There is a growing concern among some of us about the phenomenon of texting. It is not unheard of for adolescents to be in one part of the home, texting their parents, or sitting right across from each other and texting back and forth rather than actually looking at each other and having a conversation. Texting may be efficient, however, it is so impersonal. Is life about efficiency? Our Gospel for today suggests otherwise. The Gospel speaks about the personal touch which characterizes Jesus’ ministry.

For Jesus, people are not just numbers or projects to be taken care of in an efficient manner. No, there is something incredibly personal about approaching Peter’s mother-in-law. Jesus approached her, grasped her hand and helped her up. Jesus’ healing is a sign of salvation and salvation is always personal. In reaching out Jesus responds to the universal human need for healing. Jesus’ ministry is about our experiencing the transformation of hopelessness through a personal encounter with Jesus.

Through personal encounters with Jesus, we experience the Kingdom now and not yet. We experience the Kingdom is at hand. The healings performed by Jesus inaugurate salvation. We know what Jesus did: encountered people and offered them wholeness. As hius disciples, this is our work-we must be as up close and personal as Jesus.

Congratulations to Sister Kathleen Minchin, who received the Cardinal Mooney High School Distinguished Alumni Award of 2012 along with football coach Bob Stoops. Sister Kathleen, who leads the HIV/AIDS Ministry for the Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown, was honored by the Mooney Alumni Association for “demonstrating a continuing concern and dedication for Cardinal Mooney High School and the values it represents.”  Sister Kathleen’s acceptance speech.

Did your mother ever say any of the following to you?

• I could plant potatoes in those ears.
• I’m not your maid.
• If your friends jumped off a cliff does that mean you have  to jump too?

Perhaps these phrases are familiar to you as well

• Just wait till you have kids of your own
• Don’t talk with food in your mouth
• You weren’t born in a barn, so stop acting like you were
• And of course I am sure you have heard, if not uttered, the all time classic
• “Because I’m your mother, that’s why!”

Each of these statements are expressions that have been passed from generation to generation. They are expressions of authority – the authority of a parent over a child.

Authority however is weaker in some people and stronger in others. We have all heard parents who say things like “I really mean it this time” and known that it means nothing. Equally, we have heard others say simply and quietly – “Children, come” and seen an entire brood tumble into the room, waiting for what is to be said next.   The strength of a person’s authority comes from the strength of the Spirit within the person. Further, the Spirit within a person can be good, or it can be evil- exercising its authority negatively not only upon other  but also upon the person in whom it resides.

Today’s scripture readings are about authority and power . The gospel reading concerns itself with the authority that Jesus held – an authority that allowed Jesus to command evil to depart and to teach in a manner unlike that of the scribes and Pharisees.

As Christians each one of us is granted authority by God to speak in his name, we are called by Jesus to go out and to preach, and teach, and heal; to care for others and to show them God’s love. Jesus even gives the authority to forgive the sins of others in the name of God, saying to Peter “what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth, will be loosed in heaven..”

Jesus gives to us a tremendous power, a tremendous authority.. All true power and authority, that power and authority that creates and heals, and does good instead of evil comes from the Lord that is revealed in the Holy Scriptures. All other power and authority is either a corrupted version of this true power and authority, or it is the power and authority that comes from pure evil.

In the gospel reading today we see a man who possessed by a demon. The people around this man surely knew what he needed. Demon possession is pretty obvious stuff. Those who are possessed are no longer in control of themselves. They are sick – not in a way we normally think of sick -but sick anyway – and it causes them to do things that they do not want to do, to behave in ways that they do not want to behave.

Those around this man knew he needed to be healed, that he needed to have the demon cast out – but none of them could do it. They may even have said to one another – “its too bad about that poor guy, someone should do something about it”. Kind of like what we say about a lot of situations.

• Someone should do something about violence in the schools.
• Someone should do something about the hungry in the third world.
• Someone should do something about battered women.
• Someone should do something about all the kids who go on welfare.

Then Jesus came – and he commanded the demon to come out of the man – and it did. The spirit obeyed him and the man was healed. Jesus had the authority and the power needed to make a difference. He had the authority and power of God, a power that can change any situation, heal any person.n Jesus still has this power and this authority. And he offers it to us. He calls us to use it to do the work of God in this world. He calls us to employ it to heal, to teach, to bring justice, and to grant mercy.

When we put ourselves at Jesus disposal. When we go forth to speak his word. When we act according to the teachings he has given us. When we pray and study on the word of God and ask God to use us – even us – to accomplish his will. The demons around us will begin to disappear.

The trick is – we need to get in tune with what God wants us to do and say. And this requires that we spend a large amount of time seeking out the will of God.

In 1960 the off-Broadway classic “The Fantastiks” debuted in front of widely approving audiences. The best known song from that popular musical was “Try to Remember,” a sentimental ballad written by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, which is still a crowd favorite at sing-along piano bars and among any of us who consider ourselves to be Broadway divas. Perhaps you remember that song: “Try to remember the kind of September when grass was green and the grain was yellow….” You remember. I love that song. It’s a beautiful reminiscent melody.

But do you remember how that song ends? The ending, to me, always seemed awkward. Try to remember and if you remember, then follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow. It’s a song with a lot of follows. If I had written that song, I would have just stopped with one follow. Try to remember and if you remember, then follow. Period. After all, less is more. But the composers evidently liked the word follow so they included a whole lot of them. Follow, follow, follow, follow.

Sometimes when I hear the Gospel, I experience the same reaction because the Bible is not shallow on follows. Jesus was always calling on people to follow. A good chunk of the stories end with those familiar words and Jesus said, “Follow me.” He said it to Simon Peter and Andrew while they were casting nets into the sea. “Follow.” He said it to James and John while they were mending their nets, “Follow.” Matthew was sitting in a tax booth; paralytics were sitting on their mats. Saul was sitting blinded on a dusty road. Follow, follow, follow.But at other times, it was implied. “Come and see,” Jesus would say. “Go and do likewise,” Jesus would say. “Go into all  the world,” Jesus would say.

No matter how you phrase it, the haunt is still the same. Follow, follow, follow The words ring in our ears, follow, follow, follow, even long after our initial decision to follow him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the martyred German Lutheran pastor who was hanged by the Nazis in 1945 for resisting their ideology of terror and hatred, wrote extensively during his lifetime about the dangers of what he called “cheap grace.” Instead of cheap grace, he said God’s love is a costly grace. Grace comes to us with a steep price attached to it–the death of Jesus, and, therefore, it costs something of us in return. It cost Dietrich Bonhoeffer his life and it should cost us our life as well.

Our faith tells us that when we hear and respond to Jesus’ call to follow, to come to the cross, we do not walk alone. We walk with Jesus, we walk with him to the cross; we walk with him to the resurrection and that is Good News.

The Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown will welcome seven new Associates during a ceremony and Mass Thursday, Jan. 26 at our Motherhouse Chapel. The Associates program forges a deeper relationship between the Ursuline Sisters and Catholic adults who share our values and mission. The program also is a way for the Ursuline Sisters to further the mission of St. Angela Merici, the 16th-century Italian saint who founded the Ursuline Order more than 475 years ago. Her feast day is celebrated Jan. 27. These new Associates join 45 others in the program, now in its 11th year. Sister Norma Raupple, standing second from left, is the program’s director

The Gospel reading is a whole sequence of people telling each other they have seen Jesus and who they think Jesus is. John tells two of his disciples that Jesus is “the Lamb of God,” and what did they do? They run off after Jesus. They want to see for themselves. They catch up and have an odd conversation with Jesus, and then Andrew runs off and finds his brother Peter and brings him to meet Jesus too. When Jesus meets Peter, Jesus gives him a new name, “Rock.” Peter will do so much telling that he’ll be a foundation on which the church will be built. To read this story is to get caught up in the cycle of listening, telling, and re-telling that is the story of discipleship.

The question is  Why are stories of meeting this man Jesus told again and again? There are at least two answers. One is the answer in Isaiah. God wants the story of salvation told and calls people to tell it, calls them before they are born. That is the prophet Isaiah’s own story and Jeremiah’s too.

For the other answer we have to go back to the middle of what we heard today in John, to the point where two men, who have no names yet, are running after a man on the street, pointed out by someone else.

“What are you looking for?” Jesus asks the two disciples. Now, “What are you looking for?” is a fairly strange question when you think about it. The logical question would be, “What do you want?” Maybe this isn’t a story about what people want. Twice John says the Spirit came to Jesus and remained. The two disciples asked, “Where are you staying?” They go and see “where he was staying and they stayed with him that day.”

Remain. Remain. Stay. Stay. Stay.

Could this story be telling us something the disciples don’t know yet themselves? What people are looking for is not information, answers to questions such as “Who is Jesus?” or “Is this the one?” Or “Am I right about this church business?” Not even the answer to the question of why stories of meeting this man have captured the human heart for generations.

What we are all looking for without even knowing it is a place to stay, a place to remain always. Jesus is that place, a person who is himself a home, a place to belong, a whole way of life. Jesus knows that what the disciples really want is a place to belong. Whatever he sees on the faces of these two men panting in front of him after running down the street, whatever he sees, what he says to them is just right and wonderfully inviting: “Come and see.” They do go with him. They end up staying, and his story becomes their way of life.

“What are you looking for?” says Jesus to people who were told by someone else where he could be found. “Come and see,” he said to people who wondered if they had a place in his story. The thing that moves people from one question to the other, from “What are you looking for?” to “Come and see” is the story we have been called to tell. It’s the only story we have to tell, the story of our home, the place from which we draw hope and strength and power. That place is a person, and the best way to tell his story-perhaps the only way-is with our lives.

We have just passed the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. We will now enjoy a little more light each day. Christmas itself is a feast of lights. Trees are brought into homes and made radiant with brilliant lights; yards are also illumined. In other ways too, our lives are aglow with light. Often families are reunited; bonds of love and friendship are strengthened, and memories are brought to birth. These events of grace truly light up our lives.

The readings for today speak of two kinds of light. Isaiah promises a light full of hope. Jerusalem went through destruction and forced migration and is now in desperate need of rebuilding—a situation that has repeated itself down through the ages, even to our own day. The prophet proclaims that the darkness of despair has been lifted, and a new day of restoration has dawned. At last, the light has come!

In the Gospel, the magi are led to the child by the light of a star. Whether this was an actual celestial phenomenon, as the narrative suggests, or a metaphor for some other kind of enlightenment, it was by divine guidance that they found the child.

The children’s version of the Gospel story is well known to most, but the adult version contains the real challenge. It maintains that God, not the social or political structures of the day, is the source of our light. It teaches that openness and humility are necessary if we wish to read correctly the “signs of the times.” It insists that when we discover the “promised one,” we must be willing to offer him all that we have. The light has come, and we are invited to live in it. How have we responded to the invitation?

Is it over yet? Are the carols gone from the air waves? Have the stores dismantled their decorations? Has Christmas been put away to make room for Valentine’s Day? It always happens so fast. We waited and waited for Christmas, and then it came and went in a flash. But it did not happen like that for Mary; and we cannot afford to let it happen like that for us. She kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart—and so must we.

All who heard the shepherds were amazed at the story they had to tell. It was Mary who kept turning the events over and over in her mind, trying to plumb the depths of their meaning. From the moment of the angel’s unbelievable declaration, she realized that for the rest of her days she would be living with mystery. And so she kept all these things in her heart.

Mary had a unique relationship with the Blessed Trinity as daughter of the Father, mother of the Son, and spouse of the Holy Spirit. Her feelings are beautifully expressed in the Magnificat, which she spoke during her visit to her cousin Elizabeth. Here she is filled with joy as the recipient of God’s love and also of an awesome responsibility

For this today we say a special Thanks to her. The Son is so often a reflection of the mother as the woman in the Gospel so clearly realised. He is the one who will rout the “proud in heart” but will “fill the hungry with good things”. We are, at the same time, among those who are hungry and who are called on to feed others spiritually, emotionally and materially according to need.

The first day of the New Year is traditionally a day to pray for peace. This year, peace is much more than a seasonal theme. It might conjure up the faces of frightened children dressed in foreign garb, or that of a daughter or son in uniform. We beg God to look upon us kindly and give us peace. Here again, Mary may well serve as our model. She considered deeply the events of her life. So must we, if peace is to take root in our day and take flesh in our lives.

Let us pray: Lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth, from despair to hope, from fear to trust lead us from hate to love, from war to peace; let peace fill our hearts ,let peace fill our world ,let peace fill our universe.

On Christmas Day our Sister Teresa Winsen joined the choirs of angels singing “Glory to God in the Highest” when she died at Park Vista. She was 80 years old.
 
In her 57 years of active ministry, Sister Teresa distinguished herself in education and leadership in Catholic schools, parishes and for the Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown.  She taught at Immaculate Conception, St. Columba, and St. Patrick Schools in Youngstown.  She also served as principal at St. Patrick, Immaculate Conception, St. Brendan, and St. Joseph, Austintown.

Sister Teresa was elected to leadership of the Ursuline Sisters in 1972, serving as Temporal Coordinator in addition to her ministry as principal at Immaculate Conception.  She was elected General Superior of the Ursuline Sisters in 1976 for a 4-year term.

After her term as Superior,  Sister Teresa began parish ministry and worked in several local parishes including St. Maron, St. Patrick, Leetonia, St. John, Campbell, St. Anthony, Youngstown, and Holy Trinity, Struthers.

In the 1980s, Sister Teresa was appointed Associate Director of the Office of Religious Education for the Maronite Eparchy of Brooklyn.  In this capacity, she helped publish a Marionite Religious Education textbook series.  In 2000, Sister Teresa was awarded the Cross Pro-Ecclesia et Pontifce, i.e., the Cross for the Church and the Pontiff, by Pope John Paul II.  This award is given to clergy and laity who have given service to the Church.

Calling hours for Sister Teresa will be 4:00 to 4:45 pm, Wednesday December 28, 2011, at the Ursuline Motherhouse, 4250 Shields Rd., Canfield.  Mass of Christian Burial will be at 5:00 pm immediately after calling hours.

In lieu of flowers, please send memorial donations to the Ursuline Sisters of Youngstown.

At Christmas we turn our attention to an only Son and a young life.  Our gospel today brings us up a bit short! For John, “in the beginning” is not measured in human terms; it is a much longer term, back to creation, before time. There the Word already had divine life and was already one with God. And this Word would come to dwell with us on earth so that we might see divine glory.

A profound Christmas message today: if we accept Jesus and come to know him, then we become children of God. Jesus’ birth is also our rebirth. From the beginning, God desired our salvation. The amazing good new – one moment ushers in an eternal glory. Darkness is dispelled because the Light of the World became incarnate and dwells among us.

Christmas is the time to risk becoming vulnerable again. Christmas is the time to really believe that love is possible. God’s vulnerability at Christmas time invites us to respond by opening our hearts and believing in love once again. Nothing is more magical than a heart that has become vulnerable to another person – not snow on Christmas eve, not twinkling lights and starry skies, not haunting Christmas carols, not even the faces of little children on Christmas morning.

Nothing is more magical than a heart that has become vulnerable to believe once again in the promise and possibilities of love. And that’s what we see when we look in the manger or on the cross – the vulnerable heart of God calling us to mutual friendship and maybe even a little romance. It’s magical. It’s the magic of Christmas.