1. Saint Martin of Tours
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB
    November 11, 2015

    What is St. Luke up to today? We know that in Jesus’ time, leprosy was the outcast disease par excellence. We know that nothing scared a person in the first century like the sight of a leper. We know that it was something not only incurable, but uncontrollable, it represented everything that was unknown about the world and those in it. We know that as such, the leper was a social throw away, an outcast. Who wouldn’t be thankful to be cured of such an awful disease? Now let’s dial it up a bit. For Luke’s audience, there is a twist; the one that comes back is a gentile, a Samaritan.  This is Luke’s ultimate message. Those who have received the   Word, and those who have every reason to be thankful for that gift, do not give thanks. Luke is rebuking the Jews of his time for, even though cured of something worse than leprosy, that is their sins, they cannot, they will not, give thanks. But the gentiles can. Luke gives us a little something to question …

    Who are the lepers? Who are the Gentiles, the outcasts, in our midst? Who is reaching out to us today, reaching out to us as the beggar reached out to St. Martin? Perhaps it is the sinner, the lost the man or woman in need of forgiveness but to whom we cannot seem to offer God’s mercy. We cannot offer it because, ultimately we think that the sinner doesn’t deserve it. These are the folks that traipse to confession week after week, their moral records stuck and playing the same phrases again and again. Or the ones, who will not confess their sins, cannot confess to God or priest. And we think we are better than they are because we are not this or that. But I would be willing to believe when the reckoning is made: They may be holier than we are.

    Who are the lepers, the outcasts, really?

    Are they those who don’t do things the way we do? Are they brothers and sisters whom we condemn because they don’t have the right ideals, or the right vestments, or the right whatever it is? Do they not think or act correctly in our very narrow version of the faith we profess? Perhaps when push comes to shove we will realize that they are holier than we are.

    Who are the lepers?

    Are they the refugees who stream across borders, fearing for their lives? Are they the folks that have no habitable homes because we like to do recreational drugs?  Are they the ones in headdresses who rail against the evils of the west and rant about the laxness of Christians? Are they members of the evil empire, folks from the wrong side of the Semitic tracks? Are they Muslim or Jews? Are they Baptists or Hindus? How about blacks, browns, so-called terrorists, gay people, divorced people, Vatican II people, reactionaries, our professors, our students, anyone else? I wonder what it will be like when we get to heaven and find them there, when we discover that: They were holier than we were?

    Brothers and sisters, there is a lot of challenge in this world. There are lots of shades. There are lots of forms of leprosy. I would like to claim in Christ-like fashion that I am a healer of the wounds of the world, that we are his instruments in this saving work. But I am increasingly convinced that we are not the healers of leprosy. Not at all. We are the lepers. We wallow in sins. We are frightened people. We are hampered by the persistent inability to overcome temptation. We line up week after week to confess the same stupid sins. We are incessant gossips. We are inveterate moaners and complainers. We are guides into oblivion. We can be engulfed in the disease of cynicism and hatred. We can be caught in the decay of prejudice and ideology. We can continually live into the hurts of our past, the hurts of families, of growing up. We can be wounded to the point that we must say, brothers and sisters, we must say we are not the healers of leprosy, we are the lepers. But thanks be to God we are also healed by Christ. Healed by the saints. Healed by the loving presence of each other, the God in each other. Raised up, cured.

    We are healed. Jesus has healed us. Jesus has made us new. Jesus has set us on a glorious path. Jesus has cleansed our uncleanliness with the blood of his body, a formerly unclean human body, now universally made clean by the divinity of his presence.

    Jesus has said: I don’t care what you have done or who you have been, I want to heal you. Jesus has said: The world’s way of understanding things is passed; I am making all things new. Jesus has said: Don’t live into the lies you have been told about yourself, live into my Truth and that Truth will set you free.

    He tells us so many things and he announces them with authority.

    And he only asks one thing from us for all of the many gifts he has given. He asks us to give thanks. Eucharistia. How hard is that? He asks us to offer a little healing back, to split our cloak in two. He asks us to be instruments of his love. It is all the same thing. Can we do it? Or shall we merely use this chapel, this seminary as an excuse to further our alienation? Shall we use this celebration to deepen our divisions? Shall this place just become a pit of pity for our own wanton conditions or shall we announce the healing each of us has received in Christ and offer to God the wondrous thanks this place, this celebration suggests, no, demands of us.

    Here we are and Jesus reaches out his hand to us.  Do we grasp it in faith or do we merely wander the earth as leprous men and women, suffering being outcasts? Or do we move behold, standing upright in the morning son, healed and healing.

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  2. Candidacy
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson. OSB
    November 5, 2015

    None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.
    For if we live, we live for the Lord,
    and if we die, we die for the Lord;
    so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.
    The shepherd and the old lady

    Property

    The two parabolic questions we have in tonight’s Gospel are somewhat perplexing, perplexing not so much as to understanding how they illustrate the point that Jesus wants to make, a point about the concern, the compassion of God. They are perplexing because from a natural point of view they are almost nonsensical. No reasonable shepherd would abandon ninety-nine sheep to search for one, from a natural point of view that erring sheep is expendable. One does not endanger the multitude for the sake of a foolish sheep. From a natural point of view it does not make sense to sweep the house for a coin. You will lose a day of work in doing so and the coin is not worth that much. One does not lose a day of work to find something that is not worth that much.

    And yet here we stand tonight confronted with this foolishness, this dilemma. What are we to make of it? Only this I think. God has a different kind of economy.

    In God’s economy, the first are last and the last first. There are no haves and have nots, all are haves and have nots. There are no parameters of success based on the almighty dollar. That is God’s economy.

    In God’s economy there are no lost, no expendable, none swept under the rug of life. There are no orphans, no widows, no neglected, none left to flounder on the sidelines of life, but all are called to action. That is God’s economy.

    In God’s economy, there are no refugees, no need for anyone to flee from their homeland, no need for homes to be broken, no need for schools to be torn apart by the violence we now witness almost every week in the news, no need for neighbors to be alienated from one another because of religion, or race. That is God’s economy.

    In God’s economy there is joy and dedication to service, no split personalities, split allegiances, split souls. There is peace in a world that needs peace, gentleness in hearts that yearn for gentleness, kindness in places where that warm sentiment seems like a thing of the past. That is God’s economy.

    We, brothers and sisters, we are a necessary part, perhaps the most necessary part of God’s economy. For …
    None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.
    For if we live, we live for the Lord,
    and if we die, we die for the Lord;
    so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.
    And that certainly applies to our brothers tonight, our brothers who present themselves to the Church as candidates for Holy Orders. What does that candidacy entail?

    Tonight our brothers turn themselves over in a formal way to something more powerful than they have encountered before. Of course, their candidacy is merely an icon of our candidacy. They are called to serve as we are, but as leaders. They are called to give away, as we are, but as major givers. They are called to life as we are, and they bear it in their bodies, by their words and actions, on their faces.

    Tonight our brothers risk everything. They risk their futures by preparing themselves for a life of celibacy. They risk their identities by yearning to be solely caught up in Christ, and him alone, and him crucified. Our brothers are asking tonight, desiring to step out on a limb of faith, a limb of their own faith, weak as it is but also a limb of our faith, weak as it is.

    Tonight our brothers offer us a gift, they offer us themselves and who are they if not weak men, who are they if not sinful men, who are they if not errant men, men who are more than capable on most days of running away into the hills and hiding from us. They are weak, sinful, errant but also tonight willing. Are we?

    Tonight our brothers, like Moses, the prophets of old, the apostles, the early disciples, the saints down through the ages, named and unnamed, tonight our brothers are answering a call and it is a radical call, a call that cuts like a knife to the very core of their being, a beckoning call that resounds across the valleys of this world like the bleating of a lost lamb, a call that sounds like a trumpet summoning them to battle, a battle waged mostly in their own breast that asks them incessantly, whose are you, to whom do you belong? And yet it is also a sound as subtle, as silent as a coin, a single coin spinning errantly across the dusty floor of life.

    Tonight our brothers are telling us that they wish to be God’s fools. They wish to belong to Christ, they wish to be God’s exclusive property. Tonight they are turning themselves over for the use of God. Tonight they are asking us to walk with them, tentatively at first as they stagger across the landscape of their own pride, their own sin, their own selfishness, and then to walk upright in the Gospel, and then to run in service, run headlong into the fray of the human condition, a condition which our blessed Lord united himself to us forever, in his Body, in his Blood.

    O, brothers and sisters, the foolishness of God overflows in this place.

    Who else but these kind of people who present themselves tonight, who else would spend hours a day devoting themselves to prayer, and pouring out their lives on the altar of service, service to a pack of sheep that have no sense of loyalty, that do not appreciate the sacrifices they will make?

    We are God’s fools

    Who else would spend sleepless nights worrying about the salvation of souls so sloshed in sin that they can sleep the sleep of the guilty without a care in the world? We are called to care for those folks, those folks who care not a whit for the condition of their souls and who flaunt their salvific ignorance in the mirrors of their own eyes. And we do it because we are fools.

    We are God’s fools

    Who else would spend days pouring themselves out, weeping over the words of a homily that will, for the most part fall on deaf ears, who drag themselves morning after morning to the altar to witness the supreme sacrifice of the world to sleeping sentinels, who call and receive no reply to their calls echoing off the walls of the canyons of the human indifference? Only the fools.

    We are God’s fools

    And as God’s fools we seek the lost sheep, not only in the barrios and tenements of this world, but in the country clubs, in the universities, brothers and sisters in the seminaries where death still threatens with its cold, calculated breath but where, thanks be to God the rays of a brighter dawn are shining, shining through us in spite of our errant ways, shining in us and warming a world caught up in the frozenness of its own making.

    Are we committed?

    As God’s fools we have the honor, the privilege, the unsurpassed joy of the small things. We see sprigs of honesty and goodness spring up in our faces like the buds of April, even as the wild winds of winter howl outside our windows.

    Are we dedicated?

    As God’s fools we are dedicated to pursuing and pursuing and pursuing, never giving up and never losing heart, even if only one is saved, even if that one is merely me.

    Are we steadfast in our commitment and our dedication to the words of the epistle, the words of that fool St. Paul:
    None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.
    For if we live, we live for the Lord,
    and if we die, we die for the Lord;
    so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.
    We are the Lord’s

    Do you believe that? Do you truly believe that?

    If you do there is no obstacle that you cannot face.

    We are the Lord’s.

    If we truly believe that, come and announce your candidacy, indeed, your near-election.

    We are the Lord’s and thus we approach this altar of sacrifice, sober yes, but also overflowing with authentic joy, non-arrogant pride, the joy and pride that come from belonging to someone, Christ Jesus in whom we live, in whom we die, in whom we place all our hope.

    Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.

    The shepherd and the old lady

    Property


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  3. Our recent visitation was quite a success and once again, I have every reason to be proud of the Saint Meinrad community for showing our visitators the best of what we offer. The visitation, as usual also offered me the opportunity to reflect my work as rector of the seminary and president of the other programs. How do I see my job? What do I like to do as rector?

    Certainly one of these responsibilities is programmatic vision. The program of a seminary is somewhat fixed by the ideas and ideals presented in the Program of Priestly Formation. In line with the bishops’ directives, we must fulfill a  number of stipulations given us involving your formation. Classes have to be taught, ministry must be done. All of these must be accomplished in a spirit of communal prayer.
    Likewise, the work of the rector is related to external relations. How does the seminary interact with its various publics? We must work with bishops and vocation directors. We must also intersect with trends in the local and global Church. We respond to teaching both local and practical and universal and ideal. Likewise, fundraising is a major aspect of my work as rector. We must have substantial funds to pay for the various services Saint Meinrad offers to the Church.

    Another aspect of my work as rector is teaching. This includes certainly the formal teaching I do in classrooms and the teaching that is offered in other contexts as well, through rector’s conferences, such as this one and through homilies and of course, through the daily interaction that I am privileged to have with all of you. I can truly say that the joy of my life comes through all of these, but particularly through the daily interaction that I have with you.

    Another part of the work I do is cheerleading, not only sounding the Saint Meinrad story publically, but privately helping each of you, each in your unique way, reach the maximum potential that you can reach. In other words, as father and pastor I need to help all of you, perhaps all of us to realize the heights to which we are called and to help realize those values and goals.

    Sometimes, I need to rally the troops and I hope that this evening you will see my comments in that light. I will begin my reiterating what I have said many times before: We have a good community. As I travel around to different seminaries, I am aware of the dynamics at play in different places. I know what kind of community atmosphere is inculcated in some seminaries, or perhaps I should say the lack of inculcation. I know that some seminaries operate on a system of what I refer to as “cookie-cutter” ideals, showing the world an “ideal” model of the priesthood, one usually of their own construction. That will not do for us. We must be authentic to who we are as each of you must be authentic to who you are. Making you the best man that you can be is serving the Church in a very focused way. Nevertheless, there is also a community identity that must be a part of our ethos as well. How can we achieve that ethos?

    Here is what I have to say: Brothers it is time to wake up. I think one of the disadvantages that is a part of the generation to which many of you belong and perhaps an idea that all of us can, at times, be guilty of thinking is that this is a school, merely a school. Therefore, not unlike what you experienced in your undergraduate years, you have the option of taking this part and leaving this part alone. As an undergraduate you may have undoubtedly experienced this: I have to go to class (at least most of you thought that) but aside from that my time is my own. I can do as I please. I can sleep all day. I can stay out all night. I can enjoy whatever pastime I chose to my heart’s content. Undoubtedly that was true although I suspect that such an approach to life, even for those unattached to a house of formation, may not have been entirely beneficial to the pursuit of a vocation of discipleship. But then again, perhaps you didn’t think about of care about discipleship in those days.

    Here we have a different scenario. Yes, there is an academic aspect to what we do here. Yes, you must go to class. You must read. You must take your studies seriously. However, there is a slightly different perspective about study here. You must study for yourself, not only to learn this or that aspect of the curriculum, but you must also learn to become a better man, a more informed man, a more cultured man. You must do this because you will soon, indeed, you already have, the responsibility of announcing the teachings of the holy Church to a world that desperately needs those teachings. The academic formation you receive here is intent upon making you a better person, but it is also intent upon making you a great teacher and preacher of the faith. If you are not convinced that you need the academic formation you are receiving, you can hardly be convinced that same intellectual tradition is important for the Church at large to know. Here is what I hear often: Nobody cares about the intricacies of biblical exegesis in a parish. Brothers, it is not true. You are selling the people of God short if you think they don’t care about theology and biblical studies and other aspects of what you are experiencing here. If you don’t learn here, you cannot expect of have responsibility for anyone in the Church other than the ignorant. In truth, they will not be ignorant, but what does it say when a large part of your future congregations know more about the Church’s thought and tradition that you do. You don’t know because you are a “pastor” which roughly translates, I don’t need to apply myself to study because I will show the people I care about them. If you truly care about the people, you will unveil for them the mysteries of God which you have access to in your studies, both your present and future studies, and which they will lap up.

    Another aspect of what we do here is build community. You are learning to build community. I am begging you, each of you, to take what we are doing here seriously. This is not just a school. In fact what you do outside of the classroom is as important, sometimes even more important than what you are doing in the classroom. What is your extra-curricular life like? Ask yourself this question: How much time to I waste every day playing games, watching television? Do I not think recreation is important? I do but how can recreation truly become what the word implies: re-creation, recreating myself to be a better person. Sometimes that comes through various activities. For the future priest it comes by making myself available to others. This vocation is not a job. This vocation is a way of life. The vocation of the priest is not something that is put on in the morning and removed at night. I must learn to act as a priest even when alone. I must pray, even when no one is watching. I must work, even when I would rather shirk the tasks assigned to me. Being a priest is a vocation and as such it is a responsibility. This is not only a place to learn but a place to live. This is your first assignment. The way you involve yourself here is a good indicator of the way you will be in parish life in the future.

    Ask yourself this question: What is my early morning demeanor? Are you up and ready to go? Are you at breakfast early? Are you ready to speak to people at 7:00? Are you attentive to not only the requirement to be at morning prayer but to be authentically present to the community, opening yourself to the spirit of God? As a priest, in the future much of your activity will take place early in the morning, meetings, masses, etc. Be prepared.

    Chesterton once remarked: Getting out of bed is a never ending nuisance.  Not getting out of bed is also a never ending nuisance to those who have to put up with priests who don’t show.  Part of this ideal of presence is also working through sickness. We have a great deal of sickness in this community and it may be the case that communal illness is a part of living together so closely. I wonder, however. This I do know. If you are the only priest in your parish and if there is a need to say mass or hear confessions or attend the dying, you really don’t have much of a choice but to press on. Here, I am not talking about fevers and contagious illness, bubonic plague or Legionnaires disease. Here I am talking about sniffles and little aches and pains. Men, press on. Go to the doctor if you need to, take some meds and press on. It is not fair to the people of the Church for a priest to be the victim of his own hypochondriacal tendencies. Press on. Get yourself to Mass and prayer, remain devoted to your ministry. It is needed.

    Devotion to your ministry is also an aspect of work that we must be about here in a focused way. You say: My ministry is not very meaningful. It is boring. I don’t like the supervisor. I don’t care for my ministry partners. Welcome to the Church! Success in ministry is usually, sometimes almost exclusively about what you make it to be and not about what is there when you arrive. Find new ways. Explore new paths, look for new ways of relating to that troublesome supervisor. The same is true of theological reflection. How can you take it upon yourself to make it more meaningful if you are finding it to be a grind and an interruption to the meaningful game of Zombies that you were planning for the afternoon.
    None of what I am proposing here is rocket science. It is not even really too particular to priesthood. It is called being a grown up. Ultimately I would say that being a grown up is not only realizing what your responsibilities are, but finally, definitively finding fulfillment in those responsibilities. Why? Because fulfilling my responsibilities makes me a good man and there is nothing I want to be more than a good person. That is the basis of the other vocation all of us are trying to fulfill. In other words, if I cannot be a good person, I can hardly expect to be a good priest. If I cannot be a good person, I can hardly expect to instill goodness in others, to make a good world, a world so desperately in need of God’s love and concern.

    I have recently been devotion a semester of study, as many of you know I do, to the Roosevelts. The family formed a political dynasty that many of you may take exception to today. Be that as it may, what has intrigued me about Theodore, Franklin, Eleanor and the others is not their political ideas, many of which I do not espouse. It is their sense of service. Both branches of the Roosevelt family were wealthy enough that they could easily have chosen to live lives of leisure on their various estates. They could have chosen to play games and read all day. They could have raised their children to believe in privilege about responsibility. They did not. They chose to serve and not only to serve but to devote their lives to serving their country. Theodore Roosevelt overcame a weakness in his childhood and chronic asthma, this death of his first wife and mother on the same day, he overcame these things to become a great leader, a military man, a medal of honor winner, a Nobel peace prize winner, the author of dozens of books. He did not do it to make money or to achieve fame, he did it out of a sense of pride and responsibility to his country.

    Franklin Roosevelt dragged a nation out of the depression, one might say almost by the force of his own will. He had a great compassion for people from all walks of life. He finally led his country, somewhat reluctantly into the Second World War. He was elected president four times. Likewise his wife, Eleanor, who was Theodore Roosevelt’s niece before she was Franklin’s wife, she used her position as first lady to touch the lives of thousands of Americans during the depression and during the war and after her husband’s death, at a time when she could have reasonably withdrawn from public life, she went on to become a charter member of the United Nations and wrote Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

    We know of course that the Roosevelts also had their problems. They had losses to face. They had family issues. Franklin Roosevelt could not walk, his polio as an adult prohibited his free movement. They had their own prejudices. About this there is no doubt, but likewise, there is no doubt that they devoted every ounce of their lives to service and service that was not even glorious, notable, or even seen. I think of this story of Eleanor Roosevelt. When she was touring the Pacific theater during World War II, she met a soldier in the hospital who was near death. He had a very particular request for Eleanor. He did not want his mother in Oregon to learn about his death from a telegram. Eleanor took down his information and before he died, she promised him that she would do something. She did. She traveled to Oregon and, as one mother to another, broke the news of her son’s death. She certainly didn’t have to do it, but she did.

    Enough about these old Roosevelts and their old fashioned ways. Perhaps they are out-dated. We live in a different world, but it is a world in which we are told that things are better, communication easier, we are closer, more global. Are we?


    Here is the question I want to ask us tonight: What is our commitment to this community? Is this a convenient place to live, where we have a room and mostly edible food or is this a community of faith, a place for us to grow and love and find peace? I suggest it is the latter. We are called to be men who are committed to helping, men who are committed to care for others, men who are committed to study for the intellectual good of the world, men who are stewards of the world and creation and must find ways to amplify that stewardship. Let’s see if we can find ways to do that, purposefully, centrally. Our ability to create community here is a good indicator of the future health of our parishes, religious communities and dioceses. This is the way for us to achieve blessings, but also our way of achieving salvation. 

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  4. All Saints
    YouTube video

    Since her death a few weeks ago, I have been thinking a lot about my former secretary, Mrs. Brahm. She was certainly a formidable lady and a determined one. She was very intimidating to seminarians and staff alike, but there was something else about her that she displayed in her forty years as secretary to four rectors. She was a holy woman. Certainly there was no formidable holiness about her. She went to Church. She prayed all day long at her desk. She prayed five rosaries every day for her children. She had a stack of prayer cards that she shuffled like a poker shark. She was a no nonsense Catholic and I am sure when she died, she had her paperwork in order. I am sure that she arrived at the gates of heaven and said: “Let me in” and I am equally sure that St. Peter let her in. I am doubly sure that she was found worthy, Marilyn Brahm is a saint.

    Twenty five years ago this year, my paternal grandfather, John Robinson, died aged 99. He was an interesting man who served as a part-time preacher, an engineer for the TVA, a part-time farmer and the father of 15 children. Today, perhaps any one of those jobs would be enough to stifle a man. Not so John Robinson, All of his boys and two of his girls served the US army. Two of his sons were killed in action, in Korea and Vietnam. I can truly testify, that, I almost never heard him say a word out of the pulpit. He was a great preacher and a man of authentic peace, not easy to achieve in a household such as his. I remember his pipe which he could only smoke on the porch and his forever fiddling with his pocket watch. He never raised his voice or struck one of his children as a punishment. He died in his bed after a short illness and I am sure he went right up to heaven. I am equally sure that St Peter let him in. I am doubly sure that he was found worthy, John Robinson is a saint.

    When I was in Memphis recently, I did what I like to do and stopped by the cemetery where my great Aunt Callie Elizabeth Ayers is buried. My great aunt was also a formidable person, but unlike my grandfather, she was a live wire, a pistol. She had fiery red hair which she claimed was real. It was not real. She was a pillar of the Baptist Church, taught Sunday School, played the piano and raised her five children to be God-fearing Christians. She always carried a pocket book which she kept by her side and would draw from said pocketbook a half stick of gum as a treat.   I can tell you this though now that she is gone, my great aunt also loved a little cocktail now and then. She had a puff of the cigarette now and then. She loved to play bingo and she was a ballroom dancer without equal since the retirement of Ginger Rogers. Of course no one in the church knew this, and they were undoubtedly better for it. When she died at the age of ninety, I surreptitiously secreted a bingo card into her casket, hiding it in the folds of her wedding garment.  I am sure when she arrived in heaven she held up her bingo card, claiming her jackpot prize. I am equally sure that Saint Peter let her in. I am doubly sure that she was found worthy, Callie Elizabeth Ayers is a saint.

    Back in my parish days in the early nineties, there was a lady in the parish named Betty. Betty was homeless, probably schizophrenic,and was well-known in our midtown neighborhood. According to her own narrative, Betty was a native of Louisiana. She came to Mass every day. She came to every continuing education I ever gave. I know that almost every night before I locked the church, Betty would sneak in the side door, make her way up to the choir loft and bed down for the night under the watchful care of the angels painted on the ceiling. Once Betty gave me a gift, some meat that she had found in a trash can which she thoughtfully preserved in a jar of discarded pickle juice. I had a great respect for Betty and we spent a lot of time talking and I spent a lot of time listening. She never asked for anything. She died in 1995 and was found on the street behind the Montesi  grocery store. I have no idea how old she was. We gave her full burial from the cathedral. She was colorful to say the least, but I loved her, I really did. I am sure that she arrived at the gates of heaven with the proper offering, her last secreted treasure from the Montesi dumpster. I am equally sure that Saint Peter let her in. I am doubly sure she was found worthy, Betty is a saint.
    After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb.
    So many nameless folks, now forgotten by us but remembered for their goodness and their simplicity and their complexity and their rascal-tude before gates of heaven.

    All Saints

    Grandmothers of sizeable proportion, faces and aprons covered with flour running out to the golden curb to welcome the babies home

    Grandfathers silent and pondering their pocket watches and their pipes ready for … whatever, for wisdom

    Aunts’ sour faces turned to smiles still clutching their patent leather purses for dear life while searching for that half stick of gum, now miraculously transformed into a whole package

    Uncles laughing and singing with loud voices amplified by the celestial atmosphere and a bit of Jack D into something more hearable than earth afforded

    Grateful mothers clutching their lost children, tired and tear stained eyes now brightened in the refined air of recognition

    Sons older than their mothers, crying out, you were gone too soon. I’m glad to see you, mommy

    Fathers bouncing babies on their knees babies they had not seen since those dark days.

    Daughters seeking forgiveness from their fathers for the sleepless nights, the care filled days of adolescence. “Daddy forgive me” escaping their lips before their fathers grasp them in a tight embrace

    Sisters welcoming their brothers with tender words and kisses on the forehead

    Brothers red-faced grasping silver spit cans falling into the arms of mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, being brought anew into families no longer prodigal

    Little children born too soon without names and without compassion, now entangled in hundreds of arms and blankets with joy and warmth they never felt in their too brief sojourn on earth

    Classmates laughing with teachers and each learning from each what happened since those childhood days of white paste and bulletin boards and construction paper

    Kindergartners waiving violently and smiling toothlessly as they line up perfectly for the first time for an 
    Elysian field trip

    Common folks whirlwinded to heaven in the explosion of Syrian neighborhoods where fences kept out the Shia or the Suni but could not keep out the living God.   

    Neighbors tearing down fences and returning borrowed lawnmowers and cups of sugar that might never have seen home again

    Secretaries placing more papers to sign in front of your face and you realizing that you signed it already and the two of you laugh out loud.

    Cranks smiling from ear to ear and chirping, shouting, crying out: Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!

    Messes made clean in the waters of Lethe lined up with combed hair and bright, white angel tunics

    Old ladies fishing through golden dumpsters behind the celestial Montesi grocery store

    Monks and nuns with wild hair and habits newly made whole now living forever in new digs

    New angels freshening up their new wings from the package and shaking off the feathered remnants of old ways

    Seminarians bright faced and alert at 7 o’clock in the morning, O hell, let’s say six o’clock

    Pilgrims walking mournfully to cemeteries only to realize that there is no one there. They are all gone, the graves are empty

    Priests sighing with relief that it worked, it actually worked … this salvation thing

    Old devils with polished horns and the homeless lounging in loud silk pajamas

    The clean of heart justified but not smug, never smug
    The merciful given mercy
    The peacemakers marching to silent fife and drum
    The afraid no longer quaking
    The cowardly running into battle
    The brave resting on the Rock of Ages
    The poor in spirit rich in eloquence
    The mourners dry and upright
    The meek overwhelmingly bold

    All Saints

    All Saints who from their place in heaven shine with splendor before the throne of God

    Men and women and children with halos and wings, crooked halos and matted wings, golden halos and golden wings.

    And each day as we gather in prayer, as we pause in our rooms, as we catch our reflections in the mirrors, as we take a walk in these waning days filled with browning grass and burning leaves and gentle chills, as we remember a particular smell, old perfume or gum, or grandma’s pure vanilla extract, as we hear the rushing wind, the crackling of logs on a fire, as we taste the Bud in the back of our throats and think back on that stupid costume from last night, or that three year old me dressed up like Casper the friendly ghost, as we sing a song, walk, pray.

    All Saints

    In bright array and in dark, conservative suits, in habits, in dress clothes, with hair slicked back and new breviaries, students and teachers, friends and companions, and enemies, yes, perhaps a few of those as well

    Saints, all saints in God’s eyes and in his plan.

    We strive, we gather, we propel ourselves into beatitude. We stretch out our hands to receive the Lord of Heaven in the act of communion and we are one with them, we are truly one with them.
    After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb
    And they … we, are found worthy. 

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    Labels: Homilies
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Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB
Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB
Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB

Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB, is president-rector of Saint Meinrad School of Theology in St. Meinrad, IN. A Benedictine monk, he is also an assistant professor of systematic theology. A Mississippi native, Fr. Denis attended Saint Meinrad College and School of Theology, earning a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1989 and a Master of Divinity in 1993. From 1993-97, he was parochial vicar for the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Memphis, TN. He joined the Saint Meinrad monastery in August 1997. Fr. Denis also attended the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, where he received a master’s degree in theology in 2002, a licentiate in sacred theology in 2003, and doctorates in sacred theology and philosophy in 2007.

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