Familiarity

I don’t know if I cried the first time I went to the barber, but I do know that I almost did the last time. No, it’s not because I have accepted the inevitable ebb of my receding hairline – God has graced me with a few more years of cranial coverage in that regard. Yesterday, when I visited “Mr. Jim,” I knew it was going to be the last time. He is retiring at the end of the month. 

Jim Mondimore has been my barber since I stopped having my grandmother cut it, at the age of four or five. Over the past 35 or so years, I have only dared to use a different barber because I was living in Rome, and the flight home was just too inconvenient. Jim was my barber – as he was for so many others in my family and our neighborhood. In fact, no matter where I was living stateside – Essex, Towson, Hagerstown, Annapolis, or even Western Maryland – I’d always make the trek to the barbershop that was down the road from my childhood home.

So yesterday, as I sat in that old chair one last time, we reminisced about the past. We recalled how the neighborhood has changed: how the pizza place next door has continued to run and how the Westway movie theater has become a couple churches and now a “seminary.” I recalled the mysterious card games that always seemed to be going on in the back room, how the price of a haircut went from 5 to 6 to 7 and now 8 dollars, and how I tried to save a lock of my little brother's hair from his first haircut (sorry, Brian, I lost it).  Other patrons also recalled the “first time” they walked in and what Jim has meant to them and their boys’ lives over the years. It was almost … liturgical.

Jim has basically given me the same haircut since I’ve had hair, but he has also endured my own “experiments” – as he has many other guys – from an attempt at the “skater look” of the mid-80’s, to his patient endurance of my mullet years in high school. And, while there are certainly flasher and, I dare say, better barbers out there, Jim was ours. And we were loyal.

Each time a customer walked through the door, Jim would look up from meticulously squaring off a forehead or trimming a sideburn to greet them with his clear, Philadelphia-Italian voice (“Hey, muh MAN!” or “Good MORNin’, Fathuh!”). We belonged there – even if he never took appointments (walk-ins only, please).

In the midst of this sad farewell, I have been reflecting on our Gospel for this weekend. Here, Jesus appears to his friends and shares a meal with them. It is a familiar encounter for them – a meal shared with their Master, as they had done so many times before. However, today, it is different. Jesus is risen, and demonstrates to them by words and actions that he is truly alive and that what has been said of him and what he has taught has now been fulfilled.

The disciples are then called to go forth and be “witnesses of these things” to the world. The Church has taken Her call from our Risen Lord’s sharing of His life with that first community of faith. Any time we gather to share the meal of the Eucharist, we are connected to that first community, and to every one that has gathered since then. The modes of celebration have changed, but the relationship remains the same.

Our experience of the Church is a lot like my relationship with Mr. Jim. Sure, there are jazzier haircuts, more convenient shops and cuter barbers; but this place is ours, and we love it. Our priests might not be perfect, our rules might seem “oppressive,” our participation might be spotty, but the Church is patient. Better still, the Church does not retire! Together, we are connected in a bond of love that transcends the incidental elements of normal life.

So, the day we all knew would come is now upon us. I had hoped Jim's career would outlast my hair, but alas, other shears will need to preside over my vanishing coif. As I left the barbershop yesterday, Jim shook my hand and very sincerely asked, “Will you pray for me, Father?”

Of course, Jim. And thanks.

What's the Buzz?

Did you notice them? 

Were you paying attention during the Exsultet? What popped out at you this year? Did you notice them? 

The bees!

Yes, that’s right: I said “bees.” Here we are, on this most solemn night of our Church’s year, we are proclaiming “Alleluia!” ringing the bells, swinging the incense, hearing of the empty tomb, and here I am, talking about bees!

Why are they there, friends? Why bees? Who cares about bees? They are little insects – sometimes annoying – flitting about from here to there – and now, they are buzzing around in our Easter proclamation. Why?

Well, with our revised translation of the Missal, they are actually returning, as they have been part of this ancient hymn from the beginning:

On this, your night of grace, O holy Father,

accept this candle, a solemn offering,

the work of bees and of your servants’ hands,

an evening sacrifice of praise,

this gift of your most holy Church. …

But now we know the praises of this pillar,

which glowing fire ignites for God’s honor,

a fire into many flames divided,

yet never dimmed by sharing of its light,

for it is fed by melting wax,

drawn out by mother bees

to build a torch so precious.

These bees are back for us tonight, to remind us of something simple yet very profound. These little insects, often ignored, often discounted, often avoided, are present here and now for a beautiful theological purpose. They remind us that in God’s wonderful plan of salvation there are no insignificant players. Each and every one of them – and each and every one of us – is necessary and important in this sublime drama that we recall with our liturgy this evening.

In the Liturgy of the Word, we hear of that plan that began with the creation of the world – orderly and purposefully – by a loving and creative God. We hear of God’s liberating power for His people Israel as He leads them through the waters of the Red Sea – prefiguring the waters of Baptism. We hear of God’s care and concern for His people as proclaimed through the words of His holy prophets. We hear in the Gospel of the women who come to the tomb and who return, confused and terrified, to witness to the Apostles that Jesus is no longer among the dead, but that He has risen!

And this drama of salvation continues tonight – here in this place, as sixteen of our brothers and sisters come forward to embrace the faith we all profess together. These candidates and catechumens, who are reborn in Baptism, anointed with the oil of strength and witness, and are nourished at the table of the Lord, are reminders to us that our faith is alive – just as Jesus is alive. And we, too, are called to go forth, as those women did, to witness to the resurrection – to make disciples.

St. Augustine, in one of his Easter homilies, calls the newly received members of the Church, his “new colony of bees.” Now, my “little bees,” it is your task – as it is the task of all of us – to go forth and to make disciples. No one is exempt; no one is unworthy; no one is insignificant.

Just as without those little bees we would have no Easter candle, so too, without you and your witness we would have no living Church.

So, tonight, we rejoice – with the angel choirs, with the hosts of heaven, with all the earth and with the entire Church – and, yes, even with the bees – that Jesus is risen! Now, go forth, and may our faith be fruitful!

Love Without Measure

If you have or hang around teenagers lately you've probably heard of The Hunger Games. It's a movie right now that's based on a book that many of our young people are reading. In it, the future is bleak, and the story centers around annual games that involve teenagers from around the country who are forced to compete in an arena to the death. It's pretty violent, although I have not yet seen the film version. The heroine, from whose perspective the story is told (so she must live, huh?), is introduced as a strong girl who loves her family, especially her little sister. 

When the lottery to draw the contestants from their district results in the 12-year-old girl being selected, her big sister immediately volunteers to take her place. She, not her innocent little sister, would go to the games to suffer and die. 

The mystery that we celebrate this weekend - the central mystery of our faith, the Passion, death and resurrection of Jesus - is reflected in this same story. Jesus, our God, seeing that we labored under the condemnation of sin and death, steps forward and takes our place. Out of love for us, Jesus bears the sentence and suffers and dies for us. 

Who would do such a thing? Why would they do it? How? 

St. Francis De Sales once said, "The measure of love is love without measure.". This is the love of God: infinite, perfect, self-sacrificing. We have been ransomed. Jesus has stepped forward in our place; He has stood for us, laid down for us, been lifted up for us, and borne our sentence, so we can be set free - free to love God and free to enjoy the rewards of eternal life, which are won not by us but by Christ. Therefore, as we celebrate the Passion, we are called to imitate that love. 

Love without measure.