Duh-duh-dunt, Duh-duh-dunt

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            If you are in college or professional sports, there are six sounds you want to hear: duh-duh-dunt, duh-duh-dunt.  That’s the little sound clip that plays on ESPN Sports Center when a great play has been made.  It’s the sign that the television sports authority has noticed what you have done.  And sometimes, in middle school or high school, teammates or fans will chant that little jingle to say that the previous play was amazing.

            In sports, as in much of life, we want to give credit when we something really good happen, and receive credit when we do something good.  It probably stretches back when our parents taught us to thank people or applaud when something great had happened, especially in certain contexts.  With the advent of Facebook and Twitter, that has certainly become much easier to click “like” or “share,” or “favorite” a particular tweet.

            The disciples of the Pharisees along with the Herodians (those who supported King Herod) tried to trap Jesus in today’s Gospel about the interaction between the state (what is Caesar’s) and the religion (what is God’s).  And many priests, especially at this time of year, preach on the principles that every Catholic should think and pray about as they approach the polls so that their vote truly advances what is good for every human person, especially as enlightened through the Gospel.  However, I want to focus, not on “‘repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar,’” but on “‘and to God what belongs to God.’” 

            What does belong to God?  We probably certainly think about our gifts and talents: the things we do well.  But if those gifts and talents also helped us to get our job, then that is given to us by God.  We may think of our families: the place where we learned the faith and had the love of God made present in a very clear way.  Maybe sometimes you think that a particular sibling might be from the devil by the way they treat you, but they come from parents, who received their life from God, so they belong to God as well, and are not from Satan.  We could spend all day thinking about the things that we have that belong to God: life, home, family, pets, food, clothing, etc., etc., etc.  In summary, everything that we have is a gift from God.  Without God willing us into existence at each nanosecond, we would not be.  God gives us everything.  So if we are to give to God what belongs to God, then are we to give Him everything?

            St. Augustine and St. Thomas both examine the word religion, and where it comes from.  St. Augustine, though his is not the only explanation, tracks the word root from the Latin, ligare, to bind, just as ligaments connect bone to bone.  Religion is the virtue whereby we are bound to God, and, as St. Thomas notes, give God what is His due, which is why religion is considered an aspect of the virtue of justice.  God has given us so much, and so we are bound to give Him something back.  But what are we to give Him?

            The Prophet Micah asks this very question:

With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow before God most high?  Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with myriad streams of oil?  Shall I give my firstborn for my crime, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?  You have been told, O mortal, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.

Jesus expands on that when He says to give God what belongs to God.  But really, what more is there than justice, goodness, and humility?  Doing those things means that we are giving our all to God.  And we are giving our all to God the Father, who gave His Firstborn, His Beloved, not for His sin, but for ours!

            When we practice our religion, our faith, we are practicing giving God what is His due.  Part of that is coming to Mass each Sunday.  So often I hear the complaint, “But I don’t get anything out of Mass!”  Now, that’s patently false, because we get to hear the Word of God and, if we are in a state prepared to receive Holy Communion, we get to have union with the same Son of God who died for us to save us from sin and death!  But, and this may be more important, Mass isn’t about what we get out of it.  Getting something out of Mass as we do is simply, as the youth say, gravy.  Mass is the time when we get the opportunity to give back a little for the immeasurable amount He has given to us.  Yes, Mass may not always be entertaining (it’s not supposed to be), but is it too much to give God one hour each week to give Him worship, even if it’s not our favorite activity?  Or do we walk out immediately after Holy Communion simply because we’ve grown tired and have more important things to do, like go for breakfast at Big Boy, take a nap, and/or watch the Lions try to turn a great win into a bitter loss?  Sometimes there are legitimate reasons to leave early, but we should be careful lest those exceptions become the norm. 

            But our religion, our giving back to God what is His, does not end in this building.  What we do on Sundays is meant to inspire, nourish, and energize us to take to that faith, that religion, into our daily life.  Going to Mass is not the end of our faith.  It is only the beginning!  And by daily prayer, weekly reading Scripture, acts of kindness and charity, we give back a little to show God how much we appreciate the everything He has given us.

            This week, give back to God: read 1 chapter of Matthew’s Gospel; pray 1 Our Father each day; do one random act of kindness to a fellow employee or student.  God has given us everything.  What we will give Him in return?

Rebuild God's Church!

Solemnity of the Dedication of St. Joseph Church

            There is, perhaps, no more famous saint in the Church (after the Blessed Mother) than St. Francis of Assisi (though I would say that St. Anthony is a close third!), whose feast we celebrated last week.  Even non-Catholics often have a statue of St. Francis, surrounded with birds and animals, in their yard.  This saint is often misrepresented–domesticated, we might say.  As a priest I know once preached, if we started talking to animals and calling the sun our brother and the moon our sister, it wouldn’t be a man in white from the Vatican coming for us, but men in white coats to take us to a psychiatric ward.  Still, even amid the confusing stories that often get warped over time, there is one I want to focus on today, reported by St. Bonaventure, himself a spiritual son of St. Francis:

One day when Francis went out to meditate in the fields he was passing by the church of San Damiano which was threatening to collapse because of extreme age.  Inspired by the Spirit, he went inside to pray.

Kneeling before an image of the Crucified…he heard with his bodily ears a voice coming from the cross, telling him three times: “Francis, go and repair my house which, as you see, is falling into ruin.”

[…] He began zealously to repair the church materially, although the principle intention of the words referred to that Church which Christ purchased with his own blood, as the Holy Spirit afterward made him realize….

            When we think about the dedication of the church, we may think that what we are primarily celebrating is the physical structure that was consecrated by the Bishop of Detroit, Most Rev. Casper Borgess on 13 October 1878.  That is what our eyes see, just as St. Francis’ eyes saw the dilapidation of the church of San Damiano.  But, this church building itself is a symbol, a visible sign of an invisible reality, which is meant to remind us what St. Paul told us in the second reading: “in [Christ] you are also being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”  We are the living stones and decorations of the temple of God, and God is making us into the heavenly temple of the new Jerusalem, “built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.” 

            The call that St. Francis heard in 1204 to rebuild the Church of God is still the call that echoes all these centuries later.  God is asking us to rebuild his church.  And he is not asking us to raise money to add on to the building.  God is asking us to be shaped into the living temple of God.  The call to rebuild the church of God is the call I am communicating to you today in the name of God!!  God’s church is in need of repairs, and we are the ones to repair it!!

            Since my arrival here in July, I have listened carefully to what people have told me about the parish.  So many people have used phrases like, “we used to…”, “years ago…”, “when Adrian was bigger…”.  My sense is that there is a great longing for the glory days of this parish, to return to activity, and joy, and a full church.  And I stand with you on that goal!!  There is no reason why this parish cannot be one of the greatest parishes in the Diocese of Lansing.  There is no reason why our parish cannot have glory days once more!!  We will do it, not for our own glory, but for the glory of God, and for the salvation of souls!!  But my excitement to do this is often rained upon by others when they remind me, as we all know too well, that the city of Adrian and its surrounding areas is in the midst of an economic downturn.  Money is not readily available.  And to that I say: that doesn’t matter!!  I’m not here to ask you for money.  I’m here to ask you to give your life to Jesus Christ!  Not just part of it, not just one hour on Sunday, but all of it!!  Because we are the temple of God.  Because we are, all of us, integral members of the Church of God.  And when we band together to support each other, there is nothing we cannot do if God wills it! 

            About a month ago, I saw the PBS special on the Roosevelts.  What came to my mind is that during the Great Depression, people didn’t have more than we have now.  In many cases they had less.  And yet, they were still able to do great things.  Not just because the government provided programs like the TVA, but because people wanted to be active and work for something greater than themselves.  As a Catholic family, here is our chance.  Right now we can band together to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and become greater together than we are individually.  We are still important as individual members, but we become something greater when we band together, just as the individual bricks and stones of a building are important individually, but when put together in a particular way, builds this beautiful building in which we worship God. 

            But a thriving parish will only happen if we all band together.  A few of us cannot bear the entire burden.  We have volunteers, probably about 10% of the parish, who volunteer for about 90% of the work.  That is how burnout happens, and why people stop volunteering.   And that is when parishes start to die.  I’m not asking you to do it all.  I’m asking all of us to do a little and to use our gifts and talents to make this parish a place where we come to know and love the Living Lord, Jesus Christ, and to share that faith with others.  That is how we worship in spirit and truth.  That is how we build up the church of God.  Parishioners of St. Joseph: go and rebuild the church of God!!

Club or Family?

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

In the 1990s, American Express had a slogan which was used to try and get people to obtain their credit cards.  That slogan was: “membership has its privileges.”  Some of us, many of us, probably belong to one sort of club or another which does give us certain benefits.  Membership at a Country Club means you can use their golf course and have access to their facilities.  Membership in some commercial clubs means you get perks for buying a particular brand or quantity of an item.  If you are a member of a frequent flyer program, eventually the miles you fly or the points you amass on your credit card can be used to get you a free trip to a certain location. 

It’s fun to be part of a club, and to receive those perks that you get from belonging.  Some people, though, have taken the mentality of belonging to a club into the church.  The church is just another social club to which they belong.  They were made members through baptism, and even though they didn’t get a card to show that they’re members, there are still perks to belonging.  Sure, the membership usually does have one day a year where all the members want to show that they belong: Ash Wednesday, when you get a black cross on your forehead to show that you’re a Catholic.  And many people today have the approach that their membership also gets them an exclusive suite in the heavenly condo association.  Of course, the flip of side of the social club membership approach to the church is that if you are unhappy or don’t like what is being said or done, you just move to a different social club that is more in line with what you want to receive in terms of rewards for membership.

This approach to our Catholic faith is poison!  It is detrimental to the entire church.  It is detrimental to our souls.  But it’s not new.  For the past two weeks and this week we hear Jesus talking to the Jews and telling them that just because they belong to a particular ethnicity and religion does not mean that their spot in heaven is assured.  I’m sure this wasn’t the approach of every Jew, but apparently there were enough people with this mentality that Jesus felt he had to address it, especially to the chief priests and the elders.  The slogan of Jesus for the past two weeks and this week, if we had to reword it, is: just because you are part of the Chosen People does not mean that you’re a shoe in for salvation.  All these other groups–tax collectors, prostitutes, pagans–are finding salvation because they accept Jesus as the Messiah. 

Today’s Gospel is almost exactly the same words as the passage from Isaiah that we heard in our first reading.  And the Jews would have known that pretty easily, especially the scribes and Pharisees.  And just as Isaiah was telling the caretaker of the vineyard, the Jews of his day, that they needed to actually care of God’s vineyard, so Jesus was telling the chief priests and the elders that they needed to stop killing God’s messengers who were sent to ensure the vineyard was being cared for properly, or else they would lose care of the vineyard themselves and others would be given the responsibility.  They would lose out on what they were supposed to have received.

The same message can be applied to us: baptism and membership in the church is not a “get out of hell free” card.  Just because we were baptized does not mean automatically that we are going to heaven.  It sets us on the path to heaven; it gives us help to get to heaven; it even facilitates the pilgrimage.  But it won’t get us there itself.  Baptism is the beginning of a responsibility to care for ourselves by growing in relationship with Jesus Christ, so that heaven feels like home by the time we die.  If we don’t follow through on that responsibility, then heaven will be foreign to us, and won’t be the place we want to go. 

Instead of a social club mentality, we should have the mentality that the church is like a family.  Being part of a family does carry with it some perks: we belong; we are loved; we may even have a rich family that provides us with a nice inheritance.  And as Catholics we do belong to God; we are loved by God; and God has set aside for us His grace and His life so that we can become more like Him.  And the more we are like Him, the more heaven seems like home.  But families are only as strong as long as they love each other.  And families can only love each other (at least in a real way) if they know each other. 

If we are going to be part of God’s family, then we need to know God.  And that doesn’t happen by sleeping with a Bible and Catechism under your pillow (which wouldn’t be very comfortable anyway!).  We might as well tell our students that to learn how to divide fractions, understand great works of literature, unlock the marvels of creation, play an instrument, or excel in sports, that they should sleep with a math book, Romeo and Juliet, a test tube, a saxophone, and a pair of cleats.  Knowing God happens by opening that Bible, reading who God has revealed Himself to be.  Knowing God happens by studying our faith.  Now, I know we’re all super busy.  And we certainly can’t do it all.  But more often than not, we probably do nothing.  And if we do nothing, then we don’t know God.  And if we don’t know God, then we’re not really being an active part of that family.  And if we’re not being an active part of that family, then God will respect our free will, but will find others who will care for the vineyard.  God will never turn us away, but he won’t force us to love Him, either.  The choice is ours.  Will we care for His vineyard?  Will we be an active part of God’s family?