Last week Lawrence Ferlinghetti died: a great poet of the Beat Generation. He was 101; he spent his whole life trying to be a voice for the people, for the poor, and for peace. He always pointed out the gap that existed in the United States between things as they were and things as they could be, between our ideals and our reality. Lawrence Ferlinghetti said, “I believe that art is capable of the total transformation of the world, and of life itself.”

When that gap becomes especially wide, between the way things are and the way they should be, we need the work of lawmakers and politicians; marchers and community organizers; teachers and planners… And we need creative people. The artists, and musicians, and storytellers. We need the poets, to help us see right to the core of the matter— to touch our heart and spark our imagination, to change our perspective in one picture, one sentence, one song, one bold gesture. 

Some people write this kind of poetry with words. Some people write it with their lives. Their actions are like living poetry. They open our eyes and wake us up to the truth. 

A year ago, shortly after Ahmaud Arbery was murdered while out for his daily jog around his neighborhood, a pastor in Florida named Richard Demsick, who is white, decided to take a jog around his neighborhood, covering the same distance… the same number of steps… at the same time of day… With the only difference being that while Ahmaud Arbery was empty-handed, this white pastor decided that HE would carry with him a huge, brand-new flat-screen TV. 

So he did this. He jogged miles around a residential neighborhood, carrying a TV. He filmed himself doing this… he also filmed the many residents of the neighborhood who noticed him. People definitely saw this odd behavior. But did anyone stop him? Did anyone question what he was doing or where he was going? No. People smiled and waved, and said hello, as if he was doing nothing out of the ordinary. No one assumed he was suspicious; no one assumed he was committing a crime (though that might have been reasonable under the circumstances); certainly no one fired shots. [1]

His video, when he shared it later on social media, was viewed over 1.2 million times. It was a living demonstration of the reality of white privilege, and it captured people’s imaginations — it spoke to their heart and their gut. Richard Demsick showed the gap between what should be, and what is. He made some of his fellow white people confront that. He was being a poet for justice. 

Some of you know Harry Murray, a professor at Nazareth College. A few years ago, Professor Murray and a group of 30 other folks were arrested outside the national guard base at Hancock Airport for staging a die-in, and disrupting the flow of government activity at the base. They wanted to show the reality of drone strikes— how these weren’t an abstraction, but were killing civilians in Afghanistan and other countries. The drones launched from this base weren’t harmless; they were instruments of death.

It was a shocking demonstration. It upset people. But professor Murray said, “When my government is killing people, I have a responsibility to say ‘no’ in a nonviolent way, but the strongest way I can.” [2]

He was being a poet for justice. 

In today’s gospel, Jesus plans his own poetic, shocking demonstration at the Temple in Jerusalem— the heart of institutional power. In his day, the spiritual life of the Temple had gotten all tied up with the politics of empire. Some of the religious leaders collaborated with the Roman government in their system of economically oppressing the poor. So in that day the Temple wasn’t just a place to worship; it was also where debt records were stored— for money owed by the farmers and peasants to the wealthy people in power, who just got richer and richer, as the people got poorer and poorer. It’s a pattern that’s still with us now. Like in Texas, where fossil f

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Spiritus Christi

February 21, 2021

Father Jim Callan

Last Thursday as you know, the United States landed another rover on Mars called Perseverance.  It sent back pictures of itself landing on the surface, took some selfies, and then it showed the panoramic views of the planet, the characteristic red color of the Martian surface, the craters, the volcanoes, the rocks, the dry lakebeds and dry river deltas.  A vast wilderness, an endless dessert.  And now it is time for Perseverance to explore that desert.  

So today, the first Sunday of lent we hear about Jesus being out in the desert.  Mark says that the Spirit drove Jesus out in to the desert.  It sounds like it was involuntary.  Maybe it wasn’t his idea.  Maybe God wanted him to have this experience and he needed a lot of perseverance to be there for 40 days.

Now the desert is not just a lonely, isolated place.  It is a metaphor. It is a frame of mind.  You can enter the desert any time you want. How?  Just sit down without a book.  Without a smartphone.  Without headphones.  Without a TV or internet.  Without any electronic device.  Just unplug and say, “Ok God!  I’m ready.”  And meet God on God’s terms.

Lent is a time to get rid of our sedatives and pacifiers.  To let go of them just for a few weeks and get ready to meet God.  What is your escape hatch?  What is your pacifier?  Books?  Netflix? Alcohol.  Internet.  TV.  What prevents you from facing the desert?  What prevents you from facing the wilderness?

People have different names for the wilderness.  The Twelve-Step program calls it “powerlessness”.  Buddhist call it emptiness.  Franciscans call it poverty.   The author of Jonah calls it the belly of the whale.  Mystics call it the dark night of the soul.  Christians call it the way of the cross.  Jews call it the desert.  Today we might call it the Corona virus lockdown.  And like Jesus, the lockdown was not voluntary.  It was involuntary experience.  Maybe God wanted us to have a growth experience.  A desert experience. A time in the wilderness.  So the wilderness is a time-honored place to sort things out.  Now, years ago, Mike Ranella lost his teaching job and it was a terrible thing for his family.  He tried everywhere.  He applied to public schools, the Catholic schools, and the private schools. It was so stressful.  At about nine months later into his search he was offered a job in Penn Yan.   I said, “Mike that is so far away.  Are you going to take that job?”  He replies, “Of course I am!  I’ve had enough of this character building crap.”

The wilderness might be a scary place but that doesn’t mean that it is a bad place.  It is a holy place where we meet God.  Israelites spent 40 days without any pacifiers or sedatives.  And Jesus spent 40 days without anything to distract him.  When you are in the desert, what happens?  You confront your demons.

Now in the past evil was described as Satan or the devil or Lucifer.  Today we say that evil is racism, sexism, militarism, greed, envy, lust, gluttony.  These are our demons.  Or we might even call the demon our ego.  Martin Buber says that we cannot wipe out evil but we can turn evil into good.  Just like when we lose a loved one, somebody close to us, we can never forget that person but we can turn our grief into compassion for other people.

Or when we deal with our alcohol addiction or a drug addiction.  We never eliminate the addiction.  But we gain a dependence on our higher power.  Rabi Abraham Heschel, whom I got to meet one time, said:   “The Biblical answer to evil is not good but the holy.  The scared.”  We are not alone when confronted with evil.  God

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Years ago I worked in a restaurant as a server. I remember a manager named Dan who surprised me in many ways because he was not a typical restaurant manager – or at least his management style was very different from most restaurant managers in the food service industry.   

There were many nights that the restaurant would get so busy that we had a hard time keeping up. One table would need their order taken.  Another needed more napkins, while at the same time already-cooked food needed to be brought to customers.  Between all this, we had to keep up on the cleaning.  

It was chaotic, BUT I remember Dan the manager as being one who was always there to motivate us. 

He not only helped motivate us with his words, but by his actions too. He didn’t use his position to order those under him around. He used it to lead in a way that his employees felt supported and encouraged. 

He was not one to sit back in his office, but he worked non-stop and was “in the trenches” with us, so to speak.  He did it all in order to be there for his staff and help make our jobs easier and create success as a whole in the restaurant.

Something happens to a team when its leaders roll up their sleeves and get down to work – a mutual respect ignites and the team knows that their leader is truly passionate.

In our gospel today, – Jesus asks the fisherman to put down their nets and be “fishers of people.” He wants them to get to work spreading love and compassion around the world.  But Jesus is not looking for people to simply do the stuff he does not want to do… Jesus wants PARTNERS.  

Jesus is getting together a team.  Some gifted and special people to help spread the word of God! There are many Spiritus kids watching right now that are on teams.  Maybe it’s your soccer team, or your dancing team, or your robotics team.   

So you know that one of the things Jesus created while calling others was community. 

Having community is so important.  It is what makes us feel we BELONG and helps us to support each other.  

I love seeing all of you Spiritus kids keep our Religious Ed community alive this year. I have loved seeing you stay connected by zoom sessions with your teachers and your class, sending  pen pal letters and sending in pictures from activities and projects.

Our connection is still strong and I am inspired by your passion and love for God and others. 

Another thing Jesus created in gathering his team was that he included everyone

Jesus COULD have only chosen royal nobility to serve on his team.

He COULD have only chosen those with masters degrees in theology to serve on his team.  

But Jesus included everyone.  

He chose  those with good hearts, no matter how much money they had or didn’t have – no matter what education they had or didn’t have, and no matter what resources they had or didn’t have.  

Everyone was welcome to the table, and everyone was called and invited by Jesus to be a disciple.  

When our religious education team set out to choose a curriculum for our children’s Sunday school program, no curriculums were good enough.  

None of the pages included people who identified as transgender.  

None of the pages promoted racial diversity.  

None of pages included people with different needs.  

So our team started from scratch.  We decided to write our own curriculum – one that would represent the real diverse world we live in and represent our church.  

A few years back, we had a new family join our parish. I am always excited when a new family is drawn to Spiritus and this particular family had a reason why. They wanted to have their son make his first communion, but the church they attended told them it wasn’t possible becau

We were so blessed to have Pastor Rickey Harvey from Mt. Olivet Baptist Church join us this past Sunday to give a homily for MLK Day.  Black lives matter too!

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Spiritus Christi

Father Jim Callan

January 3, 2021

Some of you have been to Corpus Christi Church on East Main Street and you have seen the beautiful blue stained glass window in the front. It is the Nativity scene.  Baby Jesus is in the middle flanked by Mary and Joseph, above him the angles – but the striking thing about that window is that in the corners at the bottom are the Magi and the shepherds.  They are equally close to the baby.  The shepherds are Jews, the Magi are gentiles.  The shepherds are poor, the Magi are rich.  The shepherds are insiders, the Magi are outsiders.  Both are equally close and drawn by Jesus.  Jesus is a universal figure.  He belongs to the world, the whole world.  To Jews, to gentiles, to Christians, to Buddhists, to all seekers of the divine.

Recently an astronaut from Saudi Arabia went to the international space station.  He was part of a diverse crew from many countries.  He said the first day we all pointed to our countries: Oh!  There is Russia.  There is Saudi Arabia.  There is the United States.  He said by the third day we all pointed to our continents and by the fifth day we were all aware of only one earth.

The Gospel writers are poets.  They use words like dreams, angles, and stars to convey God’s messages to people.  So Joseph had a dream.  Mary had an angle, and the Magi have a star.  A star is a universal symbol.  It doesn’t just sign on my country, or my neighborhood or my tribe or my religion or even my species.   It shines on the whole world.  Love your neighbor extends to all members of the earth.  Who is my neighbor?  The samaritan?  Sure.  My enemy?  Sure.  But also the whale, the dolphin, the coral reef and the rain forest.  We will not protect and save what we do not love.  The star shines on all of creation.  Beckoning us to stand in awe of everything and everyone.

Now the story of the Magi is not a factual.  It’s not a historical account.  It is a metaphor for a spiritual journey.  The Magi are astrologers, they are scientists.  Probably from Persia which is now Iran.  They are following a star, or what the Quakers call the inter light.  Everybody has an inner light.  They are looking for the truth and they set out to find it.  Along the way the Magi meet a tyrant.  Herod the Great.  Herod is not a nice person.  By the time Jesus is born he had killed who ever was a threat to him.  He killed his second wife, Miriam the First because she was becoming too powerful.  Herod killed his three sons because he heard they were plotting to overthrow him.  He also killed his mother-in-law and brother-in-law.  Cesar Augustus said, “It would be safer to be Herod’s dog than his family member.”

So the Magi say to this tyrant:  We’re looking for the king of the Jews!  Well, that was the wrong thing to say to him.  He says to himself, “What’s this king of the Jews?  I’m the king of the Jews.  Who is this new king of the Jews?  And who are these foreigners coming to honor to him?  If they are going to pay homage to anybody, it should be to me.”  So he immediately hatches a plot to do what he did to his people in his family who threatened them.  He plotted to kill this new rival king.  Now this is a preview to what was to come in Jesus’ adult life.  He would welcome foreigners; he would be a boundary breaker.  He would break down the barriers between Jews and Gentiles, male and female, clean and unclean, clergy and laity, righteous and sinners.  All of that would be gone.  He would lift up the lowly, he would challenge the powerful and his boundary breaking would be a threat to many people in power.  People would plot to end his life.   So the story of the Ma