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From the Pastor&
"If it looks like fun and doesn't break the Ten Commandments, do it."
-- Sr. Carol Jackowski
Recently, I was listening to a tape on the liturgy by Fr. Richard Fragomeni. He used an analogy that I think is quite funny. "If the horse you are riding dies, get off." Sounds like a simple thing to do, doesn't it? He goes on to list the alternatives we try instead of facing the fact that the horse is dead and getting off. For example: we buy a stronger whip, we switch riders, we appoint a committee to study dead horses, we visit other places where they seem to be riding dead horses quite effectively, or we complain about the status of dead horses these days.
Have you ever had to get off a dead horse? Or, are you still on your dead horse and wondering why you should get off? It is often "safer" to stay on the dead horse than it is to get off! And, if everybody else is riding a dead horse, than it's really hard to get off!
Remember when nuns "looked" like nuns? It was Pope Pius XII who called nuns to get rid of their medieval habits. The habits really weren't functional or healthy for the women who wore them. Once upon a time the habit was what poor women wore in society. Times change. The Sisters could still do great work for the Lord without wearing eighteenth century garb. They got off a dead horse! But there are people who want them back on that horse.
In life, as we grow and mature, we begin to question a lot of things. We question and challenge our parents; our church; our government; our society; our spouse; our friends; our educational system; and the list goes on. We even question God: why; how come; why me? Certain things or certain ideas in life become "dead horses" for us. We get off that horse, that way of thinking, and move on. It can be scary if you are one of the first in your family or circle of friends to think or live life in a new way.
Has God ever called you to get off a dead horse? God did it all the time in the sacred scripture stories. Why do we think God stopped doing that when the Bible was completed? Small thinking on our part. God called Mother Teresa to get off the dead horse she was on and begin a new religious order. That horse was fine for other women who found it life-giving, but it wasn't where Teresa belonged.
Is your image of God a "dead horse"? I mean, does your image of God keep you growing, excited, challenged and in love? Have we created a God in our own image? Maybe it is God who is saying to us that our image of God is dead and not life-giving. God can break out of the boxes we put God into because it's safer for us to have God boxed-in and predictable.
It's rather exciting to allow God to challenge our thinking, or lack of thinking, isn't it?
Let's keep riding
together...
Fr. Bill
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