Challenges for the Holy Family

Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

This Christmas was different than in years past.  In the past the tradition was always to visit my mom’s parents on Christmas Eve, celebrate Christmas as an immediate family Christmas Day morning, and then go to my dad’s parents for Christmas Day dinner.  Then, when I became a priest, we tweaked things a little to adjust to my new responsibilities.  This year, with both my mom’s mom and my dad’s mom deceased (and I think many of us know how mom’s are often the glue that holds the family together), we celebrated our immediate family Christmas on Christmas Eve morning, and invited both grandfathers over later in the morning so that we could see them.

Those changes weren’t easy.  And this year especially it felt like Christmas celebrations were truncated, even though I got to see my immediate family and both grandfathers.  I am certainly the kind of person who likes to leave traditions the way that they have been.  But, with both grandmothers now gone from this earth, it was inevitable that things would change.  And, we’ll see what happens for Christmas 2019.

In our parish family over this past year I’ve buried my fair share of grandparents, and some younger people, too.  We’ve had 19 funerals of active, sometimes very active, parishioners since 2018 began.  The trend, going back at least to 2014, but likely before, of losing 80-90 parishioners per year according to our October counts, has continued to the present, where we’re down to just under 400 people who attend Mass at St. Pius X each weekend.  These changes to our parish family precipitate adjustments, just like changes in our biological family yield new realities.  Adjustments are difficult.  Changes can be hard, especially when they are not always communicated well or received well.  Each member of the family takes changes differently, and that’s no different with our parish family.  Over my past three years here, there have been some who have been very welcoming to changes of different kinds that were made, about 25% of the people.  There have been some who have been very vocal about not liking the changes, about 25% of the people.  There have been some who have not communicated delight or disgust, about 50% of the people.  Some have joined our parish family because of changes; some have left our parish family because of changes.  

As we celebrate the Holy Family, I think we forget that their life was not easy, not really in any way.  Before Joseph and Mary were married, Mary comes to Joseph and says that she’s pregnant, and that the child is not his.  But don’t worry, it’s the Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit!  Talk about changes!!  Then, as Mary’s ready to give birth, Joseph and Mary, pregnant with Jesus, have to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem for a census put on by the Roman government, which was none too kind to Jews.  Then, they finally make it to Bethlehem, only to be told that there’s no room (because of the census), they should have left earlier if they needed a place to stay, so they go to a nearby cave, which I’m sure is the exact place any mother would want to give birth, especially when you’re child is the Son of God!

After settling in Bethlehem for around 2 years, the Magi visit, and bring unique gifts.  But then, Joseph is warned in a dream that he has to take Mary to Egypt, because King Herod wants to kill Jesus.  Egypt was not a place a Jew went willingly.  When Joseph, the son of Jacob, from the Old Testament, went down to Egypt, it eventually led to 400 years of slavery.  Deciding to settle in Egypt is like asking a Spartan to settle down in Ann Arbor, or a Wolverine to settle down in Columbus.  And yet, on the road again, Joseph, Mary, and the Christ Child are obedient to God.  After King Herod dies, the Holy Family travels back to Judea, but because of another not-so-hot king, they again settle in Nazareth, a very backwoods part of the area called Galilee.  And we all heard the story about losing Jesus in the temple.  And then Joseph dies sometime before Jesus turns 30, and Mary follows Jesus, because she has no one to take care of her.  

The Holy Family was a family that was, more often than not, going through changes and challenges.  And yet, they are our example of how to respond: by trusting in God.  They didn’t complain; they didn’t tell God that if there was one more change they were going to stop believing in Him.  Theirs was a true example of patient perseverance in following God.

St. Paul also reminds us how we can all navigate changes that happen in our lives, both those in our biological family and those in our parish family: “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another.  […] And over these put on love.”  That’s how we can imitate the Holy Family every day.  It’s certainly a tall order, but it’s also a recipe for how to be saints.

Just like the Holy Family, our life will probably include changes, some of which will be difficult.  But we all can look to the Holy Family to see how to trust in God, to remain faithful, even in the midst of difficult changes.  

Belonging to Jesus

Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord

One of the great feelings that we get to experience as humans is the feeling that we belong.  There are so many groups to which we can belong.  First and foremost is family, and as we celebrate Christmas, we have a strong sense of belonging to that group.  We might also belong to a school, and we especially gravitate towards high school and belonging to a particular class (e.g., I’m a member of the Lansing Catholic High School class of 2002).  Maybe work gives us a sense of belonging.  I know that one of the greatest blessings in my life is belonging to the fraternity of the Catholic priesthood, a band of brothers who are in the field, fighting spiritual combat day in and day out.  Or perhaps our volunteer work gives us that sense of belonging.  I would say that being a chaplain for the Michigan State Police is also a great blessing for me and is a group I treasure.  Or maybe it’s something altogether different than any of the categories that I have mentioned.  Still, as humans, we seek to belong.

As Catholics, there is a group to which we belong which should be a defining aspect of our life: our faith.  In baptism, we became part of the family of God.  We also became members of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, through baptism, a group that offers us belonging.  We often break down this sense of belonging into a more manageable size, we might say bite-size pieces, as we look to our parish.  Parish identity is often how people identify how they belong to the Catholic Church, and how they define their membership as a Catholic.  I know that, as a priest, while I have been in three parishes in my eight and a half years as a Catholic priest, each time I go to a place, I dive in, and make that new place my home, my family, and how identify myself (at least partially).  

I think of all the people who are back here tonight because of a connection, present or past, to St. Pius X parish.  In my three years here I have seen people come to Christmas Mass here (regardless of where they live now) because they went to school here, because they were baptized here, or because their family still goes here.  And it’s beautiful to welcome them back.  People always talk about how St. Pius X always feels like home.  And I think we can say that part of that is that they belong.

But what we celebrate tonight is one of the primary mysteries, or realities, of our faith: that God became man.  God did not lack anything.  He was a perfect communion of Divine Persons–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–existing from all eternity in perfect love, in perfect belonging.  But, in the fullness of time, in order to save His highest creation, humanity, who had wandered away starting in the Garden of Eden and through the subsequent centuries.  God joined Himself to us in Christ, uniting the Divine to the Human in the Person of Jesus.  We might say, in a sense, that God wanted to belong with us in a way that He never had before.  God knew us better than we knew ourselves, but He wanted to share all of our human experiences, except without sin.  And that’s what we celebrate tonight/today: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  Jesus, who is consubstantial with the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Mother by the power of the Holy Spirit, and was born in Bethlehem.

Few things are more hurtful than when the desire to belong is not reciprocated.  Mary and Joseph, looking for a place to give birth, did not belong and were not welcomed in Bethlehem.  How many times would Jesus be rejected throughout His public ministry, especially by the Pharisees and scribes, but eventually by almost all people, including most of His closest friends who were not with Him at the foot of the cross.  When Jesus taught about Himself as the Bread of Life, the Eucharist, in John 6, at the end, it says that many of His disciples left Him because His teaching was too difficult for them.  And on the cross, Jesus even experiences the full weight of sin, of feeling separated from God the Father, as He cries out, “‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’”

But have we changed?  Are we so different from those who rejected Jesus?  Being a follower of Jesus means more than just showing up tonight/today.  Yes, this is one of the important high points of following Jesus, celebrating His Nativity, but if we wish to truly belong with Jesus, then it can’t be the only point.  If we think of our relationship with God like a marriage, it becomes obvious that this is true.  If I imagined myself married for a second (every woman’s nightmare, I’m sure!), and then, after the wedding, told my bride that I’d see her once a year, or even once a month, I’m sure our marriage wouldn’t be exactly a model union.  If, in our home, we agreed to treat each other with a certain level of respect, and follow certain practices for the betterment of our union, like putting the toilet seat down after I’m done, but then I never followed through, I’m sure our marriage wouldn’t be one for the ages.  I’m sure if we had kids, and I let the kids do whatever they wanted, while I relied on my wife to do all the disciplining, our marriage would be more written in the sand than in the stars.  

Belonging to someone means that we change our life for that person.  Belonging to Jesus means that we give our whole life–not just one day a year, or one day a month, or even just one day a week–to Him.  If we haven’t before, today is the perfect day to start.  The Lord always is waiting for us with open arms.  Jesus gave us everything: His conception, His birth, His life, His Death, and His Resurrection.  He left nothing out when He chose to belong to us.  Will we, to the best of our ability, leave nothing out when we have chosen to belong to Him?

Humble Moses

Fourth Sunday of Advent

There is a meme that I recently saw on Facebook.  It is a picture of a person writing at a desk (probably supposed to be Moses), and it says, “‘Moses was more humble than any other person on earth’, by Moses.”  What it references is Numbers 12:3, which reads, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than anyone else on earth,” along with the tradition that Moses himself composed the first five books of the Bible…including the Book of Numbers. 

Our first reading an our Gospel focus specifically on humility.  In the first reading we heard about Bethlehem, who is so small, and yet will be the place from which comes the ruler in Israel, the ruler “whose origin is from of old, from ancient times.”  Bethlehem was the City of King David, which is why Joseph and Mary had to travel back there during the census, since both Joseph and Mary were of the house of David.  But it had long since lost its notoriety, and was a place of no importance.  Still, God chose that place for His co-eternal Son to be born, from two parents who were very poor, who had next to nothing.

Our Gospel, too, talks about the Blessed Mother’s visit to Elizabeth.  Now, I’ve never been pregnant, but I’m not sure, if I were pregnant, that I would walk from Nazareth to Ein Kerem, a distance of 80 miles, to see my cousin, who was also pregnant.  However, Elizabeth was old, and it was out of love and concern that Mary did not think about her own needs, but went to take care of her family member.  Mary does not bask in the fact that she is the Mother of God (remember that life starts at conception, not birth!).  She does not let this great honor go to her head.  She focuses on the needs of others, and does as a pregnant woman what others may not have done without a child in the womb.

I’m sure we’ve all heard lots about humility.  Often times it gets confused with abasement, with lowering oneself.  And maybe that’s because our general trend is puffing ourselves up.  But humility is primarily concerned with the truth about ourselves, not with making ourselves less than we are.  Humility is thinking neither less nor more than we truly are.  And in not thinking more of ourselves than we are, in not holding on to what we want to believe we are, we open our hands to receive who we are from God.  Humility allows us to not try to take our identity, certainly not from what others say, but from the one who created us, from God, who knows who we are better than we do ourselves.

Bethlehem didn’t try to put on heirs.  It didn’t advertise itself as a center of power (that would have been Jerusalem).  But God chose it to be the place where the Messiah would be born.  Mary, though she was of the house of David, did not act as if she was supposed to be a queen.  And yet, because she became the Mother of God, truly became the Queen Mother of Heaven and Earth.  Humility allowed more honors than either of them could have achieved if they would have sought after honors and privilege themselves.

That approach to life is hard for us.  And it certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t use our gifts and talents to better the areas in which we live, work, etc.  That’s false humility, not recognizing the gifts that we have, burying our talents.  But it also doesn’t mean that we seek after power and notoriety.  We strive to be the best mother, father, daughter, or son that we can be, but when we do something well, we don’t have to proclaim it to the world.  We strive to be the best boss or best employee that we can be, but we don’t do it so that we are noticed by corporate or by our boss, we do it because it helps the company and the people that the company serves.  We strive to be the best student we can be, but we don’t have to brag to our friends that we got an A.  It’s not bad to be happy about those things, and maybe even to share then with close friends and family.  But it’s not about what others think of us.  It’s about how God thinks of us. 

Pride so often closes our hands to what God wants to give us.  God wants to give us every good gift that we need for our salvation.  God never holds something back from us that we need, because He is our loving Father.  And yet, in our pride, we close our hands to hold on to the lesser gifts that we think we need, that gives us passing pleasure.  And because of that, we might miss out on opportunities that God desires for us.  In these last couple of days of Advent, may we rediscover the gift of humility, which opens our lives us to the great things that God wants for us.  May we have the trust in God to let Him exalt us, rather than trying to exalt ourselves.

A Level Path to Heaven

Second Sunday of Advent

One of the great memories in my life is my pilgrimage in northern Spain to the tomb of St. James the Greater, Apostle in 2004. 

One of the mornings as we started to walk

Eight of my fellow seminarians who were studying in Rome and I walked 110 km. in five days from a little town of Sarria to the city of Santiago de Compostela, the resting place of the remains of St. James.  Generally we would wake up around 5:30 a.m., get walking at about 6 a.m., and finish walking around 1 p.m., before it got too hot.  We averaged a little over 20 km, or 12.5 miles per day.  It was an amazing trip, with beautiful landscapes.  But I have to admit, rolling landscapes are much easier to look at than walk.  I was in much better shape in 2004, but even then I needed ace wraps for both my knees, which were ready to give out after only two days of walking.  Honestly, walking up the hills was easier than walking down them, and a make-shift walking stick was a great aide to the pilgrimage.  

So for me, the first reading and Gospel, which talk about mountains being made low, and valleys being filled in, makes perfect sense to me.  A flat land is much easier to traverse.  And let’s remember, whether it was during the time of the Prophet Baruch in the sixth century BC, or around the year AD 30 when Jesus was doing His public ministry, there weren’t cars to drive you, trains to take you, or Ubers to call, so hills and valleys were tough, whether it was on the knees of a donkey or the knees of a human.

Jesus makes things easier.  He levels out the road to salvation.  It may not always seem that way, but it’s true.  In order to find salvation, we need to follow Jesus.  It’s that simple, and that difficult.  No longer do we have to try to figure out if this or that prophet was really sent by God.  No longer do we have to make yearly pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the great Jewish feasts.  All we need to do is follow Jesus.  Even Jesus Himself tells us to take His yoke upon our shoulders, for His yoke is easy, and His burden light, and we will find rest for ourselves.  

Our Catholic faith is simply following Jesus as the full and final manifestation of who God is.  Our understanding of the Trinity comes from Jesus, who revealed the Communion of Three Divine Persons.  All the letters of St. Paul, the letters of St. Peter, the letter of St. Jude, the Letter to the Hebrews, the Letters of St. John, and the Book of Revelation are simply Jesus continuing to teach through those He appointed to act in His Name, so that, as He said, “Whoever listens to you, listens to me.”  All that the Church has taught as necessary for salvation throughout these nearly two millennia is Jesus teaching us what we are to believe and how we are to live.  This is done through the pope and the bishops in union with him, in a variety of different settings and different ways.  But at the end of the day, it’s simply following Jesus.  

I’ve been, for some time, very impressed with Bishop Robert Barron, who is an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles.  Before that he was a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, and founded Word on Fire, an evangelistic Catholic ministry whose work is to spread the Gospel.  In particular, Bishop Barron focuses on beauty as a way to evangelize, rather than outlining the “rules” of Catholicism and defending them.  There is something to this, as the leveling out of the hills and valleys.  Rules can seem like efforts to climb and descend.  But beauty is something for which we were made.  St. Augustine says it this way in his work, The Confessions:

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you!  You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you.  In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created.  You were with me, but I was not with you.  Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all.  You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.  You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness.  You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you.  I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.  You touched me, and I burned for your peace.”

God is Beauty itself, just as He is also Truth itself and Goodness itself.  But Beauty is often more accessible than truth.  Bishop Barron talks about baseball, one of his great loves, and says that no one really gets into baseball by simply studying the rules.  There is a beauty to the game which attracts the person to it.  But, he also states that, in order to play the game well, you need to know the rules, and the rules actually make you a freer baseball player.  Still, no one learns about the infield fly rule, and then says, “I really want to play baseball!”  They play because of the beauty of the game.  

In regards to our faith, Jesus is the one who attracts us, or should attract us, because, as Pope Benedict XVI said in Deus caritas est, his Encyclical Letter of 2005, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with…a person,” and that person is Jesus Christ.  If we have encountered that Person, if we love that Person, then all the other rules fall into place, make sense, and help us to encounter Jesus and love Jesus more.  That is the easy way, the level path, the road to salvation: falling in love with Jesus and following all that He teaches us because of our love.  No hills, no valleys, just a level pilgrimage to the goal of every human life: eternal happiness with God in heaven. 

History is Going Somewhere

First Sunday of Advent

If you asked a seminarian for a description of Hell, he would likely say that Hell would be remaining in seminary forever.  Don’t get me wrong, seminary is a great place, and were some of the best eight years of my life (four in college, four in theology), but it had a goal: ordination to the priesthood.  Of course, there’s no way to teach us all the things we’ll need to know in seminary, but if they kept us until we knew everything we needed, we’d never become priests; we’d be seminarians forever; which would be Hell.

It think sometimes we forget that history has a goal.  History is not aimlessly meandering throughout the centuries and millennia.  History is proceeding to the final judgement.  History is going towards Jesus.  And our goal, as Catholics, is to make sure that we’re on the right side of history.  

History for the Jews was going towards Jesus, their long-awaited Messiah.  Jeremiah speaks the Lord’s message that God was going to “raise up for David a just shoot.”  God was going to fulfill His promise that a son of David would sit on the throne of Israel forever, and that promise was fulfilled in Jesus.  Of course, the Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, but He is the Messiah, and proved it throughout the Gospels .  

For us as Catholics, as the fulfillment of Judaism and  even the Gentiles (those who were joined to Judaism who were not originally part of the Chosen People), our goal is to remain faithful to Jesus the Messiah until He returns to judge the living and the dead.  St. Paul reminds us that we know how to conduct ourselves as pleasing to God, through the instructions that St. Paul gave us.  And not just St. Paul, but the apostles, joined in union with St. Peter and his successors, the popes, who are called to authentically teach us how to live out our faith, and how to follow Jesus in new times and places.  

Jesus Himself reminds us in the Gospel not to become drowsy from immoral behavior and the daily grind of life.  Instead, we are to be vigilant, waiting for that culmination of human history in the return of the Messiah who, at the end of time, will bring to fulfillment the victory He won on the cross.

And this season of Advent is our reminder to be ready, and to keep ourselves on the right side of history.  Advent is the time when, as the days grow darker, we focus more intently on the Light of the World that is Jesus.  Nations will be in dismay because they are not faithful to the teachings of Jesus.  The ending of the world will cause non-believers to fear because they will be on the wrong side of history and their days of power and control will come to an end.  Those who follow Jesus will “‘stand erect and raise [their] heads because [their] redemption is at hand.’”

What will remain?  Jesus and all that is in Him and His Mystical Body, the Church.  What will pass away?  Everything that is contrary to Jesus and His Mystical Body, the Church.  Sadly, we tend to see things more in a political view than in a Gospel view.  We give allegiance to this or that political group, but not as much to Jesus and His Church.  The Gospel and the unbroken teaching of the Church tell us that we cannot support abortion, artificial contraception, homosexual activity, and the philosophy that we can determine our gender independent of the way God has created our bodies.  Of course, to our American ears that sounds like I’m attacking women and diversity and the Democratic party.  And certainly, we are called to love those who try to promote or get an abortion, those who engage in homosexual acts, and those who are confused about their gender.  But at the same time that we love them we cannot endorse their actions.  The Gospel and the unbroken teaching of the Church also tell us that we have an obligation to assist the poor, especially those who cannot care for themselves, and to care for the stranger, the alien, and those in prison, to strive for just working conditions and a fare wage.  Of course, to our American ears that sounds like I’m supporting laziness, like I don’t care about national security, and am in the pockets of the unions, and attacking the Republican party.  But God the Father doesn’t call us to be part of a political party.  He calls us to follow Jesus with all that it entails, which cannot be entirely encompassed by one political party (at least not one that I’ve seen).  We can have strong borders, encourage others to work, and make sure that employees are not taken advantage of for profit.  But we also have to make sure that we are treating all people with human dignity, no matter what their circumstance in life.

Our goal is to advance our life and the lives of those around us, towards Christ, following what He teaches in its fulness, not picking and choosing the parts we like.  Our goal is to be part of the trajectory of history that is going towards Jesus, committed to Him entirely, not committed to other groups or ideologies before Jesus.  During this Advent, let’s recommit ourselves to moving towards the goal of history, towards Jesus, and avoiding being on the wrong side of the judgement of Christ.

Truth and Beauty

Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

When is a king most a king?  That might seem like a very academic question, but it impacts how we understand and celebrate this Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.  A king, I would suggest, is most a king when he has defeated his enemies, and his kingdom is secure.  The ideal of Jewish kings is King David, who conquered all of his enemies.  King Solomon, his son, is least kingly when he is conquered by his wives’ attachment to their foreign gods.  

So for we who celebrate this great festival, when is Jesus most a king?  When He has defeated His enemies, that is to say, Satan, sin, and death.  And when did Jesus do exactly that?  On the cross.  And so, Jesus is most kingly when He is on the cross, dying for our salvation, and, at the same time, destroying the reign of Satan over this world.  That helps us understand today’s Gospel, which is Christ being interrogated by Pontius Pilate.  Of course, this was right before Jesus was led away to His crucifixion.  Pilate asks about Jesus’ kingship, alleged by the chief priests, and Jesus answers that His kingdom is a kingdom of truth.  That truth was released upon the world in the most powerful way when Jesus was nailed to the cross, the truth that St. John the Evangelist also tells us, that, “God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

Truth is related to something else: beauty.  We so often hear the false, yet ubiquitous statement, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”  Beauty, though, is not subjective, because it is the splendor of the truth, and truth is utterly objective.  Something is beautiful as much as it is true, or reflects the truth.  Lies are ugly.  Tonight we enjoy beautiful music.  It’s beautiful not simply because of the number of people, not simply because of the instrumentation, nor even the notes themselves, but because it reflects the truth of heaven.  Now, maybe Mozart isn’t played 24/7 in heaven, but the genius of Mozart, why it has stood the test of time, is that he tapped into something otherworldly, something heavenly, which helps us recognize the grandeur, the immensity, the order of heaven.  And this particular piece was made for the Mass, where heaven and earth are joined in harmony with each other in this sacred space.  Mozart maybe isn’t played in heaven 24/7, but it helps us to recognize that in this church we straddle both heaven and earth as we worship Christ our King, which is true of every Mass.  

Today we worship Christ, the King, who reigned most perfectly from the cross, and who still reigns perfectly in heaven as He continues to pour Himself out fully to God the Father for Christ’s Bride, the Church.  May our adherence to the truth prepare us for what God destines for us, a place in the Kingdom of Christ the King, where we will experience the fullness of the Beauty of God, in which we participate today.

On (St.) Mike's Team

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

When I was in Catholic elementary school we had this kid named Mike who was an amazing athlete, even then.  He was great at soccer, hockey, and swimming, and he wasn’t bad at basketball, either.  Most days at lunch we would play soccer on the parking lot, and if you were on Mike’s team you were usually going to win.  So, of course, everyone wanted to be on his team, because everyone wanted to win.

In these last weeks of our Church year (Advent begins the new year for the Church), we take time to focus on the end of time and the return of Jesus, what we often call the Second Coming.  Our first reading and our Gospel definitely have that as our focus today.  Jesus focuses on the end, what will happen, how to read the signs of the times, and yet also affirms that nobody knows exactly when it will happen: not the angels, nor even the Son of God, Jesus, when He was on earth.  The choice belongs to God the Father.  And Daniel, the prophet, in our first reading describes how a great battle will take place, but that St. Michael the Archangel will lead God’s people through the “unsurpassed…distress.”  

I’ll be honest with you: it feels like we’re going through an “end times” right now.  The world seems like it’s always one step away from another world war; there is what we might call a mass apostasy, a large exodus of people who are giving up their Catholic faith; hedonism, the philosophy that states that the most important thing in life is personal pleasure, seems to be the prevailing view of many people, even from some inside the Church; Christ’s Church seems to be under constant attack from outside forces; and, to paraphrase Pope St. Paul VI, the smoke of Satan has even entered and seems to have taken hold within the Church at the highest levels.  Things are not good.

To be clear, I’m not saying that these are the end times.  No doubt many people in Rome and beyond felt like the end was coming when the Roman Empire, which had existed since 753 BC and had helped Christianity spread, collapsed in the West in AD 476.  No doubt many people felt like the end of the world was coming when Islam swept across the Middle East, North Africa, and even into Spain.  No doubt, many people felt like the end of the world was coming when Europe started to break apart during the Protestant co-called Reformation and the religious wars that followed.  No doubt, many people felt like the end of the world was coming when Christian nation battled against other Christian nations in World War I and perhaps around 19 million people, civilian and military, died in the “War to end all Wars,” whose centenary the world just solemnly remembered on Armistice Day, 11 November.

As Jesus says, we don’t know when the end of the world will come.  And as we go through these trials, it can be easy to forget that the war has already been won.  Christ has conquered Satan, and all that is with him, sin and death.  Given all the bad news, it can, in fact, feel like we’re losing, that there’s no hope.  But there is hope, and even certainty, that Jesus has won and all that is wrong with the world will be made right, and the forces of evil have lost and will lose in the end.  And that should give us comfort and courage in the midst of these trying times.

But, the trials and tribulations that we are undergoing now should also encourage us to choose the winning team to join in our day to day life.  We should want to be on Mike’s team, not Mike from St. Mary School in Williamston, but St. Michael the Archangel.  He is God’s warrior who defeats evil and will lead the forces of God through the failing forces of evil.  We should want to be on Jesus’ team, for whom St. Michael fights, so that we win at the end.  And that is what is so sad about all those who are walking away from their faith.  I’m not the judge, so I’m not hear to judge their culpability, but we certainly don’t show that we want to be on Jesus’ team by not spending time with Him each week at Mass.  We certainly don’t show that we want to be on Jesus’ team by not following His teachings that He gives us through His Church.  We certainly don’t show that we want to be on Jesus’ team by not making Him the most important aspect of our life, rather than sports, pleasure, or following the culture that has set much of itself against God.  Each day we show by our actions on whose team we want to be.

I don’t know if the world will end soon; no one does.  But in these difficult times of trial and tribulation, when more and more of the world sets itself against Jesus and against His Church, it can be easy to be despaired, to want to quit.  What comes to my mind is a quote from a story told by a Catholic, JRR Tolkien, in his trilogy, Lord of the Rings.  Frodo the Hobbit says, “I wish the Ring had never come to me.  I wish none of this had happened.”  Gandalf the wizard replies, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.  There are other forces at work in the world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.”  Choose to be on Jesus’ team.  Make that choice evident by how you live your life one day at a time.

Both...And Not Either...Or

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

One of the first things Bishop Boyea was asked in 2008 when he was introduced as the newest Bishop of Lansing, and one of the things that priests are often asked in their first weekend as they begin at a new parish is the four word question: Michigan or Michigan State?

We often tend to put things into an “either…or” category.  In academia we all this a dichotomy, a choice between two different things.  In our politics: Republican or Democrat; in our fountain drinks: Pepsi or Coke; in our schools: Catholic or public; in our housing choice: rent or own; in our cars and beer: domestic or foreign.  Maybe it’s easier for our mind to operate this way, but we tend to put people in one of two camps.

So today, given our predilection for dichotomies, perhaps we think of it as love of God, or love of neighbor.  We probably don’t think of it that way, exactly, but we tend to focus on one, and perhaps we don’t focus on the other.  Maybe we like going to church, we love a beautiful liturgy, we love learning about our faith; or we like serving the poor, working at food pantries, promoting social justice.  

But to the scribe who comes up to Jesus and asks him the first of all the commandments, Jesus doesn’t try to pigeon-hole His answer into simply one or the other.  He says both love of God and love of neighbor.  Love of God is from the first reading we heard today in the Book of Deuteronomy.  Love of neighbor as oneself is from the Book of Leviticus.  Both are the most important commandments.  Both are part and parcel of following Jesus.

One could rightly point out that serving God is more important than anything else.  Part of what is radical in Jesus is that He demands total obedience, even above family, which only God could claim.  Being a do-gooder is not the same as being a disciple.  There are people who serve the poor, and yet reject God, and while I’m not the judge, rejecting God on this earth, especially in a purposeful way, is probably more on the road to Hell than Heaven.

But still, St. John, in his first Letter, says that we cannot serve the God that we don’t see, if we do not serve our neighbor (he uses the word brother) that we do see.  Being a philanthropist does not assure us of heaven.  But ignoring Jesus in the least of His brothers and sisters (to paraphrase Matthew 25) is also not helpful in us receiving eternal salvation.  St. John Chrysostom, one of the saints in our icons, says it this way: 

Do you want to honor Christ’s body?  Then do not scorn him in his nakedness, nor honor him here in the church with silken garments while neglecting him outside where he is cold and naked.  For he who said: This is my body, and made it so by his words, also said: You saw me hungry and did not feed me, and inasmuch as you did not do it for one of these, the least of my brothers, you did not do it for me.

Jesus instructs us of the great Catholic principle: both…and.  Both love of God and love of neighbor, not either or.

Most people focus on one or the other, love of God or love of neighbor.  So today Jesus challenges us to make sure that a focus on one does not mean the exclusion of the other.  Do you love worshipping God here in the church, being formed by the Mass and by our faith formation groups, learning more and more about what God has revealed through Scripture and Tradition?  Wonderful!  But remember: those clothes that you never wear in your closet or dresser: those belong to the poor; they have a right to them.

Do you love being with people and bringing them the love of God through your actions?  Do you feed them, clothe them, work for justice on their part?  Wonderful!  But if you skip worshipping God at Sunday Mass to serve the poor, then you are making an idol of the poor and worshipping them rather than God.

St. Theresa of Calcutta, Mother Theresa, is an embodiment of both…and.  Yes, most of her day was spent working with the poor, the outcast, and the dying.  But she never missed her opportunities for daily Mass and a Holy Hour of Adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament.  That was the most important part of her day, and it gave her the strength to serve the poor, the outcast, and the dying.

Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati is another embodiment of both…and.  He loved being outdoors, enjoying the beauty of God’s creation, being sustained by the Eucharist in Mass, but he secretly did work with the poor, contracting and dying of polio that was so prevalent among the poor he served.  And his secret was so well kept, that his rich parents had no idea who all the people were who attended his funeral, though the poor knew Pier Giorgio as a person who cared for them and their needs.  

Life is too complicated to be simply divided into two things.  Our faith is too rich to be simply divided into two things.  It’s not Scripture or Tradition, it’s both Scripture and Tradition; it’s not faith or reason, it’s both faith and reason; it’s not Word or Sacrament, it’s both Word and Sacrament; it’s not love of God or love of neighbor, it’s both love of God and love of neighbor.

What Do You Desire?

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Christmas is slightly more than 10 weeks away.  As a priest, that makes me say: oh my!  Now, when I was a kid, that meant it was time to start picking through the toy catalogues from different stores to see what I wanted for Christmas presents.  I have no idea why, but there were years where I wanted a Charlie McCarthy ventriloquist doll (I was a weird child, I guess).  But I focused my attention pretty quickly on what I wanted.

What do you want?  What do you desire?  We’re really good at asking God for things that we want.  Some are as frivolous as a Charlie McCarthy ventriloquist doll; others are more enduring like love, health, and good friends.  King Solomon, the traditional author of the Book of Wisdom whence our first reading came today, asked for prudence and wisdom.  As we hear in the Second Book of Samuel, he didn’t pray for gold, for a long reign, or for the death of his enemies, but for the gifts that were truly necessary to be a good king.  Prudence is that virtue that tells us when, to whom, and how to do the right thing.  Wisdom is that virtue that tells us what to do, what that right thing is. 

In the Gospel we heard today, a man goes to Jesus desiring to go to heaven.  He, like King Solomon, didn’t want passing things.  He wanted eternal life.  Jesus tells him to obey the commandments.  “Yep.  Got it,” he says.  And then Jesus “loved him and said to him, ‘You are lacking in one thing.  Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’”  Jesus presses to the place where his desire for heaven stops, and in this case, it was his money.

I think if we’re honest with ourselves, we all have parts of our life that we are not quite comfortable giving to Jesus.  Those parts probably change during our lives, but they’re there, nonetheless.  We all can say (I hope) at a surface level, “I want to go to heaven.”  But then that desire bumps into another desire, and we find out what we value more: heaven or the other thing.  Today’s Gospel is not so much about having money (though it can easily be an obstacle to our relationship with God).  It’s about whatever it is that we value more than our relationship with God and our goal of going to heaven.

If you wonder if you have anything that you value more than heaven, then think about how you would feel if it God asked you to give it up in order to go to heaven.  Maybe it’s control (or what we consider control) of our life.  Some people, like me, like to have things planned out and have a particular direction.  If God asked me to give that up, that would be difficult for me.  God may not ask me to give control up, but if I’m not willing to give it up, then I’m not ready for heaven.  What if God asked you to give up your family?  It should make you sad (if losing your family makes you happy, we need to talk!).  But could you do that for God?  People do.  People who convert to Catholicism, especially in the Middle East, are sometimes disowned by family members.  What if God asked you to give up all your money?  Could you do that for God?  Could you do that to gain eternal life if Jesus asked you to, like he asked the man in today’s Gospel?  How about your political affiliation?  If God asked you to stop being a Democrat or Republican or Libertarian or whatever so that you could go to heaven, could you do that?  Sadly, too often I know people who are more committed to a political platform than to their faith.  Whatever it is, if we desire it more than we desire God, than we desire eternal union with Him in heaven, Jesus invites us to give it up to find true and eternal happiness.

Sometimes God doesn’t ask us to give something up, but He asks us if we’re willing to give it up.  But sometimes He does ask us to leave less important things behind, sometimes even to leave people behind because they’re not helpful to our eternal salvation.  How do you know?  Pray.  Pray and ask God what you need to leave behind to focus on your relationship with God.  It may take time, and even if we walk away from Jesus, He never walks away from us.  But I encourage you to pray to God to see what He is inviting you to leave behind.  To help you, I invite you to look up Bl. Charles de Foucauld, who wrote a beautiful prayer on abandoning ourselves to God.

Father,

I abandon myself into your hands;

do with me what you will.

Whatever you may do, I thank you:

I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me,

and in all your creatures - 

I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul:

I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,

for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,

to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,

and with boundless confidence,

for you are my Father.

Amen.

God's View of Marriage

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

My sister, Allison,
and her fiancé, Tom

My youngest sister, Allison, is getting married in March.  This is the first and only wedding that I’ll have the chance to do for one of my siblings (unless, God-forbid, a spouse dies), since my other sister, Amanda, got married before I was a priest.  Of course, in all of the prep, there’s the wedding questions about the Mass, the dress, the tuxedos or suits, the reception, the food, and whom to invite.  As a priest, I see lots of different options for how weddings are celebrated.  I will say that entertainment and mass media has increased the ideas that people have (some good, some bad) for what their wedding should look like.

What almost never gets considered, or is given only a small consideration, is how the Church, the Bride of Christ, views the wedding and, more importantly, the marriage.  We hear about marriage in our first reading and Gospel today, but before I get there, I do want to take the opportunity to say that the Church expects certain things even from the wedding, ways that our Catholic understanding of marriage is expressed.  But just having a wedding in a church is a big part of that.  A wedding is not a ceremony whose goal is to make the couple look as much like royalty as possible.  A wedding is supposed to be in a Catholic church (unless the bride or groom would find such a location offensive due to their Jewish or Muslim faith) because marriage is a sacred covenant, an agreement between the couple, yes, but also between the couple and God.  And a church is a place where God dwells in a way that God doesn’t dwell on a beach, in a fancy barn, or anywhere else.  

But, back to the readings.  In our first reading we hear about God creating marriage.  It’s not explicit, but God creates Eve for Adam, as an equal partner, to compliment him.  Man and woman are different (I know that, for many of us, that’s common sense, but in today’s culture, saying that man and woman are different is quite shocking!).  And in creating Eve to be with Adam, God creates marriage.  And since God created marriage, and since God does always what is for our good, we see in Adam and Eve a pattern with which we have no authority to tinker.  Marriage cannot be one man and two women; it cannot be one woman and two men; it cannot be two people of the same sex.  That doesn’t sound loving, but everything God does for us is an act of love, and Scripture makes it very clear how God created marriage.  

Now, throughout the Old Testament, God continued to reveal more about how He created marriage.  But, sometimes the message got muddled.  And that’s where our Gospel comes in.  The Pharisees ask Jesus if, as Moses said, divorce is still allowed in following Jesus.  Jesus had overturned a lot of what the Pharisees thought was right, and so they’re seeing if he’s upending marriage, too.  Moses allowed a husband to divorce his wife for certain reasons, including infidelity.  But Jesus clarifies: man and woman in marriage are no longer two, but one flesh, joined by God.  So what God has joined together, no one must separate.  

As radical as it now sounds to say that two men or two women cannot be married in the eyes of God and His Church, it was that radical in the time of Jesus to say that divorce could not happen.  This was not an easy statement.  It was very counter-cultural.  But Jesus, who is God, who is Love Incarnate, tells us this so that we can truly be happy.

This is, I’m sure, where all sorts of objections come to our mind.  When we think about how the Church does not allow or recognize homosexual marriage, maybe we think it’s not fair to have two people who feel a certain way for each other to deny them marriage.  But marriage is ordered toward sex (as well as union and fidelity and the good of the spouses), and sex is ordered toward children.  All the goods of marriage have to be present to be part of God’s plan.  Older people get married, yes, but even sometimes older people conceive children; just ask Abraham and Sarah or Elizabeth and Zechariah.  And God reveals in the Old and New Testament that only those who are married can have holy sex.

When we think about divorce and remarriage, sometimes people bring up cases of abuse, and say that the Church is saying they need to stay in those abusive relationships.  We turn back to Genesis: Adam and Eve are co-equal partners, who are there to help each other.  Abuse is not an example of helping each other.  Marriages can be annulled if abuse happens, but even before that, the defense of self and/or one’s children is another basic part of God’s teaching.  If you’re in an abusive relationship, God is not calling you to be a verbal or physical punching bag.  Come to me, and I’ll help you to take care of your marriage situation.  

Even if you’re not part of an abusive marriage that broke up, but simply divorced, I can help you examine if there was an obstacle that existed before you were married, even if it was only known after you got married.  Or if you have questions about your marriage situation, I’ll be glad to help you understand it in the light of what God has revealed in Sacred Scripture and the teaching of the Church so that you can be truly happy according to God’s plan.  I’m not here to beat you up spiritually or emotionally even if your marriage is not what is part of God’s plan; I’m here to help you get to that place where your marriage reflects God’s vision for marriage.

There are a lot of groups that give us what they think is the key to a happy marriage.  We see royal marriages, Hollywood marriages, and what some people call marriage but which are, in God’s eyes, not marriage.  Go to the Creator of marriage to understand how to live this beautiful Sacrament.  Go to what He has revealed through Scripture and the Church to understand how marriage truly works.  It may be difficult; it may be counter-cultural.  But, as it comes from the source of all true happiness and joy, it will make you truly happy and filled with joy.

Would that All God's People Were Prophets!

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sometimes reading the Bible is difficult.  Sometimes it’s difficult because of unique names.  The two we had in the first reading, Eldad and Medad, aren’t too bad, but when you get to names like Melchisedech, Rehoboam, Abinadab, etc., it’s easy to see why some people get a little nervous.  It’s also tough because some parts of the Bible are read differently than others.  In some cases, we can follow the literal meaning that is easily recognizable at face value.  Other times, God speaks more figuratively.  And, if you’re just reading the text, you can’t always tell the difference.  It’s not like there are brackets around the literal phrases and italics for the more figurative statements.  But that’s why we have a Magisterium, an official teaching office entrusted to the Pope and the Bishops to help us understand how the Word of God is to be interpreted.  And that’s why we offer Bible studies at our parish: to help you understand what the Word of God means. 

Back in the late-second to the mid-third century, there was a guy from Alexandria, Egypt, and his name was Origen.  Origen was a firebrand of a guy.  He really wanted to be a martyr to witness to how much he loved Jesus.  But his mother wasn’t so keen on the idea.  Origen was bound and determined to die for Jesus, and was ready to run off to die for Jesus.  So his mother hid all his clothes, guessing (correctly, as it turned out) that he would not run out of the house naked.  Origen was known for his interpretation of Scripture, and he is one of the most prolific theological writers of the third century.  But, he could not always tell the difference between literal and the figurative senses of Scripture.  In one big mix-up, Origen took the passage we heard today much too literally: “‘If your hand causes you to sin, but it off.  It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.’”  But Origen’s issue was sexual sins, so it wasn’t his hands he cut off, and I’ll leave it at that.

While that part of our Gospel is not literal, our first reading can be taken literally.  God sent His spirit, that He had previously bestowed on Moses, and gave it to seventy elders.  God told the seventy to be in a certain spot to receive His spirit.  Of course, two of the seventy didn’t make it, or didn’t get the message.  So they were in the general camp, when they started prophesying.  Joshua, Moses’ assistant, complains because they didn’t follow directions.  But Moses said, “‘Would that all the people of the Lord were prophets!  Would that the Lord might bestow his spirit on them all!’”  Moses wanted, and God wants, all His people to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that we might all be prophets, so that we might all speak God’s message.  But perhaps we take this passage a bit too figuratively.  

After all, we might say, the priests are the ones who are supposed to be prophets and speak God’s word.  Or religious sisters; they’re supposed to be prophets and speak God’s word.  Or missionaries in Africa and tropical islands: they’re supposed to be prophets and speak God’s word.  That’s not us!  But, that’s not what God is saying here.  God is saying He wants us all to speak His message for Him.  We can’t pawn it off on priests or deacons or sisters or missionaries.  We are all called to be prophets, as I preached last Sunday.

But what, then, are we meant to say?  I think all of us can start with the basics of Catholicism.  And in case you’re rusty, here it is: we’re sinners; we cannot save ourselves; God sent His Son Jesus to save us from sin and death; Jesus did this by His Death and Resurrection; we can be saved by believing in Jesus and following Him; if we believe in Jesus and follow Him, we’ll be ready for heaven, which is perfect happiness and the goal of our life.  That’s it.  

And you know what?  People need to hear it.  People are generally miserable.  Sometimes they hide it.  Sometimes they try to distract themselves with temptations or shortcuts to happiness: sensual pleasure, power, and glory.  All of them, but especially the first one, is the Johnny Lee song: “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places.”  The second one is when we strive to be in control–of the world, of people, of work, of ourselves–when in fact we have control over almost nothing.  The third one is about being known, being famous, being popular.  And while all of them will give us pleasure, and may even distract us for a while, they will never give us true happiness.  

And since this is what everybody needs, Bishop Boyea has proclaimed another Year of Prayer.  This time the Year of Prayer is focused on helping us become a community of Missionary Disciples.  Not just that we believe in Jesus (which is a necessary first step), but that we share that news for others.  So, to be clear, when the Bible says would that all of God’s people were prophets, it’s not symbolic language, it’s not figurative language.  God wants all of us to hear His message of salvation and truth; and then proclaim it to others.  So go and announce the Gospel of the Lord!