Oddwalk Ministries

Category: liturgy

advent, announcements, catholicism, friends, JesusJusticeJoy, Joy, liturgy, ministry, music, NPM, prayer, quote, reflection

We Cannot Do Everything

The wreath, with a candle marking each week of the season, is a traditional symbol of the Advent. (CNS photo/Lisa A. Johnston, St. Louis Review)

This morning, I (Orin) was briefly interviewed by Matt Reichert, who hosts the NPM Ministry Monday podcast, and is co-host of the great “Open Your Hymnal” podcast on Catholic liturgical music. Matt is reaching out to several parish music directors – who this time of year have 12 or 14 irons in the fire – to ask them, “What do you do to remain sane during Advent?” It’s such a busy time for folks in church music, so the question and the podcast episodes could not come out at a better time. It will likely be split into two parts, with my part likely airing a week from today, or possibly in the next one. We’ll be sure to let you know!

One of the things we briefly talked about was a few lines from what is commonly known as the “Oscar Romero Prayer,” even though he didn’t write it. Check the endnotes at the link above:

This prayer was first presented by Cardinal Dearden in 1979 and quoted by Pope Francis in 2015. This reflection is an excerpt from a homily written for Cardinal Dearden by then-Fr. Ken Untener on the occasion of the Mass for Deceased Priests, October 25, 1979. Pope Francis quoted Cardinal Dearden in his remarks to the Roman Curia on December 21, 2015. Fr. Untener was named bishop of Saginaw, Michigan, in 1980.

The line that came up is this:

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

For me, it’s very freeing, perhaps even joyful, this particular sense of liberation. I, and we, do the best we can with the time, energy, and resources available to us, knowing that we can’t do it all – and that there is a broad Christian community who is also working very hard to build the reign of God on earth.

If you don’t know the whole prayer, please do take a moment to read it and pray it, perhaps even make it a daily part of your advent spirituality.

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Guard Your Lions

Apologies for the unannounced four week hiatus from our Jesus-Justice-Joy posts here at the Oddwalk central. On the other hand, no one has been banging on our houses’ front doors demanding their return— Yet, today they do return.

But first, a brief word of explanation. Shortly after our most recent post of September 11, significant events occurred in the lives of Orin and Shannon. Orin’s dad, Orville “Doc” Johnson, passed away on September 17 – more on that in a moment. On the Cerneka side of things, Shannon’s wife Erin lost her job at very nearly the same time. On top of and in-between those occurrences have been other things, like a couple Oddwalk engagements, and, of course, all the personal and professional things that some call “real life.” While generally speaking all are doing “okay,” to pick a most vague and not-especially-descriptive term, please do keep us in prayer.

Last Friday night, in St. Louis, some local to STL friends and family of Orin gathered in a service of remembrance for his parents, Orville and Eva (Eva died in 2008). For this week’s return to JJJ posts, we share here the Gospel passage read at that service and Orin’s preaching on it.

Orville and Eva, at Orin & Erin’s Wedding in 2004

Luke 12:35-40
Jesus told his disciples: “Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks: Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them. And should he come in the second or third watch and find them prepared in this way, blessed are those servants. Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

PDF of Orin’s Preaching: “Guard Your Lions”

catholicism, family, Jesus, JesusJusticeJoy, liturgy, reflection

Already, Not Yet

Side note – this is a pretty terrible Photoshop hack right here…

At the Hammond-Johnson house, we are getting some landscaping done.  Right now, it’s the backyard, which always was a bit of a jungle – an empty and not well maintained rectangle that was not real usable space for us.  But, since we finally sold our old home last year, we’ve begun making needed upgrades to our present home.  In the backyard, we’ve redone a parking space and a gate off the alley, added a storage shed, a patio area of pavers, and had the whole thing leveled and are now just awaiting sod.

Well, that’s not the only thing we’re awaiting.  Erin has, for many years now, longed for the day when she might have a pool in the backyard again, after spending many of her childhood years with one right off the back deck.  As we both work, generally speaking, for the Church, we are of limited means, but a small pool is actually not out of the question.  But, it may yet be some time – we would probably wait for the end of the season sales to start to try to get the best deal we can, which would mean another Summer without a pool in the backyard.

So, while our backyard, in a few days, will look finished up, it really won’t be, until some unknown time in the future.  Life in the Church is like that as well – not really finished yet, and not until some unknown time down the road.

We just celebrated Jesus’ ascension, and will soon celebrate the coming of the Spirit at pentecost.  Jesus’ death and resurrection earned for us a new life and a “New Jerusalem” but we’re not there yet.  Jesus’ ascension and the arrival of the Spirit show us that same thing – where he has gone, we one day hope to follow – but not yet.  “Already, and not yet” is one of the overlooked paradoxes of our Christian faith, I think.  This odd in-between time is hard to wrap our heads around.  To wit: most of us view heaven as the ultimate and final destination of our souls, but I think that’s only because that’s what it’s been for 2,000 years. Your grandparents (or even parents) might have had to memorize this answer from the Baltimore Catechism once upon a time: “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven.”  But wait – isn’t that ultimate goal, as recited in the Creed every Sunday, the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come?

It feels, sometimes, as if our Church has lost that sense of expectation after all this time.  Do we, like the early apostles might have, glance up at each passing cloud and wonder, is this the one which is bringing Jesus back to us?  When will Christ come again?  Is it today?  Am I ready?  These are the sorts of things we pray over at the end of each Church year and into advent as well but this is also a perfect time to reexamine our lives and our faith.  Are you ready?  How can you be more ready?