The Heart of the Matter

The Man Born Blind

"Was it this man's fault, or was it his parents' fault, that he was born blind?"  That's the question the apostles asked Jesus when they encountered the man born blind.  In biblical days it was common to lay blame on someone when bad things happened.  It had to be somebody's fault.  We still like to lay blame on sick people for many of their illnesses.  "They didn't exercise enough."  "They didn't eat the right things."  "They didn't stop smoking," and so on.  We're not too far away from the pre-Jesus mindset of wanting to assign blame for whatever goes wrong in our lives.

But how does Jesus answer the apostles' question?  "It wasn't his fault, or his parents, that this man was born blind.  It was to show forth the glory of God."  So, instead of assigning blame for whatever goes wrong in life, we might do better to look for the glory of God in whatever goes badly. 

What exactly, then, is "glory"?  "Glory" is "getting one's way," like a football team winning the Super Bowl: they get their way; they win!  So, if we are to give God glory even when terrible things happen, then we are saying to ourselves and to God: "Lord, in the way I handle this, You will get Your glory; You will get Your way.  So, Lord, keep me free from bitterness, free from sitting on a pity pot, free from resentment, from blaming anyone.  Set me free from anything that would diminish Your getting Your way in the manner I contend with what I am faced with.  This will be how my difficult circumstances will show forth Your glory."

What do you priests do during the week?

It looked like it was going to be an easy day.  In my schedule I had only the noon Mass and teaching the RCIA in the evening.  It would have been a good day to traipse through the school thanking the students for their birthday wishes for me.  But when I opened my e-mail one of my mountain parishioners had written, asking me to go see her 80 year old husband who was in a snow mobiling accident and broke his leg in two places.  That was the same leg that had just gotten a new knee.  Then before I got finished reading my e-mail a phone call came in from a really fine parishioner asking me to give the Last Rites to her brother-in-law who was near death.  And, before Mass, I returned the phone call of a 95 year old parishioner who wanted me to be with him as he listened to the hospice nurse explain what hospice is, and what decisions he had to make about end of life issues.  Each of these encounters was filled with grace, and along with Mass and the RCIA made for a splendid way to spend my 60th birthday.

How willing are we to witness to Christ?

One of my friends is a Capuchin friar from Kansas who served as a missionary in Papua New Guinea for 30 years.  Near the end of his time there he heard the noise of a gang of young criminals invading the mission compound with the intent to rape the nuns and nurses who took care of the mission hospital.  My Capuchin friend jumped into his Jeep and drove to the road where the evil doers were.  He got in between them and their target so they turned on him and picked up rocks from the roadside and stoned him.  His intervention saved the women, but the right side of his face was crushed and he lost his right eye.  I tell my friend that the only reason he's not a martyr is because he is still alive.

Did you know that there were more Christian martyrs in the 20th century than all of the other centuries of Christian history put together?  Yes, even today people are willing to put their lives on the line for the sake of Jesus.  Even today there are people who are so devoted to the Lord that they are willing to go to the most primitive and violent parts of the world to make Him known.  Why?  Because He matters that much. 

Last Friday evening our Stations of the Cross were done outside.  It was a procession from the church to Pearl Street, with the group's members taking turns carrying a sizable cross.  What they were met with was ridicule, mockery, and they were spit on.

In your own Lenten journey are you discovering that the Lord matters so much to you that you are willing to bear witness to Him more than you presently are?

Have you ever been to heaven?

Have you ever been to heaven?  Back in 1993 I spent a month at a retreat house in Chatawa, Mississippi doing the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola.  Spending a whole month in quiet prayer and meeting once a day for an hour with the retreat director can lead to mystical moments.  In one of these prayer experiences, the Lord took me on a tour of heaven.  I saw Mary, the Lord's Mother.  She was sewing!  She explained, when I asked, that she was sewing all the prayers and petitions of people praying to her.  "They're all wonderfully connected," she said as she sewed them into a beautiful tapestry that she gives to her Son to present to the Father.

Then, the Lord introduced me to my (deceased) parents, but I couldn't see them.  He said, "That'll be for later. That would be too much now."  Then He introduced me to one saint after another, including my patron saints, one saint after another - including all my deceased relatives and significant people I've prayed for.

It was a wonderful experience of love and peace and joy and hospitality.  The Lord said, "I've showed you heaven once before; and this is surely your destiny, but you must pray for final perseverance.  All of these saints are praying for you," - and then Jesus got their attention and told them that it was the Father's will that my petitions be heard; and "It surely is your will too, isn't it?"  And a great Amen resounded in heaven.  I then prayed a litany of saints as I left heaven and came back to my chair on the screened porch at the retreat house.

Homily for Jesus and the Woman at the Well

Water.  Water.  Water.  The Israelites were dying of thirst and God gave them water in the desert.  Jesus met the woman at the well, and by asking her for some water to drink, He led her into desiring the water that only He can offer: living water, for “the water I shall give will become… a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”  For, “whoever drinks the water I will give will never thirst.”

            What’s with all the water? 

            Hello?  Does Baptism ring a bell?  Do you remember a few weeks ago when we reflected on the Baptism of the Lord how essential Baptism is?  Remember: if the Word Incarnate, God Made Man, was Himself baptized, then is it not very clear that Baptism is really, really important? 

            Well, here we are again, facing the utter importance of the waters of Baptism.  Why?  Because Baptism is the Sacrament of Initiation into living a life of faith.  And to drive the point home, Jesus leads the woman at the well, and then her townspeople, to move from a paltry understanding of the Messiah, into an ever deeper grasp of who the Messiah is, and then to acclaiming Jesus not only as the Messiah but as the Savior of the world.  Such is the development for those who take their Baptism seriously.  We move from a paltry understanding of Jesus into a profound relationship with Him so that we know Him to be the Savior of the world.

            Many, many people in our lives have but a paltry understanding of who Jesus really is.  Sometimes even the baptized don’t really get it.  But Lent is the season for begging the Lord to help us understand what it means for us to have been initiated, through the waters of Baptism.  And what have we been initiated into?  Into our realizing that we need the grace of the other sacraments.  Why?  To assist us into a state of recovery.  Recovery from what?  From thinking we do not need this Living Water, which is Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.

            And why do we need this Savior?  To save us from an eternal damnation place; and to save us from the widespread present day hell of not knowing who we are.

            Jesus told the woman at the well who she was by letting her know who she was not.  “You are right in saying that you are not married.  In fact . . .”   He saved her from being so ostracized from the community that she had to go to the well when no one else would be there.  He saved her from having such a chaotic life that no one wanted to be around her.

            We have been baptized, and as we grow into an ever deepening realization of what our Baptism means, we must ask ourselves: what do I need to be saved from?  For if I do not think I need a Savior, if I do not think I am in need of salvation, then I badly misunderstand reality, and I have but a paltry understanding of who Jesus is.  And that must change.

What a treat!

This evening I attended a talk at the university given by someone I went to college with nearly 40 years ago.  George Weigel has become a hero to some and a target for others.  He is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington D.C.  He has authored 19 books, including a biography of Pope John Paul II, "A Witness to Hope", and most recently "Faith, Reason and the War against Jihadism."

The title of his talk tonight was "In God's Name: Religion and World Politics in the 21st Century."  George says it like it is.  He pulls no punches and says the truth in a way that either warms the cockles of the conservative heart or enrages those who are stuck in a time warp of kowtowing to political correctness. 

In his talk he explains how the much torpedoed talk of Pope Benedict XVI at Regensburg University (9/12/06) was exactly what the world needs to hear: the key issue of our time is that either being rational will win the day, or being irrational will undermine the very fabric of social order in our world.  If his book is half as good as his talk, then we'd all be in for a treat; no, more than a treat, we'd be in for a systematic understanding of what is going on in the central intellectual battle of our time. 

Thus says the Lord - about what you see in the mirror

I have met more beautiful young women in Boulder who have a similar distress: they don't see themselves as beautiful.  It's as if they look in a mirror and see something drastically different from the reality of their beauty.  So, I have decided that I should imitate the prophets of old and, begging for God's blessing and guidance, dare to speak on the Lord's behalf.  So, here goes:

Thus says the Lord to those who cannot see their own beauty:  You my beautiful daughters do not see things rightly.  You have a misplaced sense of shame about yourselves  It's a shame of who you are as well as what you look like and how you come across.  All those things are not where shame belongs, says the Lord. 

Thus says the Lord:  You have a sense of shame for what you should not be ashamed of.  Feel shame for your sins, not for your looks.  And even with your sins I will gladly forgive them so you can move on without shame, says the Lord. 

What underlies this sense of shame is the need to be affirmed, says the Lord, the need for approval from someone other than Me and other than you.  You crave compliments and then immediately disdain them.  You seek recognition and when it is given you think it is worthless.  You are looking for approval from outside, and when you don't get that approval, your security in yourself evaporates.

Thus says the Lord: You have no need for that kind of thinking and reacting because I affirm you, says the Lord, I love you, says the Lord; and I have called you to be who and what you are.  And that should be enough, says the Lord.

A lesson in reverence

The Colorado Avid Golfer magazine wanted to celebrate the Mexican golf star, Lorena Ochoa, from Guadalajara.  So they printed a redone image of Our Lady of Guadalupe,taking out the Virgin's head and putting in its place the head of Lorena Ochoa, naming her as Our Lady of Guadalajara.  For trendy Americans, no problem.  For Mexicans this is an outrage.  In the words of one of my parishioners, Ricardo Braccho, writing to the editor of the magazine:

"By placing the picture of this miraculous image with the face of Lorena Ochoa, you have offended (I hope unintentionally) all Mexicans and most Catholics.  There is absolutely no reason why you needed to use the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in your article.  It appears that you did it simply, so you could call Lorena Ochoa 'Our Lady of Guadalajara'.  Perhaps, it sounded clever or even funny to you, but to me it was just some of the poorest of taste I have seen in a sports article in a long time."

More on how we need a Savior, especially in an age of terror

Fear is a powerful motivation.  Somewhere along in life we learn that there is a reason to be afraid.  I remember that before my mother died (when I was 13) I was afraid she was going to die.  And she did die.  We all learn sometime to be afraid, but fear diminishes our freedom to live, really live.  Over my nearly 34 years of being a priest I have seen fear do terrible things to families: I've seen a battered wife, afraid for her life, kill her husband.  I have seen a young wife desert her husband because she was afraid she could not take care of him and could not live with him so changed as he was by his injury.  I have seen multiple instances of an aging husband deserting his also aging wife for a younger version because, really, he was afraid of his own advancing mortality.  And I have seen teens kill themselves because of things they were afraid of.

Fear is what motivated Peter to deny Jesus, and Paul to persecute Him, and the chiefs priests and elders to condemn Him, and Pilate to crucify Him.  Fear was at work in the Pharisees of Jesus' time (and in our time as well) with their fear: if we don't do everything just right, then it will all fall apart.

Where is the trust in Jesus?  Fear actually may be mankind's bedrock sin: from Adam and Eve's fear of being found out, to our own fears, which are legion, today.  What we should fear is "that Day" when we meet our Lord face to face and experience the shame of realizing how little reason there is to give in to fear because of how much He loves us.  Knowing this confidence is to know Him as Savior; and this confidence just might change the world.

The 2nd Sunday of Lent - The Transfiguration

On this Sunday of Lent we are invited to take a step into heaven and catch a glimpse of what lies ahead for “those who love God and are called according to His purpose.”  We are told today that “God saved us and called us to a holy life… by His grace… which has been made manifest through the appearance of our Savior Christ Jesus.”  So, before we take this step into heaven by reflecting on the Transfiguration, let us first examine if we really think we need a Savior.  Heaven will be union with this Savior, so if we don’t think we need to be saved, what kind of heaven will that be? 

            The purpose of Lent is to help us recognize where evil lurks in our inner being, face it honestly, and then beg the Lord Jesus to save us from this evil.  And until we see our need to be saved, to recognize our sin, then Jesus will remain for us on the plain of just one more comforting element of our lives.  Jesus does not call us to be comfortable.  He calls us to be radically aware of how much we need Him, to be radically in touch with His call to undergo a transformation of our outlook on life and be converted and thus be saved by Him. 

             So, in other words, have you gotten in touch yet with what lasting change the Lord is calling you to this Lent?  In what specific area of your outlook on life do you need to be saved?  Abram was called out of his comfort level to leave homeland and trust God that God would bring him to . . . where?  To some unknown promised land.  So also God calls us to leave our comfort level and go to some unknown promised land where getting there will require of us to “bear [our] share of the hardship of the Gospel.” 

            The Gospel calls us to prepare for the Kingdom of God, where there will be no more suffering, no more tears, no more crying out in pain.  And reaching the Kingdom of God is not just about me safely entering the halls of heaven so that I am saved.  No; bearing our share of the hardship of the Gospel necessarily requires of us that we care about those who are unjustly treated, that we care about the sick and suffering of the world, that we actually do something to address the immense disparity between us and the poor of the world, that we move out of our comfort level to realize that most of humanity does not live like we do.

In Lent the Lord calls us on a journey away from our comfort level to become more compassionate, more aware, more responsible, more invested, more disciplined to realize that it’s not all about me and my wants and my needs.  I believe that the Kingdom of God is not just something down the road, after we die.  No, Jesus said, “the Kingdom of God is within you:” and in another place, “I tell you, that there are some standing here today who will not taste death before the see the Son of Man come in His glory.” 

Now we can look at the Transfiguration.  Peter, James and John were in ecstasy as they beheld the full glory of the Lord.  It was a foretaste of the promised Kingdom.  They were in ecstasy, which means “standing out of oneself.”  Not absorbed with self.  Transported to a consciousness of something much more profound than oneself.  They were in ecstasy, free from absorption with self – so that they could focus on the glory of the Lord.

Our arrival in the Kingdom of God requires of us that we admit that we need a Savior to pull us out of self-absorption, out of our small view of what life is about, so that we may become co-creators with God in building the Kingdom of God.  Come out, says the Lord.  Come out of your comfort level.  Come out of your old way of doing things.  Come out of being obsessed with self and enter the drama of the building of the Kingdom of God. 

No wonder, then, that Peter, James and John “fell prostrate and were very much afraid.”  By ourselves, we can only get in the way of progress towards the Kingdom of God.  But when our eyes are fixed on our Savior, and knowing His constant companionship, we hear Him say: “Rise, and do not be afraid.”