I have carefully read, outlined, took notes on and went back three or four times to Rohr’s latest book. On the book jacket Bono says of The Universal Christ: “ Rohr sees Christ everywhere and not just in people. He reminds us that the first incarnation of God is in Creation itself, and he tells us that ‘ God loves things by becoming them’. Just for that sentence and there are many more, I cannot put this book down.” Rohr asks us for a mystical or experiential knowing of Christ, not just a theoretical or dogmatic one. He asserts that the risen Christ is ubiquitous and eternal. Christ is the name for the transcendent within everything in the universe.

Two weeks ago I preached about St. Ignatius’s invitation to those who follow Jesus to be Contemplatives in Action. That is to say that we are called to share Jesus’ life, to think like him, to hold important in ourselves what he values, and to do what he does.

This picture reminds us of the rich ecology of California. This and the challenge to its ecology was the topic of an important pastoral letter of the California Conference of CatholicBishops released in June and written for the bishops by Brother Keith Douglas Warner OFM. I served as one of the advisors for the letter. Issued on the fourth anniversary of Laudato Si, it is a powerful document to help us think both about the rich ecology of California and its new challenges.

Before Mass starts, those who assist at Mass gather in a circle in the sacristy to pray. I often hear myself wrapping up the prayer by saying “… and may God bind those who gather today into the Body of Christ that we might be his body to all who are in need.”

As I sit to write a few words on Father’s Day, my own father is in surgery for a badly torn rotator cuff sustained in a fall at their home a few weeks ago. As surgeries go, rotator cuff isn’t at all bad. But, Dad is 89. You get the picture—it’s fair to worry.

This weekend we celebrate the feast of Pentecost. Jesus the Christ makes good on his promise not to leave us orphans. As he sent his first disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit, he continues to do that for us in our time and in our lives. But how do we know that the Spirit dwells and is active in us and our world?

Though not an academic institution, our parish lives by an academic calendar. As schools and students and parents look to the end of this year, so do we. And like most families and institutions at this time of the year, we have our share of changes and goodbyes.

Mother’s Day, 1965, I was in kindergarten. Mrs. Downing asked each member of the class to bring to school some fresh flowers from our home gardens the Friday before the holiday; we were going to make flower baskets for our mothers.

As I write, it’s Easter Monday. As glad as I am that this morning’s pace is far slower than last week’s, I’m also a little sad that the Triduum and Easter Sunday are behind us. We prayed together so, so beautifully, for four days. It was a banquet for our hearts and souls, both individual and collective.

Granted our large number of senior citizens, who call themselves The OWLs, who meet regularly on campus and discuss the spirituality of successful aging and granted my own 2 awareness (now being 82) of my own aging process, I decided to read carefully and probe the findings of University of California Los Angeles psychology professor Alan Castel’s findings about successful aging. I also listened to his TED talk entitled “How We Learn as We Age.” Castel is only 42 but he has had many clients and patients who are elderly and he studied the elderly with care.

Our Parish strives to empower lay women and men with co-responsibility for leadership of most aspects of parish life.  All parish structures, ministries, programs, events, and activities are aligned with one of five working groups of parishioners, which we call “Commissions”.

I am a great admirer of Gerhard Lohfink and read, reflected on and prayed over his recent book on the Our Father. (Liturgical Press, 2019, 119 pages). It is truly a very fresh take on a prayer we have all prayed so many times and leads us, I think, to pray it in a new and even startling fresh way. Lohfink learned a great deal from his brother, Norbert about Jesus’ use of the Old Testament in formulating the prayer. It was a prayer for Jesus’s disciples. Matthew introduces it in his Sermon on the Mount and Luke places it after one of Jesus’s disciples asks him to teach them how to prayer. So, the prayer is primarily for Jesus’ disciples. The Our Father is pure petition—not filled with praise as were so many Jewish prayers. Unlike those Jewish prayers filled with doxologies of praise, the Our Father is like a cry, begging that God would intervene in our world. It is also a very short prayer. The Jewish Tefillah has more than 1,300words and the Matthew version of the Our Father has only fifty-five words and Lukes’s version only 23 words.

This week our bulletin carries two more essays from fellow parishioners, their testimonies for why they are Roman Catholic.  It has been gratifying for me to hear from our essayists the thanks and the feedback they are receiving: “Thank you. You have given me so much to think about,”

This week we continue our Lenten series “Why I Am Catholic.”  As two more of our fellow parishioners share with us this week a bit of how God is working in their lives, we are all invited to notice and articulate for ourselves how God is working in ours.

Job Title: Administrator for Marriages, Baptisms and Funerals Job Type: Non-exempt, part-time position (approximately 25 hours per week)

Job Title: Director of Parish Faith Formation (Adult and Youth) Existing Position (this position was created in July 2016)

This first Sunday of Lent, Jesus heads into the desert.  Luke’s gospel seems to indicate that it was for the purpose of being tempted by the devil.  While I believe that happened, I don’t think that was the reason Jesus went.  Rather, he went for the same reason you and I would attend a retreat–to get away from the ordinary and most-often important demands on our time and attention and spend some special time with God.

I could not, literally, put down Tara Westover’s memoir which I read in a day and half. It was, of course, a long-time best-seller on the New York Times list for 2018. As one commentator noted of the book, it was “ a punch to the gut, a slow burn, a savage indictment and a love letter. . Rarely have I read a book that made me so uncomfortable, so enraged, and at the same time so utterly, entirely absorbed.”

On Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, we begin our 40-day Lenten journey to the Sacred Triduum and Easter marked by the three ancient disciplines of the season: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  (Be sure to take a Catholic Relief Services Rice Bowl, to collect the alms saved from that Starbucks cup of coffee or whatever it is from which you’ll fast!  We’ll collect those for you at the end of Lent.)

As a Parish Community, we already do much to break down the walls that can exist between different communities.  From Simple Needs Sundays and Get on the Bus, to Las Vecinas de El Salvador and our Solidarity Network, many parishioners are active in building bridges.