Practice Your Faith Homily Part 1

by Fr. Michael A. Van Sloun

THE FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT, Year B

Gen 9:8-15; Ps 25:4-9; 1 Pt 3:18-22; Mk 1:12-15

 

Special Readings for this Exceptional Occasion
Prov 13:1,3-5,9; Acts 2:1-4; Mt 25:1-13

Saturday, February 28, 2009, 5:00 and 6:30 p.m.
Sunday, March 1, 2009, 8:00, 9:30, and 11:15 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.

 

Happy Anniversary!
Today is the one-year anniversary of the beginning of our
Turn Up the Flame spiritual campaign.

 

Turn Up the Flame is tremendously important!
I am more sold on Turn Up the Flame than anything that I have spearheaded as your pastor.
It is more important than a new church or a new addition like the FCC.
It is more important than paying for a new building or the retirement of a loan.
Turn Up the Flame is about the quality of our spiritual lives:
our relationship with God, our relationship with his Son Jesus Christ,
and how we are as believers, as disciples.

 

We need to renew our efforts with our spiritual lives,
otherwise there will be slippage, backsliding, regression.
It is critical to re-infuse time and energy, to refocus.
Our relationship with Jesus deserves top priority.
Lent does this annually for forty days.
With Turn Up the Flame, we are trying to sustain our effort,
not just for 40 days, but for 365 days;
not just for six weeks, but for 52 weeks;
because with God, every day, every week, counts.

 

We need to keep our lamps trimmed and burning (see Mt 25:7).
Jesus wants us to trim away all of the soot, to cut away all sin.
Jesus wants our flames to shoot up, higher, hotter, and brighter,
so our flames, our lights, will shine brightly before others (see Mt 5:16a).

 

Last year I explained how this spiritual campaign would be modeled on a capital campaign.
The usual capital campaign goes for three years;
so Turn Up the Flame will go for three years (one year down, two to go).
In a capital campaign, the parishioners usually pledge a certain amount of money.
In Turn Up the Flame, parishioners pledge to a spiritual action plan.
In a capital campaign, it is usually one pledge per household.
In Turn Up the Flame, it is one pledge per person.

 

Turn Up the Flame is an invitation to spiritual change,
a spiritual conversion, a “U Turn for Christ!”
It is about living our spiritual lives with more commitment, more fervor.

 

But change and conversion is extremely difficult,
because we have our habits and our routines,
and sometimes were not very energetic,
and sometimes it is hard to get us to budge.

 

It is fascinating to see how this applies within our own parish.
I was sincerely hoping for 6000 pledges last year.
We have about 6000 who worship at St. Stephen’s every week,
and another 6000 or 7000 who are sporadic or inactive.
I’m probably living in a dream world,
but I was hoping that the vast majority of our regular worshippers, YOU,
would make a pledge last year.

 

Do you know what happened?
2500 people made pledges, which is wonderful!
2500 people made this special effort with their spiritual lives! Fantastic news!
We made a tremendous beginning.
But to be frank, it was a lot less than I was hoping for.

 

When I pondered the results,
I was quickly reminded of some research work I had done on change theory
when I was in educational administration before I became a priest.
The assumption of the theory is that change comes hard,
and that people resist change.

 

There is a “Rule of One-Third.”

When a new change is proposed:
about one-third agree,
one-third are undecided,
and one-third are opposed.

 

The numbers were amazing!
2500 pledges.
6000 regular worshippers.
Slightly more than one-third jumped on board right away.
The Rule of One-Third is alive and well in our parish!

In this change theory, there are names for each of these classifications.

 

The people who agree with the change are called “Early Adapters.”
They adapt quickly.
They accept the new idea.
They jump on board from the “get-go!”
These are the people who made pledges last year.

 

The people who are undecided about a new change are called “Late Adapters.”
They don’t adapt, don’t change, as quickly.
“Late Adapters” take more time; they hesitate.
They take a “wait-and-see” attitude.
They want to know if the concept is a good idea, and if it works,
before they jump on board.

 

The people who are opposed to a new change are called “Resisters.”
They may think the idea is stupid, or impractical, or not worth the time and effort,
or not right for them, or that something else is wrong with it.

 

So we are headed into Year Two.
It is time to pledge again.
We have new pledge sheets.
The old sheets were red-orange.
The new ones are a bright yellow color.
Like before, there are three different pledge sheets:
one for adults, one for teens, and a booklet for children.

 

Every registered household will receive a mailing from the parish this week.
One adult pledge sheet will be enclosed.
All of the other pledge sheets that you need,
for every additional adult in your home,
as well as all for each of the teens and kids,
it will be necessary to pick up those pledge sheets on the tables at the exits.

 

According to change theory, I am your “Innovator,”
the person who is proposing the change.
In spiritual terms, I am your “prophet,”
the one who makes the call to conversion, to greater holiness.
As your spiritual leader, this is my special duty, my obligation.

 

I have three specific requests.

For you “Early Adapters,”
those who completed a pledge sheet and participated last year,
my request is that you participate again in this year.
Please, revise or update your pledge.
Repeat or modify what worked for you.
Eliminate things that didn’t work.
Notice that the pledge sheet has two pages,
the top page which you are supposed to keep for yourself as a reminder.
You might post it somewhere highly visible,
on the refrigerator or near the bathroom mirror.
The lower page, the carbon copy,
is to bring to church in two weeks for Commitment Sunday.

 

And now, for those of you who didn’t participate last year.
That would be roughly two-thirds of you.
If you didn’t participate,
that would be normal for a group our size.
It is normal, when there is a change,
for people to hesitate or have reservations.

 

But let me tell you,
to have two-thirds of our regular attendees not participating:
it is a big disappointment to me.

 

It is my special calling to be your prophet,
to call you and our parish community to greater holiness.
If we reflect upon the prophets of old,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel,
and the greatest prophet of all, Jesus,
when they challenged their listeners,
much of what they said fell of deaf ears,
and many people were slow to change,
and many others resisted.
Sometimes the prophets had to become
more insistent, more outspoken,
more agitating, more irritating,
and often, as the prophets pushed harder,
some of their people pushed back.

 

Like the prophets,
it is very important for me to give Turn Up the Flame a bigger push.

 

Here is my request for those of you who did not participate last year:
please participate this year!

 

If you find yourself in the “Late Adapter” group,
if you have hesitated,
if you have to wait and see before you jump on board,
please read the testimonials on page two of this week’s parish bulletin,
please read the testimonials on the second page of the parish mailing
that you should receive on Monday or Tuesday.
You will find that person after person who participated last year
is reporting wonderful improvements in their spiritual lives:
better prayer, feeling closer to God, learning more about their faith,
a strengthening of their marriage, a strengthening of their family,
more kindness to others, and a greater sense of inner peace.
My friends, please don’t miss this opportunity!

 

And my third and final request is for those who are Resisters.
I know that some of you are opposed to Turn Up the Flame,
or just do not want to participate.
You may be thinking:
“This is a dumb idea!” “It’s a waste of time!”
“It is just another crazy gimmick!”
“Leave me alone. I just want to go to Mass.”
“Don’t you be bothering me!”
Well, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t bother you.
As your local prophet, it is my calling to stir things up!
If you have a closed mind, I would like to invite you to open up (see Jn 9:39-41).
If you have a hard heart, I would like to invite you to soften up (Ez 36:26).
If you are feeling skeptical, I would like to invite you to trust.
If you have been against the Turn Up the Flame in the past,
or if you have declined to participate,
I would like to ask you to re-evaluate your position
and give Turn Up the Flame a try this year.

 

Please, everyone, I ask you to pick up pledge sheets after Mass,
one per person in your household.
Then, over these next days,
pray over what you might do to intensify your spiritual life,
then fill out the pledge sheet,
keep the top page for yourself,
and bring the bottom sheet for Commitment Sunday in two weeks.

 

We’ll track the numbers for you.
Hopefully there will be an explosion in participation.

You need not put your name on the sheet; it’s optional.
If you would like a monthly e-mail reminder, an E-Flame,
please write your e-mail address in the space provided.
Your e-mail address will be kept in confidence and shared with no one else.

And, new wrist bands are now available!
They are on tables for you to pick up as you leave Mass.

This is our third generation of wrists bands already.
A year ago, the orange Turn Up the Flame wristbands.
Last fall, the red Learn Your Faith wristbands.

 

And now, bright yellow Practice Your Faith wristbands.

They are new and improved, and now in three sizes,
small, for thin-boned types like me (7 inches);
medium, for regular folks (8 inches);
and after many requests, by popular demand, now, also – large! (9 inches).
These wristbands are great:
a wonderful reminder to the person who wears them;
and a wonderful witness to other people who see them.

 

These wristbands are the “talk-of-the-town”
not just Anoka, but the Twin Cities.
I have a friend who is a professor at the University of St. Catherine in St. Paul,
and she had seen our parishioners wearing these wristbands on campus in St. Paul.
We have parishioners who are teachers in the local public middle schools and high schools,
and they report frequently seeing our kids wearing Turn Up the Flame wrist bands to school.
I make lots of hospital calls, mostly to Mercy, a few times to Unity,
and I have been pleasantly surprised how often I have seen our parishioners,
nurses, patients, and family visitors,
wearing their wristbands in the hospital.
I wore my wristband all day, every day, on our recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land,
as did many in our group.

 

Time after time, people ask, “Why are you wearing that?”
These wristbands provide a wonderful opening for us to speak about our faith to others.

 

My friends,
the strengthening of our spiritual lives is a matter of utmost importance!
Let us keep our lamps trimmed and burning (Mt 25:7),
cut away all sin,
and place our lamps on a stand for all to see (Mt 5:16).
Turn Up the Flame is a marvelous opportunity for us to change for the better.
May each of us individually, and our parish as a whole,
catch fire for the Lord!