The Heart of the Matter

Homily for Sunday, February 12, 2012

Have you noticed that we Catholics have some things about us that make us different from other people?  This difference comes from the meaning we attach to the things we do.  For instance, for Catholics the meaning of the love between a husband and wife is tantamount to the love of God who alone can create, yet in His love He creates a totally unique, new human being through the love of the husband and wife.  This meaning transforms a bodily function into an act of God.  We therefore consider it very sacred and not to be used in a tawdry way.

The sacraments are other uniquely Catholic interpretations of life: the person who is baptized, confirmed and eucharist-fed is living in an encounter with the Lord Himself.  The one who is sick and given the anointing of the sick encounters the experience of sharing in the sufferings of Christ.  The couple who are married in a sacramental marriage encounter the the Lord in the very relationship they share as husband and wife.  The one who is ordained is an encounter with Christ for all those he serves, especially when he serves the people well.  And the penitent who approaches the sacrament of penance encounters the Lord who sets us free from our sins.

That last sacrament, penance, aka confession or reconciliation, is the one that especially bothers non-Catholics.  They think the Catholic Church dreamt it up.  But they know not its history.  They do not know this about the Old Testament days: that when one had committed an offense against God, that person would have to go to the priest and tell the priest what the offense was.  Then the priest would prescribe what was to be done, like purchase a dove or a lamb and have it sacrificed by the priest so that the unclean person could be in a right relationship with God and with the community of Israel.     

A big problem for people in those days was that any sickness, deformity or disease was seen as a punishment from God for some offense against God.  

To break that concept of God’s doling out punishment to sinners Jesus came into the community and was constantly healing people from all kinds of ailments and sickly conditions.

Yet in today’s Scriptures we see not just Jesus healing, in this case, a leper, but also He reinforces the need for the cleansed man to “go and show [himself] to the priest.” 

What is Jesus teaching us about this need to present oneself to the priest?  We can see from the very early church that there was always a consciousness of the Christian’s need to remain pure, clean, unblemished, holy, and set apart from the ways of non-believers.  If one had committed an act that violated this noble calling, then such a person would confess to the priest or bishop what act was done, and then a penance would be imposed on the penitent as a way of repairing the damage that was done to that person’s relationship with God, but also that person’s relationship with the community that was struggling to live up to the calling given to the baptized.

Jesus could have told the leper, “Your faith has made you well.  Go in peace.”  He didn’t do that.  Why?

Leprosy or any skin condition like impetigo, ring worm, lice, and so many other conditions, were thought to be contagious.  So, the leper would have to live apart from the community until the condition somehow got healed.  When a healing happened, the leper was to go to the priest and show the priest his body.  If there was no more evidence of a skin problem, the leper would have to go through two weeks of purification rites and sacrifices before the community could take him back in and not be afraid of catching what he had.

Over the centuries of the church this same attention to dealing with the contagious element of sin was addressed through the need to “go and show yourself to the priest.”  Go, and fess up to what you have done to diminish the holiness of the community of faith, and diminish the luster of your relationship with God.

So, it is in the wisdom of the church that the Lord continues to give us this sacrament, this doorway into starting anew towards the Kingdom of God.  

If you are not aware already, the Catholic Church throughout the country is setting aside “leap day”, February 29th from 4:30 to 7:00 PM so that in very Catholic Church across the country the confessional light will be on for you, especially for anyone who has been away from the sacraments for a while.  And since Lent begins a week from this Wednesday do consider taking a leap of faith this leap day and “go show yourself to the priest.”  Let’s let God’s grace sweep us up into His great mercy.

 

Homily for Sunday, February 5, 2012

How are we to move among the people of our time?  If we are truly Christians, then we are meant to be salt for the earth, a light that shines, something different than the bumptious ordinariness of being swirled around by the events of our times.  To better understand our role in the world, let’s look at what today’s scriptures say about human existence.

In Job, we see what sadness is for some people who have forgotten what happiness is.  In such a state a person finds life to be a drudgery, with troubled and restless nights, feeling like an overworked slave who wishes simply for a few moments rest in the shade before returning to the drudgery of life. Sometimes so much oppression in life can make a person say with Job, “I shall not see happiness again.”

No wonder our psalm has us singing and calling upon the Lord who heals the broken hearted.

See also the Gospel’s account of the whole town gathering around the door of the house Jesus was in, bringing to the healer all those who were ill or possessed by demons.

Illness is a real downer, so no explanation is needed for those who seek out Jesus to be healed of their various illnesses.  An explanation is needed, however, to understand the 1st century expression of being demon possessed.  

In our society we ascribe the very same human reality not by calling the problem demon possession but rather: a psychological illness.  Which is better: to call a man demon possessed or schizophrenic?  Which is better: to say someone has AD/HD or to say such a person has a spirit that needs to be expelled?  Which is better: to identify persons with the problem they have, or to realize that a people’s problems are not the persons themselves but something that is weighing upon them like a burden that needs to be lifted off of them, or expelled?

So, our society’s tendency to equate the person’s problems with the very being of the person is not really accurate, and not helpful either.

We also do this labeling with illnesses as well, don’t we? I am a diabetic; not I deal with diabetes.  I am obese; not I have a battle with weight control.  And so on.

So, to appreciate Jesus’ expelling demons, we need to move out of our psychological framework and enter into another way of looking at things:  Jesus lifts off of us whatever weighs us down.  Jesus sets us free from whatever imprisons us.  Jesus graces us with the capacity to deal with anything.  Sometimes Jesus deals with us directly, like Simon Peter’s mother-in-law.  Other times Jesus intervenes in our lives and sets before us the people who are just right to help us, like St. Paul.

In St. Paul we see someone who had so identified with Christ that this identity changed his understanding of everything that happened to him in life.  If on some days his bringing Christ to the here and now situation was something he did only out of duty, then so be it, for he had been given this mission as a stewardship.  But if on other days he did so willingly, then he had the reward of doing exactly what he is meant to do.

Do you see how identifying with Christ changes our interpretation of what happens in our day to day experiences?  If I really believe that Christ lives within me and guides me in everything I do, then my moods don’t drive me into action, or out of action.  If Christ is my light, then I am not like a reed swaying in the wind; I am firmly grounded and in tune with the One who is our Master and Lord.

And can you see what happens to us who are firmly founded in Christ when faced with calamity like Job?  His plight was so bad that he thought he’d never see happiness again.  

For us who are so firmly set in Christ so as to identify totally with Him, no calamity, no distress, no tragedy, nothing in the past, nothing in the future can separate us from His love and from the peace that comes from this union with Christ.

For this peace to reign over our hearts, we must be people of prayer, like Jesus going off in the wee hours to spend time in communion with God.  When we develop our prayer lives, if even by simply being faithful to whatever it is we do for prayer, every day, then we indeed become a light shining in the darkness, and we will indeed be something very different than just being bounced around by the events of life.  We will live purposefully and meaningfully, as we bring Christ to the heart of Boulder and into whatever situation we encounter go this week.

Homily for Catholic Schools Week - 1/29/2012

One of my favorite fruits is grapefruit.  And I love those little spoons with the jagged edge that enable you to scrape out every bit of the fruit itself.  You know, in between each section of the fruit there are these thin but tough separators from one section to the other.  So the jagged edge spoon helps me scrape out as much pulp as possible and get around those separators and the pits.

Life is like a grapefruit, so thoroughly enjoyable, a bit sour, and messing getting through it with the pits and all.  So, in order to get through life and taste life with joy, we have to learn how to deal with life’s difficulties.  You know the difficulties: life’s bumps and lumps, broken relationships, frustration with those we love, facing our own faults, and of course, wanting somehow that things be better than they are.  We keep digging in to life, even if we have to deal with the pits, the seeds of our discontent.

Many are inclined to look for remedies by watching talk shows, reading self-help books, or seeking something like a new fad that others rave about, something to help us cope with life, chase away our sorrows and find a way to be happy.  The problem is that some easy, canned solutions to life’s problems never seem to work.  But we keep wanting a simple idea or some simple practice we can use, something which is easy to swallow.  

Our liturgy today invites us to pray even as we deal with the pits and seeds of our discontent.  We are invited into the Pascal Mystery of Jesus Christ who alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life, who alone can show us how to live life to the full.  Let’s look at what these Scriptures teach us about life in Christ.  

In our first reading from Exodus we see that God gave Moses, and Moses gave to the people the Torah, the Law, that expresses the covenant, the relationship with God, with all of its blessings promised, and all of the ramifications laid out if the Israelites should choose to abandon the ways of God.  In this reading we hear the response of Moses to the people’s desire that they never again have a direct contact with God as they did at Mt. Sinai when they had become overwhelmed at the raging fire and thundering presence of God.  They ask Moses to be a mediator, to stand between them and the terrifying experience of being in direct contact with the Almighty.  The people told Moses, 'Let us not again hear the voice of the LORD, our God, nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.'  God agrees to this request, even though it means that people might often think that God does not answer them, or even hear them when they are in need.  They must now rely on a mediator, a prophet, someone who will hear from God and will communicate to the people all that the prophet hears from God.  

Moses makes clear to the people then, and to us today, that if we do not listen to truly prophetic words, to words that God will put in the prophet’s mouth, then, God says, “Whoever will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it.”

But a question remains: how will the people know if the prophet, the one presuming to speak on God’s behalf, is instead speaking out from his own thoughts, and not God’s?  In today’s world, what voices are there out there that are truly from God?  Or, what voices are of a deceiving spirit?  How can we distinguish which voices out there are from false gods?  The false gods are all around us, leading many to go after everything but our Judaeo-Christian heritage.  And these voices are very persuasive, making those of us who want to be faithful to God feel estranged from the world we live is.  

In the Gospel we see Jesus who is the fulfillment of Moses’s prophecy that One would come along who must be listened to.  In fact, Jesus is God himself in the flesh, so that every word he speaks is full of grace and truth.  That’s why we follow him and and why we are called by his name: Christians.

In the Gospel it was an evil spirit in a tormented man whose madness made the truth of who Jesus really is look ridiculous.  That’s why Jesus says, “Quiet! Come out of him!”  This is not madness.  It is the truth.  In our own day, fidelity to Jesus is looked upon as ridiculous, but such a spirit is not from God.  It is the spirit of madness.  And the test for us to know if we are following the way of madness or the spirit of God, is that are faithful to Christ and abide in his peace.

This is Catholic Schools Week when re collectively reflect of the Call the Lord has given us to provide a Catholic education to as many young people as possible.  Why do we do this?  

The reason Catholic schools exist is to help us keep grounded in Jesus, that Jesus is the one who is our reference for all the issues and struggles of our time.  He alone is the One who can lead us to peace.  He alone is the voice to be listened to.  He alone can show us around the seed of discontent in our lives; and He alone can give us the delightful taste of how to live in His peace.

 

New Years: Solemnity of the Mother of God, 2012

Today we end the old year and begin the new year by hearing one of the Blessed Mother’s greatest qualities: to keep the wondrous events that we have been celebrating as the Nativity of our Lord, “reflecting on them in her heart.”  This quality of reflecting on life’s events in our hearts is what I think today’s feast calls us to.  Reflection is necessary to think more deeply about what God is doing with us, for if we do not reflect, we will be tossed about by life; and we may not survive the tossing.

So, with Mary let is look at where we are as human beings and as persons of faith in her Son.

Part of reflecting on God’s grace in our lives includes an honest read of our times.  In my mind there are both negative things happening in our time, things that can endanger faith, and marvelous things that can enliven our hope.

Let’s look first at the things that endanger our faith:

As society is becoming more pluralistic, we are constantly barraged by other thoughts, other opinions, other ideas that can be in conflict with our values and our belief in all that makes up our Catholic faith.  Add on to this a loss of having a philosophical foundation, by which critical thinking can happen, and which can provide us with a sense of logic, we are left without a sense of mooring.  Any thought has equal value, whether it makes sense or not.  Culturally, we are encouraged to think outside the box and experiment with all that life has to offer without regard to the goodness of our options.  In this atmosphere evil can run rampant; and is running rampant.

How can a society survive that kills its own babes in the womb?  How can a civilization thrive if it attacks its own foundations and seeks for anything else but our “old way of thinking”?  How can a society survive if it tinkers by way of social experiments that are making a mess of the foundational unit of society: the family.  How can the future be ensured if whole nations are deciding to commit demographic suicide?

And how long can nations last that are delaying paying its bills and laying them on the backs of their children and their children’s children?

On the positive side, and we Christians must always remain hopeful, there are these exciting things happening:

We are closely reaching a universal access to all of human thought, now so easily accessed through the internet.  This is begetting a massive new wave of knowledge.  The opportunities here are beyond imagining.  Of course values will be shaken by so much cross-pollination.

But as values are being shaken, all over the world, we have the promise of Jesus Christ that He will be with us all days, even unto the end of the world.  In time, the Gospel will be victorious with its summons to justice and peace and order; because there will come a time when people will demand these things that the Gospel gives. People can live only so long in a state of chaos.

I see the beginnings of this desire for what the Gospel gives in the new way religious education is being done today.  In the past, and until very recently, religious education was a matter of transmitting information, doctrines, head-knowledge to children.  The result, though, has been a sense of religion as a list of do’s and don’t’s, without the heart-knowledge of the Lord.  Both are needed, but in the past the heart-knowledge was presumed. It can no longer be presumed.  People need to know the Lord directly through their own experience.  And this is today what religious education is now attempting to do.

Reflecting in our hearts upon our lives, as Mary reflected upon the events of the Incarnation, we have something to offer that people nowadays are being painfully deprived of.

And what is it that we can offer that the world is craving?  Hope!  As baffling as things may seem, our faith tells us that when we feel lost, confused, adrift, there is indeed One who saves us, the very same One whose birthday we celebrated a week ago, who came among us for the exact purpose of saving us from all of our woes, the very same one who came walking on the water in a terrible storm, asking, “Why are you so afraid?”

This is how Mary was able to withstand the chaos of her time when a threatened king sent out his troops to kill every male child in Bethlehem under the ages of two years old.  She had faith in God above all, but faith also in Joseph who told her he had a dream that insisted that they leave in the middle of the night to flee for their lives to Egypt.

I suspect that everyone, as they grow older, thinks the oncoming generation has lost something essential; and it’s not good.  I suggest that thinking this way is not being faithful to the promise of the Lord to be with us all days, even unto the end of the world.  Happy New Year!  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and the hour of our death.  Amen.

 

Homily for Christmas, 2011

Merry Christmas.  I hope and pray that this Christmas will help you become even more aware of the love of God than ever before.

One year ago on December 26th I came down with bacterial meningitis, which almost killed me.  I was in a coma for 5 days and everyone around me had heard very well the medical opinion that I was most likely going to die or be brain dead.  What happened over those days was the most powerful experience of my life.  I encountered the Triune God, in a deep down convincing way.  

During those five days I saw, as if from the eyes of God, all kinds of scenes of human suffering.  I say “as if from the eyes of God” because I saw all of that while being in great peace.  When the medical team started bringing me out of the coma, a nurse, I later found out, had been saying to me, “Now you go and meditate.”  

I remember thinking, “Meditate!  Of course!  I know how to meditate.  Why have I not been meditating?”  And so I began praying, “Lord Jesus, Son of God have mercy on me.”  Until I became very aware of the presence of the Lord Jesus.  It was an extraordinary experience, but you know, I met Him whom I already knew.  

As I continued to pray, the Lord took me on a tour of all those scenes of human suffering that I had been seeing vividly for 5 days; and now they were all covered with what looked like crimson lacework.  I knew this was His blood.  He told me that no one suffers alone; He is with everyone who suffers, and He suffers with them.  This is the way He loves us, sharing our burdens and sorrows.  

He told me then to pray to the Father, and so I prayed, “Abba, Father,” over and over again.  Now remember, St. Paul tells in Romans 8 that no one can pray, “Abba Father” unless by the Holy Spirit.

So, here I was, caught up into the very life the Most Holy Trinity!  I became aware of unbelievable love, love like I never knew before.  Love that is beyond words; and attempting to describe it is impossible, and even the attempt cheapens it.

All year long I have been mulling over this experience, absorbing it more and more, letting it inform everything that I think and do.  I now understand more truly how St. John the Evangelist could say, “God is love; and wherever there is love, there is God.”  

Think of this, brothers and sisters: what we celebrate tonight is illogical, a madness, beyond-comprehending, that God who created all that is would humble Himself to take on our lowly human flesh and become one of us, to lead us out of our unloving ways, our self-absorbed ways, our self-made prisons into the ever growing awareness that “God is love.”  

The Incarnation is what gives me meaning to everything I do and everything I experience.  God is very real to me.  God has revealed Himself to me and to all of us in the God-man, Jesus Christ.  He is not one among many ways; He and He alone is the Way. And His way is the way of love, love that is willing to suffer with anyone who suffers. 

Christianity is not a way to cope with suffering, though it does give meaning to suffering when we encounter it.  But Christianity is so much more.  It is letting the Lord into our inner being to guide us to share the burdens of others, to love as He loves.

I have spent a year reflecting on all that happened to me; and what has dawned on me is that deep down, at the core of my being, when I was utterly helpless and even unconscious, I cried out, “Abba, Father.” The Father shows us that Jesus is the fulness of what it means to be human. So, brothers and sisters, join with me.  Let us keep watching Him, all year long, in every Gospel proclaimed, especially at Mass.  Let us watch Him to see how He reacts to every situation put before Him.  And the more astute we become at seeing how He reacts, we too will know how to react to the situations of our lives.   

May God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit enlarge your minds and souls to make room for Him who was born in a manger because there was no room for Him when He came in the flesh.

 

Homily for the 4th Sunday of Advent - 2011

One of the mind stretching insights we all have by now is how different life is for women here in the West compared to how life is for women of the Middle East?  Of course we think our ways are superior, but what goes on the Middle East today can help us understand today’s Gospel at a deeper level.  A lot of customs of the Middle East today were the very same customs of the Middle East at the time of the Gospel.  

Do you remember the Gospel story of the woman at the well?  We get a real glimpse into what life was like for women back then.  They were the ones responsible for getting water to the house, drawn from a well and carried in a large jar on the head back to the house.  The women were very well covered and went to the well in a large group of women early in the day, when all the men would be sober and not on the prowl.  

The assumption in the Middle East in those days (and still today) was that if there were not strong measures taken to govern male - female conduct, any single woman meeting any man alone was presumed to be an illicit moment.  The men in the family would suffer shame for not protecting their women; the woman would suffer shame for putting herself in a dangerous situation; and, honestly, since men were not to be trusted, the presumption of guilt on both parties part would be a foregone conclusion.

Now within that context let’s look at the Annunciation.  An angel with a man’s name suddenly was within the enclosure that all maidens live in.  The home was constructed in such a way as to provide the greatest security for vulnerable maidens: a walled enclosure and an inner room away from prying eyes.  

Given this cultural context imagine the fear of Mary!  She was in a potentially embarrassing situation.  Anyone would imagine the worst.  How could she explain this?  Angel or not!  No wonder the angel said, “Do not be afraid, Mary.”  

And then came a totally inexplicable, unimaginable message: to be the virginal mother of the Son of God.  She asks her question, “How can this be?” and gets an answer that says to her: God was going to play the traditional role of husband to her!  God would empower her to become pregnant and God would protect her, the two duties of a Middle Eastern husband.  Imagine Mary wondering, “And what about Joseph?”

Despite this event being an unbelievable event, imagine how else Mary’s faith was tested! How was she going to explain this to her parents and to Joseph?  Yet she said, Let it be done according to your word. 

My brothers and sisters, every age of the church, in fact, every age of a person’s journey through life, has its challenges.  Always there is a temptation to lose faith.  Always there is the temptation to give up: give up on God, or give up on a spouse, or give up on hope, or give up on the future, and on and on and on.

How shall we remain faithful?  How shall we continue to trust in God’s goodness, especially when we see things that try our souls.  

This is a time of year when many Catholics find their way home and come back to church.  One of the great attractions of the practice of the faith is the very act of believing!  Yet believing in God, in Christ and the Church, is not easy.  In many ways, it would be easier to give up.  

Yet down very deep in our souls we know that if we do not believe, nothing else makes sense.  

Here are some practical suggestions on how to make our faith stronger: 

• Pray for faith, because faith is a gift from God; so, let us ask Him: I believe O Lord, help my unbelief.  
• Besides being a gift, faith is also a virtue.  Think of a virtue as a muscle.  A muscle has to be exercised or the muscle will atrophy.  Unless faith is exercised, it too will atrophy.  Exercising the muscle of faith looks like this: faithfully attending Sunday Mass, praying every day, going to confession, more than once in a Blue Moon, getting a marriage validated by the Church if you were married out of the church.  
• And lastly: Take a leap of faith!  Make a decision that I will believe all that the Catholic Church believes, teaches and professes to be true.  There’s nothing like a leap of faith, like diving into a pool at the deep end.  That’s where you will find the grace to say with Mary, “Let it be."  
• Especially: "I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief."

 

Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Advent

“Comfort, give comfort to my people, says the Lord.”  These are the first words of the Book of Consolation of the Prophet Isaiah.  It was 70 years after Babylon had destroyed Jerusalem and carried off the people into exile to live as an underclass in what is now Iraq.  During those 70 years God had sent prophets to encourage the people, like Jeremiah who told the exiles to settle down and to have children and be engaged in business, and to pray for the government that had conquered them.  Essentially, make do with what you have, and do not lose your hope that better times will come when we can all return to the Promised Land.

Now, says Second Isaiah, now the time has come, now that Persia has conquered our old enemy Babylon, and we can return to Jerusalem, now is the time to “comfort, give comfort to My people.”

You see, there is a cycle of how things go:  things are Ok until we make some bad choices, or lots of us make bad choices.  Those choices have ramifications and the result is that we go through hard times.  Some call this punishment, but one could also say that it’s just the way things happen, what goes around comes around.  Then after enduring the result of our bad choices, we come to our senses and decide to stop with the bad choices and get back to the basics on how to live a good life.  

Then comes a renewal, a renaissance, a conversion, a time of salvation, a breakthrough into a better way of life, a period of wisdom to savor what is worthwhile and discard what is worthless.  

In religion we call this the Pascal Mystery, the pattern of life, death and resurrection.  

Our first reading today comes at that moment of getting our minds around the act of salvation, the time of redemption from the suffering caused by our poor choices.  Though this is a time of comfort and sheer joy, it is also a time of reckoning called “the day of the Lord” as we heard described in Second Peter.  The time we are living in is not yet the day of the Lord, nor the moment of giving comfort.  Unless, of course, we take the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ seriously.  In that case, it is always time to be comforted by the rhythm of the Pascal Mystery, it is always the time of conversion.  

The “day of the Lord” is that moment when God will usher in the wholesale implementation of justice that brings about the settling of unsettled scores, reparations for deeds of injustice, retribution against all the forces of evil, and that time when justice and peace shall kiss.

This “day of the Lord” could also be seen as the day of judgment.  So, when we look around and see all the injustices of our time, it takes faith to believe that they will be righted.  The temptation, of course, is to give in to the spirit of doom and vexation over how bad things are.  Yes, the top rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.  Yes, college graduates leave college with immense debts and little chance of getting a job.   Yes, the deeds of darkness are now being shouted from the housetops as we hear of one mind-boggling scandal after another.  Some days don’t you find yourself wanting to say, “Maranatha.  Come Lord.  Do not delay.  Bring on the Day of the Lord.  Save your people, Lord, for we are sinking.” 

Yet, what does the Lord say to us?  “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some regard ‘delay,’ but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

So, then, it makes sense, doesn’t it, for John the Baptist to come onto our scene, calling us to repentance.  

Oh, but we all think of ourselves as our own saviors.  Somehow we think: if I just get more disciplined, if I only get more determined, if I can just make more money, if I can just get through this rough patch in our family life, if, if, if.  Meanwhile the minds slides to distractions, decisions are made to stave off the oncoming train wreck, to delay the day of reckoning to another congress, or another generation, or another this or that.  

Anything but aligning our lives with Christ Jesus.  John the Baptist was fabulously popular.  People would leave their city life and go way out into the wilderness for days at a time to listen to this strange man calling them to repent.  But when the extent of the change that he was calling everyone to became applicable to the powers that be, he wound up martyred for his witness to the truth.  Before that happened, he was able to point out the true savior and introduced him as “the Lamb of God,” as the one who was going to be sacrificed for the sins of all.   He pointed the way to the One and Only who could save us from our plight, whose sandals, John said, I am unworthy even to stoop and unfasten.  He is the only One who can make justice and peace kiss.  He is the only One who can bring on the Day when justice and comfort come together as they do in today’s Scriptures.  It’s like coming to know one’s sin with great contrition and the Lord’s forgiveness and mercy.  Yes, in Him justice and peace shall kiss.

 

Homily for the 1st Sunday of Advent - 11/27/2011

“Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you, while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for...”

These words from the Prophet Isaiah are from what is called “Third Isaiah.”  The prophet Isaiah lived before the time of the cataclysmic destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC.  He prophesied about the need to return to the practice of being faithful to the commandments of the Lord, the God of Israel, lest disaster come upon the people.  They were not faithful; and disaster did come upon them; Jerusalem was destroyed and the people were taken off into exile in Babylon.

“Second Isaiah” was either another prophet who belonged to the spirit and tradition of First Isaiah, or it was the very same Isaiah who lived a very long life.  Here the Israelites are in exile and bemoaning their predicament; and Second Isaiah prophesies to give them hope, starting in Chapter 40, assuring them that God will indeed act on their behalf and bring them back to the Promised Land.  Second Isaiah is also called the Book of Consolation, because it is replete with reasons for hope.

70 years after the Israelites were conquered and carried off into exile, their redemption did in fact happen.  The Babylonian empire was conquered by the new Emperor, Cyrus of Persia. He allowed the enemies of Babylon, who had been brought to Babylon to be slaves, to return to the homelands.  It was a very effective move in that it won for Persia many friends.

Israel’s return to the Promised Land is when “Third Isaiah” is written.  Now either the original Isaiah is extremely old, or this is another prophet from the same school of thinking as the original Isaiah.

At this time, the Israelites had miraculously been returned to their homeland, something that they had yearned for, hope against hope, for 70 years.  But when they returned home, each one was looking out for himself, rebuilding his own ancestral home and not caring about the welfare of the whole people of God.  In other words, it was turning out to be much more difficult than they expected.  The community was not drawing together, not doing for each other, and not remembering to live by the laws of their ancestors, their covenant with the only God.

So, Isaiah cries out to heaven:  “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you, while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for...”

“Would that you might meet us doing right,” Third Isaiah says, “that we were mindful of you in our ways!  . . . [But]  There is none who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to cling to you; for you have hidden your face from us and have delivered us up to our guilt.”

Ah, but the Potter, who molds the clay of those whom He calls if they are open to His grace, know that He has indeed rent the heavens and come down, and does so again at every Mass.  Yes, we are His people, and He is our God.

But there is another generation coming along who finds it very difficult to grasp this mystery, “which no ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but You, doing such deeds for those who wait for Him.”

Why is it that the younger generation has a very difficult time committing not just to our Church, but to any church?  It seems that everyone has this or that opinion for the cause of this, but some serious research was done and published in a book, "You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving the Church ... and Rethinking Faith," (Baker Books), by David Kinnaman, and Aly Hawkins.  

One of the elements that their analysis of a wide range of statistical data shows is this:  The younger generation does not think like the older generation; and it’s not caused by youthful enthusiasm to be different.  The way they have received data during their development is greatly influenced by technology, especially the egalitarian aspect. They have had access to all kinds of information through the internet, which they grew up on.  In their world there is not some authority showing them that this is wrong and this is right.  It all comes in on an equal basis.  This would be fine if we were teaching philosophy and helping people learn how to think and reason and learn the art of logic.  But we're not teaching people to think.

Complicate this by society’s questioning every utterance of what used to be an authoritatively defined answer to life’s questions, and you have one generation unable to relate with another.

Isn’t this like the return of the Israelites after exile, feeling lost and unable to help each other cope with fulfilling the promises of the Lord?  So, with Isaiah, we say: “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!” And He does come down, upon this altar.  And He will see us through.  On our part, we must stay awake, be faithful and trust in God.  As crazy as it all seemed to the disillusioned Israelites in those days of returning from exile, yet they were the very ones from whom the Savior of the World was to come.  So, in our time, and during this season of Advent, let us put more confidence in hoping that God will act to save His people, in every generation.

 

Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King -- 11/20/2011

This week I  watched a Public Television documentary called, “Elusive Justice: The Search for Nazi War Criminals.”  After the Second World War there was a brief period of bringing to justice those who had committed the war crimes of genocide.  The most famous of the trials was the Nuremberg Trial held in 1945 and 1946, during which 24 of the most important, still living Nazi officials were put on trial.  There were other trials as well, but within a few years of the end of the war, energies shifted to things other than vengeance.  

There were thousands of Nazis who were never tried, but the starch to go after war criminals petered out.  This happened to the great dismay of families of people who had fallen prey to the genocide. 

This documentary picks up on the story of how certain individuals went in search of war criminals, capturing them from their various places of hiding, and bringing them to Jerusalem to face justice.  The most famous of these was Adolf Eichmann, the architect for the Final Solution, the mass murder of Jews.

The documentary is actually rather exhausting as the viewer settles in with the fury of those who were frustrated with the general lack of interest in bringing such war criminals to justice.

Since I am a preacher, always alert to see a connection between events in life and the Scriptures we read at Mass, I had an “Aha! Moment.”  

It occurred to me that the hunger for justice, even for vengeance, is one of the most powerful motivators human beings have.  It spurs people to give their lives to correct what we call “social injustice.”  Think of the wrath of the descendants of American slaves, a wrath that, on the positive side, begot the Civil Rights movement, and on the negative side, begot the race riots after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.

There is at the core of every human being a hunger for justice, a demand for justice, especially if it is you, or your people, who have faced some enormous injustice.  If the injustice is not fully addressed, it moves into the soul and becomes so terribly frustrated that it pours out in a loss of faith, a loss of humanity, or a loss of hope, eventually bringing about some form of revolution.

What was so remarkable about South Africa was the peaceful and just resolution of this very dark energy of vengeance.  It was done by the very honest effort of the “Truth and Justice Commission” where all the ugly horrors of apartheid were faced and not only repented of, but were also forgiven.

Today’s Gospel assures all victims of injustice that if there situation is not rectified in this life, there will indeed be a truth and justice commission called the Last Judgment. They will have their justice! 

When the Son of Man comes in all his glory he will separate them into two groups: the goats and the sheep.  The goats are the perpetrators of social injustice, especially those who perpetrated injustice by their inaction, in the face of hunger, thirst, immigration injustice, poverty, and lack of care for the sick and imprisoned.  Apathy sends goats to hell.

The sheep, however, are those who do care for all these people in need.  Attending to people in need is called the work of social justice.  

We cannot be one-sided:  either interested in social justice alone or in personal righteousness alone.  We must be personally holy and socially engaged.  To do so is to face the Son of Man when he comes in all his glory and find oneself placed among those on his right side. 

Once when Mother Teresa was asked how she had the energy to do all she did for the sick, the dying, the orphaned and the unwanted, she held up her five fingers and said, “Five words: ‘you did it for me’.” 

St. Ignatius of Loyola said there are three degrees of humility.  The first degree is to have the humility to stop arguing with God about the 10 Commandments.  For all the money in the world, I will not commit a mortal sin by breaking even one of the 10 Commandments.

The second degree of humility is to have matured in Christ so much that I don’t want to commit even a venial sin.  Nothing could entice me to do the least little thing against God’s will.  This is not scrupulosity, but a desire to be one with God in all things.

And the third degree of humility is to be able to see in the hungry person, the thirsty person, the alien, the naked, or the imprisoned person, the rejected person: Christ himself.   And no matter what anyone thinks of me, I prefer to be with that person in need, even if it means I am loathed by others, because I will be in the presence of Christ himself.  This is what it means to live in such a way as to hear the Lord say those 5 words: “You did it for me.”  

 

Homily for Sunday, November 13, 2011

This parable is often used for different purposes, such as a divine endorsement of capitalism, or as a motivator to think of the poor as “wicked lazy servants” who have no initiative. These are not correct interpretations of the text.

The approach I wish to take requires us to reflect on the talents we are given.  First of all, what was a talent in the days of the New Testament? It wasn’t our meaning of the word “talent,” an ability or an aptitude or an expertise in some art or sport or way of being human.

A “talent” was a bar of gold that could weigh up to 72 pounds from which coins would be struck.  That bar of gold could produce as much as  5,040 golden coins.  We’re talking about big time money.  And the Master was enormously wealthy.  As he left on his long trip, he gave 576 pounds of golden bars to 3 men whom he put in charge of all of his wealth.  Then he left on a journey, expecting them to turn a profit.  Can you see how this looks like a divine seal of approval of capitalism. Gad zooks!

We know how the story goes: 2 of the servants used great initiative, took risks and doubled their money; while the wicked, lazy servant buried his treasure and met the wrath of the Master. 

The Father of the Church saw this passage as a scene for the judgment that is coming.  The Master is the Lord Jesus and his going on a journey was seen as his Ascension to the Father's right hand; and his return to take an accounting was seen as the judgment.

So, I don’t think this Gospel is about money at all.  I think this is about the treasure the Lord gives us in our baptismal faith, and our being entrusted by the Master of All with a responsibility to make a harvest happen from the way we live our faith, a harvest in our own lives and a harvest of what happens to the human family because of our living the Gospel responsibly, or not.

Right now we are living in a time of turmoil; and it will last for the rest of our lives.  It will become increasingly risky for us to live out our Catholic faith.  The tide of morals is contrary to so many of the things that are most essential to us: the preciousness of human life, the code of moral behavior that we have held for two millennia as our ideal, as something to aim for, and as a guide for us to know what we should repent of.  That’s all disappearing - quickly.  That Judaeo-Christian foundation of Scripture and ethics is almost forgotten.

But, because we as Church will not compromise and betray our Lord on these ideals, we are a target of hate and animosity that is increasing daily.  One state after another is attacking our moral principles and refusing us the right to believe in them and practice them.  In state after state we are being banned from carrying on the business of helping families adopt children, or be foster parents, forcing our Catholic hospitals to make abortions available, and other services that we cannot and will not provide.  The state is, in effect, shutting us down. A darkness is coming upon the human family, denying to us the right to practice our religion freely. It’s what we used to say about the Soviet Union, but now’s it’s becoming a dark reality here. 

“But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, for ‘that day’ [the day of judgment] to overtake you like a thief.  For all of you are children of the light and children of the day.  We are not of the night or of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep [or, sleepwalk] as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober.”

Another dangerous time in which it was life-threatening to be faithful, was during the persecutions of the Church by the Roman empire. A great saint from that era, St. Ignatius of Antioch, was condemned to be fed to the lions for being untrue to the idols, the false gods, of the empire. As he was being transported in chains from Antioch to Rome for his execution, he wrote to fellow Church members, “Christianity shows its greatness when it is hated by the world.  Just beg for me the courage and endurance not only to speak but also to will what is right, so that I may not only be called a Christian, but prove to be one.”  

The talent, the treasure we have been entrusted with, is to be faithful to Christ no matter how unpopular it is to those who do not know the Lord.  If we bury this treasure we may think that we have no responsibility to advocate for goodness and justice and to love our world in which we live.  The temptation here is to give up, to be afraid of being unpopular, afraid of rejection by people who matter to us, maybe even becoming convinced by the wisdom of the world to abandon the faith of our ancestors.  If we abandon our role in society to challenge the direction we are going, we leave the public sector to slide into even an greater post-Christian mentality, totally detached from a foundation upon which to make moral judgments.  Without bringing to bear the voice of the Gospel, we leave society to fall prey to who knows what kinds of social experiments.  

So, my brothers and sisters, be strong in the faith, bolster other people’s faith, especially when they seem to waver.  To quote one of my heros* in life, “Catholics must sustain and give life to the nation through active Christian witness. ‘Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely
appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.’
We are citizens of heaven first. The more truly we love God, the more
truly we serve the world. The proof of a person’s faith is whether, and how much it shapes his or her behavior.”
[* That is, Archbishop Charles Chaput.  See his book, “Render Unto Caesar.”]