I Will Lay Down My Life for the Sheep” Fr
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Sunday, April 22, 2018 * Fourth Sunday of Easter * www.stjosephparish.org “I will lay down my life for the sheep” Fr. John is taking a few days off, following the Easter celebrations. This FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER week, therefore, is a “best of” column. From last March. More new APRIL 22, 2018 writings, next week. Enjoy Homily This Week: John D. Whitney, S.J. Reflection Next Week: Ann Alokolaro A Beautiful World Weekend Mass Schedule Some days shine so brightly, Saturday - 5 pm Gold dust in a pan. Sunday - 9:00 am, 11 am & 5:30 pm Some days you hold so lightly They go slippin' right through your hands. Readings for April 29, 2018 And those of us who are so lucky FIRST READING: ACTS 9:26-31 Get to grow old before we die. SECOND READING: 1 JOHN 3:18-24 Sometimes it seems this old life GOSPEL: JOHN 15:1-8 Ain't nothin' but a long goodbye. Weekday Mass Schedule -Dave Mallett- Monday - Friday, 7 am, Parish Center Reconciliation Walking home from work the other night, having stayed too late in Saturday - 3:30-4:15 pm in the Church the office and ready for bed, I chanced to look up at the surprisingly or by appointment unclouded sky, and was stunned by the beauty I saw. There, just to the Parish Center east of me, Venus hung low, suspended in the night sky. She was far 732 18th Ave E, Seattle, WA 98112 less bright than the last time I remember seeing her, a few weeks ago, but she was still lovely. In that late winter sky, she had been danc- Monday- Friday - 8 am - 4:30 pm ing above the duller, red-hued Mars—like a beautiful young woman, Saturday - 9 am - 1 pm walking past a boy who was too mesmerized to speak. But today, she www.stjosephparish.org floated alone, lower in the sky and softer in her light, just above the Parish Receptionist (206) 324-2522 roofline. Meanwhile, Mars, stood alone, farther to the West, seeming Pastor even duller, like the same sad boy watching the exit of the bright part- Rev. John D. Whitney, S.J. x107 [email protected] ner with whom he had almost had an encounter. Meanwhile, far be- Parochial Vicar hind them both, the stars twinkled in the darkness, the far-off chorus of Rev. Julian Climaco, S.J. x103 this celestial breakup. And as I stood there in the street, watching the [email protected] sky and the children, Venus and Mars, I could also sense the great old Additional Priest moon, hiding somewhere nearby, behind the houses or in the trees. Rev. Bob Grimm, S.J. x101 [email protected] For, absent though she was, her borrowed light, an echo of the day- Deacon light, still painted the edges of the few high clouds with silver, as they Steve Wodzanowski x106 moved, slowly across the high night sky. [email protected] Pastoral Staff: As I stood there, fixed in place by the beauty, I thought of the age- Marti McGaughey, Business Mgr x108 less dance of the skies. How many times had Venus flirted with Mars, [email protected] only to scurry off for another decade or two? How many times had Dottie Farewell, Dir. Religious Ed. x112 the moon hidden herself in the clouds or ducked behind the trees and [email protected] Tina O’Brien, Stewardship x114 mountains, little attending to the Earth who held her tight in orbit and [email protected] whose tides she made rise and fall? Beauty—transient and yet eter- Renée Leet, Admin Assistant x100 nal—was ever present, whether I looked up to see it or kept my gaze [email protected] hidden behind the clouds of my own worries and plans. Theresa Lukasik, Asst. Dir. Religious Ed. x111 [email protected] That night, perhaps coincidentally, my dreams were full of those whom Bob McCaffery-Lent, Liturgy & Music x109 I have lost—my sister and my mother, my father and my best friend. I [email protected] Caprice Sauter, Comm. & Scheduling x102 saw them, beautiful under the same evening sky, the puff-ball clouds [email protected] silvered by the moon, framing them as they moved in and out of view, Lianne Nelson, Bookkeeper x113 in that strange way characteristic of dreams. And when I woke in the [email protected] darkness, the same feeling seemed to surround me that I recalled on Yuri Kondratyuk, Facilities x110 my walk home—the feeling that somehow this beauty, so transient and yet so profound, was always there, waiting for me to raise my eyes and St. Joseph School - Main Office x210 Patrick Fennessy, Head of School x218 encounter it, waiting for the clouds of my heart to part so that the glory Mary Helen Bever, Middle School Dir x215 of the heavens might become mine again, if only for a few moments. Lillian Zadra, Primary School Dir x219 I have become convinced, as I have grown older, that fered the promise that beauty would not be overwhelmed, we are made for beauty—made for the elegant arc of the and that we—each one of us, born for beauty, for truth, for moon across the sky and for the mournful eyes of a Labra- goodness—would have our eyes opened and our hearts set dor as he nuzzles our thigh, made for the lovely symmetry free. The eternal God entered into time and became part of of snowfall on an open field and for the muscular branches the gift of creation not to dominate it, but to reveal its great of a pine tree overreaching the sea. Such beauty elevates truth: that the transience of this world is not to be feared us, ennobles us, recalls in us the echoes of eternity that rest nor avoided, but entered and embraced, even at the risk of in the deep recesses of our hearts. Yet, even more than the pain. Embracing the poor and the forgotten, the outcasts beauty of things, we are drawn to the beauty of others—to and the widows, those whose lives were marked by sin the gentleness of our mother’s touch and the strength of and those whom fear kept in the shadows, Jesus revealed our father’s arms, to the crooked smile of the spouse we a beauty in a world where most saw only their sorrows. love and the glistening eyes of the friend who comforts us Even on the Cross, in that moment of greatest pain, when in a moment of loss: each one beautiful in indescribable ugliness seemed triumphant, Jesus offered the beauty of ways, ways that open our hearts and fill us with longing forgiveness and prayer, placing his soul into the hands of and joy, hope and satisfaction. And yet, like all that comes the Father in a way that did not overcome death, but over- into this world, these moments of beauty seem to fade too came the power of death. In that moment, Jesus embraced quickly, like Venus at the rising dawn, leaving behind only fully the transience of the world, but denied that such tran- memories and the ache that comes with good-bye. sience could take from us the beauty that had entered our hearts. In the face of Jesus, that poor and homeless wan- This ache, this profound sense of emptiness that comes derer, that vagabond teacher who owned no property and with the passing away of those moments of beauty which held no power, the beauty of God shone, and illuminated grace our life, can tempt us to despair, and draw us to any the beauty in all who sought him out. Our memory of that one of the many forms of anesthesia offered by the world: beauty, celebrated each week at the table of the Eucharist, to power or to ego, to mindless consumption or nihilistic is His real presence, given over and over to us as a moment indulgence. It is an ache that can lead us to grasp at ide- of eternity. ologies, which mask our pain with rage; or push us into depression, which turns our rage upon ourselves. In the As the days grow longer and lighter, as warmth draws the noise of an ever-outraged media, in the ugliness of racial first buds from the branches of the trees, and the crocuses or sectarian hatred, in the bland pornography of popular push their little wings of color into the light, we know that entertainment, we can try to deaden our hearts from the ugliness still resides in this world. We hear the bluster of lure of true beauty—protect them from the ache of loss that ideologues and see the violence of those who would cure comes in the passing away of all that lives in this world. pain with power and heal their own hurt with the domi- Rather than feel the pain of loss, we can seek to numb nation of others. Yet, hope, who has seemed, at times, as ourselves with shiny distractions that can never satisfy our hidden as the moon behind a mountain, suddenly streaks hungry hearts. the world with light, and draws us back towards beauty. And as we walk these last weeks of Lent, we are not afraid At the beginning of Lent, when the world was still dark of the Cross we see in the distance, not afraid of the ugli- and the threat of snow still hung in the air, we stepped ness of this world—or even of the ache it still engenders.