Yearly Archives: 2016

Homily for May 29 2016

HOMILY – MAY 29

It’s really nothing short of astounding when you consider that the Protestant Reformation took the central act of Christian worship, something that Christ’s followers had all been doing regularly since Jesus told us, “Do this in memory of me” — and threw it out.  Fifteen hundred years of Christian worship, rejected in the course of a very few years!  One could better understand if the reformers had clamored for a deeper popular UNDERSTANDING of the Eucharist, if they had demanded that priests be better instructed how to reverently celebrate the Mass, if the Church had addressed the abuses of the Mass that were rampant at the time.  And, as a matter of fact, the Church DID respond to the Reformation by seeing to ALL those things!  But by the time it happened, several decades had passed, the seeds of division had produced trees of hatred rooted in the cement of anger and bitterness.  And, even more deadly, the politics of Europe had fostered the divisions of Christianity for political advantage, actively encouraging false teachings as emperors had done with the Arian heresies over a thousand years earlier.

This is certainly not to imply that the Catholic Church was without fault.  As we said, abuses had been rampant for a long time.  Disgracefully hurried and irreverent celebrations of the Mass were commonplace.  It took the ghastly divisions of the Reformation to call the Church to a sobriety for which it had been unwilling to aim without first hitting rock bottom.  As the years turned into decades, and decades into centuries, divisions hardened.  All manner of accusations were leveled at a Catholic Church which did not and does not resemble the descriptions of its accusers.  “CHRISTIANS believe in the Bible,” some will proclaim, “while CATHOLICS do not.”  All one need do is scan the texts of the Mass to see that virtually every prayer in our liturgy is thoroughly grounded in Scripture and composed of verses from both the Old and New Testaments.

Moreover, our worship has all the long-standing elements of the worship which God divinely ordained for his people, both in the Old and New Testaments.  The first reading today tells us about Melchizedek, the king and priest of Jerusalem who greeted Abraham and brought out offerings of bread and wine to offer in sacrifice to God.  Bread and wine!  Does that remind you of anything?  Eight hundred years after that happened, King David would sing in Psalm 110 of God’s Anointed One, the Messiah, who would be a king and a priest forever, “in the line of Melchizedek.”  And a thousand years after that, Jesus Christ would fulfill all those Old Testament passages by BEING HIMSELF the King and Eternal High Priest.  We do what he told us to do, in remembrance of him, as we bring BREAD AND WINE and he returns the gift to us, having become truly present as our food and drink.

When we are about to receive Holy Communion, the Church confronts us with the words of John the Baptist:  “Behold, the Lamb of God!”  This has no meaning unless we understand the reference to the Paschal or Passover Lamb, which God through Moses ordered his people to take and eat.  Doing so, they could be rescued from Egypt as the angel of death PASSED OVER their homes, whose vertical and horizontal doorposts were to be marked with the blood of the slaughtered lamb.  We, the disciples of Jesus, are similarly marked with HIS Precious Blood, shed on the vertical and horizontal beams of his Cross, through which we are freed from the slavery of our sins.  And when God led his people out of Egypt, their continuing stubbornness led them to wander aimlessly in the desert for 40 years before they could enter the Promised Land.  But God never abandoned them, and fed them with manna from heaven to sustain them.  Christ never abandons US, and in the course of our worship feeds us with the true Bread from heaven, his own Body, to sustain us all through our pilgrimage in the desert of this world.

So you see, the connections between what we do here in the Eucharist and what God’s people have done in our worship even before the coming of Christ are very plain and obvious.  To say that we only need to read the menu (that is, to believe solely in the Bible) and to forget about the meal (that is, to neglect doing what Jesus clearly told us to do) is to act contrary to the worship which God himself has prescribed for his people.  Now, I don’t know about you, but I’d rather take God at HIS word than listen to one or another of those who have EDITED his word according to their own liking.  This is not to blame all those who hold to incomplete versions of the Christian faith.  By now, many of these churches and traditions are hundreds of years old, and old prejudices die hard.  We who are blessed to have the faith as Christ directed are the ones who must be on guard to never drive a further wedge against the unity of all Christians.  We do that best when we are faithful to the marvelous gift of the Eucharist, and when we long for and pray for the day when we shall all be one around the altar and table of the Lord.

Homily for May 22 2016

HOMILY – MAY 22

Sometime when you’re stopped in traffic and can safely do so, take a moment to look quickly at the faces of other drivers as they’re driving toward you or making a turn in front of you.  You’ll be surprised at how angry and sour so many of them look.  Scowling, frowning, grimacing, all seem to be the order of the day.  We would probably all agree that driving in traffic is not always the most pleasant thing to do, but if you know it, and you still stay and look MAD when you do it – hey, can that be healthy?  Is it any wonder there’s so much road rage, and so many accidents caused by it?

I say this only because the real challenge of Trinity Sunday is to strive to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect:  and that means striving to be a perfect community.  Most of us would probably be prone to say, “I COULD be perfect if it weren’t for all the PEOPLE I have to put up with!”  Well, be assured, the feeling’s mutual!  So where does that get us?

We are made in God’s image.  God is at once perfectly one and perfectly three.  That means that we are made as part of a community, in fact, of MANY communities.  And our common task is to work at making those communities as perfect as possible, because it is precisely in doing that, that we each grow in perfection.  Graduates, you have not gone through high school, and you’re not going off to college or jobs or service, just so you can keep all your knowledge and gifts to yourself.  One way or another, we are here for OTHERS.  We are here to present what we each have, in the best way we can, to do the most good.  THAT’S how we give God the greater glory and manifest his image within us.

So, are you going to head out from these graduation days to conquer the world?  Don’t.  Christ has already done that.  All YOU have to do is find your place in the program.  You’ll keep on finding new facets and aspects of that role of discipleship nearly every day of your life.  Keep looking for opportunities to do your best for others, and you’ll never get bored.  And remember that one of the greatest services you can perform, and one of the greatest favors you can do yourself, is to slap a smile on your face while you’re doing whatever it is:  mopping a floor, programming a computer, taking out the garbage, delivering a homily, or – why not? – driving in traffic.  People might think you’re nuts, but they won’t know for sure.  And that’s how you convey to them a little bit of the mystery of God himself.

God is perfectly three and perfectly one, always and forever.  It’s a mystery, but as soon as you think you’ve solved it or reasoned it out, you’re wrong, because it’s a mystery to be ENJOYED, not solved.  That smile on your face is a bit of a reflection of the divine happiness of the One in whose image you are made.  That smile will keep people wondering what you’re up to, like they’ve been asking about the Mona Lisa for 500 years.  You see, there is something about our God that is just too great to reveal in all its fullness to us while we are still on earth.  The people of the Old Testament believed that you could not see the face of God and live, because it would bowl you over.  Why?  Because of his WRATH?  No, my friends, like the great British writer Gilbert Keith Chesterton, I have to believe that it’s because of God’s MIRTH.  And we’ll have to wait till we are one with him in heaven to find out all that he’s been up to.  And those who choose to be in hell will be forever kicking themselves with remorse that they freely decided to miss out on all the fun.

Homily for May 8 2016

 

HOMILY – MAY 8

Suppose your last name was Arnold, or Booth, or Oswald.  Do you think your parents might have made sure not to name you Benedict, or John Wilkes, or Lee Harvey?  They more than likely would have decided not to saddle their child with a name that was already held in great disrepute.  A Saginaw doctor spent years trying to clear his family name, with only minimal success.  One of his ancestors unwittingly set John Wilkes Booth’s leg after Lincoln’s assassination, and for a century and a half, the saying “His name is Mudd” was a negative reference to that physician ancestor, Dr. Mudd.

Today is Mother’s Day, and we all know our mothers have warned us in a host of ways not to disgrace the family name — or at least to wear clean underwear.  After all, what if you’re in an accident?  Seriously though, far more important than the family name you were born into is the family name you acquired at baptism, the name of Christian.  THAT name identifies you as a member of GOD’S family, with the lifelong mission to invite and welcome as many other people as you can INTO that family.  And that is really the only name that will have eternal implications for you.

Our moms have passed on to us many things which they learned from THEIR moms, dads, sisters and brothers, older relatives, teachers, pastors, and special friends and neighbors.  We have had those life lessons drilled into us for as long as we can remember, many of them subconscious.  We don’t even realize it until one day we stop ourselves short and say, “Omigosh, I sound just like my mother!”  Or, “I’m acting just like my mother!”  That can be very complimentary, very funny, or very annoying; but those around us who have known both us and our mothers would probably say it’s true.

In the later chapters of both Matthew and Luke, Jesus cries out over Jerusalem, “How I wish I could have gathered you like a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings!”  What a divine, motherly instinct the Son of God shows toward the Holy City, and by extension, to his New Jerusalem, our Holy Mother the Church, the Family of God.  And just like part of a mother’s role is to teach her children how to leave the nest and go out into the world and make something of themselves, Jesus at his Ascension promises the Holy Spirit and his abiding presence with his Church, our Holy Mother, so that WE can go out into the world and continue HIS work.

When it’s about something which was very endearing about our mother, we might blush a bit when we realize that we are sounding or acting just like her.  We truly honor her memory by doing so.  Would that in a similar way, we could often catch ourselves and say, “Omigosh, I’m sounding just like Jesus,” or “I’m acting just like my Lord and Savior.”  Now, we might think that quite presumptuous, and to dwell on it is really the very opposite of holiness;  but certainly OTHERS should find us speaking and acting like that!  After all, Jesus himself tells us, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” and then, to Philip at the Last Supper, “Philip, he who sees me sees the Father!”  We’d BETTER be speaking and acting like Jesus, not so others will notice or honor US, but so they will also be drawn to the One who is our Lord and Savior.  The Apostles weren’t the only ones Jesus sent out into the world on that Ascension Day long ago.  In his human nature, Jesus had learned from his own Mother what it means to show a motherly concern for the salvation of all people.  What a joy to be part of the Family, and to have our own significant role to be the spitting image of Jesus in the lives of those to whom he sends us!

Homily for May 1 2016

HOMILY – MAY 1

Most of us here in church this morning have never made our own butter.  You couldn’t say that in this parish 60, or 80, or 100 years ago.  Making butter at home 100 years ago was as common as taking a bath — in fact, even MORE common than that!  Both required a whole lot more work than either one does today.  Now we can buy butter at the store, and it gives us a lot more time to binge-watch Blue Bloods or play video games — you know, the IMPORTANT stuff!

We’re honoring our fire fighters who are here for the St. Florian Mass and breakfast this morning.  They know all about not having to do certain things anymore.  They don’t spend one minute of time in recruit class practicing how to operate a piston or a rotary-gear pumper.  No need.  There haven’t been any of those in service here for 40 years.  It might be a point of historical interest to know that there WERE other types of pumps than what are in use today, but no time need be wasted on learning how to work with them.  There are ‘way more important things to learn and do.

So, if we know that things like homemade butter and rotary gear pumpers are no longer matters of urgency for us, we have a good idea of how the observance of the Mosaic Law had become for the disciples of Jesus.  We heard about it in the Acts of the Apostles this morning.  The Law of Moses was a necessary and valuable tool while God’s people were in a certain stage of formation; but once the Messiah came, its importance was both fulfilled and superseded by the supreme law of love revealed by Christ.  And Christ didn’t reveal a law of love just so we would be nice and pleasant with one another.  When he said, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” it was a call to self-sacrificing love, for “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him might not perish, but might have everlasting life.”  The supreme example of self-sacrificing love is not a sweet, intimate, romantic dinner on Valentine’s Day.  It’s the stark, harsh, loving reality of the cross.  It’s fingers swollen with arthritis after years of caring for others.  It’s standing guard on a corner twice a day near a school, in blizzard conditions, driving rain, and blistering heat, helping kids cross the street safely.  It’s dirt and grime and plaster dust after putting out a nasty house fire and pulling ceiling looking for hot spots.  It’s faithfulness to vows of marriage and to bonds of friendship, even when they’re not reciprocated as we’d hoped or expected.  Yes, it’s the cross.

Our life with God in heaven begins here on earth.  It begins in baptism, it’s strengthened by the Holy Spirit, it’s nourished by the Eucharist.  God’s people are his dwelling, his temple on earth.  Wherever YOU go, God is there, because you are identified with him by baptism.  God dwells in the fire stations, the police cruisers, the emergency rooms, the factories, the schools, and the homes of our community, wherever we who are nourished with his Word and Sacrament live and work.  Whether in monotonous routine or in heroic excitement, in marriage or in celibacy, in large families or in small, in good times or in bad, in sickness or in health, in age or in youth, we are at every moment ON THE MISSION, for Christ.  By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul and Barnabas and the other Apostles came to know that.  They came to know that they had to be free, not from the natural moral laws of God’s commands, but from the more fussy preoccupations of the Mosaic Law.  That freedom allowed them and us to concentrate on bringing the true and full revelation of Jesus Christ into a world which is always longing, groaning, for a new way of life, and sound guidance in pursuing it.

Homily for April 24 2016

 

HOMILY – APRIL 24

The missionary work of Paul and Barnabas was no easy task.  Neither is ours, if we’re intent on it.  Paul and Barnabas had the dual task of convincing the Jews of the truth of the Good News that had been revealed in Jesus Christ, AND convincing the Gentiles about the truth of who Jesus was.  The Jews were God’s people waiting for the Messiah, but did not yet accept Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, the fulfillment of their longing.  The Gentiles, or everybody else, were for the most part pagans who knew little or nothing about the one God who reveals himself in Jesus his Son.  And then you had Jewish Christians who believed that the pagans could become Christians all right, but they had to become Jews first.  So, you see, it was no easy task sorting it all out.

Part of the Good News is, in Jesus there is a New Jerusalem!  This new holy city, which John describes in Revelation as “coming down out of heaven from God, beautiful as a Bride prepared to meet her husband,” this New Jerusalem has no boundaries.  The old Jerusalem, the “city set on the hill” of Mount Zion, was theologically built by God on the twelve foundation stones of the twelve sons of Jacob, the Old Testament patriarchs.  Now Christ builds his NEW Jerusalem on the additional twelve foundation stones of the twelve Apostles of the NEW Testament.  The new city of God is expanded to include everybody.  No one is excluded from being at least potentially a member of the family of God through friendship with Jesus Christ.  “God’s dwelling is with the human race,” John tells us in Revelation, not just with one particular chosen people.  Membership no longer depends on ancestry.  Membership in the New Jerusalem has different criteria.  God has already made the decision to redeem us in Christ.  Now, if we want to be part of this chosen people, it’s up to us to do what Christ tells us.

And what is that?  “THIS is how all will know that YOU are my disciples,” says the Lord Jesus, “if you have love for one another.”  And that doesn’t mean just among the disciples who are already part of that New Jerusalem.  We are not part of a mutual self-admiration society.  Our no-boundaries love for one another must include ALL those “others,” with a very special mission to those who have not yet heard of God’s love for them in an effective way.  When we are tempted to maintain the status quo and in our hearts and behavior exclude others, ANYONE else, from citizenship in the New Jerusalem, we must hear the voice of Jesus the Good Shepherd:  “Wait, remember how I love them.  Remember that I shed my precious Blood for them.  You don’t have to love them because they’re good, or love them because they’re bad.  Just love them because I love them, and that’s enough.  And I’ll feed you with my own Body and Blood to keep you faithful to that mission.”

Homily for March 26 and 27, 2016

 

HOMILY – MARCH 26-27

A number of years ago, I began to feel more than frustrated when individuals or couples would call for an appointment for, as they put it, “counseling.”  Sure, I had taken the required basic counseling courses in school, and at least — I think — gained from them enough awareness to inflict no further harm than the callers were already suffering.  What was most frustrating, though, was that, precisely in their difficulties, so many seemed to be quite distant from the Church and all we represent.  They were reaching out as to the last (and perhaps the least expensive?) resort when the problems had become so insurmountable that only Donald Trump or the Son of God himself could begin to help solve them.  Since I didn’t have Donald Trump’s credit card handy, I would ask them how much they had prayed about their problem.  I didn’t mean slapping the forehead in every other crisis and saying, “God help us!”  I meant how much extended time they had devoted JUST to prayer, preferably how much time in church before the Blessed Sacrament.  Truth be told, the honest answer most often was, “Not much.”

That’s why I began a rather consistent policy of asking that question of people up front when they called for an appointment.  In other words, if you haven’t taken the time to spend at least several hours talking with or just BEING with your Creator and Lord in the Sacrament of his Real Presence in our midst, how exactly do you think I’M going to help you?  At first it felt like a cop-out.  After all, hadn’t I been ordained to solve all problems, heal all ills, mend all fences, dispel all worries?  And in MY prayer, the answer came through loud and clear from the Lord:  “No, you were ordained to send people to ME, not stop them at YOU.”  It was then I realized that so often when Jesus performed a miracle, he told the person, “Your FAITH has saved you.”  And that faith must be the active component in us if we are not to be defeated by life’s challenges.

We often hear people say things like, “Turn to the Lord in your troubles,” which kind of implies that we’ve been turned AWAY from him the rest of the time.  If that’s the case, no wonder turning to him will take so much energy!  When we are USED to being his friends and companions, walking in the radiance of his light every day, no TURNING is necessary.  We’re already there, awash in the splendor of his light.  And that brings us to the radiant light of our risen Lord in the mystery of the Eucharist.

So many to whom I’ve recommended spending time in adoration before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament have not returned for further advice.  Some, I know, have found the answers that I could never have provided just by basking in the radiance of his risen glory.  After all, the Lord remains with us in the Eucharist as our RISEN Lord, at ALL times, not just at Easter.  And just like you have to turn on the light in a darkened room in order to find what you’re looking for, so you have to come in faith into the radiant glory of the Lord in order to discover the things he has to reveal to you.  You’ll be surprised when it begins to happen.  You might even wonder why on earth you ever went anywhere else looking for answers.

If none of this makes sense to you, if you’ve tried and “nothing happened,” remember this:  When you turn on the light after being in darkness, it takes time for your eyes to adjust.  The same thing is true of the soul.  When you’ve been running around in your own dark night of the soul, or in the gloom of your own inner room, the brilliant light of our risen Lord might not at first be apparent to you.  The one who made you and restored you for eternity and infinity humbles himself so that you can approach him, talk with him, walk with him.  Moses had to remove his shoes in the presence of the burning bush.  Peter, James, and John could not speak of the Transfiguration until after the Resurrection — they didn’t have words to describe what they had seen.  And no one actually witnessed the divine energy of the moment of the Resurrection, which burst the earth open from within as the Savior emerged in his glorified Body.  Locked doors and walls were no longer a barrier for him, but it was REALLY HIM.  Really his wounds, really his personality, really his memory of experiences they had shared together, and really his divine mercy and mirth to cure even the bitter guilt of denial with the love which Peter would be led to confess.

The Eucharist might seem, to the naked eye, static, unmoving and unmoved.  But there is in the Blessed Sacrament the divine, dynamic energy of the Resurrection, which has been the strength of martyrs, the driving force of missionaries, and the food of the Church for nearly two thousand years.  We who gather for the nourishment of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, WE are the witnesses to his Resurrection.  What could not be seen by any mortal eye at the moment when the tomb could no longer contain the One who had created the very earth — that fact, that event, that risen Lord is the one whose witnesses we are, every time we gather for the breaking of the bread, every time we drink the cup of salvation, every time we approach him in the quiet and stillness of adoration.  And indeed, every time we proclaim his love, perform his works of mercy, and pass on the Good News of redemption and salvation, we are declaring ourselves and showing ourselves to be his Eucharistic and Easter people.

Now a word for all of us, but especially for those who are coming for baptism and confirmation tonight:  When we are baptized, it might look like we’re plunging into and being bathed in water, but we are also being bathed in LIGHT, the radiant light of the risen Lord.  In a week or two, many of us will have friends returning from Florida or other parts south.  You know how you can almost feel the warmth of the Florida sun when you see their glow!  That’s how we the baptized have to be in the midst of the world — aglow with the risen Lord!  The world can’t admit it, but it needs and longs for the light of that Living Flame of the Resurrection.  United to the risen Christ, WE are the light of the world.   Like the new fire of Easter from which our candle has received its flame, WE are the living torches of the fire of God’s Word and God’s love.  The world’s got to see our shine, and through us experience the warmth of God’s light and love — so BURN, BABY, BURN !!

Homily for Holy Thursday, March 24, 2016

HOMILY – MARCH 24

We hear a lot about contracts in daily life.  There are labor contracts, business contracts, purchase contracts, land contracts, social contracts.  We all know that a contract is an agreement.  Each side in a contract brings something to it, each side expects to get something out of it.  It’s all spelled out, right there in the contract.  You’ll do this, then I’ll do that, then you’ll do this, and so forth.  Each term of the contract depends on what came before.  If you don’t do what YOU’RE supposed to do, then I don’t have to do what I’M supposed to do.  And if one of us has a dispute about it, we can make an appointment to go see Judge Judy or someone else who will straighten it all out for us.

Then we hear about covenants.  We probably think, “Okay, that’s a kind of contract.”  Well, that’s right only insofar as it is also an agreement.  A covenant is a commitment that comes from a relationship.  Perhaps the most common covenant we are familiar with is the family, which comes from the covenant of marriage.  You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose family.  You can mock them, disrespect them, distrust them, betray them, cuss them out, leave them, and have nothing to do with them.  And you know what?  They’re still family.  And they always will be.  Disown them all you want, anyone doing your genealogy will still include them in your family line.  At times, you might wish your family was history, but you’re too late.  They already are.  They’re YOUR history, and you are THEIRS.  You are a member of that family, and whether you are a good one or a bad one is up to YOU, not them.  THAT’S covenant.

You and I know that family doesn’t have to be about all the dark sides that we just enumerated.  Thank God, for the most part we have family relationships that we enjoy and are comfortable with.  They are enriching and consoling.  They help make us who we are.  They support us.  WE can talk about our family, but let someone else do it and those might be FIGHTIN’ words!

We who are baptized have also become part of another covenant.  God made a covenant with the people he has chosen to be his own.  He spends much of the Old Testament talking about that covenant in terms of a marriage, with all its ups and downs.  He gives them commandments for their proper growth into the people he needs for the great rescue mission that will be carried out by his Anointed One, the Messiah.  He will be our God, and we will be his people.  His covenant with us stands firm.  Faithless as we might be at times, God will always be faithful to his covenant.

When the Anointed One comes, in the person of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, he doesn’t abolish the covenant.  He FULFILLS it by expanding it beyond all boundaries of nation and race and language to invite and include ALL peoples.  We, the members of this new and expanded family of God, have a new and expanded mission:  to go out to all the world and tell THEM the good news that God loves them and wants them to live with him forever.

When is a family most a family?  What’s the one thing we do together that we most enjoy, that nourishes us and sustains us and offers us the chance to be renewed and refreshed?  Chances are that at least some part of that, or maybe ALL of it, will involve food and drink.  God knows that, and in both the Old and New Covenants or Testaments, he has chosen a sacrificial meal as the one sacred sign of his covenant, in which his people can participate and celebrate and communicate with him and with one another.

In the Old Covenant, it was the Passover meal, for which a choice lamb was sacrificed and eaten to commemorate the angel of death PASSING OVER the homes of the Israelites and enabling their escape from slavery in Egypt.  That Passover meal was not just to REMEMBER a past event.  It made that event PRESENT in the lives of those participating in it.  They were THERE with Moses and their ancestors in sharing that sacred meal, and God was with them.

In the New Covenant, the sacrificial meal is the Eucharist, in which the choicest lamb of all, the Lamb of God as John the Baptist called him, Jesus our Savior, offers us his own Body and Blood to eat and drink, as we are THERE and he with us in the whole PASCHAL MYSTERY of his saving passion, death, and resurrection.  And John the Evangelist shows us in the Gospel a most important element of both the Mystery and the Meal:  it involves the sacrifice of service.  Having completed the Passover Meal, having offered his priestly prayer for us, his family, Jesus rises from the table and washes the feet of his disciples.  The Covenant is not complete unless we draw others into it by word, example, mercy, and forgiveness.  “Forgive us our trespasses,” the Lamb of God has taught us, “as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  And “If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, so YOU must wash each other’s feet.”

“How beautiful on the mountaintops,” says the prophet Isaiah, “are the feet of those who bring the Good News.”  We are fed by the Savior with the gift of his very self so that we are nourished for our mission, for our journey through life.  We wash the feet of one another so those feet will be beautiful, and prepared for the lifelong journey of carrying the Good News to whomever we meet.  We might fall down on the job at times, but we shall never stop being part of the family, the missionaries of mercy in the midst of a harsh and unforgiving world.  Don’t worry:  God is with us, and he is always faithful to his covenant.

Homily for March 20, 2016

HOMILY – MARCH 20

What an image, as the Anointed One, the Son of God, the true King of the Universe, rides triumphantly into Jerusalem — on a jackass!  He is greeted by a mob waving palm branches.  And the “establishment” of the day goes nuts.  “Who does he think he is?” they mutter to one another.  But that’s a question that doesn’t matter.  He KNOWS who he is, and he is right where he belongs.  His hour has come, and he is in the midst of his people as the perfect and complete gift of self, from God himself.  By this gift of his own Son, God will show the lengths to which he will go to provide us what we need to come to live with him forever.  God is infinitely great, and so he doesn’t mind being infinitely humble when he is in our midst as one who serves.

Follow carefully this morning as we read the Passion according to Luke.  As the Gospel shows him perfectly and calmly in charge riding on a jackass, so the Passion will show him perfectly and calmly in charge as he is slapped and treated like a fool, as he is brutally scourged and beaten, as he is humiliated in being stripped and affixed to a tree of death.  But where man was defeated by sin at the tree in the Garden of Paradise, the Son of God CONQUERS death itself as he hangs on the tree, promising paradise to a repentant thief — that is, to any of us sinners who repent and call out to him for mercy.  Man disobeyed in the garden by trying to acquire “life” on his own terms when life had already been freely given to him.  Jesus is perfectly obedient to the Father by restoring and freely giving the gift of eternal life to any who come to THIS tree, and thirst and ask.

The world does not thirst and ask.  The elites of this world find God’s perfect gift so “unsophisticated” that even to bring it up in public is politically incorrect.  It’s the “in” thing among our own government officials at the highest levels these days to speak only of freedom of WORSHIP, rather than freedom of RELIGION.  They don’t mind — yet — what goes on inside these four walls.  They just don’t want us bringing what we do here out into society.  A procession like we’ve had this morning — well, that’s all right, just don’t talk about it later.  They try to do to the Church and to religion what they did to Christ:  shrink him, neutralize his influence, hold him up to ridicule, treat him like a fool, kill him and be done with him.  After all, doesn’t everyone have a constitutional right NOT to be offended?

You see, the world imagines it will suffer defeat and loss if it gives in to belief in Christ.  Since the world strangely believes it can attain perfection on its own, it has no need of a Savior.  But that false belief in its own perfection is so easily shattered when trials of any sort befall us.  How often do we hear of a tragedy, and then hear that “people are trying to make sense of it,” as though stewing about it could in itself shed light on the hold that original sin has on us.  But only Christ our Savior can really accompany us through the humdrum and the routine and the weariness and the trials and the tribulations and the crucifixions of life, because he’s already been there and done that.  As we recall and celebrate all the events of this holy week, we have the opportunity to accompany HIM, to walk with HIM, to learn from HIM.  The world will not make sense, because sin is senseless.  But by walking with Christ, we shall begin with him to see the world as mercifully redeemed and infinitely redeemable.  And Christ wants us, his disciples, in on the action.

We’re in training.

Let’s roll.

 

Homily for March 6, 2016

 

HOMILY – MARCH 6

I should think that most of us could retell the story of the prodigal son by heart, although it would be interesting to find out which of the many details we might leave out in the telling.  There is perhaps no finer example of Jesus’ skill as not just a storyteller, but as a teller of stories with morals woven through them.  He is, after all, speaking the mind of God.  And that should be very consoling for us:  God telling us what God is like.

We are in the Jubilee Year of Mercy, and after Mass this morning there will be several priests on hand for confessions.  So it might be good to pick out those elements of the story of the prodigal which relate most directly to the sacrament of penance.

This brash and impudent son is a symbol of all of us and each of us sinners.  He sins himself into misery and squalor, reduced to a state below the level of pigs by wanting to eat pig food.  No one will give him any!  For Jewish people to hear this story, oh my, to be lower than a pig was lower than low.  Jews believe that a pig is an unclean animal; and even now, observant Jews do not eat pork.  So this was a way to express the depths to which this young man had sunk. In the words of AA, he has hit rock bottom.

Many of us, when we are in such a state, are reluctant to go to confession.  We have a natural fear of admitting, let alone telling someone else, just how bad we’ve been, what we’ve done, what we’ve said, what we’ve thought.  It goes against the grain.  Cover-up is not just for politicians.  Just ask any 3-year-old who broke the lamp in the living room, and you’re apt to get quite a story.  But the young man in THIS story is so hungry that it makes him sorry enough to do ANYTHING — even to go home!  “I’ll return to my Father and say . . .”  Oh, don’t pat him on the back TOO hard.  He’s only going back because he’s hungry.  In classic Catholic terms, his contrition is definitely imperfect.  He’s sorry because he’s hungry.

But at least he does admit his wrongdoing, AND its cosmic implications:  “I have sinned against heaven and against you.”  He has taken time to prepare his confession.  Let’s not forget to do that.  I remember years ago, a high schooler coming into confession  and saying, “I did a lot of stuff I shouldn’t have, and I didn’t do a lot of stuff I SHOULD have.”  I wanted to ask him if he brushed his teeth with his finger.  You know, you can go through the motions, but it’s not gonna do you much good unless you get into the nooks and crannies.  A guy who beat up his wife and shot three people in a holdup should kinda say more than, “I’ve been mean.”

Let’s be clear about this.  God doesn’t need to hear our sins.  The priest doesn’t need to hear our sins.  WE need to TELL them, to get them out in the open, to get them off our minds and off our hearts, to be specific enough to try to improve.  No one will ever improve by saying, “I’m gonna stop doing bad stuff.”  If you come down with food poisoning and the doctor in the E.R. asks you what you had to eat — “STUFF” is not an answer that’ll get you cured.

Next, notice the father at the son’s return.  He sees him coming from a long way off, and runs to meet him.  The son begins his prepared confession, and the father hardly notices.  He doesn’t dwell on the young man’s sins, but he doesn’t cut him off, either.  He knows his son NEEDS to confess in order to be truly healed.  But while the son is doing that, orders are being shouted out for the party.

What about that penance?  It’s a work of “satisfaction,” but don’t kid yourself.  Nothing YOU do can ever heal sin.  It’s a token gesture on your part.  It’s your acknowledging that you’re only joining your act of penance to Christ’s supreme sacrifice for your sins.  It extends your celebration of the sacrament of penance BEYOND the confessional or penance room.  It’s a good reminder that we cannot hope to experience the effects of God’s mercy unless we pass it on.  In going to confession, we are forgiven, yes; but we also BECOME FORGIV-ERS.  Going out into a harsh, violent, unforgiving world, we’re the ones who bring a new message to the scene, ministers of reconciliation in Christ’s name.  Our call as disciples is to become expert at it, and we cannot hope to do so without experiencing it ourselves in the sacrament of penance.

Our Act of Contrition is really very simple.  “Dear God, I’ve sinned, I’m sorry, I’m even sorry that I’m not as sorry as I should be.”  And then we hear those wonderful words of absolution:  “Quick, put a ring on his finger!  Put sandals on her feet!  This child of mine was lost, and has been found!”

One quick and final word for any of you who have ever mourned the estrangement of a child or grandchild from the family or from the faith — and what family hasn’t had SOMEONE in such sad situations?  We so often beat ourselves up over it.  “Where did I go wrong?  I sent them all through Catholic school.  I tried my best to be a good example.”  Note that the prodigal father — the father who is as prodigal with his mercy as the son is prodigal with his premature inheritance — the prodigal father doesn’t waste any time beating himself up over EITHER of his sons.  Judging by our miserable standards, he doesn’t have a very good batting average.  One son leaves and squanders everything.  The other one stays, but never enjoys all that his father’s house has to offer, describing his own ungrateful life as “slavery.”  The father doesn’t blame himself.  He leaves the lines of communication open with each of his sons.  Just because he gave us free will doesn’t make God responsible for our sins.

How do YOU respond to YOUR heavenly Father’s always leaving the lines of communication open with you?  Do you ponder the mystery of why you were called to baptism?  Do you reflect on what that baptism calls you to do?  Do you spend more time being angry about the wasted lives of others than you do spending your own life in works of loving service that give glory to God?  Do you grouse about the faults of others without making any effort to see your own?  Have you squandered your precious life on earth only in pursuit of things that will make YOU temporarily happy?  Do you spend ANY time in adoration, simply learning to speak the language of your Father’s house, the language of heaven?  Some say there’s really no ending to the Gospel story of the prodigal.  But there is.  And YOU have the chance to write it, every day of your life.

Homily for February 28, 2016

 

HOMILY – FEBRUARY 28

It was 1977, my first year preaching on this particular set of readings from the “C” Cycle in the Lectionary.  A jolly and rather outspoken fellow came up to me after Mass and congratulated me on my perhaps-too-long homily.  “Father, you really exemplified the Lord’s parable from the Gospel today.”

I was elated at the apparent praise.  “Really?” I asked, eager to hear more.

“Yes,” he went on, “you not only preached about the fig tree, you actually put it into practice!”

Now a little confused, I asked with more sincerity, “Oh?  How was that?”

“Well, you proved the truth of what the Lord said about the fig tree.  Throw enough manure at ‘em, and maybe they’ll grow!!”  And needless to say, he didn’t say “manure.”  As he walked away, he let out a hearty laugh.  And so did the others who had been standing around listening.  My bubble of elation had been speared by a healthy dose of humility and humor, one of many which the Divine Physician has prescribed for my spiritual well-being over the years.

It becomes easy to take a lot of things for granted about our faith.  The Israelites were always in need of having their faith stirred up, because it was so easy for them to revert to or copy the ways of the pagans who lived all around them.  Whether it was the Israelites in Egypt or in Palestine, or the early Christians mingled throughout the Roman Empire, or the Lord Jesus ever in the cross-hairs of the Pharisees and scribes, those who proclaim and embrace the faith are always unwelcome by many in the societies in which they live.  We dare not fool ourselves, either.  No matter how many of our politicians or would-be leaders end their speeches with solemn invocations of “God bless America,” we need to keep in mind Jesus’ words, “By their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:20).  And there’s a lot of rotten fruit hanging from each of the three branches of government these days.

But it’s unfair to pick on just the government.  Our elected and appointed leaders, by hook or by crook — pardon the expression — come from among US.  As a French philosopher (Joseph-Marie de Maistre, 1753-1821) said, “Every nation gets the government it deserves.”  And that shows that we are ALL in need of Redemption, and of Salvation, the active acceptance of Redemption.  As St. Paul recalls of the Israelites, they were all led by Moses, under the cloud, through the sea, eating and drinking from the same spiritual food and drink.  And yet, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the desert.  I think we can become too complacent in presuming on God’s mercy:  “Well, I’m not all that bad.  I haven’t killed anybody.”  And on and on.  We make excuses for ourselves with far more skill than most of us employ in growing in and exercising our faith.  The Apostle warns us of the real possibility of losing what we have been given.  He wouldn’t warn, nor would Christ, if the possibility were not genuine.  That should give us more than a momentary pause.

In the Gospel, we hear what might be the only example of Jesus commenting on current events.  Some people in Galilee executed and their bodies desecrated by mingling their blood with animal blood.  Some people at Siloam dying in the collapse of a tower.  Typical of us in our own headline tragedies:  “What do you make of it?  What do you think they’re being punished for?  What did they do to deserve this?”  And Jesus offers his comment:  Shape up, repent, or the equivalent and worse will happen to YOU!  And then there’s that fig tree.

We have our Eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ, eternally interceding for us sinners with his Father.  His very Blood pleads for us from the Cross.  Even if we have not borne fruit, and we think God’s patience with us must be exhausted, Christ as the gardener jumps in on our behalf:  “Let me work with it real hard for another year, and let’s see what happens.”  What a friend, what a Savior we have in Jesus our Lord, pleading for you, pleading for me!  But my friends, if you don’t give a fig about that, and you refuse to grow in spite of every benefit and opportunity Christ gives you, the ground of the Kingdom can’t be cluttered with those who don’t care to be there.  You are created in God’s image, and that means having a free will.  And you are free to reject the Redemption he has won for you.  You’re even free to not even ignore it!  But you do so at great risk, because the one thing God will not do is fail to respect your free will.  Even your own self-condemnation would be a sign of his respect for you.  Why frustrate his loving invitation to live with him forever?  (SLOWLY: )  Who else — can offer you THAT?