“You are not wearing that shirt to school today.” Scolded my older brother Tom.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because you are going to Mass today and a college sweatshirt is not appropriate.”  Tom said.

Older brothers, especially home from college, could sure be bossy.

But upstairs I went, to change into a button shirt.  All the other kids would be wearing t-shirts and jerseys, but noooooooo, not me.  I had to wear a stuffy button shirt.

But it was the right thing to do, and while I hate to admit it…my older brother was right.  It might seem like a small thing, but it sure made me think about the service and what it meant.

Twenty-five years later, it should come as no surprise that today, we are celebrating my brother Tom’s ordination to be a deacon in the Catholic Church.  A deacon after is a servant.  In the Acts of the Apostles, the Apostles had to focus on preaching the word, spreading the gospel.  They needed faith filled men, well respected to feed the poor, and serve the people.

That discribes my brother darn near perfectly.

Tom is the oldest of us five kids.  Ultimately, when Mom or Dad weren’t around, we were to listen to Tom.  I was pretty young when Tom went off to college, so the memories are little fuzzy compared to my other brothers.

But I remember clearly when I was in high school.

Our mother got sick when I was a junior in high school.  Though Tom and his wife Mary (a real partnership might I add) lived in central Iowa, they made the eight hour trek pretty often to spend a little bit of time with Mom and make sure that things were going ok.

For my graduation, it was Tom and Mary, with the help of some aunts, that made sure that things were done properly, from the food to the decorations.  They were there to help and support my younger sister and I when we needed it through those tough times.  From driving the eight hours to make it to a parents day at college that they knew my parents couldn’t make it to due to Mom’s illness, to making sure that we took a little time at Christmas to enjoy the season by taking us to the Fargo Theater for one of their winter concerts.

If that isn’t being a servant, I don’t know what is.

I’m proud of my brother and his wife.  They are embarking on a very difficult, but worthy journey.  Serving the their parish, serving their fellow man, and serving our Lord.

I guess I better not wear a college sweatshirt to the ordination…

I have tulips in front of my house.  Red and yellow tulips.  They are in full bloom today.  Living, flowers outstreatched towards the heaven.

For two years, I knew the tulips were their, but never knew what color were their blooms.  The first year I saw just the last remnants of them as I moved in.  Last year, just when I thought I would see them burst forth into flowers, the rabbits found them and nibbled them to nothing.

I am no gardner, and profess to know very little about flowers.  But tulips are an amazing plant.  Mine have been snowed on no less then four times this year.  They were chewed to nothing last year and still came back strong and healthy this year.  They lie in the ground, sometimes unseen - and yet still manage to stun with their beauty each year.

How fitting that mine should be in full bloom for Pentecost Sunday…

This weekend, we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit, we commorate that day 2000 years ago when the “tongues of flame” settled on each of the disciplines heads and they cried out in load voices, spoke in tongues, and worshipped God, and spread his good news.

Through Confirmation, and through our acceptance, we too are to have this gift of the Holy Spirit.

I’ll admit, sometimes it sure doesn’t feel that way.

I do stupid things.  I say stupid things.  Thinks that I know I shouldn’t, but I do them anyway.  If the Spirit is in me, why do I do these things?

I believe the Spirit is always there.  Guiding us, protecting us.  Like the tulips, sometimes they are hard to see.  Sometimes, they suffer through the coldness of our hearts and small minds.  Sometimes they are chewed down by the rabbits of our souls - haughtiness, pride, unfair judgements.

But like the tulips, the Spirit is always there.  Waiting to spring forth.  Sometimes, when the winter refuses to turn to spring, the tulips act as that reminder bursting through the snow and cold, saying that spring is coming.  There is hope.

So too with the Spirit.

I know there have been times, dark times in my own life.  Sickness in my family.  Times when I have doubted my abilities or purpose on this earth.  I have felt that overwhelming feeling of the Spirit.  That feeling of hope in a time of despair.  That guiding hand that clears our minds and acts as a lamp unto our feet.

With prayer and reflection, with the grace of God and the good works for His children here on earth, we soften our hearts and our minds.  We cannot help the Spirit, but we can chisel away at our imperfections and pride and allow our feeble minds to open our hearts to Spirit.

Religion is contemplative.  Religion is something that we must think about, reflect upon, and hold ponder in our hearts and minds.  We must keep our eyes fixed on heaven.

But that is only part of it.

Our faith is also about action.  All of the things listed above are true, but as we reflect on the Ascension of our Lord today, let us also remember the words of the two men dressed in white that appeared as the Apostles look to heaven, “Why are you standing here looking up at heaven?”

Sometimes we forget that true faith is an active faith.  It is important to keep our eyes on heaven, but without doing anything, it is an empty goal.

Sometimes I forget as well.  I say my prayers.  I go to Mass.  I go through the motions.  I short, I stand there looking up at heaven.

I forget that our faith is one of action.  We are called to help the poor.  We are called to feed the hungry.  We are called to visit the lonely.  We are called to be Christ for one another.

Our faith is not only one of thought, our faith is also one of deed.

When we think of Jesus’ life here on earth, part of it was thought, and reason, and contemplation, but part was a life of action.  Battling demons, helping the poor, curing the lame, helping the least of society.  Preaching a Gospel of love, mercy, and justice.  We are His instruments here on earth to continue the work of the Kingdom.

May we hear the voice of the men in white calling to us “Why are you standing there looking at heaven?”

There is an old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”  It seems we are living in these times today.  A time when our senses are being assualted.  We are overloaded with music, television, movies, internet, computers, radios.  We are expected to eat, listen, visit, interact with others all while being constantly on the move.

Our thoughts are being assualted.  Our world is getting more and more complex with each passing day, as our societies become more and more interconnected and intertwined, we must think more about what we do, but seem to have less time to do it in.

Sometimes it comes down to do what is right, what is noble, and what is easy.

The Good Lord promises us the Advocate, the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that we might know that He lives, and so that we might live in Him and He is us.

It is hard in this day and age to live out faith.  To spread the word. 

Recently at a business training session, I went to breakfast early and ran into our facilitator, when I asked him how he was that morning, he answered “Blessed.”

Wow. Did that change my perspective.  It was a simple word to a simple question, but it changed my outlook on the day.  In this day, that simple word isn’t seen as politically correct.  That simple word isn’t seen as something a “normal” person would utter.  That simple word is not an easy one to say.  But it is the truth.  It is the right thing to say.  That is living life in the Spirit.

Our times are interesting.  Economic troubles.  World strife.  Polarization of our religions.  Families being ripped apart by differing opinions.  Drugs.  Young people being disallusioned by society.  Turning food into fuel.  Time seeming to move faster and faster.

Every day, we are faced with the choice - what is easy, what is right?

May we chose to live in the Spirit, and have the Spirit live in us.

Jesus tells us, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  You have faith in God; have faith in Me also.”

How many times have we heard the reassuring words in the Gospels?  At his conception, we heard the angel say to Mary, “Be not afraid.”  At his birth, the angels said to the angels - “Do not be afraid, we bring you great tidings of great joy.”  All through his ministry, including up to the last meal with His Apostles, when He broke the bread and gave His flesh to eat, he told them “peace.”  Upon his rising, the first words were, “Do not be afraid.”

Yet we live in troubling times.

We are no longer put to death in the collisuems.  We are no longer hunted down and thrown to lions.  We have the freedom to ask questions of our faith.  We have the freedom, almost the expectation, to go to church and belong to a congregation.  Social norms now say we must have our children baptized.  Go through the motions of our faith.

But the cries for justice, for peace, for real faith are still there and still present.

There is hunger in the developing world.  There is people without food, without shelter, without freedom, without the basic rights that we have here in the United States.  Even when they have their rights, there are people locked in the viscious cycle of poverty, in the cycles of addictions.  Even when people have what they need, they get locked in the cycles of shelfishness, in conceit, in arrogance, in greed.

There is no peace.  There is no justice.  There is no goodness.

Or so it would appear.

In reality, there is goodness, there is justice, and their is peace.  For everyone that helps his neighbor, everyone who stands for what is right, whether during protests or activism, or just going to the ballot box - there is hope, there is goodness, there is justice.

We are all called to live a life of hope.  To do the deeds, to give ourselves in serving each other, to work to bring the Kingdom of God here on earth.  To leave the world a little brighter.

Jesus said “Do not be afraid.” and “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  He did not say it would be easy.  He did not say stay safe.  He did not say we would not be disappointed by others or by events,

He said, “Have faith in Me.”

“I am the gate.  Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.  A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”  Those are the words of our Lord from John’s gospel - He is the gate, the gate to happiness, the gate to heaven, the gate to peace.

That doesn’t mean that we will not suffer, that we will not stray, that we will not face the thief.  For thieves there are.  Evil men, evil thoughts, evil nature that will lead us astray. 

Sinful thoughts, sinful actions, sinful nature.  The thieves are still present, still among us, still within us.  But we must follow His voice.It seems in this day and age, we are facing more and more of these thieves.  Both from within and from outside.

We strive for money, prestige, honor, for glory.  But there is no glory but through the cross.  We become like Adam and Eve before the whispers of the serpent - “you will be like gods.”  We too share their weakness and fall for the serpents song.  We take the glory, prestige, honor and glory - when by right, they belong to Him.

We fail to use the gate - we fail to remember that with money, prestige, honor and glory comes a price - a weight.  These things are not in and of themselves evil, but they are when we fall to pride, to greed, to glottony, to sin.  We forget that these things are fleeting, that the pasture lies through the gate - through the words, through the goodness of Christ.

For we are sinful by nature.  We are weak by nature.  We fall for the serpents whispers.  But we must remember the words of Peter in the book of Acts, “Repent and be baptized in the name Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will be given the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For the promise is made to you and your children and all those far off.”

That promise is of salvation for our souls.

But there is no promise that we shall be free from suffering.  Indeed, in the Letter from St. Peter, we are told to expect suffering - but we are to follow his example of the cross.  We are to suffer patiently, and with joy.

Suffer with joy?

For we know that the sufferings of this life are fleeting.  We know that peace - peace as He gives - is found in the forgiveness of our sins, by the promise of the cross.  That in his suffering, dying and rising, we too are reborn - by His wounds we are healed!

We are called to leave the sins of this generation, to leave the temptations, to leave the evils behind us.  That does not mean that we retreat from this world.  That means that we should go forth boldly, doing good works, living life justly, judging no man, forgiving those who have wronged us - leading a life lead by the Spirit - a life more abundant!

Luke tells us that on the day Jesus rose, two of His disciples were going to the village of Emmaus, when Jesus drew near and began walking with him, but they didn’t recognize him.

They didn’t recognize their friend?  Their Lord?  They are walking down the road, talking about His horrible death on the cross and He simply walks up and joins their conversation.

But wait, it gets better.

He begins to explain to them the Old Testement scriptures and how His death - His own death - was necessary to break open the gates of heaven, to bring us the new covenent, to bring to pass the prophesies of the prior generations.

And they still failed to recognize Him.

Finally, when He sits with them at meal, breaks the bread and gives it to them, finally they see Him for who He is.  And they say “were our hearts not burning within us when He opened the Scriptures to us.”

How could they not see Him?  In his disciples defense, they believed Him dead and in the tomb.  Dead men tell no tales.

What then is our excuse.

We profess our faith that He is risen, that through the power of God, He was crucified, died, and was buried, and on the third day, raised up.  Why then, do we fail to see and hear Him?  We cannot make the excuse that we do not know that He lives.

I think that our generation has gotten jaded over time.  We fail to see Him, to hear Him, in our daily lives.

I am no exception.

For the last several months, I have prayed for some stability.  No moves for a while, no disruption in my work, no major changes.

Then a job opened up, a potential promotion - or at least something different.  Something new - perhaps more prestige, more recognition.

And I was disappointed when I didn’t get it.

Until I opened my eyes (or where they opened for me?).  What a fool I was.  I got what I asked for and I became disappointed, disenchanted, disillusioned.  Until my Emmaus moment.

How many times do we fail to see Him in the people around us.  In the opportunities to make a positive difference in the lives of others. 

Jesus tells us what we do for the least of our brothers, we do for Him. Do we feed the hungery?  Cloth the poor?  Give hope and encouragement to those around us?  Or do we need to pray for a few more Emmaus moments in our own lives.

I am a doubting Thomas.

I believe in the risen Lord.  My faith tells me that there is something greater, that there is a God, and his son died for us.  I believe in the church, and its teaching.  I believe there is a heaven.

But sometimes, it can be a challenge to see his grace in our every day lives.

You can also see how the faith of his Apostles were shaken.  They expected someone to take Jeruselem by storm - and he did on Palm Sunday.  The people were estastic, he was curing the sick, healing the lame - rising people from the grave!

Then, five days later, he was killed on the gibbet of the cross.  Nailed up for the world to see and to mock as a failure.  Insurrectionist?  Blasphemer?  Fraud?  Either way - to earthly minds, he was gone.  No Savior.  Not one to beat back the Romans, or restore the greatest of Judea.

They had no idea the path laid out by the prophets, and foretold in the sermons would be as bloody, as horrible, or as contrary to our small minds as possible.

You can’t blame Thomas for doubting - for wanting to put his fingers in the nail prints and his hand in his side.  It is difficult, if not impossible to see the big picture - which means the details too are hard to imagine.

It is still hard to see the big picture, to have faith that the trials and tribulations of our lives here, our living and our dying, our gifts and our weaknesses are part of something bigger.

 We have the free will to follow, but do we listen to our hearts well enough?

Even when we pray for things to happen - and they come to pass, but not as expected, don’t we also doubt the Lord?

We want an end to materialism, but bemoan the fate of the economy.

We want more time with our families, but fear loss of income.

We want to change the world, but fear when that change comes with a personal price.

In the end, I can say that I am a doubting Thomas - or worse.  Even when I see things, even when prayers are answered, I don’t always understand that what is happening is what I desire, because it doesn’t happen as expected.

Poor Thomas has been branded as a man of little faith - but in the end, he has given in to our human emotions.  The wonder of this Easter season, and our faith, is that He still shows us His face, if we have the courage to look.

We all have a choice, and no where is that more clear at Easter time.  It took our parish priest to point, it out to us - and hearing the sermon both during Easter Vigil and during Easter morning to truly grasp his meaning.

We can chose to dwell in the tomb.  We can live in the darkness and decay of the grave.  Or we can allow the Lord to roll away the stone and walk into the light.

This Easter was special.  It marked the 13th year since my mother lost her battle with cancer.

I will admit, I’ve done a fair bit of tomb dwelling in those 13 years.

Questioning my faith.  Questioning why there needs to be the darkness.  At times, focusing on the despair of the tomb and what it represents.  Lost hopes.  Lost dreams.  Lost childhoods.  The loss of not having my children some day know my mother.  Not having Mom there for graduations, weddings, and birthdays.  Not having that guiding voice on the other end of the telephone or the comfort of her wisdom.

But with Easter - and this Easter particularly for me - brought new hope.  The voice of the Lord to the Mary outside of the tomb struck me more then usual this year - “Be Not Afraid.”

For sometimes life is scary outside of the tomb.  Opening ourselves up to the light.  Opening ourselves up to what we could be - and for what the Good Lord has planned for us.

Sometimes we dwell on the tomb so much, we forget that we must go on living.

For Easter teaches us - no Easter is the exclamation point - on the fact that the tomb is not the end, but merely the end of the beginning.  Our lives here are fleeting and while we shudder in the tomb, to often we become accustumed to it.  We live our lives in the tomb, instead of walking into the light of Christ.

We must - I must - make that choice to walk out of the tomb.  To obey the laws of the Lord, but to live to the fullest.  To watch out for my fellow man.  To truly live a life worth living.

The glory of Easter is the fact that the stone on the tomb continues to be rolled back, for any one willing to trust in the Lord.

It is then that we must remember those first words of the risen Lord to his followers - and to us today: “Be Not Afraid!”

It seems like Ash Wednesday is one of those days in the church year that is unique in it’s message and delivery.  It isn’t a feast or holiday like Christmas or Easter.  Not some solemn day like Good Friday or Holy Thursday.

Ash Wednesday makes us confront the harsh reality that we are humans, formed of clay, and we will revert back to that form once our time on life is done.  This is not what most people care to think about.

It is far easier to think about our lives in terms of the hear and now.  How is school, or work, or our family.  What are the plans for the weekend, or our vacation.

But we need the reminder of Ash Wednesday.  We need the time of Lent to prepare.  For we are dust, and to dust we share return.  It is morbid.  It is depressing.  It is life.

But there is hope.

It is that hope that we must celebrate.  We are pilgrims on this earth.  Our time is fleeting.  Our bodies will decay, but we hope in Easter.  We hope in the promise of a place prepared for us by our Father.

I think to one of my favorite hymns by Tom Conry, Ashes:

We rise again from ashes, from the good we’ve failed to do.
We rise again from ashes, to create ourselves anew,
If all our world is ashes, then must our lives be true
An offering of ashes, an offering to you.

We offer you our failures, we offer you attempts
The gifts not fully given, the dreams not fully dreamt.
Give our stumblings direction, give our visions wider view,
An offering of ashes, an offering to you.

Today, we remember that we must die to self, that our lives are not our own.  That we are pilgrims in this land, who must serve the will of God.  To do that, means helping one another, praying for one another, helping our brothers and sister - and realizing that we are all our brothers and sisters in the eyes of God.

We have failed, we have given gifts heartedly, we stumble, we fall, we lack the clear vision that our Father has.  We must die to self in order to live more fully.  We are a sinful people, and this Ash Wednesday, must teach us as we embark on our 40 day journey

through Lent.