The key phrase for us today is from the gospel “Change your mind” you know, from our Lord, “Are you wiling to change your mind?”  I always check out these six Catholic bible scholars as they analyze all of scripture and all six of them agreed that the point of today’s gospel is our Lord is saying to the big shots in the religious life of the community, the elders and the chief priests, “Would you guys be willing to change your minds?”  You see the point was, as our Lord points out, that when John the Baptist came and was giving them good news about what was going to happen, you know, the Messiah is coming and all of that, hookers and tax collectors.  Now the Jewish people thought that hookers and tax collectors were the scum of the earth.  But when these “scum” heard John the Baptist they changed their ways; they gave up their bad lives and became good people because they listened to John the Baptist.  But, our Lord points out, “You gentlemen (elders and chief priests) when you saw that these “low lives, these scummy people” were following John the Baptist, you drew back and said,“Well, if the scum of the earth is following John the Baptist, John the Baptist can’t be so good.  And you did not change your ways.  You scorned people because of their past lives.  You are not willing to change your minds.  They have changed.”

One of the scholars summed it up and said, “Our Lord is condemning self-righteousness; he never condemned a repentant sinner.  Never.  But self-righteousness…would you be at least willing to change your minds?  Look how these people have changed their lives.  You didn’t think that much of them, but they are better now.

OK, a couple of months ago, you and I were thinking about the four personality types.  I know that they are simplistic and stereotyped, but they are good shorthand.  They are good shorthand, and I admit we are all complex, but just for the sake of today’s gospel and pointing about how different people can change their minds.  As our Lord wants us to, just for shorthand, admitting they are stereotypes and we are all mixed, here are the four – and they are based on cases.  I don’t know how to talk about a gospel without giving actual cases.  It’s my style and you’re stuck with it.  But they are true, they are real people, and they did hear Christ and they changed.

The four personality types:

Classic, old fashioned, but for shorthand, choleric. The choleric person – the good qualities – they are leaders.  Choleric people are.  I personally believe a lot of this is true–I’ve been a priest a long time.  Choleric people get things done; they get organized.  They are popes and presidents and generals, and CEOs and heads of companies, pastors – no that’s not always true.

But they do, they have that great gift of organization and decision-making and quick.  And if your face gets in the way of their moving fist, they are genuinely sorry.  They are, but they had to get the work done.  You want something done, they are good at it.  Now, the bad think is they’ve got terrible tempers, they are kind of ruthless and sharp and edgy and biting.  And they really don’t know how hurtful they are; they don’t mean to be.  I’m only talking from my experience, but boy do they.  “Sorry I stepped on your toe and you need a surgeon, but we got the thing going.”

Example:  Charlie, choleric Charlie.  These are real people; I’ve changed the names.  From freshman year in high school right through senior year.  In home room, I never had homeroom, but in homeroom I am told that he would say, “Ring the bell, life is hell.”  He was always mad, always mad, especially at God.  As a freshman in religion class he would bring in headlines.  “Look at this, look what God allows, look what God permits.  I don’t like him.”  Like he was a kid on the team.  “I don’t like him.”  Who doesn’t have a certain resonance with that choleric reaction to human suffering?  He was mad all of the time.  He became a doctor, still angry.  And then he had four children and the last kid was born with a disability.  When I heard that I thought, “Oh, he’s really mad at God, now.”  And who could blame him?  But his wife said, “You can yelp or you can help.”  I guess they fell in love because they were both such bad poets.  “You can yelp or you can help.”  She really did.  You can yelp about another tragedy and the suffering and the money… so he changed his mind.  He was still angry, but instead of yelping he decided to be helping.  In addition to his own clinical practice he set up and studied intensively a branch of medicine that has to do with that disability. So whenever he has free time from his family and his practice he works with these kids, now hundreds of them, helping them.  Still in a way yelping, but turning it into helping.  That’s why we have Christ and the gospels and the sacraments.  Change your mind. Choleric Charlie – still hear from him.  Still mad, but you know, he did change.

The second is melancholic, more stereotypes.  The melancholic doesn’t see the glass just half empty, the melancholic sees the glass tipping over the edge of the table and shattering into a thousand pieces.  Deeply, deeply, they just feel suffering.  They have antennae that pick up pain more quickly than other people.  They do.  The good thing is that they love with such intensity, kind of a white flame of love.  When you win the love of a melancholic, highly intense, super sensitive person they will walk through a furnace to help you.  The love is intense, burning and loyal, but, if you hurt them…  “I remember what you said as you were getting on the bus in 1957.”  This is true.  “How you arched your left eyebrow and that shrug you gave with your shoulder.”  “What?! 1957?”  “It’s as real today as it was then.”  It’s exaggerated, but it’s true.  How they resent and how they harbor pain.  A personal opinion, most canonized saints in our Catholic Church were basically melancholic, but they changed their minds; they didn’t stay just that way.

An example:  A few years ago a priest classmate of mine, Father Fenlon, talked about the work he was doing in Africa.  When he was a young priest many years ago in upstate New York, he met what he calls to this day the most intensely melancholic family, a big family.  And they all had this intense loyal and dedicated, but don’t hurt me.  And they had a fight.  This huge family, let’s call them the Moody family.  They had a big fight about money and property.  Some very wealthy person left a will and the people got mad at each other about how the money was dispersed.  And every year they had the annual memorial mass for the person who died, in this little parish in upstate New York, on a weekday, year after year.  And Tom dreaded those masses because the one branch would sit on one side and the other branch would sit on the other side.  And Tom said (and he’s not given to the melodrama that I am) “a miasma of melancholy would settle on them.”  Not so much anger, that’s choleric, but deep, deep bitter, pain. 

By that time the Mass had altered to the degree that you would exchange the handshake of peace.  Nobody ever crossed the aisle.  Year after year, Tom dreaded those Masses.  But a year and a half after he left, he found out that one of these days, one of the kids from one side (who had not been sufficiently programmed in melancholic mania) waddled over to the other aisle and shook a hand over there.  And, I’m not making this up, bit by bit at that very Mass, one by one people began to change their minds.

It’s just a silly example from a small parish years ago, but it’s the whole point of the gospel, it’s the whole point of repentance, the whole point of the crucifixion and the resurrection.  Would you be willing to change your mind?  Just with each other?

I had a student, named Damian, and every time we would talk he would say, “Did Jesus mean it, or what?”  Kids would quote, you know these are highly educated kids in an elective theology program, they would quote a pope, or an encyclical, or a saint, and Damian would say, “What did Jesus say, what did Jesus say?  Did he mean it, or what?”  I can still hear him, “Did he mean it, or what?”  Did he mean it about changing your mind, or what?

The next one – sanguine.  The sanguine person is very, very happy.  Not only is the glass full to the brim, but it’s a bottle of Don Perignon champagne.  It’s chilled and ready to serve.  Sanguine people are so easy to be with, they are.  You know, you are just happy to be in the same room.  They radiate joy and joie de vivre and they love life and people.  They don’t have to be gorgeous looking or a popular movie star.  They are just effervescent by nature.  Let’s call this one Sanguine Sally, full of joy, emanates joy, cheerful, look at the bright side.  But with many sanguine people, and in the case of Sally, whom I knew through all of high school and college, Sally shunned suffering.  Very sanguine people are ebullient and effervescent, but I remember Sally saying, “Oh, I hate Holy Week and why do we have the cross with all of that suffering all the time in classrooms?  Can’t we just look at the bright side?”

When she was finally a senior, we took a bunch of them to the county home to visit some people who were disabled or sick.  Sally was in this elective religion class so she had to go.  And we entered the room of Louise.  Now, Louise had been a college athlete when Louise herself was a young woman – she had been an athlete.  But now she was in one of these beds at an angle.  The minute Sally spotted Louise in bed like this, Sally tried to ooze out the room and one of her pals in the senior class grabbed her and said, “Come on back, Sally.”  And so they stood and they chatted with Louise for about 45 minutes.  Sally did not; she just looked and stared.  And as we were leaving the room, Louise turned, you know with her crippled finger, she said, “Come on back, I love young kids to visit.”  None of the kids went back.  It was towards the end of senior year, and as the expression goes, “their plates were full.”

But the true story is that Sally went back on the weekends for 45 minutes until she graduated.  And she sat and she just listened. I have a letter from her.  “I learned to listen.”  Because this kind of person, the sanguine, is almost manic, laughing and talking, you can’t get a word in edge wise, but you don’t care because they are so much fun.  But in her letter, “I listened; I kept my mouth shut and I listened to Louise for 45 minutes for many months.  Just listened.”  She changed her mind; she’s still full of fun.

Anyhow, Damian says, “If Jesus said it, did he mean it or what?”  Be willing to change.

The last is phlegmatic (yawn).  That’s the phlegmatic personality.  This is a cartoon, you know that.  But they give a new dimension to the word “mellow.”  Mañana, we’ll do it mañana.  Take it easy, they’re neutral and restful and tranquil, and it’s so nice to be with them after you’ve been with the other three for a while. 

The phlegmatic – easy come, easy go, no sweat, relax, very, very restful, even-tempered and mild.  The bad part of such personalities can be a certain apathy, (yawn), a certain laziness.  “Oh, I’ll go to Mass next Sunday, but I really need another hour of sleep.”  Not, “I hate the Pope and the Church,” but, “I just need some more sleep.”

Spirituality, they tend to be a bit comatose…sometimes.  But that’s the only flaw in their good-natured, quiet, gentle way.  Now, a man was going through his phlegmatic stage.  He was not this personality, in my opinion, but his marriage was in the phlegmatic stage.  What he called a phlegmatic plateau.  And he went to see a priest, not to me.  A long time ago and far away.  But he went to see a priest, not in confession, so I can talk about it, because he told me.  And he went to see a priest and they are just chatting.  By the way, I don’t blame some of you if part of you is saying now, “I wish to God that priests wouldn’t talk about marriage.  They don’t know anything about it.”  Admittedly, but we learn from you.  We learn from you.  Anyhow, this guy goes to see this priest.  He says, “I don’t know if I even love my wife anymore.  It’s so routine.”  And the priest said, “Well, that’s what hurts so many marriages.  It’s not infidelity, or money, it’s routine.”  “Oh is this going to be the way we are going to be for the rest of our lives?  And if I tell that joke again, and if she arches her eyebrow again at a party, I’ll slam her.  There’ll be homicide on the deck.”  Anyhow, not given to my melodramas, the man said, “I don’t know if I love her any more.”

So the priest suggested, “You’re in a phlegmatic plateau, as every marriage must be.  It would be kind of silly if you were scrambling up the balcony still sweating and pounding as Romeo, leapt on the balcony and planted impassioned kisses on her upturned cheek.  It’s a little silly at this point.  You would run out of breath.  You’re in a plateau, sure you are, because you’ve been together, you’ve stayed.  So, couldn’t you just be (this may sound very naïve, but couldn’t you just be friends?  You’ve got a lot in common, a lot of pain, a lot of fights, a lot of love, a lot of laughs.  You’ve had kids.  You two have shared more memories than any other two people you know separately.  So you’re just friends.  Get along.”

It took a few months, but the man, the husband said, “Yeah, we laugh now.  We haven’t laughed in a long time together.  Not at, but with each other.”  It does work when people are willing to change their mind.  It takes a lot of hard work. I know.  But Damian, religion class, “Does Jesus mean it or what?”  Change you mind.  Be willing.

The last example is a horrible example, and it’s a quiz.  You tell me at the end of the quiz which personality this is.

I, Dibble, I keep a diary.  I told a priest friend of mine that on the phone yesterday that I keep a diary, ever since I got here.  He said, “Michael, men do not keep diaries, men keep journals.”  So, I responded and said, “Well, I’ve been keeping a journal since I arrived here in this parish in 1999.”  And this is true, September 27, 1999 this is in my journal.  All my life I’ve been jealous of good-looking people, since the age of 7.  I’ve told you that before.  Beautiful women and bicep bursting guys – I saw a few of them in church today, and I said, “Wait a minute, I better not talk about this one.”  But, ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been so jealous.  And when I taught them, when a beautiful girl shimmered into class, a college senior, “Hi there, Father.”  I would kind of say, “I don’t like you, but it’s not your fault.”  Or some big well-built athlete, “Hi there, Padre.”  “Hi there, you miserable (mumble)…”  Obviously puerile jealousy in a grown man.  But it’s there and it’s always there.  I keep saying, “It’s not their fault, they’re not to blame that they are so good looking.”

Anyhow, September 27, 1999, I’m on Market Street.  I’m a senior citizen, I’m a priest in good standing, but I’m not wearing the collar.  And I get out at the Embarcadero stop of BART on Saturday morning 8:00AM to visit my brother, to go to the Ferry Building.  And it’s empty, Market Street, 800AM, Saturday, nobody around.  But behind me, evidently also on the BART train, was a big group of photographers and models.  They were going to do a shoot, evidently.  And they come storming up behind me and I stood to the side lest they cheerfully trample me.  And they went down the street, and oh my God, the woman tossed her hair, the Hermes scarf.  She didn’t walk; she glistened down the street.  And the guy with the fishnet shirt, pecs and abs, and I made up my mind when I was a teenager that I will not resent these people.  It’s God’s gift to them.  I will be good and polite and diffident and step aside.  But they were a block away, and I changed my mind.  So I did this (gestured thumbing his nose).  I wrote down here, “Not every change is for the spiritual benefit of the sufferer.”

You know from childhood how our Lord loved people who changed their minds.  All the sinners who came to him and how he welcomed them; he loved sinners.  He never got mad at people except the people in today’s gospel, you know the elders and the chief priests.  He never got mad at someone who changed his mind and changed ways and came to him.

OK, we’re going to have the prayer of the faithful in just a minute, so just for a minute, in silence, you and I, and Father and the servers, just think of one person in your life whom you really didn’t approve of as a good Catholic Christian, but in time something happened that helped you change your mind.  And you and I will think about that, just quietly for a minute.