How to be a Holy Family

Feast of the Holy Family

            A few weeks ago I had the great pleasure to visit Lansing Catholic High School and talk with the sophomores in Theology class.  Part of the class was spent talking about how I had discerned that the Lord was calling me to be a priest.  The other part of the class was answering prepared questions that they had penned anonymously.  One of the many great questions they asked was why marriage and family isn’t talked about more.  And so, here we are, at the feast of the Holy Family, the day after Christmas, when we get to focus on family life, including marriage.

            Having a holy family, based upon the example of the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, is often thought of as impossible.  After all, Jesus is fully God and fully man, Mary was conceived without original sin, and Joseph kept getting these dreams from God to tell him what to do to care for the Blessed Mother and the Christ Child. 

Statues of the Holy Family in Flight to Egypt,
in Bethlehem, the West Bank

            But what made the Holy Family holy?  It was that, in every circumstance, they were obedient to the will of the Lord.  They were always ready to say “yes” to God, even if it meant leaving home and family to go to Egypt, so that Jesus would be protected from King Herod’s murderous decree.

            The life the Holy Family led was not easy!  Following the will of God included challenges, real and monumental challenges. But still, despite the trials and tribulations, they were resolute in saying “yes” to God.

            Things have not gotten any easier for families in the two millennia since Christ walked the earth.  Too many mothers feel forced to kill their unborn child because there is no support from the father of the child or from the mother’s family; marriage as it was created by God, between a man and a woman for life, seems to be under constant attack from the secular culture in the name of a false view of compassion and diversity; too many children do not have enough to eat or drink because of underemployment and unemployment; families, especially in our own State, have had to leave their homes and families in search or a stable job in other States.

            How hard it is to say “yes” to God these days! To choose life in a culture of death; to take seriously the call of every husband and wife, not just to be open to life and have children, but to raise them and form them in the faith, starting with the life of faith lived out at home, but also including trying to make sure that children receive the best education and religious formation possible; to stand up for the indissolubility of the marital bond between a man and a woman.  While many of the challenges are different now then they were in first-century Palestine, striving for holiness as a family, striving to say “yes” to the will of God in all circumstances, is no easier.

            In the midst of these trials, and many others that I have not named, the Church stands behind you!  While we need priests to bring the sacramental life to the People of God, most especially the Eucharist, we also need families to fill the culture with the Gospel; to preach Christ crucified and raised from the dead; to pass on the faith to their children.  From these holy families will come holy priests, and more holy families to continue to prepare the way of the Lord and make straight His paths.

            How does the Church stand behind you?  First and foremost through the Sacraments which give you the grace to be holy families.  It is impossible to be a holy family without the grace, the inner life, the love, of God in you.  And so we stand ready to impart that grace to you through the Sacraments.  We also stand with you to help you through the tough times, whether they are financial or emotional.  Through the work of so many great services that the Church offers, we can help you to choose life, even if no one else wants to support you in that choice; to find a way to provide for your children; to talk problems out and find counseling for the times when families are struggling to simply be civil in dialogue; to give your children the full benefit of a quality academic and religious formation, especially in our Catholic schools, so that they can become, not only good citizens of the City of Man, to quote St. Augustine, but more importantly good citizens of the City of God. 

            I could spend hours talking about all the ways that we as a parish community help each other out to be holy families.  Our St. Vincent de Paul Society works tirelessly, not only to provide clothes, but also to help with utility payments, and other basic necessities, especially after one or two members of the household have lost their jobs and are coming up a little short to keep a roof over their heads. 

            Our students do great work with Alternative Spring Break, and so many members of the permanent community here help them in many ways, to provide basic necessities for the underprivileged members of our nation and in other countries.

            Our Right to Life committee works hard to make sure that new mothers and fathers know that there are people who will support them in bringing their child to term and providing for the needs of the family during pregnancies.

            Our school children provided a vast amount of presents to families that otherwise would have gone without this year, spreading their own blessings out to those who are struggling.  And our pastor, teachers, and family members of the school are very generous in ensuring that, if a child of our parish wants to attend our great school, and receive the quality education and formation which it provides, money will not be the issue that prevents that desire from becoming a reality.

            The Holy Family had challenges in living a holy life, and families today have challenges in living a holy life.  But the basic ingredient in the Holy Family’s life, and in any family’s life that wants to be holy, is saying “yes” to God: in the big things and in the small, seemingly insignificant things.  But remember, you are never alone.  We as a Church: the saints in heaven like Mary and Joseph, and those still struggling here on earth to make it heaven, are behind you 100% so that you can say “yes” to God.  

The Face of Love

Christmas Eve & Day

            What does love look like?  Does it look like a couple of high school sweethearts, snuggled up together watching a movie?  Does it look like a young couple, kissing for the first time as husband and wife at their wedding?  Does it look like a mother, holding her first-born child and gently rocking it to sleep?  Does it look like a couple that has been married for many years, simply sitting together, enjoying the pleasure of each other’s company?  What does love look like?

            While all of the examples I have listed above are instances of where love can be found, as Catholics we know what love looks like, because love is not some invisible force.  Love is a Person, a Divine Person, who took on human nature, who became one like us in all things but sin.  What we celebrate this evening/morning is love, which was made present to us through the face of the Christ Child. 

            What we celebrate this evening/morning is the incarnation of love, a love for a particular people, a people which was not the greatest nation on the earth, but which was, as Deuteronomy says, “peculiarly” the Lord’s.  We celebrate the love of God, who, as St. John tells us, is love, which, through the birth of Jesus, has fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah and “brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing.”  We celebrate the God who became man so that “the yoke that burdened them, the pole on their shoulder, and the rod of their taskmaster,” the yoke, pole, and rod of sin and death, could be smashed into pieces and destroyed.  We celebrate God who “has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ,” as St. Paul tells us in the second reading from the Letter to Titus.

            What is amazing is that this love that fulfills the prophecies of all the prophets, the love that puts and end to sin and death, smashing them into small pieces as a piece of glass is shattered when thrown down upon the ground, the love which took flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the annunciation as she conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and which, after nine months was made manifest for the first time with a human body, this love which is pure power itself, was also itself so helpless at its appearance in the world.

The place of the Nativity of Our Lord at the
Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem, West Bank

            This love, which could be compared to a great fire, began its manifestation in the world as nothing but a small flame, like the flame that lights a single, small candle on a birthday cake.  It was so small and so fragile, that the slightest breeze might put it out.  And yet, while there was no room for this small flame in the inn, love’s fire was protected by St. Joseph and the Blessed Mother, and allowed to start to burn brightly.  And the fire grew because it was received by St. Joseph and the Blessed Mother.  From that one flame of Divine Love, small though it was, more candles were lit to illumine the night of darkness.  Mary and Joseph’s candles received that love, that fire, and the flames, ever so slowly, grew. 

            And then the angels, seeing their God, their King, fulfill the prophecies of old, broke into song to announce this great news, that what no human had dared hope for or suspected, the incarnation of the Second Divine Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Word who was from the beginning “with God” and “was God,” through whom “All things came to be…and without him nothing came to be”, the light of the world, the “light [that] shines in the darkness,” could be known by all in swaddling clothes in a manger in the City of David, Bethlehem, “and the darkness has not overcome it.”

            And the shepherds, hearing this great news from the angels, and hearing them sing “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests,” went in haste to see this light, this fire in the night, and upon seeing it themselves were filled with the love that they saw and received the fire of love themselves, giving strength to the flame which has started out so small.

            Brothers and sisters, we stand in a line of many who have received this fire of love, and by our own reception have helped the flame to grow.  We come tonight/today, like the shepherds, to celebrate news which seems too good to be true: that our God loves us so much that He would become like us in all things but sin.  But, while the fire of love which illumines those who have received Christ could illumine almost every part of the world because of the great acceptance of Jesus Christ by the people He came to save, our own flames of love, first received from Christ in our baptism, relies upon our faith and the actions which stem from it, to continue burning brightly.  Christ will not force the fire of His love upon us.  If we let it go out, then He stands ready to enkindle the flame of love in our hearts again, but will not impose Himself upon us.  Love never imposes itself, but freely gives and waits to be received. 

            We all know the darkness of the evils that face our world: greed, poverty, racial strife, war, the great sorrow of abortion and euthanasia, and so many more.  If we want to illumine the darkness so that it no longer exists, we must bring the fire of our faith, the fire of our hope, the fire of our love (all of which are gifts from God), and let it shine before all “that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”  In this way we help others to see what love looks not, not by looking at us, but by seeing the face of love, Jesus Christ, in us.  Love is not some invisible force.  It is not the sum of all the ways that it is expressed through people.  Love is a Person, and today we celebrate that Person being born in the flesh.  We celebrate the ability to see love in the face of the Christ Child.  Come, let us adore Him!

"A Tale of Two Sons of David" by Fr. Anthony Strouse

Fourth Sunday of Advent

            “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”  You don’t have to be a Jeopardy contestant to recognize that this quote comes from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.  It follows a number of different characters in London and Paris (the two cities to which the title refers) before the French Revolution.

            Our first reading and our Gospel today could be called A Tale of Two Sons of David (granted it doesn’t have the same ring).  In the first reading we have King Ahaz, the king of the Southern Kingdom of Judah.  Now, if we just skim over the reading, we may wonder why Isaiah the prophet is so hard on him.  After all, we often hear that we shouldn’t need to ask for signs from God; we should just have faith.

            But in this case, upon closer examination, we realize that God told Ahaz to ask for a sign.  Rather than being obedient to the Lord, likely speaking through Isaiah the prophet, Ahaz has a false piety which makes him think that God is trying to trip him up in telling Ahaz to ask for a sign, and so he declines the offer for a sign: “‘I will not ask!  I will not tempt the LORD.’”

            But God promises a sign to him anyway, a sign which is fulfilled in Jesus: “the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.”  And Emmanuel means God-with-us.  Jesus is the manifestation of the Father’s love, the Father’s very presence on earth.  He loves to be with us and just spend time with us, as a loving parent loves simply spending time with their children.

            Now the other son of David, St. Joseph, was almost the exact opposite.  He did not fake piety, but, as the Gospel relates, “was a righteous man.”  When he found out that Mary was pregnant, he assumed it was by some other man.  But, not wishing to bring shame to Mary, and really, if he wanted to, he could have had Mary killed, he decided to quietly divorce her.  Rather than taking full advantage of the Law that God had given through Moses, St. Joseph, because he was righteous, decides to extend mercy to Mary. 

            And because of his righteousness, and close attention to following the spirit of the Law, God gives St. Joseph a sign, a dream, without St. Joseph even asking for it, to confirm that the child in Mary’s womb was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and which will fulfill the prophecy made to the first son of David, King Ahaz.  But, whereas the earlier son of David, Ahaz, doubted the Lord, the later son of David, Joseph, “did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.” 

            As we round out this Advent Season and prepare for Christmas on Saturday, we have those two examples that we can follow: Ahaz and Joseph.  If we take Ahaz as our example, then the way we enter into Christmas is just to be very passive, and not really enter into the season.  We let the busyness of this last week of Christmas preparation: buying presents, sending cards, Christmas parties, etc., take over.  The problem is not the activity itself, but whether or not that is taking center stage in our lives.

            If we take Joseph as our example, then we make this last week of Advent a time of faith and mercy.  We still celebrate, and still prepare for the secular celebration, but we also try to take simple steps to trust more in the Holy Spirit and less in ourselves.  We seek mercy more than justice.  We spend time in silence thanking God for how much He really does want to be with us, to be Emmanuel.  

            And for us to be like Joseph doesn’t mean we need to have powerful dreams with God speaking to us as He did to Joseph.  Having faith in God means maybe saying a quick prayer before we go shopping for presents that God will guide us in making the right choices, not just that we get the gift that the person wants, but that reflects good stewardship of the gifts God has given to us, and that will build up the other person in holiness, even if that is done simply by allowing the person to relax and recreate in a new way.  Having faith in God means preparing to cook that Christmas dinner, or the part that we were given, but to trust God that it will turn out alright and provide nourishment for those who partake of it.  Having faith means celebrating with friends and family with all the usual Christmas songs that we hear and love, but making sure that our minds and hearts are focused on the real reason for Christmas: Jesus Christ our Lord and God.

            And just like Joseph, who was not well known, and is never recorded as saying a word in the Gospels, when we are faithful and grow in faith it will often not be in ways that many others notice, and that we might not even notice at first, but growing in faith will allow us to be more open to recognizing Christ in unexpected situations and providing for Him, just as St. Joseph protected Jesus by protecting and caring for the Blessed Mother, through our caring for family, friends, the poor, and the outcast.  Our Lord is coming and will not delay.  Blessed are those faithful servants whom the Master finds ready to welcome Him on His arrival.

Still Waiting

Third Sunday of Advent

            A few weeks ago I went to Rome on pilgrimage as a way of giving thanks to God for ordaining me a priest.  I had arranged all my travel, and was waiting at the airport for a driver to pick me up and take me into the City and to my hotel.  My flight had arrived on time; I had picked up all my baggage; I walked out ready to see a man holding a sign saying “Fr. Anthony Strouse.”  But no so much man was there.  So I waited.  And I waited.  And as I waited I started to go through all the scenarios that could be occurring, and wondering if I needed to make other plans.

An icon of St. John the Baptist from a
monastery in Israel

            That’s sort of where we find St. John the Baptist in today’s Gospel.  He has been proclaiming repentance to prepare people to receive the Messiah, he had pointed out the Messiah as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and he had even baptized the Messiah.  And then Jesus started preaching.  And then John got arrested.

            And you can imagine the puzzle that John’s mind was trying to figure out as he sat in jail, wondering if his cousin, Jesus, was really the Messiah.  Was this the way that God rewarded his prophets, by letting them sit in jail?  Surely something must be wrong.  And so he sends a few of his disciples to ask that coy question: “‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?’”  In other words, John is wondering if he bet on the right horse.

            Today as a Church we celebrate Gaudete Sunday, or Rejoice Sunday.  We light the rose candle because we are almost done with Advent.  The darkness of the purple lightens up to a rose color because of our joy, but our joy is not yet filled, we are not yet to the white of Christmas.  We are in a similar place as John the Baptist was in our Gospel.  We have joy, as did John because he had pointed out the Messiah, but we’re not there yet, we’re not to the fullness of the joy of Christmas, just as John wasn’t to the fullness of the reign of the Messiah.

            But this also applies to us as Catholics awaiting the Lord to come again in glory.  We are filled with joy because He has already conquered sin and death by His death and resurrection.  We know that a new kingdom, a kingdom of love and truth, justice and mercy, is being established, and has been prepared for us.  But we’re not experiencing it yet.  We are sitting in the darkness of our fallen world, and we can wonder if Christ is truly going to come again.  And if you’re a high school or college student, you are hoping that Christ will come again very soon, so all the stress of finals and exams will be over.  We are wondering if we have bet on the right horse.  We are wondering if all these stories, which we have heard about Jesus, are true, or if they were just nice stories created to keep us in line.

            That is why the Church today also gives us as a second reading the letter from the apostle James.  That is when James tells us: “Be patient, brothers and sisters, until the coming of the Lord.  See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains…Make your hearts firm, because the coming of the Lord is at hand.”  How fitting the metaphor is for a university that began as an Agricultural College!  We, like the farmer, may not see the seeds opening up under the earth and starting to sprout, especially with the winter snow on top of the earth, but in the spring, if we have patience and give the seed time to grow, we will see the shoot sprout from the earth and bring us the beauty of the flower. 

            The temptation to doubt the promises that Christ made happen easy enough.  When we are praying for something that we feel we need, either for ourselves or for someone else: for some material good; for healing; for family peace and harmony; for a good grade on an exam.  All these things are good and yet so often our prayers are not answered the way we would like them to be.  It leads us to wonder if this is really the good Lord that we were told about when we were younger, or if that was just a story to help us through the tough times.

            These prayers that are not answered as we hoped can often lead us to wonder, like St. John the Baptist, if we have not all been deceived.  But just as my driver did arrive after a not-too-long wait, and just as Isaiah promised in our first reading that “Those whom the Lord has ransomed will…enter Zion singing, crowned with everlasting joy,” so too will we, if we are patient and wait with fidelity for the Lord, shall share in the same heaven that St. John the Baptist won by his martyrdom for Christ, and which God has prepared for all of his faithful children.  When we put our trust in God, we realize that He actually knows what we need better than we know ourselves.  And so when we don’t get that special gift for Christmas; when someone very near to us does not recuperate from an illness; when our families still struggle with division and anger; when we didn’t get that A on the final or that we had prayed for, still, we are patient and wait to see how God will manifest His great love to us in a way that, more often than not, far surpasses the meager joys for which we had prayed. 

So rejoice and be glad!  God does love you and is answering your prayers in greater way that we expect, even if it doesn’t come exactly how or when we expect it.  Rejoice and be glad!  Christmas is almost here.  Rejoice and be glad!  Your Lord is coming and will not delay.

The Urgency of Advent

Second Sunday of Advent

            Have you ever noticed how the urgency, or even the lack thereof, can change the way we communicate?  Say you have tons of time, but you still want someone to get something done.  What do we usually say?  “If you wouldn’t mind, could you…” or “When you get a chance might you…”.  On the flip side, if we’re rushed, if we feel that something has to happen quickly, then we tend to forego the formalities, and just get to the point: “I need to you to do…” or even “Do…”. 

            In our first reading from Isaiah, we might think that he’s taking a more laid back approach.  After all, compared to the way John the Baptist was preaching in our Gospel, anything would seem laid back.  But listen again to the images Isaiah uses. 

            First we have a shoot sprouting from a stump.  That’s pretty drastic.  And this shoot is really a man, who will be filled with the Spirit of the Lord.  But not just the general Spirit of the Lord, but a spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, fear of the Lord.  This is part of the common list of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  This shoot is not going to judge by hearsay or appearance (sort of an allusion to the way the judges in the time of Isaiah were judging), but “shall judge the poor with justice.”  Then we get really drastic.

            This just judge “shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.”  That’s pretty intense!  And then, we get what we think of as a very bucolic scene: “the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb; and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them” but which in reality means that a major change is going to take place.  No longer will predator/prey be the main relationship, as it is now, but all will be at peace.  But of course, you need someone to instill that peace: the just judge, the shoot from Jesse’s stump.  Even this is a pretty extreme scenario.

            This makes John the Baptist not seem so different from the line of the prophets.  His words, as harsh as they sound in today’s Gospel, are just as intense as Isaiah’s were.  But, for John, there is even more urgency, because he knows that he is on “a mission from God” to quote a famous movie, “‘A voice of one crying out in the desert, Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.’”

A statue of St. John the Baptist from his
home town of Ein Keren in Israel

            John the Baptist knows that his mission is to bring the people to repentance, because it is by repentance that they will recognize the Messiah.  And when he doesn’t see that repentance, the urgency of the message leads him to say some pretty amazing things: “‘Your brood of vipers!” he says to the Pharisees and Sadducees.  And John continues: “Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees.  Therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire…His winnowing fan is in his hand.  He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”  In other words, repent, or it’s going to be really bad for you.

            Brothers and sisters, we should have the same urgency about us.  Jesus is coming back.  For all we know, He could return tomorrow.  And yet what is the tone in our hearts and in our voice when it comes to repentance to prepare for Jesus’ return?  Is it, “It would be nice if I were a better disciple” or “If I get around to it I’ll change my life to more conform with the Gospel”?  That’s probably true for each of us, some of us at times, others of us for much of our lives.  We need John the Baptist to communicate to us the urgency of turning back to Christ.  We need him yelling in the wilderness, “‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

            And this time, Jesus will not come as a tiny baby, seemingly powerless.  When He comes again He will come to judge the living and the dead, as we profess each solemnity in the creed, to separate the sheep from the goats.  And if we’re goats, there’s nothing but eternal torment in the fires of hell to look forward to.  He will come as a conquering King to bring a final end to Satan, and all his demons, and all those who by their actions tell God that they would rather “reign in hell than serve in heaven.”

            The time is near.  It is urgent that we convert.  So how do we repent?  How do we more configure our lives to Christ?  We begin and end with God’s grace, with our cooperation in the middle.  We first ask God for forgiveness for those times that we have sinned, especially through sacramental confession and absolution.  We take time to be honest with God and tell Him the areas of our life that still need conversion.  And God never rejects those who honestly come to Him asking for His help.  And then we use that grace that we receive from sacramental reconciliation to change real actions in our life, to truly stop sinful actions, and replace them with acts of charity, acts of benevolence, acts of faith and trust in God.  And then God crowns those gifts with more grace, so that we can continue in our response to the love which God first showered upon us.

            We should not put off our conversion.  We should not delay in conforming our lives more to Christ.  The time is now.  It is urgent.  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”

Advent: Good to the Last Drop

First Sunday of Advent

            When I was still in school, this was a very treacherous time of the year.  Not because of the ice, not because of the snow, but simply because, despite what science may say, a time warp seems to happen.  It doesn’t matter that just the week before each minute of the day seemed to go as quickly as molasses in the wintertime.  As soon as Thanksgiving passed there was never enough time in the day to get everything done.  All you have to do is blink, and then finals are here, and then you blink again and Christmas is here.

            Advent surely is a quick-moving season.  It’s only four weeks long.  And yet, the Church asks us to prepare for two great mysteries: the coming of Christ at the end of time (what our readings focused on this week) and the coming of Christ in the fullness of time at the first Christmas (what our readings will focus on as we get closer to the day of Christmas).  These are no small mysteries, and yet it is so hard to actually get ready for them.

            Because, besides the religious season, there’s also the secular season, which actually began November 1, All Saints day, but which kicks into high gear after Thanksgiving: the office or school Christmas parties; the shopping for gifts; the sending of cards; and the list goes on.  If we are not purposeful about Advent, it slips right past us and we don’t have the proper time to prepare for Christmas.  We can become like the people in the days of Noah, who “were eating and drinking…up to the day that Noah entered the ark” and not know that Advent is here until it’s gone.  Christmas can become as much a surprise (even though we know the day!) as the Second Coming of Christ at the end of time.

            So how do we make this a purposeful season?  How to we make sure that we can enjoy every drop of Advent so that we are prepared for the Second Coming of Christ and Christ?  How do we not let the season pass us by?

            Well, I could tell you all to not listen to any Christmas music, and to make a huge new schedule of prayer, and to draw away from the world.  And all of those things are good, and if you can, wonderful.

            But, for those of us who can only take baby steps, consider the following options for fully getting into Advent:

1.    1.      Try to incorporate more silence into your life, even if it’s just a few minutes.  It could be turning off the radio in the car, taking 5 minutes before Mass to silently pray, setting aside a few minutes at home where the TV is off, the computer is not logged in, and you can just focus on listening to God.  This is a good practice because it was in the silence of the night at Bethlehem that Jesus was born, and it is in the silence that God often speaks to us.

2.     2.     Utilize a home Advent wreath.  Even if you just take four candles and put them in a circular shape, and light them for a few minutes at dinner, it’s a great way to remember the progression of Advent and the coming (or advent) of the true Light of the World, Jesus, by lighting one candle for the first week of Advent, two for the second, and so on.

3.     3.     Make sure we confess our sins and receive sacramental absolution.  In order to receive the full graces that God wants to bestow upon us, our souls have to be cleansed from the sin that blocks the reception of those graces.  We can go to the usual reconciliation schedule, or go to the regional Communal Penance Service (and believe me, I remember the joy of knowing that I was confessing to a priest that I would never see again until Lent) and maybe start a habit of going more often, which is never a bad thing (because even with a priest we know, he can’t say anything or act any differently based upon something he learned in confession).

4.    4.      Invite someone you know who’s Catholic, but maybe you haven’t seen them at Church in a while, to come to Mass with you.  It might mean you have to pick them up on your way here, but what a great way to prepare for Jesus who came to earth to save you by inviting others to the banquet of salvation and help them prepare for Christmas as well.  And, if you’re not comfortable asking them to join you for Mass, then even just to pray for them to come back to the Church.  Advent is a great time of grace to recognize the Messiah, Emmanuel, God-With-Us.  Our prayers that others might know how close God is to them are always heard, but especially during this time of year.

     There are other good practices as well, like reading Advent reflections, and many others that your family might have as a usual Advent practice.  But the point is that we have this short, but powerful, four weeks of Advent to prepare for Jesus.  Let’s really makes sure that it doesn’t pass us by because we’re too busy to get ready for Jesus.  If there’s anyone for whom we should be preparing this Advent, no one is more important than Jesus.  And, as a great gift, if we do prepare for Jesus, then our Christmas celebrations will be even better, because we will not be caught off-guard, but will be ready to greet Jesus and will say with all our hearts, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

"Are We There Yet?"

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

            We’ve seen it in many TV shows and movies.  Maybe we’ve even experienced it in our own lives.  It’s a long car ride.  There are kids in the back of the car.  “Are we there yet?”  “No.”  “How much longer?”  “No too long.”  “Are we there yet?”

            This is the same type of question that the disciples are asking today, although, rather than asking about a car ride, they’re asking about the end times: “Teacher, when will this happen?  And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?”  And as disciples two thousand years later, we’re still wondering the same thing.  We are very curious about the end of the world; about when and how it will happen.

            Of course, if you believe Hollywood or the Mayans, we only have about two years left.  Secular culture is so convinced that if we just do the right math we’ll figure it out.  But to secular culture and to us Jesus says, “‘See that you not be deceived, for many will come in my name, saying, “I am he,” and “The time has come.”  Do not follow them!’”

            What do we know about the end?  Well, from what we heard in today’s first reading, it will be a day when the wrath of God is revealed in its full power against sin and its agents as “all the proud and evildoers will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire, leaving them neither root nor branch.”  For those who, in this life, have opposed God, it will not be a happy day.  “But for you who fear my name,” continues to prophet Malachi, “there will arise the sun of justice with its healing rays.”  So for those who have not opposed God, who have done His will; who have loved God above all things, and their neighbors as themselves; who have not separated themselves from God by mortal sin, it will be a time of healing and peace.  For those who have been already perfected in this life and have lived as saints, heaven will immediately await.  For those who, although they have not separated themselves from God by unforgiven mortal sins, still have some attachment to sin, they will be purified by Purgatory, so that they can, after their purification, deign to see God face to face.

            This should cause us to wonder, if it were to happen right now, what would be my eternal destiny?  Would I be considered a sheep who attended to the Lord’s hunger, thirst, nakedness, and loneliness through my care for those least brothers and sisters of His?  Or would I be considered a goat for ignoring the Lord’s needs through ignoring the least brothers and sisters of His?  Have we worked in the vineyard of the Lord, truly caring for others?  Or have we been the people that St. Paul admonished in the second reading, those who conduct themselves in a disorderly way, “not keeping busy but minding the business of others”?

            But in discerning how we have lived our life, we should not be led to despair.  The call of the Lord, and the call that He is making through these readings is not to give up.  We are not to be like children, who, knowing that the trip might take 4 hours, might never go because “we’re not there yet!”  Rather, we are called to a deeper conversion, to turning back towards the Lord and to getting to know him better. 

            But conversion is not just about doing the right things so the big policeman in the sky (the way we can sometimes view God) won’t lock us in the prison of hell.  Conversion is about being truly happy.  I firmly believe that all of us want to be happy.  But, ironically, we can sometimes act against that happiness by simply seeking pleasure.  But by letting our pleasures rule us, we very quickly becomes slaves to our pleasures and passions, and do not enjoy the freedom that comes from denying ourselves pleasures from time to time in order that we might be truly happy later.

            And I’m not saying that we deny ourselves all the pleasures that life licitly offers.  God save us from dour-faced saints!  Truly we can enjoy friendship and fellowship with others at parties, as long as those parties don’t lead us to drink in excess or don’t lead us to neglect our responsibilities as students, employees or employers, or whatever our avocation is.  Truly we can enjoy the romantic companionship of another, as long as we or they are not married to another person, and as long as that romantic companionship does not lead to sexual activity that is not fitting to our state in life (i.e., single or celibate, or married).  Truly we can enjoy the great taste of food, as long as we do not become gluttonous and eat too much, or, on the other extreme, eat but not take nourishment from that food because of a lack of a good body image.  We can enjoy the many gifts that the Lord has given to us and have pleasure in our life, but we must be sure that our pleasures are truly leading us to happiness.

            If we are responding to the Gospel in real ways and following God’s Law, then the end of the world is not something we will fear or try to calculate, because we will be living lives constantly prepared for the Lord to come.  Christ will return to reign as eternal King on earth when it is the appointed time and will bring His divine wrath to those who opposed Him, and His divine justice and mercy, which heal, to those who were united to Him by their actions.  May we, by the way we live, be ready to inherit the happiness that awaits those who remained faithful to the Lord, and be ready to say at all moments of our life: Come, Lord Jesus!

Food or Jesus?

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

            Now that we’ve passed Halloween, it’s that time of the year again: we hear many familiar themes, and we’re all getting ready for that one day that puts an end to the year.  I’m not talking about the wave of commercials crashing over us that are trying to get us ready for Christmas.  I’m talking about the end of the Liturgical Year at the Solemnity of Christ the King, and the readings that prepare us for that celebration by preparing us for the end times when Christ’s reign will be made totally manifest to all.

            The question that the readings pose to us this week is one that we should not take lightly.  Sure, we might have a quick answer, but if we really start to think about it, perhaps we would not answer so quickly.  The question is: what are you willing to put aside in order to enter in heaven?

            The question comes to us in the first reading, when we hear what a mother and her sons are willing to give up in order to remain faithful to God and share in the heavenly rewards, rather than break the Law given by God through Moses and eat pork.  Now, I’m sure that we’d all like to say that we would certainly rather go to heaven than eat a particular food.  Very few of us would probably admit to preferring bacon to Jesus.  But, if we take a moment, and think about what happens in Lent on Ash Wednesday, and all the Fridays of Lent, we may not be so quick to answer.  How many of us enter into that mental debate on those days, of whether it’s really serious to eat meat, and whether it will make that big of a difference.  Maybe some of us have even given in at one point or another in our life (and I’m not talking about the occasions where we just forgot, but where we freely made a choice to eat meat, rather than obey God and His Church).  While eating meat on Fridays during Lent may not necessarily cast us to hell, it is interesting to think that, at times, we might prefer eating a particular food and satisfying our taste buds than being obedient to God through the apostles and their successors, who have, by divine mandate, the ability to loose and bind sins.

But, even tougher than giving up meat, is the decision that the same family in the second book of Maccabees has to make.  It would have been quite easy simply to taste a little pork, to disobey God’s law, all with the mindset: “Well, I wouldn’t do this if I were free, and I just want to protect my family, so I’ll give in.”  While there may be times where, because the kids are acting up, we would have no problem sacrificing the kids in order to go to heaven, still, I think that most, if not all mothers and fathers, when faced with the decision to save their kids life, would do almost anything in order to protect their children.

            But of course, as Jesus says in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, “‘Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna,’” that is, hell.  Heaven is worth even more than bonds that bind us as a family, and we must be willing to put obedience to God and His truth that He has revealed to us even over the good of our family.  Nothing is more important than union with God.

            And in the Gospel, Jesus tells the Sadducees that they have missed the point of heaven if they simply assume that heaven is earth version 2.0.  Even the bonds of marriage, a sacrament which shows forth Christ’s fidelity to His Church to all the world by the fidelity of the husband to his wife; a love which shows the fruitfulness of God’s love by the fruitfulness of the marital act either through openness to children or, for those who, through no fault of their own cannot have children, through helping to communicate God’s love to those who so often do not receive it by works of charity; even that love is not the most important love in heaven, for those who “‘are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age…neither marry nor are given in marriage.’”

            Does this mean that we won’t recognize our spouse in heaven?  I don’t think that Jesus means that we won’t recognize each other.  But the unique, intense love that marriage is supposed to witness here on earth, will most perfectly be directed to God, whom we should love above all things and all people, even a spouse.

            So how do we prepare for making such a big choice?  How can we practice what the mother and sons in the first reading practiced, and prepare for eternal life when the sacramental system will no longer be necessary, because God will be all in all to those who have entered into heaven, and will communicate His grace, His inner life, His love, directly to us?

            I’m certainly not suggesting that we abandon all family responsibilities and move into a monastery, no matter how tempting that might sound from time to time.  Rather, each day, in very little ways, we have choices which can confirm us in choosing God over others, or confirm us in choosing others over God.  Whether it’s unnecessary work on Sunday, putting sports above our worship of God, laughing at crass jokes that insult the faith so that we can make it farther in our profession, and many other ways which only you will know as they face you, God provides us many small ways in which we can show our love and our loyalty to Him above all else. 

            God loves us, and wants us to share eternity with Him in heaven, where Jesus will reign as eternal king.  But God loves us enough to respect our free choice to return that love or reject that love.  Let’s show, by our daily sacrifices and fidelity to the Gospel, that we do love Him, and want to be with Him forever, faithful subjects of Christ the King.  

Welcoming Jesus into our Homes

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

            What are the reasons we invite people over to our house?  Maybe it’s a birthday party, and we want to celebrate the anniversary of our birth with our friends; maybe it’s a school project that has to get done; maybe it’s to watch movies with our friends or a significant other; maybe it’s to watch the big game.  No matter what the reason, we invite people over to share friendship and fellowship; we want to enjoy one another’s company; we want to celebrate a holiday or Holy Day with family.  Inviting someone over to our house is a way of expression communion with them, even if it’s on a very basic level.

According to tradition, the tree that
Zacchaeus climbed to see Jesus

            In our Gospel today, though, Zacchaeus does not invite Jesus into his home.  Rather, Jesus invites Himself in.  What is interesting is that Jesus did not originally intend to visit Zacchaeus.  St. Luke relates that Jesus, “intended to pass through the town” where Zacchaeus was.  But, passing through Jericho, Jesus must have felt the intense love, a love so strong that it caused him to climb the tallest tree on the roadway, so that Zacchaeus’ lack of height would not impede him from getting to see this great man.  And so Jesus approaches Zacchaeus in that tree and says, “‘Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house.’” 

            Jesus wishes to be in communion with Zacchaeus.  He wishes to enjoy friendship and fellowship with his tax-collecting host.  Jesus loves Zacchaeus with the love of God, the love of a caring Father, and wishes simply to spend time with one whom others certainly would have shunned from their homes, since he worked for the foreign, idolatrous, Roman government. 

            This recounting of what happened to Zacchaeus is not meant to make us simply say, “Wow!  That was really nice of Jesus.  Look how welcoming He was to the outcasts of His day.”  Rather, it is meant to currently, this day, tell us something.  It is meant to communicate to us how much Jesus wants to enter into our homes and share communion with us.

            “But Father,” you might say, “Jesus doesn’t want to come to my house.  The dishes aren’t done; the room is dirty; we don’t have the special towels out in the bathroom.  And, most importantly, I’m a sinner.  Jesus doesn’t want to come over.  Doesn’t he know what I’ve done?”  Or maybe it’s not that we’re afraid that Jesus will find out that we’re a sinner, but that we’re convinced that Jesus wants nothing to do with us because we’re a sinner.

            In either case, we are wrong.  Jesus does want to come into our homes.  He does want to share His joy and His friendship with us.  He wants to love us.  In the Book of Wisdom, from where our first reading came today, we hear this truth almost in the form of a dialogue: “For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned…O LORD and lover of souls.”  If we have life; if God has brought us from the nothingness of non-existence and created us, with the cooperation of our parents at the moment of our conception, the God loves us.  In fact, it is precisely His love which brings us into existence and keeps us existing for all eternity.  God’s love is stronger for us than a loving mother or father, a devoted grandparent, and even stronger and more intense than the love between a man and a woman united in the sacred bonds of marriage. 

            God wants to come to our house, to be a part of our family.  And His love and His mercy, if we allow it into our lives, will change us, will lead us to repentance for the sins we have committed, so that our home is a fitting place for such a Guest.  And God is not alone in wanting to dwell in our homes.  All of our extended family wants to be at home in our home.  And as a family of faith, our extended family doesn’t just mean grandpa and grandma, uncles and aunts, cousins, and the like.  It means the saints, the holy ones, those parts of our Catholic family that have gone before us and have witnessed to Christ in heroic ways as martyrs, virgins, priests, religious, mothers, fathers, children, and in every way of life of which we can think.  They want us to have fellowship with them, because, as St. John says in his first epistle, their fellowship is with God. 

This Sunday evening and Monday we as a Catholic family celebrate our Catholic saints.  So many of our parents and grandparents used to, and hopefully still do, have images of the Jesus, Mary, and the saints in the home.  And while pictures don’t necessarily mean that we welcome the saints, they do a lot to remind us that the way we live, and the way we have communion as an earthly family, should be a place where Jesus and the saints feel welcome, should feel like family.  We can think of particular patron saints that we have, especially the ones associated with our state of life or work.  We can think of American saints.  We can think of the saint name we have or chose at confirmation. 

Soon Jesus will dwell within us who approach the Eucharist and receive it worthily.  He will make His home in our hearts.  Let us use that grace that we receive from the Most Holy Sacrament, so that in all parts of our life, Jesus and the saints are welcomed.  Let us remind ourselves how much Jesus and the saints are a part of our life by reclaiming the Catholic practice of pictures and statues of the Jesus, Mary and the saints in our homes.  Jesus wants to come and have communion with us.  Will we, like Zacchaeus, welcome him in?

What We Deserve

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            I love traveling, and especially if it’s a trip covering a long distance, I much prefer to fly than to drive.  I get very excited taking off, but I have to admit that each time we prepare for landing, I get a little nervous.  It certainly doesn’t help if it’s raining, or windy, or snowy.  What I’ve come to notice is that the most important thing is the approach to the runway.  If that’s going well, then there’s not as much to worry about.

            Really, in our Gospel and second reading today, we see how approach makes all the difference in the world.  In the Gospel, the Pharisee approaches salvation as if it’s a shoe-in.  He does the right stuff, so he should go to heaven, right?  His money doesn’t possess him, he tells the truth, he doesn’t sleep around, and he’s generous with his money, so there’s nothing to worry about!

            Except that he’s so convinced that if he just does the right things, then God will have to give him eternal salvation.  After all, he’s earned it!  This is in stark contrast with the Tax Collector, who approaches salvation as if it is a gift, a gift that he does not deserve, a gift that, perhaps, he has already lost.  He realizes that he is engaged in a business which is supporting a foreign, idolatrous power.  And, to make his own living, he must tell people that they owe more than they really do.

            It’s very easy for us to fall in the Pharisee’s mindset, because it’s reaffirmed for us in almost all we do.  When we go to the iTunes store we pay $1.29 and we get a song.  When we go to class we turn in all our work, do our best, and we deserve an A, or a B at the lowest.  We are a culture of entitlement.  The world owes me.  And we can act the same way with God.  We can figure that we deserve salvation because we haven’t done anything majorly wrong, and even if we have, we’ve gone to confession.  So God owes us heaven. 

            If we approach God this way, then not only are we like the Pharisee, but we are also falling into the sin of Pelagianism.  Pelagianism was a heresy, named after a monk called Pelagius, which asserted that we earn our own salvation.  God merely grants us what we have worked so hard to achieve.  It’s such a dangerous heresy because it’s very close to the truth, and it sounds like how life works in every other way.  But the reality is that we can never do anything to earn our salvation.  No avoidance of sins or good works can ever make God save us.  Rather, God offers us salvation as an unearned gift.  We have to respond to that gift, but it is, in the end, still a gift that we cannot and do not earn. 

            So then, how can St. Paul be so certain of his own salvation?  He says, “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.  From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearance.”  Isn’t St. Paul assuming that he earned his salvation?  He was, after all, a Pharisee before he converted. 

            No, St. Paul is not a Pelagian.  Rather, he knows how he has responded to God’s gift of salvation, a gift which he, in other letters, he admits he does not deserve, and he has acted in a way that shows that he has accepted that gift of salvation which God freely gives to those who believe in Him.  The Lord does not want us to suffer for all eternity in hell.  But He also respects our freedom, a freedom that can return love for the limitless love we have been shown by God in the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross, or a freedom which can reject God’s love by sins of greed, dishonesty, sexual immorality, and lack of stewardship of the gifts God has given to us. 

            And so we must have the right approach.  We ought to use our freedom to gain the true freedom which comes from following God rather than the license of doing anything, which only enslaves us to our passions and sin and Satan.  We must respond to God’s gift of love and salvation in all aspects of our life: how we vote; how we raise our families; what charities we support; how we witness to Christ to our friends and family; how we express love to others.  And then, for the times when we have failed to respond well to God’s love, we should take the approach of the tax collector, and ask for mercy from the All-Merciful God, who will forgive us for our sins that we have committed out of weakness.  And then, if we are truly contrite, and seek to receive God’s gift of salvation by the way we act, then we can have a sure and certain hope that if we have competed well, and finished the race, and kept the faith, that a crown of righteousness will also await us who have longed for the second coming of Christ at the end of time.  To that same Jesus Christ be glory forever and ever.  Amen.

It's not only "Pure Michigan"...

Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

            While I’m not a devotee of classical music, there are a few pieces of classical music that particularly move me.  One composer in particular has the ability to make me stop and sigh: Mozart.  I love, “Laudate Dominum” from the Vesperae Solennes de Confessores in C (for your music students out there, or Mozart purists, it’s K. 339).  I also think that Mozart’s Requiem is amazing.  But there is just something about his music that lifts my mind to God and puts my soul at ease.

            Isn’t it amazing how something like music, or a quiet sunset amidst the bright reds, yellows, and greens of a crisp, fall evening can turn our minds to God.  Surely this is a sign to us that God is the source of all beauty, since we can so easily go from the beauty, whether heard or seen, to God.  It’s more than pure Michigan.  It’s pure divine communication.

            We, as Catholics, are people who believe in the ability of God to communicate through His creation.  We have been taught and readily can accept that God shows us His goodness in all that He has given us.  And we don’t simply recognize the Platonic Transcendental of Beauty, but that even God’s grace can be transmitted through His creation.

But, this is not true for every group, or even every person.  In our first reading today, we miss out on the juicy part, which really makes Naaman seem like not such a great guy.  It comes immediately before the passage we heard today.  When told that he must bathe in the Jordan seven times by Elisha, he says:

“I thought that he would surely come out and stand there to invoke the LORD his God, and would move his hand over the spot, and thus cure the leprosy.  Are not the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar, better than all the waters of Israel?  Could I not wash in them and be cleansed?” 

But then his servant says, “‘My father…if the prophet had told you to do something extraordinary, would you not have done it?  All the more now, since he said to you, “wash and be clean,” should you do as he said.’”

Our Gospel passage is another example.  The ten lepers are all sent off to the priest to be told that they’re clean.  They all have faith that God will heal them.  They all believe that Jesus is a prophet and speaks for God.  But only the Samaritan realizes and has faith that Jesus is the presence of God, and that Jesus has healed him.  We take this for granted because we are used to this.  But to the first believers, this was unheard of: that God would choose to take flesh and come among us as a man.  In fact, a common theme for our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters is that God would never take on human nature.  He would not debase Himself in that way.

Let’s be honest: sometimes we’re like Naaman.  We expect some spectacular action from God to answer our prayers, rather than seeing how He is answering our prayers in the common actions and creation that He has given us.  Take a vocation to the priesthood: I can’t tell you how many young men I have met who are waiting for the heavens to open and hear a loud trumpet, and a deep-booming voice saying, “I have chosen you!” rather than listening to their friends who encourage them to look into entering the seminary, or the movements of their own hearts and their desire to be a priest.

Or, we could look at God speaking to us in general, and helping us to live good and holy lives.  We expect God to do some marvelous, exciting deed that will snap us out of our usual routines.  And, to be sure, God does that from time to time.  But God more frequently acts through His creation: through the words read aloud at Mass, through these homilies, as good or as bad as you may think they are, and through the sacramental life of the Church.

God chooses normal, everyday, even common things, and raises them to a new level by allowing them to impart grace.  Water, for example, is not so spectacular.  Sure, we all need it to survive, but we can stop down to the nearest 7-11 to get it.  And yet, with the right words (the right rite, you might say) and the right intention, it cleanses infants and adults from original sin and makes them children of God.  Or take the words “I’m sorry.”  We say it every day (or at least we should).  But, within the context of saying them to a priest, along with the confession of our sins and the prayer of absolution, those sins are forgiven.  Or oil.  If you love to cook, you probably use oil all the time.  But given the right words, or the right perfume added to it, again, with the proper intention, it can give physical or spiritual healing to the sick, confirm the promises made at baptism, or take someone from the universal priesthood of the faithful, and make him a priest, or bishop, ordained for service to the Church in the ministerial priesthood.

If we want to hear God’s voice or see Him act, we can turn to music, or to nature, or to whatever else raises our minds to God, and see His signature all over it.  We can have our minds and hearts lifted to God.  If we want to hear God’s voice or see Him act, we need only pay attention during Mass as we hear His word proclaimed among us and see Him change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of His Son with the eyes of faith.  What is scandal to Jews and Muslims, and an absurdity to pagans, that God became flesh and has dwelt among us in Jesus Christ, defines who we are.  Let us have ears to hear and eyes to see His handiwork through His creation and the sacramental life He has given to us as His continued presence among us.