He’s back again.  Well, it’s Lent, why not?  Penance!  If any of you is a visitor here, this (a buzzard puppet in his hand) is a representation of what I call My Buzzard.  And, with some of you it’s the voices in your skull. It is what some people call, “the committee in my cranium.”  I hope not all of you are afflicted with such a thing, but I have been since the age of seven.  It’s a mean spirit of darkness that keeps pecking away and telling you you’re a loser, you’re a flop, you’re a sinner, you’re useless, you’re hopeless, nobody likes you.  It’s a very dark side of the human heart and sometimes for some of you, the more conscientious you are,  the meaner the buzzard can get.  Anyhow, he wants to make a few comments on today’s gospel.

First of all, he says what I used to hear college kids say.  (But they don’t say it anymore. They haven’t for 20 or 30 years now.) 

Buzzard:  That stuff is all made up--Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  All that gospel stuff is made up. It’s all bogus and those people never existed. There was never any Jesus.  Bah humbug!

Fr. Dibble:  Now it is I talking.  Buzzard, will you pay attention?  Raymond Brown is the name of a Catholic Bible scholar.  He is world famous, reputed, and respected as a bible scholar, Catholic or no Catholic.  All through the world he is respected and he wrote a few years back:  “More scholarly attention has been devoted to the New Testament and the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; more scholarly attention has been paid to that book than to any other piece of literature in the history of planet earth.  And, the validity and authenticity (historicity) was established about Jesus Christ without question.”  No life has been examined by more scholars than Christ’s.  So, it is so 19th Century, Buzzard, to say it’s all bogus.  Nobody says that anymore.  It’s authentic history.

Buzzard:  Bhrrrr….you have to say that…

Next thing.  Oh, it’s he again.

Buzzard:  It’s good that Jesus got in trouble.  He broke the Sabbath law.  He is supposed to keep the Jewish law and the Jewish law says you don’t work on the Sabbath.

Fr. Dibble:  Give me a break!  Jesus made a little bit of clay; how big is that?  We’re not talking about a swamp, just a little bit of clay, enough to put on a blind man’s eyes.

Buzzard:  Yea, but He broke the law and “the law is the law, is the law, is the law.”

Fr. Dibble:  You’re telling a Catholic priest that?  Ahhh!  Listen, “Buzz,” legalism carried to the extreme where you leap over the human heart and human common sense is evil.  It is; it’s evil.  You break hearts just to keep a certain footnote-able law?

Buzzard:  Well, ya . . .

Fr. Dibble:  Never mind!  Next thing:  When Fr. Raymond Brown taught us (which he did, taught me in 1992, this great bible course I had—I was so lucky to take this course.) when Fr. Raymond Brown finished this Gospel he put down his clip board (I’ll never forget it.  I still have the notes.)  and said, "It’s about jealousy."  Again, "It’s about jealousy."  And I didn’t know quite what he meant.   Then he said, “It goes all the way back to the Jungian collective unconscious story about Lucifer.”  Lucifer, the beautiful archangel and he finds out that God is going to make humans, create bi-peds who sweat, and laugh, and talk, and go to the bathroom, and live and die.  And this magnificent archangel Lucifer, (I know its mythology, but it has a tremendous emotional truth behind it.) got jealous of human beings and revolted against God. 

And Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve, their sin was......  I know it’s a metaphorical story but what does the serpent say to Adam and Eve in this great allegorical truth?  The serpent says, “If you eat the apple you will know good from evil” i.e., “You’ll know as much as God.”  It was the jealousy of Adam and Eve, not being equal with God, that made them munch on that melon.  And their first two kids:  Cain and Abel.  Abel brings the most generous gifts to God’s altar and Cain just gives a few scrawny vegetables and God loves Abel, and Cain picks a rock and smashes his kid brother’s skull in, out of jealousy!  Jealousy!  I know pride is the worst sin theologically, but, here I go again. I know you're sick of hearing this. . . but, I taught college and high school for 30 years, and I’m telling you those young men and women—jealousy tore them to pieces.  You’d see the graffiti in desks, you’d see stuff written in the bathrooms and when they’d go on retreat they’d pour it out:  “I’ve been so jealous, I’ve been . . .”  Tears the human heart apart.

There are seven deadly sins and jealousy is the one sin that doesn’t give you any fun at all.  The other deadly sins give some fun--I’m told.  Okay, so jealousy... Unless I can make it personal, it’s just theoretical.  Jealousy!  I have been jealous of a guy, a fellow priest named Willard, since 1957.  That’s a long time to be jealous.

Buzzard:  Well, what kind of priest are you if . . .

Fr. Dibble:  I admit it.  I admit it.  It’s not so good.  Oh, but Willard, I mean he had the physique that you see on the covers of magazines—you know, ripple, ripple, ripple—and a magnificent head of hair.  There was a class reunion recently and someone called me and said, “Ya’ know Bill still has a luxuriant head of hair.”  And, he came from a very wealthy Catholic family. They had a huge house in Scarsdale (which is very posh New York—Westchester) and a big car.  And when we were studying to take our final exams—final exams!—if we flunked this exam we had to wait a year before they’d make us priests—and I was at the head of the table and Bill was at the other end of the table and he was stretching and yawning, and in 20 minutes we’re going to take this exam, an oral exam with the whole faculty there and you just standing there, parrying their questions—and I was there dishing out oatmeal or something and I saw Bill yawning and stretching (ripple, ripple, buttons popping off his shirt ) ....  So, I said, “Bill” and he said, “Yea, what do you want ‘Dib’? "Bill, do you know what is going to happen in 20 minutes?  We’re taking a final exam, oral, in Latin and if we flunk this exam we have to study for another year.   Bill, stretching, says,  “Oh, yea.  No sweat ‘Dib,’ no sweat! Everything will be just fine.”  Of course, he was right.  And he went on and the Nuns in his parish (we’re talking many years ago) used to say, “Oh, we have the cutest priest in the Archdiocese.” 

Okay, so I was once mentioning this obviously unpriestly and unspiritual outlook on the East River in New York when I was in the Wall Street parish.  I had mentioned this to a guy who was the big shot of the stock brokers.  But he went to Mass every day; he was really a good guy.  And I said, “I’m ashamed to admit to you, but I’m very jealous of a classmate of mine.”  He said, this:  “I would suggest, Father, that for two weeks, see his face, put a prayer in place of that envied face.”  (I wrote it down.)  “Put a prayer in place of that envied face. . .”  He said, “try it for two weeks.”  So, I did.  For two weeks.  A quick one.  I wanted to say, “Send Bill everything he deserves,” but instead I said, “Help Bill.”  Sixteen days later, after decades, I got a letter from Bill:  “How you doing, Mike?  Thought I’d bring you up-to-date . . .“

Buzzard:  This sounds very superstitious to me. What are you going to have us do next, dance under a pentagram with the full moon?

Fr. Dibble:  No, I’m not saying things happen exactly like that, but why not?  Doesn’t do any harm and doesn’t cost any money.  If there is some face that bedevils you, hurts you, and you’re still jealous as I used to be as a kid watching the “All American Catholic Family” walk down the aisle while my Dad was home with a hangover... I’d look at them and say to myself, “Look at them, that beautiful Catholic mother and the handsome Catholic father and the seven nice Catholic kids with shiny faces.”  I wanted to incinerate the whole bunch! 

Final anecdote: 

Buzzard:  Your not going to talk about that lady in Berkeley again. Are you? 

Fr. Dibble:  Yes.  I’ve only told the story twice.

Buzzard:  You told it 10 times.

Fr. Dibble:  I told it twice.  Okay, and then we’re done.  Many years back I used to visit a family in Berkeley.  In fact, one of the sons in the family comes to Mass here every Sunday with his kids.  Anyhow, years ago, in the 60’s I was reading a book downstairs and the wife and mother of the family whom I am visiting, she’s upstairs, giving her little boy, the youngest, some medicine.  Now the medicine she was administering involved a good deal of physical exertion, involving a good deal of athleticism, and the child was screaming and the mother was trying to calm him down as she – well, I can’t go any further. It’s Mass and we’re in Church.  But, the kid was screaming, “Mommy I hate you.  Ouch! Ouch! Wow!”   Now I’m downstairs reading a book that came out in the mid-60’s, I am a Roman Catholic Priest—I want to get Married.  I’m sitting down there as the screaming is going on from the bathroom upstairs.

Forty two minutes later she came down, went to the kitchen, got a can of beer, joined me in the living room, flipped open the can, took a belt of the brew and asked me, “Mike, what are you reading?”  And I said, “Oh, it’s a marvelous new book:  I am a Roman Catholic Priest—I want to get Married.”  She took another slug and said, “I’m a Catholic wife and mother of four--I want to be a Priest.”

Fr. Dibble:  What about, Eddie the Eagle?

Buzzard:  Wha’da mean?

Fr. Dibble:  Eddie the Eagle, I’ve heard from the avian community in northern Africa that you’ve been  jealous of Eddie the Eagle since you were a little “Buzzette,”  Eddie the Eagle with a magnificent wing span and a keen penetrating gaze and a sharp beak.  Eddie the Eagle makes you look pretty sick.

Buzzard:  Arggg . . .

Fr. Dibble:  Well, he’s quiet.  I’m going to shut-up.  Would some of you join me?  Put a prayer in the place of that envied face, or  face that’s hurt you…maybe still hurts you.  Put a little prayer there.  We’re not going to solve terrorism or poverty or war but just for the next few weeks before Easter, just try it.