Autumn Thoughts

The weather in Milwaukee has been spectacular the past week, with sunny days and temperatures in the 70’s. Yesterday I had the chance to get out and enjoy the beauty of Autumn. I’m always thrilled to see the colors of the leaves made even more brilliant by the sun and silhouetted against a clear and deep blue sky.

There’s a paradox in all this. What makes us appreciate the beauty of these days is that it won’t last. The splendor these days is passing as Winter lurks around the corner.

You have to wonder: would we appreciate the beauty of an Autumn day if every day were sunny and every tree painted in these brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds? I don’t think so.

There’s a song by Warren Barfield, a contemporary Christian artist, which captures this truth. It’s called “Beautiful Broken World” and it begins with this verse:

Wonderfully arrayed on a bright autumn day
The leaves set the trees ablaze
I’m sitting here beneath
This decaying canopy
Sunlight sifting through the shade
It won’t be long
Until they’re gone away
That’s the price we pay

Then the chorus goes like this:

In this beautiful broken world
We laugh and then we cry
There’s a wonderful pain and joy
In death and in life

What makes life and its beauties so precious and something to be valued is the fact that it isn’t forever. As the bridge of the song goes:

Would the day still be as sweet
If it had no end

And the answer is “no.” It wouldn’t. Life in this “beautiful broken world” is precious and sweet because it doesn’t last forever.

As the trees let go of their leaves, so each one of us, in different ways and at different times, must let go of one thing or person after another until finally we let go of life itself.

We let go in order to be given more than we could hope for or imagine. In heaven we won’t have to let go and yet it won’t be boring. There, we believe, everything is more beautiful that the most beautiful Autumn day. Though it will be eternal, Heaven won’t be boring because it will be eternal not as a succession of one day after another, each one just like the last; rather the eternity of heaven will be an eternal “now,” a moment that lasts forever. We can’t imagine that because we time-bound creatures cannot conceive of life outside of time. The closest we can come is to savor the present moment—the “bright autumn day” with “the trees ablaze”—and remember… this is an hors d’oeuvre of the Heaven Banquet.

Mistaken Identity?

My good Jesuit friend Fr. Rob Kroll, who writes periodically for the Magis Institute, had a good reflection on today's first reading (Acts 14: 5-18):

We live in a culture that idolizes Hollywood stars graced with beautiful faces, athletes endowed with muscular bodies, rock stars showered with fame and fortune, and politicians wielding power. The attraction of beauty, fame, wealth, and power-and the desire to worship individuals possessing them-has existed in all societies and epochs, of course. The great temptation of the "rich and famous" is that they allow the adulation of the masses to go to their heads. They forget the divine source of all their gifts, and become puffed up with pride. Treated like gods by others, they begin to think themselves gods.

In today's reading from Acts, the crowds in Lystra seek to idolize Paul and Barnabas, worshiping them as gods after they heal a man crippled from birth. How might Donald Trump, Moammar Gadhafi, or Charlie Sheen respond if their supporters cried out like the Lycaonians, "The gods have come down to us in human form"? Fortunately Barnabas and Paul tear their garments and direct the crowds to the living God, humbly asserting that they themselves are mere mortals.
Each of us, too, can be tempted to pride. We might secretly aspire to be worshipped in some measure by others for our wealth, power, beauty, and talents-perhaps even our holiness! Let's remember today that all good gifts come from God and are to be used for His greater glory. May we humbly make the psalmist's words our own: "Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to your name give glory" (115:1).


I preached about this a little differently at the Jesuit retreat house in the St. Louis area where I began a retreat with 34 women this afternoon. The people of Lystra mistake Paul and Barnabas for "gods" because they see something of the divine in them. They perceive grace or supernatural power at work in and through them. This is how it should be for all of us.


As images of God we should reflect God to the world. As members of the Body of Christ, people should see Christ in us. I'm reminded of a song by the contemporary Christian musician Warren Barfield, "Mistaken." It brings these two reflections--Fr. Kroll's and mine--together. Here are a few of the lyrics:

Oh the more and more I disappear
The more and more He becomes clear
'Til everyone I talk to hears His voice
And everything I touch feels the warmth of His hand
'Til everyone I meet
Sees Jesus in me
This is all I wanna be
I wanna be mistaken
For Jesus

Do they only see who we are
When who we are should be pointing them to Christ
Cause we are who He chose to use
To spread the news
Of the way the truth and the life
Oh I want all I am to die
So all He is can come alive

This is the great mystery of the Christian life. In being emptied of ourselves we are filled with our truest, deepest self--Christ. We can say with St. Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2: 19-20). In dying to ourselves we are born to real life.

Sheboygan Gathering

On Saturday I spent the day in Kohler, Wisconsin, where the Catholic parishes of the Sheboygan area hosted a conference on prayer entitled "Conversations with God." On Friday evening Fr. Phil Hurley, S.J. spoke to young people about "Making Prayer Real." Our friends, Mike Mangione and the Union, offered a fantastic concert to close the evening. This local group will be playing in New York today and in Boston tomorrow. What a blessing to have them play during our "Hearts on Fire" events this summer and in Kohler this weekend!

On Saturday afternoon Mark Nimo, a doctoral student in Chicago, who is from Ghana, West Africa, gave a rousing presentation on "Intercession and Spiritual Warfare." His topic flowed naturally into mine--"The Eucharist in Daily Life." While Mark spoke about the power of intercessory prayer and the need for it in our contemporary world, I was able to talk about the most powerful prayer there is--the Eucharist--what the Second Vatican Council and recent Popes have called "the source and summit of the Christian life." I talked about what we believe and how we celebrate the Eucharist, which led into my usual presentation on living a Eucharistic life by making an offering of ourselves and our daily life. Some of the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity, including their novices and postulants, were there, and Sister Julie Ann wrote about the conference on the Sister's blog. The conference closed, most appropriatetly, with Archbishop Jerome Listecki and the celebration of the Eucharist.

Jars' Concert

Though I like music, I'm not much of a concert-goer. But when Fr. Phil Hurley, S.J., our director of youth and young adult ministry, asked me if I was interested in going to a "Jars of Clay" concert, it didn't take me too long to say "yes." I'm a fan of Contemporary Christian Music, having been introduced to it by a spiritual directee of mine when I worked at the Jesuit Retreat House in Minnesota ten years ago. That's when I first started listening to "Jars of Clay."

So on Saturday, after spending a quiet afternoon in the Kettle Moraine area near Holy Hill, Wisconsin, with the colors just past their peak, but the temperatures up to 70, Fr. Phil and I went to the concert in Hartland. "Jars" have been around now for fifteen years and, in honor of their anniversary, they opened their set with songs from their first, self-titled album. This is not "Worship and Praise" music. It's music in which I find a deep resonance with devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

In his first encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est," Pope Benedict XVI wrote: "By contemplating the pierced side of Christ, we can understand the starting-point of this Encyclical Letter: "God is love" (1 John 4: 8). It is there that this truth can be contemplated. It is from there that our definition of love must begin. In this contemplation the Christian discovers the path along which his life and love must move" (#12).

The first song of both the concert and Jars of Clay's first album, "Liquid," leads to this contemplation. Here are the lyrics:

Arms nailed down,
are you tellin me something?
Eyes turned out,
are you looking for someone?

This is the one thing,
The one thing that I know.

Blood-stained brow,
are you dying for nothing?
Flesh and blood,
is it so elemental?

This is the one thing,
The one thing that I know.

Blood-stained brow,
He wasn't broken for nothing.
Arms nailed down,
He didn't die for nothing.

This is the one thing,
The one thing that I know.

"Liquid" invites us to see Jesus on the cross suffering and dying for us. How do we respond? I'm reminded of the "Colloquy" that St. Ignatius invites the one who has just made the First Exercise of the First Week of the "Spiritual Exercises" to make. He writes:

Imagine Christ our Lord present before you upon the cross, and begin to speak with him, asking how it is that though He is the Creator, He has stooped to become man, and to pass from eternal life to death here in time, that thus He might die for our sins. I shall also reflect upon myself and ask:
"What have I done for Christ?"
"What am I doing for Christ?"
"What ought I to do for Christ?"
As I behold Christ in this plight, nailed to the cross, I shall ponder upon what presents itself to my mind.

This song also reminds me of St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians 3: 7-11. To paraphrase: I consider everything as nothing because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. All I want is to know Christ.

Another of their songs was "Worlds Apart" with the following lyrics:

I am the only one to blame for this
Somehow it all ends up the same
Soaring on the wings of selfish pride
I flew too high and like Icharus I collide

With a world I try so hard to leave behind
To rid myself of all but love, to give and die

To turn away and not become
Another nail to pierce the skin of one who loves
More deeply than the oceans, more abundant than the tear
Of a world embracing every heartache

Can I be the one to sacrifice
Or grip the spear and watch the blood and water flow

To love you -- take my world apart
To need you -- I am on my knees
To love you ---take my world apart
To need you -- broken on my knees

Again we are asked to consider both ourselves and the love that was shown us on the cross. And we're faced with the question of our lives: will we "sacrifice" or "become another nail" and "grip the spear"?

Our lives are a response. We either ignore the love of Christ crucified or we respond with love for love.

On the way to the concert Fr. Phil played a CD with a Jars of Clay song from their 2009 album "The Long Fall Back to Earth." The song is "Heart" and the refrain is:

Offer your heart, I've given you mine
Give me your heart, you already have mine