where a lot of our production at San Gabriel takes place, but on the whole, this is going to look and feel like a seven-month summer vacation, here in the parish.  I typically work 15-20 hours/week in the summers here in Hayward; just the basic parish routine, which I love.  Summers at St. Clement have been a joy to me since I arrived here ten years ago.  The sabbatical will simply extend that pattern to New Year's.  The parish is hardly going to know that I am, in fact, taking a sabbatical.  

The high school, on the other hand, will miss me.  But after consulting with my higher-ups there, all were agreed that I should return in January, 2026, rather than abandon Bishop O'Dowd and return to the parishes.  We will employ a long-term sub to cover my classes.  I plan to remain at O'Dowd several more years.  

In any event, as June is now just four months off, I am beginning to think about and plan for it -- and beyond.  I am looking forward to the second half of this year.  

I'll close it here.

Hope this finds you well and happy.  God bless.

Fr. Brawn

Understanding the Beatitudes: A Reflection on Blessedness and Loss

Readings for Mass and Virtual Homily for February 16, 2025, Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time; A Blessed February 

Readings for Mass this Sunday

• Jeremiah 17:5-8

• Psalm 1:1-4, 6

• 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20

• Luke 6:17, 20-26 

Dear Friends and Family,

Today's readings include Luke's version of the Beatitudes ("Blessed are the...").  The first reading and the psalm reflect the theme of blessedness, of how we are blessed in life.  The second reading -- about the reality of the resurrection -- might, at best, be tangentially related.  I can identify a connection, in any rate; we are surely blessed if our understanding is that Jesus Christ truly rose from the dead.

The reading from Jeremiah echoes today's psalm (which was written first).  Both describe the man or woman who loves the Lord as being like a tree that is planted near a stream of fresh water,  The tree's roots stretch toward the stream and soak in the life-giving moisture even in years of drought (Psalm 1:3; Jeremiah 17:7-8).   

Both passages also give vivid images of the situation of those who ignore God.  Jeremiah describes such people as being like a shrub in a lava waste, barren and desiccated, divorced from all that gives life (vs. 6).  Psalm 1 refers to the state of the wicked as being "like chaff" which is blown away by the wind (vs. 4).

Luke's version of the Beatitudes tracks closely with the psalm and Jeremiah, in that Luke lists four beatitudes, or states of blessedness, and then goes on to list four curses.  Matthew's passage on the Beatitudes lists eight (or nine, depending on how you count) blessings and includes no curses.  

Matthew has Jesus deliver the Beatitudes from a slope above the people, hence it is known as the Sermon on the Mount.  Luke speaks as if it occurred on flat land, which could indicate that Jesus gave this teaching more than once, or could indicate that Luke was reporting it from the perspective of the crowd (whom Matthew agrees, were on flat land) or...well, these are the kinds of minor differences on which Biblical scholars write speculative essays and deliver provocative lectures.

At first glance the Beatitudes might appear counter-intuitive, and certainly counter-cultural, especially when we are talking about contemporary Western culture.  "Blessed are you poor," Luke tells us (vs. 20).  (Matthew's term is "poor in spirit," which can make a difference.)  "Blessed are you who are hungry," Luke continues (vs. 21).  Where, I ask my sophomores at O'Dowd, when we are studying the Sermon on the Mount, is the blessing in being poor, or even in being poor in spirit?  What possible blessing could accrue to knowing hunger?  (We have to allow for a metaphorical understanding as well, of course, of the term hunger.)

As a means of helping my students grasp the value of the teaching, I invite them to propose the "Beatitudes" of Hollywood, of Wall Street, of Madison Avenue, of Silicon Valley, of Sacramento and DC, of Bishop O'Dowd High School.  In these sectors of contemporary American society, what values would be considered blessings?  

"Blessed are the famous," is one that my students frequently apply to Hollywood, along with blessed are the beautiful, the talented, those with good agents and so on.  "Blessed are the rich" (Wall Street); "Blessed are those who move fast and break things" (Silicon Valley); "Blessed are the powerful," (Sacramento and DC) and so on...It can be pretty lively, once the students really start talking about what is valued by whom and where, in our society.   

The principle take-away I want the students to have in their consideration of the Beatitudes is that we are blessed when we are not full of ourselves, when we are not satiated with worldly acquisitions and distractions, because when we are aware that we are missing something there is room for the operation of grace.  The good things of this world, including not just material blessings but also our personal relationships, are just that: good things.  They are rightly called blessings.  But there is a real danger that we might become complacent amid our blessings, forgetting both God and neighbor.

I always share with my sophomores the experience of my twenties, when as a talented young writer, with novels coming forward and an enthusiastic agent representing me in Manhattan, with a cushy little job at Cal that paid the rent, with my rock and roll siblings for housemates and with a cute Japanese American girlfriend who was herself an artist -- I pretty much "had it all" at twenty-five.  God was not my central focus.  In fact, God was almost nowhere on my radar.  

Then came the back-to-back break-ups with my first agent and my most serious girlfriend; then came the move to LA by my musician siblings; then came my dissatisfaction at the thought that my life at twenty-eight consisted of two unsold novels, two major break-ups, one personal, one professional, a McJob on the Berkeley campus and the spare bed in my best friend's apartment...

"Blessed is the author who just lost his agent," might have been a Beatitude written expressly for me, in my late twenties.  For through the losses, I made the most priceless discovery of my life.  I encountered Jesus as (to borrow from our brothers and sisters in the big box churches) "my personal Lord and Savior."

When I explain the Beatitudes in this way, my students gain an insight into the meaning and the reality of the teaching.  We are made for God, and in the end, no substitute will suffice.

I am still responding to birthday texts, mailed cards and gifts, speaking of blessings, this second week of February.  I think I will catch them all up, over the holiday weekend.  Which long weekend also comes as a blessing to me -- one third of the way into the semester, the extra downtime gives me a chance to stop and reflect on how my classes are going, this spring term.  

In a word, things are going swimmingly.  As I mentioned at the outset of the semester, I am teaching a new class this term, three sections of Marriage and Family.  My colleague Liz Remigio, who helped develop this course and continues to teach it, loaded all her lesson plans onto my computer, and I was off to the races from day one.   

The greatest single joy in the new class is that it is upper division, and so I have the chance to re-connect with students I taught last year or the year before, when they were sophomores.  Any student who had me as a sophomore came into this class with a definite set of expectations, and so far, at least, my students assure me those hopes are being met.  I am not really "all that" as a high school teacher, but I do relate naturally and easily to the teens, and that is where learning starts.  Especially with the super set of lesson plans Liz just GAVE me to teach from, I am confident that my students this semester are learning, and -- important to me -- learning in a relaxed and joyful environment.

Finally, I had TWO funerals the same day (Wednesday) this week.  Both were parish families but both were off-site; one at Chapel of the Chimes and one in Palo Alto.  Too much to detail, but in both instances I was a last minute "save" for the family; each family was seriously worried that they might not be able to find a priest for the service.  

As It happened, I had to get a sub for the one class I had on Wednesday, but that was okay.  Once in a while, I have a reason to need a sub.  Both families were hugely grateful, and in fact, so was I.  Not too many experiences remind a priest more of the power of priesthood than does a funeral.  You are dealing with so much: faith in the resurrection; faith in the afterlife; prayers and hopes for the well-being of the deceased; the memories and emotions of the family and the friends; your own ability to stretch yourself into the place where the mourners are, and more. 

As I say, powerful.  I experienced that power in a double-shot this Wednesday, with two of our St. Clement families, and am grateful for it.  Almost any priest will tell you that most of us would rather do a funeral than a wedding.  That may sound almost perverse, but it is a matter of remembering, actually, something very much related to the Beatitudes: where there is loss, where something (someone) is missing, there is suddenly space for and openness to the presence of God.  "Blessed are they who mourn..."

In all, the second month of this year is barreling along as brightly as did the first.  I am not quite counting my blessings this winter; but I am very consciously aware of them.

Think I'll wrap it there.

Take care.  God bless. 

Love, 

Fr. Brawn 

From Sinners to Saints: Embracing God’s Call to Holiness

Readings for Mass and Virtual Homily for February 9, 2025, Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time; Birthday Season; Bright Grey Skies

Readings for Mass this Sunday

• Isaiah 6:1-8

• Psalm 138:1-8

• 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

• Luke 5:1-11

Dear Friends and Family,

The readings for this weekend underscore the fact that God calls sinners to repentance and the unworthy to positions of trust and responsibility.  This theme, if so it might be termed, should be obvious.  All of us are sinners and none of us are worthy, in a strict usage of the term, of the work with which God may entrust us.  God's method, so to speak, is to meet us where we are and lead us forward, inviting us to develop our God-given gifts along the way. 

In the course of accepting and living out God's call, we are made, if not entirely worthy, then at least less unworthy; we advance on the path to sainthood.  God sees the work-in-progress that we are here in time and space and God also sees the shining saint, the perfected masterpiece that we are, in eternity.  Like a parent helping a toddler learn to walk, God is always there for us, however many times we might stumble.  

In the first reading, Isaiah finds himself called to prophetic service and recognizing in the holy presence of God his sinfulness, his inadequacy, Isaiah does not feel up to the call.  He in fact seems to dread the very idea of it.  He describes a ritual purification which cannot be taken literally, but which exemplifies the dynamic: accept the call and God will see to your purification through it (vss. 4-8).   

The Gospel passage likewise demonstrates this basic theme.  The tremendous catch of fish, which threatens to sink two boats, after the disciples had had their nets in the water all night and caught nothing, overwhelms Peter.  He sees it for the sign that it is -- he is favored by God, he is called, he is chosen (to use a word that is being used a lot of late given that show of the same name).  Peter feels unworthy; his feelings of unworthiness are intense.  I have always loved Peter's response to the catch, falling to his knees and begging the Lord to leave him.  Peter clearly feels, as did Isaiah, that he cannot live up to the demands of the call (vs. 8).

Jesus' gentle response tells us all we need to know, where our feelings of unworthiness are concerned.  "Do not be afraid," Jesus assures Peter.  "From now on you will be catching men" (vs. 10).  That is, this enormous, this seemingly miraculous catch of fish, which so overwhelms Peter, is almost nothing, as far as Jesus is concerned.  Peter literally has "bigger fish to fry," and Jesus assures him that God has major plans for him.

I can relate easily to the anxiety expressed by both Isaiah and Peter.  When first exploring the possibility of a call to priesthood, I told the young priest I was speaking with that I felt unworthy of priesthood.  He assured me that such a feeling was a good indicator that I was, in fact, being called.  "You cannot wait to be perfect to become a priest, Jim," he said.  "If that were the case, we would have no priests.  Rather, the preparation for priesthood and then later, priesthood itself, will purify and sanctify you.  That is the way a vocational call works.  It's the same for married couples.  Husbands and wives advance on the path to sainthood by living out their vocation to marriage; married life itself can and should be purifying and sanctifying." 

All of which underscores a distinction between classical Protestant thinking on this subject and the teaching of the Church.  I say "classical" because although the doctrinal position has not, to my knowledge, ever changed, you will find very few of our brethren in the other Christian denominations who buy into Reformation anthropology (that is, the Protestant reformers' theory of human nature).

Lutheran (and subsequent Reformation) anthropology asserts that Original Sin so vitiated human nature that we are utterly corrupted; incapable of good.  The doctrine is called total depravity.  In Luther's teaching there are no living saints; there can't be.  What enters heaven is not a human being made perfect by the long process of purification and sanctification which begins here on earth and for most of us is completed in Purgatory.  Rather, what enters heaven is a "dung heap" (Luther's own words, translated, of course, from the original German); a dung heap covered in snow.  God throws a mantle of righteousness ("snow") over us, covering our sins, rather than actually taking them away.

Five hundred years after Martin Luther, we can only speculate as to his reasons for developing such a stark anthropology, such a dismal assessment of human nature.  It was said that Luther (an Augustinian friar prior to his break with Rome) sometimes spent six hours in confession, so tortured was he by his sins; by his apparent weakness in the face of temptation.  Luther, it appears, experienced himself as utterly corrupt, and felt not just unworthy of his religious call, but incapable of living it.   

Luther offers a striking contrast to Isaiah and Peter, who, also acknowledging their sinfulness, nonetheless open themselves to the operation of grace, allowing themselves to move along the path of gradual purification and sanctity; the path to sainthood.  

In fact, almost any Protestant believer you talk with is going to tell you that they believe human beings are capable of doing good, and that we can and do advance in holiness, if we want to.  But the strict theology, based on Lutheran understandings of human nature, is that we are exempt from doing good works above all because we cannot do them.  We are totally depraved.  This is why evangelical Christians will talk about accepting the free gift of salvation -- why they will tell you they know they are "saved."  They are certain of heaven, because -- strictly speaking, in their theology -- they do not have to do anything to earn it.  

The Church does not teach that we can "earn" heaven, either -- salvation is by grace.  But grace does not just save; it empowers.  It empowers in numerous ways but two of them are bedrock understandings of Catholic teaching.  One, grace empowers us to do good works.  According to Scripture itself (which should matter to folks who say that Scripture alone is our guide) faith without works "is dead" (Letter of James 2:14-26).  A living faith is going to show itself in good works; it is going to produce good fruit (Matthew 7:16).   

Two, grace empowers us to fight against our fallen nature, to fight against it and to achieve victories over it.  Grace empowers the development within us of the virtues which make war on our sinful inclinations.  This is what is meant by Matthew 11:12: "The kingdom of heaven is taken by force and the violent bear it away."  We don't get to heaven content to wallow in sin, excusing ourselves with the false notion that we were born depraved and there is nothing we can do about it.  St. Paul repeatedly admits his own struggle with sin; he is anything but complacent about it (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). 

This topic demands and deserves a more thorough treatment, but as this is a Sunday homily and not a chapter in a book, I am going to leave off with it here; I feel I have driven home my basic point.  Put in a maxim I rather admire: God does not call the qualified.  God qualifies the called. 

I have spent quite a bit of time the past ten days responding to texts, e-mails and mailed cards, wishing me a happy birthday.  I am still getting the texts answered; will have responded to all of them before this weekend is out.  There were almost 300 texts alone.  I still have a Facebook account but am never on it -- I do remember receiving 400 and more birthday greetings on Messenger, back in the days when I was active on FB.  If people have sent messages to me via Messenger -- my thanks.  

Two weeks after the day itself, I have birthday celebrations stretching ahead into the second half of the month, including a family brunch at the home of one of my nieces President's Day weekend.  I joke with friends that late January and the entire month of February constitute "the season of Father Jim's birthday."  I really do appreciate the love -- and talk about feeling unworthy!  In any event, I want to acknowledge all the beautiful messages of affection, encouragement and support.  There are several reasons why February is my favorite month; this is one of them.

Speaking of my favorite month.  Thanking the Lord for the wonderful grey skies this week, for the heavy winds and sheeting rain.  After a January that might have been borrowed from Palm Desert, this month's storms are more than welcome.  As I am finishing this e-mail, Friday morning in the rectory (heading to campus in another hour or so; I teach afternoons, this semester) there are bright and billowy clouds above the green hills of Hayward; bright and billowy clouds in several shades of grey.  The sight is as pretty as it is reassuring.  Thank you, Lord, for seeing to California's perpetual thirst!

Gonna wrap it here.  Hope this finds you well and thriving.  Hope that 2025 is off to a good start for you.  It is, actually, off to the best start of any year for me since before COVID.  Just another reason to sing thanks and praise to our loving and merciful God, whose graces abound.

Take care and God bless.

Fr. Brawn

Candlemas: The True End of Christmas and the Beginning of Christ’s Ministry

Readings and Virtual Homily for February 2, 2025, Feast of the Presentation of the Lord; Retreat Season at O'Dowd; Seems it Never Rains in Southern California; The Acacias and the Tulip Trees Are Making Me Smile; February Schedule

Readings for Mass this Sunday

• Malachi 3:1-4

• Psalm 24:7-10

• Hebrews 2:14-18

• Luke 2:22-40

Dear Friends and Family,

We are celebrating the Feast of the Presentation this Sunday.  This feast, also known as Candlemas, is the traditional (in Fr. Jim's view, the REAL) end to the Christmas season.  Though the Presentation is an event from Jesus' infancy, the readings look to his ministry and beyond; they describe the future Messiah.

The passage from Malachi is actually one of the Old Testament prophecies of John the Baptist, as well as of Jesus.  Malachi predicts the "messenger" who will precede the Messiah, and describes John and his ministry in terms with which we are familiar.  "I am sending my messenger -- he will prepare the way before me" (vs. 1).  

Malachi goes on to describe the Messiah with stark and powerful imagery.  "Who can endure the day of his coming?  Who can stand firm when he appears?  For he will be like a refiner's fire, like fullers' lye" (vs. 2).  Though Malachi directly connects this imagery with the purification of the priesthood and the Messiah's earthly mission, it might also be related to end-times images of Jesus, such as some of those found in the Book of Revelation: Jesus as Judge.

Psalm 24 hails the Messiah in majestic and military terms.  "Lift up your heads, O gates, be lifted, you ancient portals, that the king of glory may enter" (vs 7).  "The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in war...the Lord of hosts, he is the king of glory" (vss. 8, 10).  This striking imagery might be understood to depict Jesus in his heavenly glory.  It is, at the least, post-Resurrection imagery; it is imagery of Christ victorious, Christ triumphant, Christ the conquering king.

And while the passage from the Letter to the Hebrews fully and very deliberately assures us of Jesus' humanity, it at the same time reminds us of Jesus' cosmic powers.  Jesus is described as the one who enters into death precisely to destroy death itself, to gain victory over the powers of hell and so liberate the human race (vss. 14). 

The Gospel scene of the Presentation itself is, as I say, a part of Luke's infancy narrative, this event happens when Jesus is forty days old.  But here, too, the emphasis is on the future saving work, the ministry of the Messiah.  Both of the elderly prophets Luke identifies speak of the baby Jesus in terms of future glory.  Simeon describes Jesus as "a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory for your people Israel" (vs. 32).  Simeon continues, "this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted" (vs. 34).  The prophetess Anna, too, "gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem" (vs. 38).

Powerful images of Jesus, as Judge, as King, as Conqueror, as Messiah, in today's readings, when we celebrate the Presentation of the baby Jesus in the Temple. 

I am wrapping this homily up on Wednesday, because Thursday and Friday I am away at San Damiano in Danville, with the first (of two) sophomore retreats.  This is the second retreat we have had since the start of the semester, just over three weeks ago.  The first, last week, was the first (of two) senior class retreats.  Both the senior and the sophomore retreats are overnight, two full days for all of us on the retreat, away from campus.  A major fan of San Damiano (if you have not visited it, and you live in the Bay Area, I can and do recommend it highly as a retreat venue) and still being a youth minister at heart, I have zero problem, with back-to-back retreats this month, with our seniors and our sophomores.  

It does complicate lesson plans, of course, as I have to figure out what to give the students that they can do on their own, under the supervision of a substitute teacher (quite often one of our own faculty, whom the students know).  And this business has only grown in complexity over the decade that I have been at the high school.  I mentioned that each of this month's retreats was the first of two.  Time was, before COVID, when we offered just one sophomore and one senior retreat.  Plus three Kairos (junior year, and three-day) retreats.   

Over the last several years our retreat program has expanded to include two each, sophomore and senior retreats, and four Kairos retreats, two in the fall and two in the spring.  Do the math on the days that I am away from my students in class and it becomes...challenging.

I am aided this semester in that I am practically team teaching with a colleague, given that I have a brand new class this semester (Marriage and Family, rather than my typical Christian Scriptures).  I am also assisted by the maturity of my students this semester.  As I mentioned an e-mail or two back, I am accustomed to teaching sophomores; this semester I have an upper division class (all three of my sections are Marriage and Family) and so am teaching juniors and seniors, many of whom had me as their sophomore Christian Scriptures teacher.  There has been an easy bond between me and my students these first few weeks of class; that has also helped.  In any event, so far so good, holding the two sets of responsibilities, retreat work and classroom teaching, in balance.

Well, as of course you are aware, the rains came to southern California, just as predicted, and thank and praise the Lord, the fires have been vanquished.  I am still a little at a loss to know where this precipitation came from, as we got precious little of it here in the Bay Area, even as it was pouring, at times, in LA.  In the end, who cares?  The rain came, the fires are out, there appears to have been minimal mudslide activity...God be praised. 

I am seeing rain in the north state forecast, once again, this weekend and next week, and glad of it.  This has been one bone-dry January.  Hoping the predicted storms bring a lot of snow to the Sierra; we are in need of same, after such a dry mid-to-late winter.   

On the subject of late winter...I had the morning Mass here in the parish, last Saturday, January 25, my birthday.  As I was crossing through the rectory garden after Mass I happened to look up and see, beyond our gate, a stand of mimosa (acacia) trees that I have loved since first arriving here in Hayward, in 2015.  The trees were, all of a sudden, it seemed, in bright, in eye-popping yellow bloom.  I took it as a birthday grace, and remembering my homily of a couple weeks ago, about how graces are flowing in abundance in our day, I gave thanks and praise to the Lord for the unexpected beauty that morning.  

Driving in to campus each morning I am seeing all kinds of blossoming trees, some the white-flowering species I mentioned a couple weeks ago, some pink, and some -- like the tulip trees -- a combination of both colors.  There is a veritable corridor of acacias just before I reach campus -- they are already bright with blooms but will be brilliant, by mid-February, a cascade of shimmering yellow.  I smile, when I see them; that is, I smile each morning, as I near campus.  That's a grace, as well.

Important, I think, to give thanks now and then, for every-day blessings.  California's winter-flowering trees make that list, in my book! 

Take care and God bless.

Fr. Brawn

Mass Schedule for February:

• Saturday, Feb. 8

• 5 PM (English)

• Sunday, Feb. 9

• 620 PM (English)

CATHOLIC COMMUNITY OF PLEASANTON/Seton Campus

• 11 AM (English)

• Sunday, February 16
  8 AM, 1115 AM (both English) 

• Saturday, February 22
  5 PM (English)

• Sunday, February 23
  630 PM (English)

Weekday Masses (English except where noted)

• Mon, Feb. 3, 8 AM; Tue, Feb. 4, 8 AM; Fri, Feb 7, 8 AM;

• Fri. Feb. 7, 7 PM (Spanish); Mon, Feb. 10, 8 AM; Tue, Feb. 11, 8 AM; 

• Tue, Feb. 11, 7 PM; Fri, Feb. 14, 8 AM; Mon, Feb. 17, 8 AM; 

• Sat, Feb. 22, 8 AM; Mon, Feb. 24, 8 AM; Tue, Feb. 25, 8 AM;

• Sat., March 1, 8 AM

Understanding God's Gifts: Called and Gifted in Christian Life

Readings for Mass and Virtual Homily for January 26, 2025, Third Sunday of Ordinary Time; Fire in LA; Snow in New Orleans 

Readings for Mass this Sunday

• Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10

• Psalm 19:8-10, 15

• 1 Corinthians 12:12-30

• Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21 

Dear Friends and Family,

The first reading and the Gospel passage today continue the theme of abundant graces in play which we looked at last week.  Rather than try to find new ways to talk about a "year of favor from the Lord" (today's passage from Luke) with this homily, I want to zero in on the twelfth chapter of the First Letter to the Corinthians, in which Paul continues with the theme of last week's passage, the theme that the Spirit gives gifts to all believers.  

After a fairly extensive metaphor in which Paul compares the workings of the Christian community to the workings of the human body -- each part with its own function and importance, but all parts together necessary for the body to function -- the apostle then lists various giftings, or charisms from the Spirit to individual believers.  Paul lists numerous sets of skills and abilities entrusted to members of the community, from those called to be apostles, prophets and teachers to those whose gifts vary from administration to speaking in tongues (vss. 28-30).  

In our time, the Church has utilized a variety of methods to help priests, parish staff, lay leaders and volunteers understand and deploy their gifts and abilities, two of which, the Gallup-based Strength Finders battery and the Siena Institute's Called and Gifted workshops, I have taken.   

Both of these assessments employ a "forced choice" method of discernment; that is, the person taking the "test" identifies one priority over another over a very wide range of choices, until an eventual pattern appears.  This method is utilized in a number of standard personality and character-strengths batteries such as the Minnesota Multi-Phasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), the Miller Analogies Test and the Edwards Personal Preference Test.  

I had to take a couple of these inventories as an undergrad at Berkeley, being an RA, that is, a member of the staff in the dorms.  The Housing Office brass wanted us RAs (the initials stand for Resident Assistant) to know our strengths and weaknesses, with regard to being in a position of authority over 200 students living in our particular dorm.  There were, at that time, four RAs per dorm, and the hope was that among the four of us most of the strengths would be represented, so that a fair and easy administration of Housing Office policy might naturally emerge.  Gifts distributed, in other words, for the overall benefit and functioning of the community.

Twenty years after my time at Cal, as a member of a parish staff, not yet a priest, I twice in five years attended a Called and Gifted Workshop, developed by the Siena Institute (a Catholic organization dedicated to, among other things, helping to develop leadership among the laity).  The "test" (assessment is a better word) administered during these workshops identified some core elements in my own future discipleship, including a likely charism for celibacy and a deep capacity for evangelization (that is, teaching and exemplifying the faith).  

Later, as a seminarian, I underwent a series of psychological assessments, including the MMPI and the Meyers-Briggs battery -- which told me I was an artist as well as a likely evangelist.  My priestly formators (that is, the men and women charged with seeing to my progress toward ordination) were very respectful of the fact that the "tests" were consistently telling them that, in Brawn Sullivan, they had an artist on their hands; a writer, independent and inclined to think for himself.  These understandings assisted my mentors in assisting me, on the path toward ordination, which path, after all, requires some real submission to outside authority.  Independent thinking is all well and good, insofar as it goes.  The understandings of a properly formed conscience, and an intuitive respect for magisterial authority, can serve to temper and guide this strength toward productive ends.  

Finally, as a priest in the parishes, back twelve, fifteen years ago, I twice took, along with the entire parish staff, the Gallup Strength Finders assessment -- a specifically Catholic version of which had been developed, precisely to help priests and parish staff identify their greatest strengths.  Too much to detail here, but both times that I took the Strength Finders assessment, I came up not just "strategic" but doubly so -- that is, on two different measures both times that I took this assessment, I was revealed to be, above all, a strategic thinker.  

I remember being blown away by this, the first time it happened (at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Fremont, maybe 2010).  I saw the word "strategic" and just drew a blank.  I knew what some of the other strengths were -- empathic, encouraging, empowering, evangelizing -- and I had assumed that one of them would prove to be my deepest strength.  I was very surprised to see the word "strategic" uppermost in my assessment summary.

Then I read what this strength entails.  And well, shut my mouth, as the saying goes...I was nailed to the wall.  The description fit me like a glove.  I remember smiling, when I read the description of the person whose deepest strength is strategic thinking.  It described me to the "t" and going back to my late teens.   

All of which is just to say that all of us are, indeed, called and gifted.  And the order of the words there, called and gifted, is often the way the process works.  You experience the call (and respond) and THEN you are gifted.  Gifted with the capacity to fulfill the demands of that particular set of responsibilities, from being a director of a parish program to being a good parent.  Called -- into a certain place and position of responsibility -- and then, once we have accepted the call, gifted to succeed at it.

It can work the other way as well, of course.  We might well intuit a particular gift or ability and seek its development on our own -- that describes me and my writing.  But anything at all related to my work for the Church, from being Confirmation teacher, to becoming youth minister, to seminary to priesthood and now to the chaplaincy at Bishop O'Dowd -- all of that followed the called first, gifted as I went, pattern.  The point is that we may not guess what we are capable of -- but God knows what we can do, maybe it is better to say what the Spirit can do through us, when we cooperate with grace.  

Well it is going on midnight Thursday, the 23, as I am wrapping this and as of late this afternoon the Eaton and Palisades fires are still not fully contained; meanwhile a new blaze near Santa Clarita has burned ten thousand acres.  At the same time, New Orleans got ten inches of snow Tuesday, the most in 130 years.  (I was surprised, actually, to read that New Orleans had EVER before recorded so much snow.)  That is two and one half times as much snow in one day as has fallen in Anchorage so far this winter.  (I guess southern Alaska is also enduring drought conditions.)  Reading about children using pool floats (blow ups of swans and dolphins, for instance) to sled down snowy inclines in Pensacola lent a lighter touch to my perusal of the weather news out of the Deep South, but it underscored the plight of our neighbors in the south state, where, finally rain is in the forecast. 

I do not know where this rain is coming from since there is none in the Northern California forecasts, neither here in the Bay Area nor in the Sacramento Valley.  But rain is rain and I am sure that at this point Angelenos will take it anyway they can get it.  It does not look like a lot -- which is itself a mercy as drenching rain at this point would trigger mudslides in all the burn areas.  We are nearing the end, meanwhile, here in the north state, of one of the driest Januarys on record.  Thank God for our very wet start to the rainy season -- it is startling to think that without that good wet start, we could be dealing with wildfires here.

So my prayer for rain as January moves toward its end includes the whole state, at this point, and while I am at it, I will pray for snow in Anchorage and for a thaw and a return to normal winter weather across the eastern two thirds of the country.  What a wild start to 2025.  

We have been exceptionally blessed here in the Bay Area, to be spared any part of it.

Take care.  God bless.  

Love,

Fr. Brawn