September 6 - 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Bellarmine University                                            

Don’t Be Limited By Fear

Rev. Ronald Knott

September 6, 2015

Say to those whose hearts are frightened: “Be strong! Fear not!”

Isaiah 35:4-7a

I have spoken these words from Isaiah the prophet to myself for most of my life because fear has had a tendency to be a ruling force throughout my life. Battling fear is still part of my everyday life! The world can be a scary place sometimes. The words of Isaiah are, for that reason, words we all need to take to heart and reflect on seriously. 

When Isaiah first spoke these words to the people of tiny kingdom of Judah, they were basically surrounded by the powerful Assyrian empire which was swallowing up all their towns surrounding Jerusalem. Even in the face of imminent destruction, the prophet calls the people to face their fears and to know that, in the end, God’s faithfulness to them would triumph, even in the face of collapse and captivity by their enemies.  With all that going on around them, he says to them, “Be strong! Fear not!”  

It still happens after all these years. I get on a plane by myself heading out to some far-flung diocese to face hundreds of priests and realize that I am overcome with fear and doubt – fear of rejection and doubt about my capabilities.

Even though I haven’t had a disaster yet, on the contrary appreciative acceptance, I have to talk myself up and my demons down every time I take off on another speaking trip.  I can still remember being paralyzed by that same fear and doubt before opening the box my first published book arrived in – fear of rejection and doubt about my ability.

I have come to believe that many of us never become all we could become because of two things. (1) We are intimidated by the judging voices of others we can't, we shouldn't and we mustn't. (2) We are intimidated by our own criticizing, self-doubting voice.  Both voices say basically the same thing. “Who are you to do such and such? Who do you think you are, anyway? These demons must be slain or we will end up “settling” for a life marked by dullness, quiet desperation, resentment or even rage. Angelina Jolie said this, “If you ask people what they've always wanted to do, most people haven't done it. That breaks my heart.”

The secret to true personal freedom is the ability to face our fears, to stand up to our own cowardice and to do hard things for our own good. What I have learned from years of doing those things is that you end up amazed at the great things that will come to you, if you do!

Another thing I have learned is that it takes an amazing amount of concentration of the will to overcome the embedded negative messages we carry from childhood The good news is that with dedicated practice it is indeed possible to silence those messages and rob them of their power. I believe I am where I am today, able to do what I do,  because of my determination to not allow fear and doubt to control me. I am very happy that, with God's help and my willingness to keep trying, I was able to overpower my own crippling messages!  

The third thing I have learned is that there is wisdom out there that is available to us about overcoming fear and self-doubt that others can share with us. As you know, I collect motivational quotes and I regularly share some of my favorites on this subject in hopes that you can learn from them as well.

Fear probably defeats more people than any other one thing in the world. I once read that F-E-A-R stands for “fantasy events appearing real.” I read somewhere else that, statistically, about 90% of the things we worry about never happen, so Jesus was right, "fear is useless, what is needed is trust." How we handle fear determines whether we experience adventure or whether we are limited by the fear of it. Without scary, we don’t get to be brave!

I would say that my life has been enriched every time I have gotten up the guts to look fear in the face and say “No, you are not going to run my life! I may fail, I may get hurt, I may be laughed at, but again I might not, so once and for all be gone!” I had to stand down fear when I left home to go to the seminary at fourteen.I had to wrestle fear all throughout seminary so that I could stay in. I refused to be ruled by fear when I decided to be ordained, when I got my first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth assignment. I have had to deal with fear when I decided to retire and, because I refuse to stop growing and changing, I still have to deal with it. I deal with it by saying "no" to it in the most firm voice I can!  "What do you mean, I can't do it? Watch me!"  

Students! The words of Isaiah today are spoke to you as well! ‘Be strong! Fear not!”  Do not listen to the discounting voices of those who do not believe in you! Do not listen to that discounting voice in your own head that does not believe in you! Tell them both to shut up and listen instead to God’s voice in your own heart – that tiny whispering voice that gets drowned out in the noise of the world – that tiny whispering voice that you may not be able to hear because of the noisy, negative self-talk that comes out of other people's mouths or goes on in your own head – that tiny whispering voice of God who is telling you not to fear, but to be strong! 

Take it from one who has been there! God has great plans for you – he wants to take you to places who cannot even imagine for yourself! Do not let fear hold you back, wherever its source, from becoming who you really are and who you can become - your true self! Henry Ford may have said it best when he said, “Those who think they can and those who think they can’t are both right!  

August 30 - 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Bellarmine University

“Hear the Word! Do the Word”

Rev. Ronald Knott

August 30, 2015

Humbly welcome the word that has been planted

in you. Be doers of the word and not hearers only.

James 1:21-22

You would never know it, but preaching the gospel is the primary duty of priests: not celebrating mass, not doing baptisms, not hearing confessions, not witnessing weddings, but preaching. Catholics have been disappointed with Catholic Church preaching for so long, they dare not expect it any more. When Catholics do find a priest who can preach, they tend to follow him from church to church like hungry puppies. Others just do without this spiritual food, year after year, or leave or join some Protestant denomination.

This problem, I believe, can be traced back to the Reformation, four hundred years ago. It is a bit simplistic, but in that painful divorce Catholics took the altar and Protestants took the pulpit. Protestants all but gave up the Eucharist and we all but gave up preaching.  That’s why most Protestant churches, at least until very recently, have a tiny little altar table and a huge pulpit, while most Catholic churches have a tiny little pulpit and a huge altar.

Catholics who leave us for a pulpit somewhere else must also know that they are going off and leaving the Eucharist. What we need to do, what we have been working on over the last several years, is to be able to offer both: a powerful celebration of the Liturgy of the Word followed by a powerful celebration of the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

Preaching is being taken more seriously than ever in our seminaries. I am no professional homiletics professor, but I have been teaching homiletics (preaching) at St. Meinrad Seminary. I constantly challenge priests in the retreats I lead here and abroad to take preaching seriously - more seriously than anything else they do. The downfall of most preaching courses is that they focus way too much on public speaking techniques and not enough on the faith of the preacher. What I stress with priests is that preaching must be the bedrock of their personal spiritual life. My belief is similar to what William Faulkner said, “If a story is in you, it has to come out.”  I always remind my students and my fellow priests that if the love of God is in our hearts, we will find an effective way to communicate it. If not, our homily will just be another speech about God. A homily is not a speech. The purpose of a homily is to turn on a bulb in listeners' hearts, to help the listener make a connection with God.The response to a good homily is "Ah,ha! Now I get it!"  As we learned in the seminary, “Nemo dat quod non habet.” If you ain’t got it, you ain’t give it.

The preacher, and readers of scriptures at Mass as well, must be the first to ‘humbly welcome the word” and to “be a doers of the word and not just speakers and readers only." Preaching, especially, is an awesome responsibility and the well from which it comes must be constantly filled!  The preacher must know himself, know others and know God, and be able to talk about it all three in a convincing way. Lectors don’t just “read to people,” they “proclaim the good news.”

        Humbly welcome the word that has been planted

          in you. Be doers of the word and not hearers only.

For the next few Sundays our second reading will be taken from the Letter of James. James is famous for his insistence that faith is lived, not just claimed and talked about. He tells us today, “Be doers of the word and not hearers only.” Later on we will hear him say, “What good is it to profess faith without practicing it? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and no food for the day, and you say to them, “Good-bye and good luck! Keep warm and well fed,” but do not meet their bodily needs, what good is that? So it is with faith that does nothing in practice. It is thoroughly lifeless.”

My fellow Catholics, we cannot be ignorant of scripture and at the same time do as God has asked us. As the Letter to the Romans puts it, “Every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe unless they have heard of him? And how can they hear unless there is someone to preach? Faith, then, comes through hearing, and what is heard is the word of Christ.” 

It would be wonderful if every one of us took the opportunity to study scripture in a formal way. Scripture classes are offered in almost every parish these days. The diocese has many continuing education classes available on scripture. However, one of the simplest ways to study scripture is to take advantage of our Liturgy of the Word each week. To get the most out of the Liturgy of the Word each week, three things must happen. (1) Readers must read well. (2) Preachers must preach well. (3) You must learn to listen well. 

(1) One of the hardest things to get across to lectors is that they are not just “reading to people," but “proclaiming the word of God.”   That means they must, not just be able to read the words on the page, but to be the medium through which people hear God speaking to them. That means the reader must be familiar enough with the text to convey its meaning. If the reader does not know what the words mean, how can he or she read it with meaning? Lectors are not just readers. They proclaim the word of God behind the words of the text. The role of the lector, standing in the pulpit, should be taken as seriously as the priest standing behind the altar. Incompetence, sloppiness or carelessness in the pulpit or at the altar should never be acceptable in our churches. Good liturgy strengthens people's faith. Bad liturgy weakens people's faith.     

(2) As a priest, my primary role is to preach. I have a long way to go, but of all the things I do, I take preaching most seriously. This is my 701^st  homily here at Bellarmine alone! I typically work a minimum of 10-12 hours a week preparing these homilies.  As you know, not all priests do that. Several years ago, for instance, I was reading an evaluation that one of our pastors wrote about one of our soon-to-be-ordained seminarians. He criticized the seminarian for “working too much on his homilies.” He went on to say that he “knew of no other priest, except for maybe the Vocation Director (me), who spent that much time on writing homilies.” This time the seminarian is right and the pastor is wrong! I was never more honored by his criticism. Preaching is not just one of many things a priest does, it is the single most important thing a priest does! 

(3) People must learn to listen well. The word “liturgy” means “the work of the people.” In reality, many Catholics still don’t get it. They come to liturgy and put the whole burden of a meaningful liturgy on the backs of us priests, the musicians and the liturgical ministers. Many come late, leave early and in between, sit with their arms folded, never singing or answering the responses or even mouthing the creed, with an attitude of, “OK, now entertain me, impress me and inspire me and, if you fail, I’ll blame you and leave here to tell the world that I don’t get anything out of Mass because of the boring priest and the lousy music.” The word, “liturgy” means “the work of the people.” We preachers, presiders, lectors, Eucharistic ministers and musicians are here to “help you pray,” not to “do your praying for you.” It is your job to pray over the readings before you get here, get here in time to hear them read and at least sit up and pay close attention when God’s word is read aloud. 

“Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you.” Like the parable of the Sower and the Seed, it is not enough just to have good seed to sow (the word of God), not enough for the sowers to sow well (the lector and the preacher’s job), but the ground on which the word is sown must be fertile and receptive. That, my friends, is your job.Your job is to be good hearers of the word, good welcomers of the word and good doers of the word.