The Heart of the Matter

Homily for Sunday, September 27, 2009

What does this mean: if your hand is your problem, cut it off; and if your eye is your problem, gouge it out?  Let’s take a look.

    Even today in the Middle East, a thief is punished by having his hand chopped off.  But this is not what Jesus means.  My favorite interpretation of this difficult Scripture passage comes from St. Jerome who, back around 400 A.D., translated the entire Bible from the original languages into the language spoken at the time, Latin.  His explanation is what I will build on.

    Do you know how sometimes we will use the expression, So-and-so is “my right hand man”?  It’s a way of saying, “this person is the person I most rely on.”  And when it comes to the eye, we still use the expression, “the apple of my eye,” as a way to refer to someone whom we love the most.

    Ah, then what Jesus is saying is this: if the person you most rely on and trust is leading you into sin, you simply have to back away from that relationship.  And if the person you most love leads you away from God, then you have to end that relationship, even if it feels worse than cutting off your hand our gouging out your eye.

    In other words, there can be no one more important in our lives than Jesus Christ.  If someone has taken His place, then we are headed toward disaster.  If our friends try to make us lose our faith, then they are not real friends.  If our friends lead us into parties where sinful things are done, then they too are not real friends.  If people we love tease to extreme, torment, deride or malign the Lord Jesus, then they are a poison for our soul.  Just as goodness is contagious, so is perdition.

    And so is self-righteousness; that too is contagious and extremely harmful to our souls.  Just as we cannot allow anyone to lead us astray from following the Lord, so we too cannot be a poison for the souls of others.  

    So, we cannot allow anyone to keep us from growing into an ever deeper relationship with the Lord; and we cannot think of ourselves as superior because we are in a relationship with Christ.

    Now, St. James in our second reading gives us yet further advice on the matter of the “apple of our eye.”  Sometimes the thing we value the most is not a person, but is our wealth.  

    If personal wealth is our Achilles’ heel, then it looks like this: we become so highly invested in our worldly goods, that we become less and less concerned about our eternal salvation.  If luxury and pleasure are the guideposts for our lives, then satisfaction in life is determined by prosperity, affluence, possessions and ease of life-style.  Being happy becomes life’s goal, often at the expense of others. 

    I often think of how challenging is the teaching of Pope Paul VI from decades ago: we do not have any right to any luxury as long as one human being does not have the necessities of life.  If luxury and pleasure are our guideposts then we care less and less about the very, very many who struggle to merely survive.

    So, if the apple of our eye is our personal happiness and our enjoyable way of living, then something has to be cut off. If weekend skiing is so important that we lose our sense of the command to “Keep holy the Lord’s Day,” then something has to change.  My stars, there are Masses held at every ski resort town in our mountains!  If kids’ basketball games are so important that “we simply can’t get to Mass;” if we make time for sports or hikes or pets or hobbies, but leave no time for the Lord, then something is very awry.  

    If the Lord is not the apple of our eye, then we either need to pray more, or fast more, or beg more: beg the Lord to allow us to see that there is no one else, and nothing else, more important than our relationship with Him.  Our salvation, my friends, depends on this.

Homily for Sunday, September 20, 2009

What lies behind the apostles bickering with each other about who is more important?  It’s fear.  Fear that if I am not the most important then I don’t matter enough.

 

What lies behind jealousy?  It’s fear.  Fear that I might lose someone or something that has become very important to me.

 

What lies behind wars?  It’s fear.  Fear that we won’t be able to get something they have that we need for our economy; think oil.  Or it’s fear that if we don’t conquer the enemy, the enemy will conquer us.

 

What lies behind conflicts at home or in the workplace or in the neighborhood?  It’s fear.  Fear that there is something I want that I cannot get, like peace or conversation or love or respect or understanding or acceptance or some semblance of order or a common understanding of how to get along.

 

Fear underlies most of our disorders.  That why the most common message Jesus gave was: be not afraid.  When we are afraid, we do not act out of our best selves.  

 

When the apostles were giving in to their selfish ambition of one-upmanship, Jesus showed them how to rethink the way they were reacting.  And notice how gently he went about correcting them.  He had just gone over with them the truly dreadful things that were about to happen: his agony, crucifixion and death – as well as his resurrection.  These were indeed things to be afraid of, but they dodged their reality and skipped to bickering.  I suspect it was fear that brought on the shift in their minds – away from the upcoming passion into something else to fight about.  And the energy fueling the fighting was their fear.

 

In answer, Jesus showed them the way to react by taking a child in his arms and evoking in his hearers that we need to be like a parent with a child, or better yet, be like a child who is fearless in the parent’s arms.  In my Father’s arms, nothing can harm me.

 

Jesus is not telling us to be childish, but he does invite us to trust in God like a child who does not worry about anything – because the child knows that the parent will provide.  Just so, let us all give up our fears and trust that, no matter what our situation is, the Father will indeed provide so that we need never give in to our fears.

 

And even if the worst does happen, I still will be OK – because I am held within the arms of God.

Homily for Sunday, September 13, 2009

A car sitting in a garage does not make the car a garage, any more than our sitting here in church makes us a real Christian. What makes us a real Christian is determined by what kind of bond we have with Jesus Christ and how we bear witness to Him.

    So, let’s look at our bond with Christ.

    Who do people today say who Jesus Christ is?  Unless we come across another believer, the response is likely to be: Well, I haven’t thought about that.  The unbeliever will ultimately say that Jesus Christ is irrelevant, a made up story to help people cope with the sufferings of life. 

    Remember when the Winter Olympics were held in Turin, Italy back in February, 2006.  Perhaps you remember that, during the fabulous opening ceremony, the vast sea of participants, all dressed in white, carried lit up candle-like lights and sang the John Lennon song: Imagine there's no heaven; It's easy if you try; No hell below us; Above us only sky; Imagine all the people; Living for today...   Imagine there's no countries; It isn't hard to do; Nothing to kill or die for; And no religion too; Imagine all the people; Living life in peace...

    I remember how disturbed I was as I watched that song sung with such devotion.  It felt like a religious experience but in doing so we were to imagine no heaven, nothing to live or die for.  It’s like the anthem for the secular belief that Jesus, God and religion and the afterlife and the Church are totally irrelevant at best, and at worst are the causes of so much woe.

    So, the world around us doesn’t want to hear what we believe, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the reason for our existence and the goal of our lives.

    So, going back to that car sitting in the garage: are we sitting here in church but are not being church?  Are we keeping it to ourselves, or are we bearing witness when the occasion arises?

One of you told me recently that in conversation with your very educated co-workers there started some bashing of the Catholic Church.  (It seems that some people who cry out for tolerance have no tolerance for people with views other than their own.) And so, our parishioner said to the co-worker who started this attack on the church by saying, “Would you talk that way about Jews?”  The co-worker fell silent.  That’s what we call "bearing witness." 

My friends, we need not be ashamed of our faith.  Instead we need to be bold about it.  After all, ours is the only faith that ascribes meaning to suffering.  All other approaches see suffering as to be avoided at all costs, as meaningless, or as an illusion and you just have to convince yourself that it’s not real.  Because of our union with Christ, we know that when inevitable suffering comes our way, we will find a greater union with Christ because of that very suffering.  In the cross we find an even greater union with Him. 

Because our Lord and Master fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy about the coming Messiah, he transformed the experience of suffering.  I have not rebelled, have not turned back; I gave my back to those who beat me, my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The Lord GOD is my help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.

So, do not let yourself be put to shame for the faith.  Instead bear witness to the faith, especially by calling people out on their prejudice, while all the time thinking, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Let’s all bear witness to the faith also by putting our faith into action, especially in our care for the less fortunate.

Our world is choosing to enter into what looks like a prolonged state of amnesia: forgetting what made Western Civilization so great, choosing chaos over order, choosing unbelief over belief, choosing death over life, choosing self over others, choosing satisfaction for this life only over investing in the kind of character development that lives in heaven forever.

Principles for the Health Care Debate

A priest who was formerly of the Archdiocese of Denver, who is now Bishop of Fargo, North Dakota recently published a concise and very readable set of principles by which a health care bill should be evaluated.  Bishop Samuel Aquila synopsizes his principles thusly:

1. 1. Any provisions for actions which deny the dignity of human life, especially abortion, euthanasia, whether passive or active, and embryonic stem-cell research must be excluded from all health care plans.  
2. The freedom of consciences must be safeguarded. The moral voice of individual doctors, nurses, health professionals, as well as the general public, deserve reverence and respect. 
3. Access to health care ought to be available to all people, including the poor, legal immigrants, the handicapped, and especially the elderly and unborn members of society.
4. The means of providing access to health care should be governed by the principle of  subsidiarity, being reasonably and equitably distributed among members of society. 

I think these principles are excellent guidance for our making our own contribution to the health care debate.  The only exception I would make is to cover illegal immigrants as well as legal.  If we don't solve the use of the emergency room as free health care, then we will still have a big problem.  However, maybe that would be too much to bite off at this time.

Homily for Sunday, September 6, 2009

Jesus looked up to heaven and groaned and said to [the deaf mute], “Ephphatha!” – that is, “Be opened!”  Ephphatha!  This word is so important that the Gospels, which were written in Greek, keep this word in the original language Jesus spoke. Ephphatha!  Why is this word so important?  It’s so important that at the baptism of a child the priest says to the newly baptized: Ephphatha! May the Lord soon touch your ears to receive His Word and your mouth to proclaim His faith, to the praise and glory of God, the Father.” Why is this word so important: Ephphatha!

    To understand why, let’s look at the Scriptural understanding of the makeup of the human person. St. Paul tells us that the human person is made up of body, soul and spirit.  Many people think we are just body and soul, but if we are to understand Ephphatha! then we need to understand the richer concept of what we are: Body, soul and spirit.  Let’s look at each one.

    Body.  Our bodies are what we see when we look in a mirror or when we look at another person.  The body is the realm of our senses: we can see, hear, touch, taste and smell.  The body is what experiences physical pleasure and physical pain.  The body is where our faculty of speaking is located.  So when Jesus says to the deaf mute Ephphatha!, obviously part of what is being opened is the capacity to hear and speak.   But our humanity consists in more than our bodies.  If all we care about is the body, then we can fall into the trap St. James warns us about in our second reading: capable of noticing and valuing fine clothes while also noticing and discriminating against someone in shabby clothes.  Such superficial judgments are what happen if we have no more depth than our senses.  No wonder we need to hear Jesus say to our bodies, Ephphatha!  But what should our bodies be open to? 

    The soul!  The soul is supposed to be in command of the body.

    As we go deeper, looking at what makes up the human being, we find that our soul is where our emotions lie.  This is where we know happiness, fear, love, despair, hope and so on.  The soul is where our thinking capacity resides; and the way we think influences the way we feel.  And being thinking sentient beings, the soul is where our free will also resides.  This is where we make decisions.  No wonder we need to hear Jesus’ word to the soul: Ephphatha!  Be opened!  But be open to what?

    Our spirit!  Body, soul and spirit.  What exactly is our spirit?  This is the domain of our conscience.  Our spirit is where the Holy Spirit communicates directly with the human person.  This is the deepest part of being a human being.  Our spirit, our conscience is that aspect of being human that knows right from wrong.  This is the part of being human that communes directly with the Holy Spirit and where the soul and the body get their orders on how to live.  This is the deepest, truest part of ourselves.  This is the inner depth that knows when we are at true peace, or conversely, this is where we know when we have violated our best selves, when we have cooperated with or denied the union we have with the Holy Spirit.  This is the human person’s command central.  This is where good or evil wins a foothold in a person’s life, where a person can hear the cry of the poor, just as God does, or where repeated sin stifles our ability to care about the poor.  If this part of our being human, the spirit, dies because of lack of care, then we lose our moral compass and we no longer care about the poor or about anything else that God cares about.  And when that happened, we lose our faith and live in confusion.

    So, my brothers and sisters, Ephphatha!  Be open to the Holy Spirit’s lead in the innermost depths of being a human being.  Be open and awake to that still small voice of the conscience; and obey it, for in obeying our conscience, we obey God.

    The Ephphatha! of baptism is linked to the admonition the parents and godparents are given at the very beginning of the baptismal ceremony: You have asked to have your children baptized. In doing so you are accepting the responsibility of training them in the practice of the faith. It will be your duty to bring them up to keep God's commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbor. Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?
Ephaphatha!  This word is so important because it is the Lord Himself who is calling through our bodily sense of hearing into our souls and down into our innermost depths to be open to His direct contact with our spirit.  May we always be open to His voice and obedient to our conscience.