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Sunday, January 27, 2019 * Third Sunday of the Year * www.stjosephparish.org CONFIRMATION 2019 “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE HAS ANOINTED ME.” The Desert Mother & the Confirmandi My work is loving the world. THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird— JANUARY 27, 2019 equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blu plums. Homily Next Week: Julian Climaco, S.J. Here the clam deep in the speckled sand. Weekend Mass Schedule Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Saturday - 5 pm Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me Sunday - 9 am , 11 am & 5:30 pm keep my mind on what matters Readings for February 3, 2019 which is my work, FIRST READING: JEREMIAH 1:4-5, 17-19 which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. SECOND READING: 1 CORINTHIANS 12:31-13:13 GOSPEL: LUKE 4:21-30 -Mary Oliver- Weekday Mass Schedule In the early 4th century, following the acceptance of Christianity by Monday - Friday, 7 am, Parish Center the Roman Empire, a group of women and men, dismayed by the Reconciliation cultural appropriation of the faith and by the subsequent dilution of Saturday - 3:30-4:15 pm in the Church the gospels’ radical call, began to leave their homes in the cities and or by appointment find their way to remote locations, especially into the desert around Parish Center Alexandria. Seeking austere and prayerful solitude, these ascetics 732 18th Ave E, Seattle, WA 98112 occupied themselves with simple tasks—tending small gardens or Monday- Friday - 8 am - 4:30 pm weaving baskets—while spending most of their day in fasting and Saturday - 9 am - 1 pm prayer. In this way, monasticism set aside the false security of wealth www.stjosephparish.org and power, the false community of the marketplace, and the false Parish Receptionist (206) 324-2522 spirituality of religious conformism. Instead, it grounded the Church in the place of Sacrament: at the confluence of the ordinary and the Pastor transcendent, of the simple and the divine. In the silence of the des- Rev. John D. Whitney, S.J. x107 ert, these women and men could hear the voice of God; and in their [email protected] solitude, could meet that Presence which transcends and infuses all Parochial Vicar reality. And though few of their fellow Christians would be called Rev. Julian Climaco, S.J. x103 [email protected] to leave the cities and join them in the desert permanently, many Deacon sought the teachings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, incorporat- Steve Wodzanowski x106 ing their stories in ways that would shape the life of the Church for [email protected] the next 2000 years. Pastoral Staff: Marti McGaughey, Business Mgr x108 Today, although monasticism continues to exist in many religious [email protected] traditions, it is often artists—and particularly poets—who have as- Tina O’Brien, Stewardship x114 [email protected] sumed the mantle once worn by the Desert Mothers and Fathers. Renée Leet, Admin Assistant x100 Though rarely dressed in animal hides or living in caves, such artists [email protected] immerse themselves in the ordinariness of the world, and through Marie Pitman, Director of Religious Ed x112 their encounters with the ordinary, reveal something of the divine [email protected] that resides at the heart of all life. It may be Denise Levertov reflect- Theresa Lukasik, Adult Faith Formation x111 [email protected] ing on the “Birds afloat in air’s current,” or Wendall Berry coming Bob McCaffery-Lent, Liturgy & Music x109 “into the peace of wild things;” it may be William Stafford speak- [email protected] ing of life’s bonuses, “like morning, like right now, like noon,” or Caprice Sauter, Comm. & Scheduling x102 even Sharon Olds, looking at herself, “this body, white as yellowish [email protected] dough brushed with dry flour.” It could be any of a hundred other Lianne Nelson, Bookkeeper x113 [email protected] seekers, who perceive the world with the eyes of a mystic, and find Yuri Kondratyuk, Facilities x110 in what is most common the holy and awful mystery that the Desert Mothers and Fathers sought, and that each of us longs for in the deep St. Joseph School - Main Office x210 recesses of his or her heart. Not all of these seekers will find words Patrick Fennessy, Head of School x218 adequate to communicate their experience, yet from those who do Mary Helen Bever, Primary School Dir x215 comes wisdom that can rescue us from the illusions that surround Vince McGovern, Middle School Dir x219 us: illusions of control and power, of dominance and urgency; il- lusions that fill us with anxiety and anger, with covetousness and 1 ideology; illusions that drive us to war and oppression, life, and the summoning question given to all who live to mindless consumption and ultimate despair. So often not as ideas or concepts, but—like the grasshopper or cut-off from the very world we inhabit, we need these the black bear—in the irreducible mystery of the exist- poets and artists, these new Desert Fathers and Mothers, ing world. to open our eyes and our hearts to the astonishment that surrounds us and the mystery in which we live. This Saturday evening, at the 5:00 pm Mass at St. Joseph, 28 young women and men will receive the Sacrament of On January 17, as the world was preoccupied with the Confirmation at the hands of Bishop Mueggenborg. In a dissembling of the American President and the weeping rite nearly as ancient as the Church herself, these young of separated children, with American bombs exploding people will be invited to profess their faith through the in Yemen and teachers preparing to strike in Los Ange- renewal of their baptismal promises, and then will be les, Mary Oliver, one of the greatest of these new Desert called forward for the anointing and laying on of hands. Mothers, died quietly in her home in Florida. Raised in Together, they have spent months of study and service Ohio, in a troubled family, early in her life she found to prepare themselves for this day, when they shall be refuge in words and in the natural world, using her po- fully incorporated into the Church through the last of the etry like a lens to see the truth of the world and to bring Sacraments of Initiation. Yet, as beautiful and gracious it into view in simple, profound, and powerful verse. as this liturgy will be, its truth and fullness resides not in Her mission, she knew, was to love the world, seeing the power of the Bishop nor even in the sacredness of it without the coloring that comes from ideology or the the words and actions, but in the willingness of each of distortions born of ego. In words and structures often these confirmands to accept the mystery that is offered deceptively simple, Oliver’s poetry manifests an incar- and to receive it into the fullness of their lives. For, as the national awareness, by which she invites readers to set Desert Mothers and Fathers—both old and new—tell us: aside the noise and the artifice, and enter the desert with the sacred gifts come not in generalities nor to crowds, her: where the mystery at the heart of reality can speak but only in the experience and surrender of each per- to the mystery of our own deepest desires. As seen in son. At that moment when the hands of the Bishop are one of her most famous poems—The Summer Day—the laid upon the confirmand and the fragrant oil stains her particular truth of the world offers a doorway, by which hair or his skin, it will not be doctrine nor dogma, not one can find the question of one’s heart, a question rem- theologies nor ecclesiologies that are confirmed; rather, iniscent of that question Jesus asks when the disciples it will be her or him, each young woman, each young of John follow him at the river Jordan (John 1:35-39). As man, loved and chosen in his or her irreducible identity. Oliver frames it: “Who made the world? / Who made Though we pray we have given them the knowledge and the swan, and the black bear? / Who made the grass- experience they need, we cannot confirm them—even hopper? / This grasshopper, I mean— / the one who has God cannot confirm them—except as each one receives flung herself out of the grass, / the one who is eating sug- the gift of the Spirit given uniquely and particularly to ar out of my hand, / who is moving her jaws back and them as a beloved son or a chosen daughter. For as the forth instead of up and down— / who is gazing around ancients showed in their migration to the desert, and as with her enormous and complicated eyes. / Now she poets like Mary Oliver remind us today, the grace poured lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. into this world is not an idea to be taught: it is a mystery / Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. / I to be lived. May each of the young people confirmed don't know exactly what a prayer is. / I do know how to this Saturday live well and lovingly in the grace he or pay attention, how to fall down / into the grass, how to she receives, unconquered by the noise of this world kneel down in the grass, / how to be idle and blessed, and filled with the power of wonder and love.

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