How We Name God

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Growing up my name has progressed a bit.  I was born and baptized Anthony John.  But very early on my family called me Tony, the natural nickname for Anthony.  However, in kindergarten there was another Tony in my class.  And so, rather than going by Tony L. (my classmate) and Tony S., I decided to switch to TJ, Tony John.  That name stuck all throughout elementary and middle school, until I went to Lansing Catholic High School.  Sometime 27 years ago, as I tried out for the soccer team, the coach asked my name.  I said TJ, but then said, “actually it’s Anthony, but everyone calls me TJ.”  The coach must have heard Anthony clearly enough and J clearly enough, but did not catch TJ.  So he started to call me AJ.  And since I wanted to make the team, and didn’t think correcting a coach would help, I went by AJ.  That worked until I applied to seminary.  I introduced myself to Bishop Mengeling (God rest his soul) as AJ.  He asked me, “What does the A stand for?”  I answered, “Anthony.”  He said, “That’s a great name!  You should use it!”  And, as I didn’t want to disagree with the bishop, I started going by Anthony starting my senior year of high school, continuing to the present (though I know a number of you feel more comfortable with calling me Fr. Strouse, which is fine).  Back before cell phones, I could always tell from which period in my short life a person came based on who they asked for on the phone: Tony; TJ; AJ; or Anthony.  And, for the record, I don’t go by Fr. Tony, Fr. TJ, or Fr. AJ.
    How do we address God?  This might seem like an odd question for a homily at Mass, but the way that we address a person, be it a human or Divine Person, says something about our relationship with that person.  As we consider how we address God, it, too, changed through the centuries.  For the longest time during the ages of the Patriarchs, God was simply the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  God chose to be known as the God of a particular family, whom God had called to leave modern-day Iraq to the Promised Land (even though they were enslaved in Egypt for some 400 years).  
 

  It was not until the burning bush, when Moses asked the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob how He was to be called, did God reveal Himself with His more personal name: “I AM WHO AM,” or, even more simply, “I AM.”  This Sacred Name God reveals, but then it is never to be used, and, in Hebrew, even though there was a word for it, the Jews would always say, “Adonai,” which means Lord.  Only the High Priest on Yom Kippur while in the Holy of Holies could utter that sacred name of God to which Adonai referred.
    Of course, there were other terms for God in the Old Testament, too: Elohim, which means simply “God”; El Shaddai, which means, “God Almighty”; Immanuel, which means “God with us”; El Elyon, which means “God Most High”; Adonai sabaoth, which means, “God of hosts” (and in the Sanctus we keep that title, not even translating sabaoth).  But in the end, God’s Sacred Name was not said, and He was simply referred to as Adonai or Lord (and in the Bible, when you see Lord in small caps, that is the way of saying that this word Lord refers to the Sacred Name of God).
    But then Christ in the New Testament gives us a new way to address God: Abba.  No, not the 1970s band with such hits as “Dancing Queen,” “Mamma Mia,” and “Fernando,” but the Aramaic word which is probably best translated as “Daddy,” or a very familiar word for father.  St. Paul reminds us that, through baptism, we have become adopted sons and daughters in the Son of God by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that we can call on God as Abba.  But this was radical.  In John 5:18, the Evangelist writes, “For this reason the Jews tried all the more to kill [Jesus], because he not only broke the sabbath but he also called God his own father.”  
    It is one thing to address God as simply God, or Almighty, or Most High, or God of Hosts.  And maybe even we soften it a little with Immanuel, God with us.  But to call God Abba was to acknowledge a very close, personal, even intimate relationship with God that the Savior had by nature and we share by adoption.  It’s the difference between having a dad in the military and calling him Major or calling him Daddy.  The first is for those he commands; the second is for those he loves.  
    This might seem even more strange as we use a foreign language, Latin, to address God.  And in the English translations of this Mass, and even in the English translations of the Missal of Pope St. John Paul II, we use very formal language to address God: “Bestow upon us, O Lord, we beseech Thee….”  I don’t go to Chick-Fil-A and say, “Bestow upon me, O server, the three-piece chicken strip meal, I beseech thee.”  If I did, I might end up in a padded room.  We use very formal language for God in the Mass.
    Though, this is probably a good time to say that not everything in the Mass is so formal.  When we hear Thee and Thy, we tend to think formal.  However, in English, Thee and Thy are actually more informal than you and your.  We get this from the Dutch/Flemish who say, “je” or “jouw” when speaking informally, while “u” and “ur” are used for formal speech.
    But this just goes to show how both are proper and necessary in our prayer.  If we only treat God as a far off King, for whom we are servants, than we are missing out on the familial relationship into which God brought us through Holy Baptism.  And this is especially true in our personal prayer when we should fling our arms around our loving Father with the confidence and ease of a a child with its father.  However, if we only treat God as a close family member then we are missing out on the fact that He is also utterly transcendent, His ways are not always our ways, and we are not His equals.  A way of expressing this would be to say, “My father, the king.”  He is both family and ruler, familiar and otherly.
    We probably each have different ways that we address God based upon our personality, or maybe even simply the season of life in which we find ourselves.  But may we always remember both that God is our King and Lord of the Angelic Army who will vanquish evil without a struggle, but also, through Holy Baptism, our Father who loves us and gives us every good gift that we need through our Lord Jesus Christ, His Son, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen.   

True Devotion to God, Not Money

 Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When I think about those who are greedy for money, the first two images that come to mind are Disney characters: Scrooge McDuck and the Disney version of Prince John from Robin Hood.  I can see in my mind’s eye cartoons with Scrooge diving into his supply of gold coins in his vault or Prince John wrapping a bag of gold around his arm while he sucks his thumb and sleeps.  I think this is a bit ironic, as I feel like you now have to take a second mortgage out on your house if you wish to visit Disney World with you kids.  
    Clearly, if our readings are saying anything today, they’re saying don’t make money a god.  Ecclesiastes reminds us that whatever we work for we have to leave behind, and this is a vanity.  The Gospel talks about making sure we’re not greedy, like the parable of the man who builds bigger places to store all his wealth, only to lose it by his own surprise death.  And even the epistle from St. Paul, which does not always connect to the first reading and Gospel, tells us to set our minds on the things above, heavenly things, rather than those of earth.  
    And so, one could easily think that God says not to worry about money.  And in one sense, that would be right.  But, all of us have basic needs we need to care for, like food, drink, clothing, housing, and healthcare, and all of those (more or less) require money.  And it’s one think if you decide to ignore your own needs, but if you are married and have children, your family may depend on you to earn income so that they also have food, drink, clothing, housing, and healthcare.  So it seems like you have to worry about money.  But the readings tell us not to.  So do we just ignore these readings because they’re difficult?  Or do we stop work and run off to a monastery or convent (the word nunnery could also be used) and never worry about money again?

St. Francis de Sales

    Money does easily tend towards dominating our thoughts and affections, but it is not in itself bad.  Those who live in the world need to exercise wisdom in how they earn and spend money, and this is actually part of how they live their vocation to be saints.  St. Francis de Sales helps us understand this in his great work, Introduction to the Devout Life:
 

When God the Creator made all things, he commanded the plants to bring forth fruit each according to its own kind; he has likewise commanded Christians, who are the living plants of his Church, to bring forth the fruits of devotion, each one in accord with his character, his station and his calling….
Tell me, please, my Philothea, whether it is proper for a bishop to want to lead a solitary life like a Carthusian; or for married people to be no more concerned than a Capuchin about increasing their income; or for a working man to spend his whole day in church like a religious.… Is not this sort of devotion ridiculous, unorganised and intolerable? Yet this absurd error occurs very frequently, but in no way does true devotion, my Philothea, destroy anything at all. On the contrary, it perfects and fulfills all things. In fact if it ever works against, or is inimical to, anyone’s legitimate station and calling, then it is very definitely false devotion.

Holiness comes according to our vocation and our avocation, and avoiding the duties and responsibilities of our own vocation so that we try to be like those living in another vocation is, as St. Francis de Sales says, “false devotion.”
    So, then, what does that mean for you and me?  How do I guard against greed but also work enough to support my family?  Am I allowed to better my family’s life and circumstances, or should I only have the basics?
    Those are each questions that only you can answer in the particular, but with certain principles the Church has to guide you.  First of all, do you own your money or does your money own you?  If you’re not sure, how much time do you spend thinking about money and possessions?  Sometimes I see my spending habits and realize that I need to pull back so that my expenses don’t exceed my income.  That’s virtuous.  But sometimes I might think that if I just had a million dollars I could be truly happy.  That’s greed and idolatry.  
    Can one take nice vacations to tropical places?  Sure, as long as you are meeting the basic requirements of taking care of your family and giving back to God some of what He has given to you.  While we don’t necessarily use the 10% rule (and, truth be told, Catholics on average give less than 1% of their income to the Church), how much is spent on unnecessary niceties, and how much is spent on charity, including the Church, the poor, other charitable organizations, etc.?  If we’re stingy with how much we give the Church, but liberal with what we spend on ourselves or our own creature comforts, then maybe we do need to re-prioritize.  
    A great way to keep money in perspective is to remember that we cannot take it with us.  As the author of Ecclesiastes, by tradition King Solomon, reminded us, we can work as hard as we want for all the money in the world, but we can’t take our money with us.  When we see it as a means of helping us be saints, then we are probably keeping it in the right perspective.  May no one look at us and think of Scrooge McDuck or Prince John, but may they recognize our stewardship of what God has allowed us to enjoy, no matter how much or how little.

Flirting with Death

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

A trail at Zion National Park

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In my visits to National Parks, which are a great treasure of our country, there have been some, like Zion National Park, where you can hike up high mountains and use trails that seemingly climb to the heavens.  Now, when I say trails, I don’t mean nice, paved, even trails.  These are usually parts of a mountain, sometimes with rudimentary railings, but often not, with sharp drop-offs if one were to lose his or her balance.  Some more adventurous folk like to get right to the edge.  As for me, I try to stay as far away from the edge as possible, because I definitely have a fear of losing my balance and falling to my death.
    While I, and many others who have a fear of heights, may not enjoy the idea of flirting with death by falling off a path, how many others enjoy flirting with the death that comes from sin.  St. Paul says it clearly enough: “The wages of sin is death.”  And even if the English grammar doesn’t hit our ears quite right (wages, though it sounds plural, is a singular idea, and so yields a verb in the singular), the message is clear enough: do you want to die?  Then sin!  Sin is like floating one foot over the edge of the gorge with nothing to hang on to in case you fall.  

    It can be hard to take sin so seriously, especially with such ready access to the Sacrament of Penance at this parish.  If I sin, then I go to confession.  And that is a good rule to follow.  We rightly focus on the mercy of God, because God, through Christ, has revealed the Father’s great love for us, a love which never wants us to be separated from Him, and a love which will be wasteful in mercy and look foolish just to reconcile us to Him.  
    But while not giving sin more power than God’s mercy and grace, we do also need to recognize the horror of sin.  And, our appreciation for the mercy of God increases with our appreciation of just what we deserve when we sin.  If I don’t think that sin makes all that big of a difference, then God’s mercy also doesn’t mean as much.  But if I know that the wages of sin is death, that I deserve death every time I sin, then when I do confess my sins and when God reconciles me to Himself through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, I recognize just what an amazing thing God has done.
    If we forget just how awfully sin takes a toll, then we need only look at a crucifix.  And, if we really want to understand crucifixion, then a Spanish crucifix is probably the best, as they are the most gruesome depictions of the death of Christ, rather than the very placid depictions we are used to seeing in bronze, silver, or gold.  Think of the excruciating (literally, from the Latin, from the cross) pain of having nails hammered into your hands and feet.  No matter where exactly the nails would have entered, they would have hurt.  Think of the struggle just to breathe, which is the way most died from crucifixion, as your lungs slowly filled with fluid and you struggled just to take a quick breath, all the while your body seeking any way to stay alive, but without any way to do so.  Add to that the shame of being totally naked before all, and we begin to get the idea of how terrible undergoing crucifixion was.  
    That, the crucifixion, was the wages the of sin.  No just sin up to the time of Christ.  Not just sin at the time of Christ.  But all sin, from all time, nailed to the cross and carried upon the shoulders of the spotless Lamb of God.  That was the price for our salvation.
    But the Apostle doesn’t end with “the wages of sin is death.”  He continues: “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Death does not get the last say, though we deserve it.  We don’t have to fear falling off the side of a steep cliff.  God remains vigilant, ready to grab us and pull us back to safety if we but call upon His Name.  Earlier in this epistle, St. Paul reminds us that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.  God’s mercy and grace are infinitely more powerful than our sins.  It’s as much a competition as my legos trying to fight me.  
    But it’s still good to keep in our mind that sin yields death.  Because the Church teaches us that if a person were to die in a state of mortal sin, we do not know how that person could go to heaven.  When we choose separation from God who is the source of life, we choose separation from eternal life.  It’s not that God sends us anywhere, as much as we choose by our actions if we want death or if we want life.  God will lovingly take us back if we desire, but if we don’t, God loves us enough to respect our misuse of free will, because true love never forces itself on another.  
    Yes, God is merciful.  If we ask for God’s mercy then He will grant it to us.  But if we choose sin, then we choose death.  And if we choose death, no matter how attractive it looks at the time, we will get death, eternal death.  Do not presume that just because we can say, “Lord, Lord,” we will go to heaven.  But do not despair of God’s mercy, as long as you seek to do the will of God the Father, who with the Son and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.   

Job, Not Karen

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    There is a stereotype of a person who, when not getting the answer he or she wants, especially at a business, starts arguing to get his or her way, especially asking to see the manager.  Unfortunately for those with this name, this type of person has been called a Karen.  A Karen is going to get her way, no matter how long she has to talk to the person or the manager.  And sincere apologies to all those named Karen here, who, I am sure, are wonderful people.
    Perhaps this is the image that comes to mind when we hear the second part of today’s Gospel, where Jesus talks about a friend who needs three loaves of bread, and won’t stop asking until the friend, who has already gone to bed, gives him what he wants.  In other words, if I just go all Karen on God, He will give me whatever I want.  But is that really what our Lord is saying?  Does God want us to be so convinced that we’re right that we refuse to give up any ground when it comes to something that we want?

St. John Henry Newman

    I think we need to look at the nature of prayer as we begin to answer that question.  What is prayer?  St. John Henry Newman describes prayer as “Cor ad cor loquitur–Heart speaking to heart.”  Prayer is the speaking, and listening, to the God who created us out of love, sustains us in love, and works for our salvation in love.  Prayer lifts our hearts and our minds to God, entrusting not only our needs but also our desires to Him, but then also paying attention to God’s response by making room for Him and the ways He communicates in our lives.  
    God calls us to have a childlike trust in Him.  And we know that experience of a child who does not worry that mom and dad will provide what the child needs.  But perhaps, as we hear childlike, we turn it more into childish, like the spoiled three-year-old who won’t stop crying and screaming unless it gets the candy bar it wants from the checkout lane at Meijer’s, the younger version of a Karen.
    We could be forgiven for hearing both the first reading and the middle part of the Gospel and thinking that God wants us to ask for what we want until we get it.  After all, Abraham keeps bartering with God not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah until God seems to relent and promises not to destroy it if He can find only ten good people in the cities.  And certainly, God does want to teach us about persistence in prayer and not giving up on what we truly desire and what we think we truly need, even if we don’t get it immediately.
    But God is not a salesman nor a manager that we can wear down until He gives us what we want.  God is our loving Father.  And while sometimes He does allow us to keep asking until the time is right to give us what we desire, we also have to make sure that our desires are in accord with God’s will.  God will not give us something that we don’t need, or something that is actually harmful for my salvation, no matter how adamantly or persistently I ask for it.  And some people lose faith when they do not get what they want; they feel that God has not answered their prayers.
    We might understand this if a person asks God to win the lottery, or for some material good.  We understand how God doesn’t give us everything we want if what we want doesn’t fit a need.  But we find it more difficult to understand when our request in prayer seems more noble and asks for something we perceive as a great good.  I’m thinking in particular of the many different scenarios when a loved one is unexpectedly in a hospital: it may be a grandparent, parent, friend, or even a child.  We pray for God to heal our loved one, and we don’t understand why God wouldn’t heal that person.  Certainly a person’s life, maybe even a very good person, a faithful and devoted Catholic, has more worth than money or material possessions.  How could a loving God not answer that prayer?  And if we don’t get healing immediately, then certainly God would grant our prayer if we are persistent.  After all, He’s the one who said, “‘ask and you will receive.’”  
    But I have been in too many situations, and known too many people who have gone through situations, where the loved one dies.  And where is God in that?  Why didn’t He answer my prayers, or the prayers of tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of people who were asking for a good thing?  
    This is where we have to return to heart speaking to heart, of the lover and the beloved in conversation.  At the end of the day, we don’t know why God answers some prayers in the way we want, sometimes of people who are not so good, and God answers the prayers in the way we don’t want, even though we strive to be good disciples and faithful Catholics.  We don’t always know the mind of God.  
    In those moments, we can certainly pour out our hearts and tell God that we are upset that our loved one didn’t make it, or that we didn’t get some spiritual good that we wanted.  There is nothing wrong with telling God that His answer, which sometimes is no, doesn’t seem to make sense with what we know of a loving Father who gives His children good gifts.  But we also follow the example of Job who, upon losing everything–property, his children, and even his own health–said, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.”  Job loved God, and could trust in God’s plan, even when it didn’t make sense to him.  Job hadn’t even heard the response of God yet, though he was listening, but could trust that God had a plan where that loss made sense in the divine economy.
    The message of the readings today is not to annoy God until He acquiesces to our requests.  The message of the readings is to be persistent, but to also know that God always answers our prayers, even if we don’t get what we want.  He wants us to bring our needs and our wants to Him, and He promises to do what will work out best for salvation history, even when it doesn’t make sense to us.  That only comes as an act of faith.  And the act of faith only makes sense for one who loves us deeply, and one whom we love as deeply as we can.  When it comes to prayer, God does not ask us to be a Karen, but a Job.

A Multiplication for the Gentiles

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Mosaic of the Multiplication, Tabgha

   In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  When I hear about the multiplication of the loaves, the miraculous feeding, my mind immediately turns to John, chapter 6.  And that miracle of multiplying 5 loaves and 3 fish finds itself in all four Gospel accounts: Matthew, chapter 14; Mark, chapter 6; Luke, chapter 9; and John, chapter 6.  But today’s Gospel passage is different.  Our Lord doesn’t feed 5,000; He feeds 4,000 people.  And whereas the larger miracle has twelve baskets of leftovers remaining, today’s miracle has seven baskets left over.  Liberal scripture scholars would first of all dismiss the miracle as an example of Christ calling people to share, and then might simply say that Mark (and Matthew, who also includes this second multiplication story) wanted to demonstrate again how important it is to share.
    But, for us who believe in miracles, who take the text as it is written, not according to our own preconceived notions, is there more?  Why would Sts. Mark and Matthew include two stories about miraculously multiplying food, with different details for each miracle?
    One scholar notes that the location has everything to do with the different miracles and the different amount of leftovers.  In the multiplication story for the 5,000, our Lord performs the miracle in Jewish territory.  In the multiplication of the 4,000, our Lord performs the miracle in Gentile, non-Jewish territory.  With the 5,000, there are twelve wicker baskets leftover, which, when connected to Judaism, reminds one of the twelve tribes of Israel.  With the 4,000, there are seven baskets leftover, which, after some study, connects to the seven Canaanite, or Gentile, kingdoms.  So, as the analysis goes, St. Mark recorded both miracles to show that Christ’s Church was meant to include both Jew and Gentile, as shown by the location of the miracle and the amount of bread left over.
    Ok.  So a pretty neat connection with how Christ did two miracles to demonstrate that His Church was meant to include all peoples, Jews and Gentiles.  It wasn’t just filler that Mark and Matthew added to take up more space.  But how does that affect me?  How is that supposed to change my life?
    I think it’s a good opportunity to think about how we evangelize.  Or maybe better put: with whom do we share the message of salvation: Jews (representing my fellow Catholics) or Gentiles (representing non-Catholics)?  
    Let’s be honest, it’s easier to talk with fellow Catholics (generally speaking) about the faith because we start from the same basic starting point.  We share cultural phrases and celebrations.  We’re generally on the same page, even if there are some teachings that tend to divide some Catholics from other Catholics.  So it can feel comfortable just to stay in the Catholic lane and determine that God has called me to strengthen the faith of fellow Catholics, and maybe even venture out to those who have stopped practicing their faith, what we traditionally called the lapsed.
    And we might even find some Scriptural basis for this, as we read in Galatians, chapter 2, “the one who worked in Peter for an apostolate to the circumcised worked also in me for the Gentiles.”  So we might feel like we don’t really need to go to non-Catholics for evangelization.  That’s for other people.  
    But while it may seem easier, or feel more comfortable, if Christ went both to Jews and Gentiles, then that is our mission, as well.  And even St. Peter went to Gentiles, as he went to the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, and baptized his entire household after he saw that they had accepted the faith and saw the work of the Holy Spirit among them.  And St. Paul, though the Apostle to the Gentiles, would most often start at the local synagogue as he proclaimed Jesus as the Christ.  Both…and, not either…or.
    And the harvest is abundant.  There are many people in our daily lives who are not Catholic and have had no connection to the Catholic Church.  And if we believe that the Catholic Church reveals the fullness of truth that God has revealed, the truth we need for salvation, then how can we not share the Gospel with others?  I’m not talking about being the annoying person who goes up to everybody all the time and says, “Have you thought about being Catholic?”  Or, even worse, “Can I tell you how not to go to Hell?”  Those approaches tend to turn people away.  
    But, if we’re living our life as faithful Catholics, and then we take opportunities when the situation arises to talk about Christmas Mass, or why we have a black cross on our forehead, or why we don’t eat meat on Fridays, that can help people start looking into the Catholic Church.  Or sometimes it just means praying with someone who is going through a difficult time, and showing them that we care by our attention and by praying with them.  While some may not be open to hearing the teachings of the faith, very few are not open to people praying with them, especially if they or their loved ones are struggling.
    Christ had two miracles of multiplication in order to show that He intended the Gospel for the Jews and for the Gentiles.  Each day we have opportunities to interact with fallen-away or lukewarm Catholics and non-Catholics.  Do we take the opportunity to share the Gospel with them?  Are we committed to sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ?  Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.

No Participation Trophies

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    There was a theory within the past decade that making everyone feel like they’re a winner would be beneficial to society in general.  It led to the proliferation of “participation trophies.”  The drive certainly comes from the lived experience that most people have had that it feels good when you win, and it doesn’t feel good when you lose.  And there can be a general sort of understanding that feel bad is bad, while feeling good is good.  This theory sought to alleviate the pain and suffering that kids (and also adults) feel when they’re not the best at something.
    If that theory were put into the Gospel today, Jesus would have said to Martha, “Martha, you’re anxious and worried about many things.  But your service to me is good.  Still, Mary’s decision to sit at my feet and listen to my teachings is also good.  So you’re both winners, each in your own way.”  But, of course, Jesus doesn’t say that.  Jesus says, “‘Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.’”  Jesus commits the unforgivable sin in modern culture: He discriminates.  He chooses one over the other.  How very un-woke of Him!
    We can chuckle about taking the participation trophy theory to its logical conclusion, but we should struggle a bit with the Gospel.  Jesus is choosing winners and losers, better and worse.  Not every gets a pat on the back or an ‘atta boy.  Martha follows the customary rules of hospitality: make sure the guest is comfortable and has everything he needs.  But the Divine Guest doesn’t chastise Martha’s sister Mary, like she wants.  He actually applauds her for ignoring her hospitable duties and choosing to listen to the Lord instead.
    St. Thomas Aquinas, following Pope St. Gregory the Great, sees in Martha and Mary a metaphor for the active life (as seen in Martha) and the contemplative life (as seen in Mary).  And, following the Gospel we heard today, St. Thomas affirms that the contemplative life is a higher life inasmuch as it reflects the heavenly life better (he actually lists nine reasons for why the contemplative life is better than the active life, but they mostly boil down to the same reason).  In heaven, we will simply contemplate God.  And the contemplative life puts aside the worries of the present age.  Most contemplatives take vows of poverty (so that they are not anxious about money), chastity (so they they are not preoccupied with sex), and obedience ( so that they do not focus on their own will).  This life also reflects the life that Jesus lived most closely, as Jesus had no real money of His own (Judas kept the funds for the apostolic band), never married, and always did the will of His Father.  
    So, in this system, we’re the losers.  And yes, I include myself.  Because while I promised celibacy in imitation of the Lord, and while I promised obedience to my bishop and his successors, I do have my own bank account.  And I make a lot of decisions on my own.  Diocesan priests are not part of the contemplative life, though hopefully they do contemplate.  
    But the active life is still good.  And St. Thomas notes this as well.  To take care of physical needs is part and parcel of the active life, and is a means of serving God.  Imagine that contemplatives had no one to support their heavenly life by working for food, shelter, and clothing.  Yes, our Lord fasted a lot, but He did have to eat because He was human.  Just because the contemplative life is a higher form of life, does not mean that the active life is sinful.  Each has its place in the life of the Church, and neither should be jealous of the other, which is the trap into which Martha falls in the Gospel, and the main reason for our Lord’s chastisement of her.

    Of course, St. Thomas, as a good Dominican, would note that the Order of Preachers, the Dominicans, combine both the active and contemplative life, so it’s really the best of both worlds.  And, really, every person, even those in active life like husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, are called to contemplation, not just the cloistered religious.  Contemplation looks different for those who are more active in the world, but we all need time where we set aside the cares and concerns of daily life to focus on our relationship with God.  That might be 10 minutes of silent prayer after the kids have finally fallen asleep.  That might mean waking up 10 minutes earlier to read Scripture  or a daily devotional writing (meditation) and then reflect on what God is saying you to in silence (contemplation).  Sometimes it might mean sending the kids to grandma and grandpa’s house for a weekend so that you can attend a retreat.  But all are called to take time to focus most directly on God, rather than all the cares of daily life that so often scream for attention.
    When it comes to life, there are higher and lower forms of life when looking at the objective facts of what life most mimics Jesus’ life and the life of heaven.  But God calls each of us subjectively to holiness, and for many of us the way we can become saints is through the active life.  The key is that we strive to follow God’s will for how He wants us to be saints, and that, even in active life, we regularly set aside time to put the cares of the world aside and focus on loving God and waiting in silence to hear His voice.  If we do that; if we contemplate as best as we can, then we will win the trophy of eternal life and not just participate in the competition, but storm heaven by our heroic response to God’s love and grace that He showers upon all His children. 

How To Fix Us

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  There’s only so much repair work that can be done on an object before you have to buy a new one.  Patching it together eventually does not work.  As kids, when we would get a hole in the knees of our school uniform pants, mom or grandma would patch it up.  But if the patch got a hole in it, or if the stitching kept coming undone, mom and dad would break down and buy new navy blue pants.  Or maybe you had something that was duct taped together, until the adhesive started to wear out, and you had to finally get a new whatever rather than just taping it up again and again.  
    When we talk about the human person and following Christ, we’re not talking about a simple repair.  We need a comprehensive overhaul.  We may think we just need a few tweaks here and there, but in reality, what Christ desires of His followers is not possible except by His grace.  In order for our righteousness to surpass that of the Scribes and Pharisees, to live the deeper law that Christ gave in the Beatitudes, we can’t just muscle through ourselves.  The new law requires grace.  In order to exhibit the virtues St. Peter enumerates in the epistle, we cannot simply struggle hard enough in order to live that way.  We need Christ’s grace to transform us.
    When we talk about conversion, we often use the Greek word, metanoia.  That word comes from two Greek words, 𝜇𝜀𝜏𝛼, meaning change, and 𝜈𝜊𝜐𝜍, meaning mind.  But, perhaps better than mind is the idea of seeing the world differently.  Conversion, from the Latin words cum and versio, meaning to turn towards something, means that we see the world differently because we have turned ourselves towards Christ and have taken on His mind.  But it even goes beyond the intellect.  Conversion–metanoia–means that even our hearts are changed so that we re-direct our loves to the way that Christ loves.  
    And only when we love the way that Christ loves and see the way that Christ sees can return a blessing for a curse.  Only when we allow the grace of God to change us can we not only avoid murdering others, as the commandment prescribes, but also avoid hatred towards the other in our heart, the deeper meaning of the word “anger” that St. Matthew uses in the Gospel.  
    We don’t have it in this passage, but our Lord raises the bar for the sixth commandment as well as the fifth commandment.  Only when we allow the grace of God to change us so that we love as He loves can we not only avoid committing adultery and fornication, but we go deeper and avoid even using someone in our hearts and minds.  And for the eighth commandment, not only do we not swear by anything–not by heaven, not by Jerusalem, not by our head–but we let our yes mean yes and our no mean no.  We speak straightforwardly.
    Too often we try to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and then get frustrated when we cannot live up to the standard that we want, or the standard to which Christ calls us.  But we have to recognize that we are broken, and that Christ alone can repair us.  This is not to say that we are totally depraved, as some Protestants hold.  God still made us good, and that goodness exists in us no matter what.  However, that goodness does not always operate in us because of sin and our draw towards it.  And the healing that we need, the repair, only comes by what Christ has done for us.  Only He can heal what has wounded us.  It would be like trying to heal our own compound fracture without having any medical knowledge beyond a basic grasp of the body.  We might get some things right, but we will never be able to heal ourselves as we need to be healed to be whole again without the help of the Divine Physician.
    And this should give us hope.  Our salvation does not rest on us alone.  We do have to cooperate in it, and Christ gives us many opportunities to work with Him in going to heaven, but if we could save ourselves, all that Christ did and taught would be wholly unnecessary, which means that Abraham would have been able to go to heaven without a redeemer.  But that would make the sacrifice of Christ unnecessary, at least for some, which would be cruel to make a Son go through if it were not truly necessary.
    This is the great battle between Christ and the Pharisees.  They complained about the Lord always spending time with sinners, but the sinners were the ones who knew they were broken and couldn’t fix themselves.  The Pharisees thought they were fine, that they could live the Old Law perfectly on their own, and so did not need a redeemer, which made many of them miss out on the salvation Christ was offering.  

    Like the first line of the Coldplay song, “Fix You,” says, we tried our best but we didn’t succeed.  We tried to fix ourselves, but it didn’t work.  We needed a healer, a Salvator, to use the Latin, to fix what sin had broken in us.  And that’s precisely what Christ came to do.  He came to fix us so that we could offer blessings when we are cursed, so that we could be compassionate, so that our lips would not speak deceit.  Christ came so that our hearts and minds could be changed not only to avoid the grave actions of sin, but even to change the heart whence those grave actions arose.  We cannot do it on our own.  We cannot repair ourselves enough to be prepared for heaven.  We need Christ to fix us.  Christ who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.   

Who Is My Neighbor?

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    “‘Who is my neighbor?’”  Our country finds itself in the midst of a great debate on this very issue.  Jesus’ own parable throws society on its head by making the Samaritan–the foreigner and heretic, as Samaritans were a mixed race of Assyrians and former Jews who had abandoned the faith for a mix of Judaism and other near-Eastern religions–the hero.  The scholar of the Law rightly knows, from the Books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, that those who follow God and want to go to heaven are called to love God with all of who they are and love their neighbor as themselves.  But the question, then as now, as to who constitutes my neighbor whom I must love, beguiles the scholar.

    Love demonstrates itself by action.  The priest and the Levite do not truly love, because they pass by their own fellow countryman when they could have stopped to help.  The Samaritan–again, a foreigner and a heretic–loves his neighbor, even though his neighbor, lying on the road helpless, probably would not have given the Samaritan the time of day if the roles would have been reversed, or even if both the victim and the Samaritan had been in good health.
    The struggle our country endures right now finds its root in the competition of two goods: the human person and law.  Of course, the human person is the greatest good, after God, and all laws have to be exercised in a way that supports the dignity and thriving of the human person.  At the same time, a country has the right to defend itself and create rules for people who want to enter the country, so that those human persons can contribute to society rather than endanger it.
    When we look at those who enter the United States illegally, there are different types of people with different motives.  Some are fleeing, especially from Central America, violence from drug cartels.  Some are looking for better economic opportunities.  Some have family in the US who are here legally.  Some come to this country because they want to sell drugs here.  Some come to the country to engage in human trafficking, which is a more antiseptic way of saying sexual slavery.  No doubt, some are terrorists who want to destroy this country.  Not all who enter this country illegally are bad; not all who enter this country illegally are good.  All have broken some sort of law, of varying levels, to enter this country without the proper permission.
    Who is my neighbor?  Is it the illegal immigrant, each likely having a different motive?  Is it my fellow citizen who overdoses on fentanyl brought into this country illegally by illegal immigrants?  Is it the child who was born here in the US from parents who entered the country illegally and who, at least in current jurisprudence, enjoys citizenship, though the parents do not?  Is it the member of MS-13 or Tren de Aragua who has made the evil choice to dedicate his or her life to violence, sexual assault, and the trafficking of drugs?  The answer to all of these questions is “yes.”  They are all my neighbors, and God calls me to love them as I love myself.
    So how do I love everyone I just listed?  If love of God and love of neighbor are how I inherit eternal life, how can I get to heaven with such a vast array of people in very different circumstances and who are interconnected so that their lives, directly or indirectly, impact each other?
    At the end of the day, each of us have to stand before God at our judgement and answer the question: did you treat the other as a neighbor.  I will not judge you.  The Democratic and/or Republican Parties will not judge you.  Neither President Trump nor Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez will judge you.  Only God.  And only you will know in your heart if you loved the other as a neighbor.
    Can love include amnesty or a path to citizenship?  Can love include securing the borders to ensure that only legal immigrants are allowed in based on a fair and accessible immigration process?  Can love include incarcerating those who have broken US laws, of varying levels, in a facility that treats them like humans but also encourages people not to break the law?  The answer to all of these questions is “yes.”  Love of neighbor includes people of any status and includes both the people I don’t know and the people around me and closest to me.
    Here’s the secret: the government doesn’t want you to consider love of neighbor.  Political parties don’t operate on the great commandment.  Whatever party you caucus with, they would rather have you get angry and throw verbal darts towards each other than actually solve the issue.  Part of the reasoning is that any answer which include love of neighbor is going to be complex and treat people individually, which bureaucracies are not generally able to do.  Part of the reasoning is that when you don’t solve the issue, you can use it in a campaign video for the next election and encourage people to vote for you.  
    I have known outstanding and legal immigrants who lived in a state of grave sin because they were applying for citizenship and wanted to get married, but if they got married they would be forced to go to the back of the long line hoping to become citizens.  I imagine I have interacted with illegal immigrants, some of whom came here because the other choice was living in a city controlled by the cartels and risking violence or death if they did not cooperate in the drug trade in their native country and who legitimately feared for their life if they did not flee.  I know families personally whose lives have been turned upside down because of fentanyl which was brought into the country illegally.  I work with the Michigan State Police to protect society and make those who break our laws suffer the legal consequences, including incarceration, for breaking various levels of laws, State and Federal.   I can see many sides of the arguments that are made because I have encountered my neighbor in all of those groups and more.
    At the end of the day, though, whatever action we choose, whatever politician we support, we will have to defend our actions based upon two questions: did I recognize my neighbor?  Did I love my neighbor?  And woe to us if we, like the scholar of the law ask, “‘Who is my neighbor?’” 

Drawing Near the Unworthy

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Last week we had the profession of faith by St. Peter that our Lord is the Christ, the Messiah, and this week we get a second dose of St. Peter, but this time we hear about his call.  What strikes me in this Gospel passage is that Peter acknowledges his own sinfulness, and yet the Lord does not draw back.  In fact, the Lord draws in Peter and gives him a new mission, no longer to strive to catch fish, but to work at the catch of men, captured in the nets of the love of the Lord.
    We’ve all, I believe, been in the position of Peter.  We sin, whether venially or mortally, and we don’t feel worthy for Christ to be around us.  I think this is especially true of mortal sin.  Mortal sin, as we hopefully remember, is when we commit a grave sin (something serious); we know it’s wrong; and we freely choose to commit that sin anyway.  All three characteristics have to be present in order for a sin to be a mortal sin.  Mortal sin separates us from God and takes away sanctifying grace, the grace that allows us to go to heaven.  Mortal sin is ordinarily removed by sacramental confession, though it could be removed if we had perfect contrition (though I’m not sure you want to take a chance that you had perfect contrition if you have the chance to go to confession).  The Church teaches that if a person were to die in a state of mortal sin, we do not know a way that that person could go to heaven.
    But, some may espouse the view that if we are in mortal sin, God stops loving us.  Or that, if we are in mortal sin, we should stop praying, because God won’t hear our prayers anyway, since we’re not in a state of grace.  But that’s not what our Gospel shows us today.  Who knows if the sin Peter thought of was mortal or venial.  But to fall on his knees makes me believe that there was something big, maybe even just his lack of faith in our Lord’s command.  Still, the Savior doesn’t say, “Sorry, I can’t hear you; your sin is blocking my hearing.”  The Savior doesn’t say, “You should have thought about the consequences before you chose to do what you did.”  The Savior didn’t say, “I can’t love you if you choose to sin.”  Our Lord told Peter not to be afraid, and called him to mission as His Apostle.
    We shouldn’t give sin more power than it has.  We shouldn’t give sin more power than God, which is what we do if we think that God stops loving us or God cannot hear us or will not answer our prayers if we are not in a state of grace.  Anything good only happens by the grace of God, including repentance.  Otherwise, we fall into a kind of semi-Pelagianism, where we earn our own salvation.  Feeling sorry for what we have done can only happen by God’s grace.  The movement towards the confessional can only happen by God’s grace.  And God does not stop being our loving Father when we have been sinful children.  
    Think about it in human terms.  If your child comes to you with an obviously broken arm, but is also covered in mud, do you make your child shower off before you address the broken arm?  Do you yell at the child because he’s making the house a mess when your child just wants you to take care of his fracture?  Do you tell your child you won’t listen to her request until she takes off her dirty clothes and cleans up the mud she has tracked into the house?  “‘If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heaven Father give good things to those who ask him?’”  
    Now, this is not to ignore sin, or say that mortal sin is no big deal.  Some of the saints have said that they would rather have excruciating pain than commit a mortal sin.  But if we fall, do not push the Father away because you feel unworthy.  To be clear, you are not worthy.  But the Father doesn’t care about your worthiness.  He cares about your salvation, and will do whatever He can to affect your healing.  
    And, having been healed, the Lord also wants us to become fishers of men.  Some are called to be fishers of men in the sense of a call to a vocation to the priesthood, where they will join others to Christ through the Sacraments, especially Holy Baptism, Holy Penance, and the Most Holy Eucharist, though certainly the other sacraments as well.  But God calls all of us to seek out those who have strayed from their Catholic faith and to invite in those who are not Catholic so that they can have union with Christ and His Mystical Body, the Church, so that they can be saved.  Is it possible to be saved without baptism, or without full union with the one Church that Christ founded?  God can save people however He wants.  However, our more certain way towards heaven is through the narrow way that Christ shows us through what He teaches us in the Scriptures and in the Church.  How sad it would be if others missed out on salvation, or maybe even just had a longer time in Purgatory because we were unwilling to invite them to become Catholic, or to return to the practice of the faith of their childhood.  
    Does that mean that all whom we invite will accept the invitation?  No.  Sadly, sometimes when we present people with the joy of following Christ, they walk away.  It happened in the Gospel; it will happen in our interactions with others.  But woe to us if we do not at least invite people convincingly and joyfully show them how much we love Christ and how it makes our life more fulfilling.
    Our Lord did not depart from Peter when he acknowledged his sinfulness.  Our Lord does not depart from us when we sin.  May we do all we can to avoid sin, especially mortal sin.  But if we do fall, may we run back to our loving Father and trust in His mercy.  And then, strengthened by His mercy, may we invite others to run to the Father and His merciful love, and find the joy and peace that all people desire, because they are made in the image and likeness of God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.   

Never Enough

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    There is never enough.  Our Lord tells the disciples, “‘The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.’”  That’s when there were 72 disciples, perhaps including, perhaps excluding, the 12 Apostles.  Too few for what Christ had in mind, which was the conquering by grace of the whole world, and the salvation of every man, woman, and child.  Catholicism spread like wildfire after Pentecost and into the first three hundred years of the Church.  By the end of the first millennium, most of the western world had received baptism.  But still, too few; not enough.  In what many consider the golden age of Catholicism in the US, the post-World War II years, many parishes had multiple priests, Catholic schools were full, and all seemed right.  Yet, the harvest was still abundant; there were many who were not Catholic, and even that great number was not enough; too few laborers, not only for the US, but for the spread of the Gospel around the world.
    Or perhaps, as we think about our own gifts and talents, we feel like we don’t have enough.  We look forward to a time when prosperity will flow over us like a river, and we would be like babies nursing who suckle until they’re full.  That could be true for the Church, to a time we look to when the Catholic faith would flourish and spread like wildfire again, like after Pentecost.  Or it could be true for us as individuals, who want to more fully live our faith and live for Christ.

7 priests ordained in 2025

   That phrase, “never enough,” can also be taken two ways: from the perspective of scarcity or from knowing that we can never exhaust what God desires for us.  In the first sense, we think about vocations to the priesthood.  Yes, we had seven ordinations to the priesthood this year, and we expect to have four more next year, based upon how many transitional deacons Bishop Boyea ordained in May.  But we need more priests.  And so, to the young men here who are not married, I would encourage you to at least think and pray about whether God is calling you to the priesthood.  He’s not calling all of you, but some of you He certainly is.  Marriage is also a beautiful vocation, and a way to serve God, but priests are the only ones who bring us forgiveness of sins through the Sacrament of Penance and nourish us with the Body and Blood of Christ through the Eucharist.  
    But we can also look at it from our own perspective, no matter what our vocation.  God always calls us beyond what we think we can do.  We probably all feel like we don’t have enough for the Lord.  But He will equip us for the mission to which He calls us.  We need only respond.  When I work out, sometimes I feel like I can’t give any more.  But my workout partner will push me to finish the workout, even if I need to take a little break before finishing.  God will push us to go beyond our comfort zone to live as saints and to spread His Gospel.  And if Jesus can make more than enough bread and fish for over 5,000 people from 5 loaves and 3 fish, He can work with whatever we have.  He will make our “never enough” enough for Him and His work.
    The second sense of never enough, from the perspective of never exhausting God’s goodness, is also a good reminder for us all.  For too long, families (though maybe not in this parish, but maybe so), have treated growing in the faith like completing K-12 education.  Sometimes it’s the kids, but often it’s also the parents.  After confirmation, too many take the approach that they have exhausted all they really need to know about Christ, and that faith formation is now optional.  Hopefully you can recognize how ludicrous that is.  God is an infinite spring to which He invites us each day, week, month, and year to drink from the streams of His wisdom.  The spring will never run dry, and we can always draw more from Him.  I was enrolled in an institute of Catholic education from 1989 until 2015, from kindergarten to my second Master’s Degree.  But each week I continue to learn more in my head and my heart about God, His Church, and how I can grow in holiness.
    We are never done growing in our faith.  Some times in our life may be more purposeful or more directed towards learning, but we should always try to grow in our knowledge and love of Christ.  That’s why we offer Bible studies, faith sharing groups, book clubs, men’s group, and more.  And, this September, I will begin, once a month, to offer sessions that can help remind us of things we learned, or teach us something knew, with what I’m calling Alpha and Omega.  It’s meant either for non-Catholics to learn some basics about the Catholic faith, or for Catholics to learn or re-learn important aspects of their Catholic faith.  Stay tuned for more information as we get closer to September.  But the point is, no matter how we do it, we should make efforts to grow as disciples throughout our life, no matter how longer we have lived as a Catholic.
    There is never enough.  There are never enough priests; there are never enough lay people on fire with love for Christ; there are never enough people to spread the Gospel; we can always use more.  There is never enough.  We can never exhaust the good things God has in store for us if we return to Him again and again.  No time, no circumstances will ever be enough, until Christ returns in glory, and all is made right in the new heavens and the new earth, when Christ will be all in all.  May we take seriously the many ways of realizing there is never enough.