Like Fr. Mulcahy

 Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of my favorite TV characters, for reasons you might guess, is Fr. Francis Mulcahy from the TV show “M*A*S*H.”  As the seasons progress, they really develop his character into a leading role in the show.  He often is known for his dry humor and his witty one-liners.  But one of my favorite episodes with Fr. Mulcahy is when a soldier who is AWOL (absent without leave) decides to claim sanctuary in the mess tent, which is serving as the chapel.  Though other, higher-ranking officers, the Judge Advocate General corps (think military lawyers), and even the head chaplain of the Army all say that the protection of sanctuary does not apply, Fr. Mulcahy is very serious about providing the soldier with the protection that is needed.  However, when the soldier, who is pressed in by the MPs (military police), grabs a rifle, Fr. Mulcahy is just as serious about rebuking the soldier for claiming sanctuary on the one hand, but then taking up arms in the same “house of God” on the other hand when things don’t seem to be going his way.  He bats away the rifle, almost on instinct, while scolding the soldier.  And then, when the soldier is visibly upset and penitent, Fr. Mulcahy is just as serious about comforting the soldier and getting him the help he needs.
    As Catholics, we could all learn a thing or two from Fr. Mulcahy; not just me as a priest and a chaplain for the State Police.  And I want to focus on his seriousness, because there are two things we should be very serious about: our sins and their effects on the one hand, and God’s mercy on the other.  
    St. Paul reminds us today that there are certain actions which are inconsistent with going to heaven: “immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like.”  Some of the English words don’t need an explanation.  But for a word like immorality, in Greek porneia, we could say any type of sexual activity outside of marriage (and this Greek word is the word from which we get the word pornography); impurity is also broad and has a sense of any physical act of lust; licentiousness has the meaning of an unbridled lust or excess of sexuality (no restrictions on sexual activity); the words that underline idolatry (false worship) and sorcery are fairly clear.  
    The word hatred is connected to the Greek word for enemy.  Rivalry can also mean strife or fighting.  Jealousy is pretty obvious, but fury could also be translated as rage or intense anger.  Acts of selfishness can also mean selfish ambition or selfish rivalry, and dissensions is about dividing.  Factions is connected to the word for heresies, which means a separate (and false) teaching.  The definitions for the rest seem fairly obvious.  
    In any case, St. Paul is clear that these types of behavior are not only opposed to the Holy Spirit, but “those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”  That’s very serious!  And so should we take them: seriously; we might even say “gravely.”  Some on that list are not surprising as keeping one out of heaven: sexual immorality and the like, outbursts of fury, drinking bouts, etc.  But others, perhaps like jealousy, envy, and even dissensions might not seem as serious.  And yet, if we take the Word of God as given to us by St. Paul seriously, then even those things can keep one from heaven.  
    And yet, we also have to be as serious about the mercy of God, not undermining the evil that can keep us out of heaven, but also not giving more power to sin than to God’s grace.  The Galatians included probably many people who, as pagans, had lived in such a way as St. Paul describes as contrary to the Spirit and part of the works of the flesh.  But they had turned away from such things, at least for a while.  The fact that St. Paul is writing to remind them about not living according to the flesh leads one to believe that at least some had fallen back into old habits, and they needed a little encouragement and admonition about living according to the Spirit.  God’s mercy is more powerful than our sins, and can restore us to a right relationship with Him, no matter what we have done.  
    But, we want to respond to the grace of God, which is the source of any good we do, and not try to serve two masters.  Our Lord talks about the choice between God and mammon, which means money or wealth.  But the choice of which master we serve can also go for any of the sins which St. Paul lists out.  If the master we serve is not God, then it makes sense why we would not go to heaven, because we would not want to go there.  If we prefer to indulge our illicit sexual appetites, or our passions, or even our own self-importance or the superiority of our intellectual positions, then we have made no room for God.  We should take seriously whom we wish to serve, because the small choices we make daily can determine our eternity.
    At the same time, we should take seriously God’s mercy, and his patience with us if we are trying to repent.  In times such as these, while it doesn’t excuse sexual immorality of any kind, sex is ubiquitous and it is very easy to get snared, sometimes even unwittingly at a young age.  Are we turning to the mercy of God, not presuming on it, but truly seeking to do better, doing our best to cooperate with God’s grace, and returning, sometimes even time-after-time, to the confessional?  Going to confession is our part in asking the Lord to re-establish Himself as the Master of our life.  That is why exorcists say that the best way to avoid demonic oppression or possession is to make regular confessions.  And we have a good amount of times here and at St. Pius X where the Sacrament of Penance is available.  As those times consistently fill-up, I can look to add other times.  
    But do not despair of God’s mercy, or take it lightly.  God desires our salvation, and, as as Jesus told us, He will seek us out like a lost lamb or a lost coin.  “God already proved His love for us in that, while we were still sinners, he died for us,” St. Paul writes.  There is no place God will not go to rescue us from our sinfulness.  So take courage and ask for God’s mercy.  Ask for God’s help to put to death the works of the flesh (which is impossible to do by ourselves) and to live, guided by the Holy Spirit.  When we call upon God in true sorrow for our sins, moved by God’s grace, we can have confidence that God will help us to live by the Spirit, who with the Father and the Son is God, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Being Restored to Worship and Family

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of my professors at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit was Fr. Earl Muller, SJ.  Now, I know the Jesuits get a bad reputation, sometimes very much earned, but Fr. Muller, even with all his quirks, was a very faithful, orthodox professor.  I remember him preaching on this Gospel, and approaching the account in a way that I have never considered.  We usually dive right in to the fact that we should say thank you, and those other nine lepers who were healed were simply rude.  But Fr. Muller had us examine our Lord’s words.  What did He say?  “‘Go, show yourselves to the priests.’”  That’s it.  Nothing more.  Never did Christ say, and then come back to me and say “thank you.”  In fact, the Samaritan doesn’t even make it to the priest, as our Lord commanded him, but runs back to Christ and thanks Him.  Yet, our Lord praises the Samaritan’s faith, and seemingly puts down the other nine. 
    As I first sat down to compose this homily, I immediately went to gratitude.  After all, the Samaritan is praised for returning to thank Jesus, whom the Samaritan acknowledges as God.  And I’ll likely get back to that point.  But first, we should look at what was happening, which would have caught the attention of any early Christian who had any knowledge of the Jewish law.
    Leprosy was not only a skin disease (it may not have been Hansen’s disease, as we now call it, but could have included any number of skin maladies).  Leprosy, besides being an illness, also made one unfit for any kind of temple worship.  If you could not be around people, there was no way you could go to the temple and worship God.  You were cut off from the practice of your faith in its greatest sense.  You were also cut off from your family, which, to any Jew, was everything.  After all, the Jewish people themselves were, first and foremost, the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, aka Israel.  The nation was basically the twelve tribes.  And yet, as a leper, you had no share in that family, and so you really had no people, no nation, to which you belonged.  You were totally cut off from the main ways in which people found belonging.
    The old law had given the priests the authority to determine if the leprosy was truly cured, to act both as those in charge of worship, as well as members of the tribe of Levi, the family of Israel.  The priests were the ones who could re-attach the leper both to worship and to family/nation.  So our Lord, as one who came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it, sends the lepers on their way so that they could be returned to worship and family.
 

   But this Samaritan, who had no share in either the worship or the family of Israel (recall that the Samaritans were, as far as worship goes, heretics, and as far as family goes, the crazy uncle that you don’t invite to family gatherings or even talk to anymore), he returns to thank Christ for what had been done.  And the Savior praises him for it.  As my old professor, Fr. Muller, said to us, rhetorically, “What was Jesus’ problem?”
    Christ, throughout the Gospels, is creating a new law (see Matthew 5); redefining family (“unless you hate father and mother you cannot be my disciple”); and claiming to be the object of worship (“the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath”).  And it is this Samaritan who gets that, somehow, even though he was separated from the Chosen People.  Somehow, this Samaritan recognizes that it is Christ who will restore him to proper worship and make him a part of a new family, those who follow the Lord.  Perhaps he had spoken to the Samaritan woman from Sychar, who had dialogued with Christ and heard Him that that the day was coming when true worshippers would not worship in Jerusalem or at Jacob’s well, but in spirit and truth.  Perhaps he had heard of our Lord saying that whoever hears the word of God and observes it is a mother, brother, and sister.  But however it happened, the Samaritan came to recognize that the belonging that usually was found in temple worship and being restored to the family of Israel was possible through this man, the God-Man.
    God is the one who gives us belonging through Christ.  Christ is the one who broke down, as St. Paul says, the old barriers between Jew and Gentile, making them both one through the Blood that Christ shed on the cross.  Christ restores us to worship through His forgiveness, which we receive in the Sacrament of Penance.  In that case, the priest, acting both in the name of Christ the Head and the Community, restores us to worthy worship and to belonging to the family of God. 
    And for that, we should be thankful (I told you I’d get back to this point).  Thanksgiving should come as naturally to us as breathing.  It doesn’t necessarily, but that’s the goal, because everything is a gift.  Nothing that we have has not come from God, either willed purposefully or allowed.  The only thing that we can claim ownership of is our sins.  And so we are invited to give thanks to God, for His mercy endures forever.  Psalm 136 (135 in the Douay-Rheims) is the perfect example of this.  The Psalmist praises God for His work of creation and redemption, and after each word of praises says, “for his mercy endures forever.”  So for us, we can and should go through our day or week, thinking about what God has done for us, “for his mercy endures forever.”  Maybe it’s our family and friends; maybe it’s our job; maybe it’s an easier drive to an appointment than we expected; maybe it’s a vacation; for our parish; for our opportunities to grow; for God’s strength when we avoid sin; for God’s mercy when we fall into sin and repent.  Even for our crosses we should thank God, because they draw us closer to Him if we unite them to the Cross of Christ. 
    When we recognize what God has done for us, it should lead to thanksgiving, like the Samaritan, who does not follow our Lord’s word to the letter, but understands that what the priests were supposed to do, not of their own power but as a way of recognizing what God had already done, our Lord did.  Today I invite you to give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for His mercy endures forever.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Mary, The Ark who Leads Israel into Battle

 Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
 

   In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  In 1981, Steven Spielberg produced a movie that introduced to the world the great archeologist, Indiana Jones.  “Raiders of the Lost Ark” continued Harrison Ford’s connection with action movies that had been started with the “Star Wars” franchise, but was also one of those feel good movies about American beating Nazis.  It also raised this question about where the Ark of the Covenant was.  It reminded people that the Ark of the Covenant was “lost,” as it were.  Contrary to the movie, it has still never been found and is not sitting in a Smithsonian warehouse somewhere.  The two main theories that are prevalent now are: that the Ark is in Ethiopia, brought by Jeremiah to Egypt when the Chaldeans destroyed Jerusalem, and then made its way south to the great Ethiopian kingdom when the Chaldeans went to expand the empire to Egypt, and is now protected by Ethiopian Orthodox priests in a shrine; or that the Ark is buried under rubble of the Solomonic temple, which is currently located under the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
    But for us Catholics, the Ark of the old covenant is not important, anymore than the Temple building would be important.  And it’s not important because we have a new Ark of the Covenant: Mary.  Our first reading from the Book of Judith described a woman who led Israel into battle and gained, victory, just as the Ark was often taken into battle, like at Jericho.  The Book of Revelation describes the ark in the temple, and then goes on to describe this woman “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars,” who gives birth to a son who rules the nations.  You don’t have to be a Scripture scholar to know that this refers to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  
    Usually as we celebrate this Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we focus on how Mary, at the end of her life, was assumed, body and soul, into heaven.  But our readings also draw us to Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant.  And it’s not simply in the Book of Revelation.  The Gospel account of the Visitation is chosen for today’s celebration (as Mary’s Assumption is not directly explained in Scripture) bears striking resemblance to the account of King David bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.  Mary goes to visit Elizabeth, her cousin, who lives just outside of Jerusalem, in a village we now call Ein Kerem.  The new ark is on the move, just as David had it brought to him.  As David brings the Ark of the Covenant with him, he dances before it.  John the Baptist, in the womb of Elizabeth, leaps for joy before Mary, the new Ark.  Elizabeth says at the Visitation: “How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”  David says, after God promises to raise up a dynasty for him, “‘Whom am I, Lord God, and what is my house, that you should have brought me so far?’”  So Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant.
    Think, too, of what the Ark of the Covenant contained: not sand (like in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”), but a golden pot with manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the tablets of the Law.  Think about what (or better, whom) Mary carried with her: not the law written on stone tablets, but the author of the Law, who was God’s law made flesh; not the budding staff of the first high priest, but the Eternal High Priest Himself; not the manna which God had given the people in the wilderness, but the True Bread from Heaven, as we have heard over the past few weeks in the Gospel according to John.  Mary is this new Ark.  In fact, when I was in Israel as a seminarian on pilgrimage, I remember visiting a church in Abu Ghosh called Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant, and is said to have been built around the place where the Ark of the Covenant rested until King David took it to Jerusalem.

Statue of Mary in Abu Ghosh

    Today’s Solemnity of the Assumption reminds us that God will raise up, not just our souls, but also our bodies, at the end of time.  What Mary shares in now, we hope to share in when God re-creates the heavens and earth.  But in order to do that, we, in our own way, need to become arks.  God also invites us, and Mary shows us it is possible, to carry the Law within us, written on our hearts, the new law of love that Jesus gave us that does not annul the Ten Commandments, but helps us to live it out more fully.  God invites us to be priests according to our baptism, those who offer our daily sacrifices to God.  We offer God our joys and sorrows, our successes and our failures, our work and our vacation.  Each day we can call on God, just as Aaron, the first priest of the Law, did.  I know that sometimes this is used to distort the ministerial priesthood, but we are truly priests who can "dare to say" (audemus dicere as I say before I say the Our Father) that God is our Father and offer our daily sacrifices to Him.

And God invites us to be sustained, no longer by the old manna that decayed, but the new manna, the bread of life, the Eucharist, which is food for our pilgrimage from this vale of tears to the true Promised Land of heaven.  We are invited to worthily receive the Eucharist so that the Bread of Life can be within us, just as it was within the Ark of the Covenant.  In that way, we become arks of the new covenant, like Mary was and is.
    We don’t need to go to Egypt to find a secret cave that is filled with snakes (“I hate snakes!”) in order to find the Ark.  We don’t have to worry that “we’re digging in the wrong place!”  Following the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we can be arks of the covenant, the covenant made in the Precious Blood of the Spotless Lamb, Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is Lord for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant

 Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
 

   In 1981, Steven Spielberg produced a movie that introduced to the world the great archeologist, Indiana Jones.  “Raiders of the Lost Ark” continued Harrison Ford’s connection with action movies that had been started with the “Star Wars” franchise, but was also one of those feel good movies about American beating Nazis.  It also raised this question about where the Ark of the Covenant was.  It reminded people that the Ark of the Covenant was “lost,” as it were.  Contrary to the movie, it has still never been found and is not sitting in a Smithsonian warehouse somewhere.  The two main theories that are prevalent now are: that the Ark is in Ethiopia, brought by Jeremiah to Egypt when the Chaldeans destroyed Jerusalem, and then made its way south to the great Ethiopian kingdom when the Chaldeans went to expand the empire to Egypt, and is now protected by Ethiopian Orthodox priests in a shrine; or that the Ark is buried under rubble of the Solomonic temple, which is currently located under the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
    But for us Catholics, the Ark of the old covenant is not important, anymore than the Temple building would be important.  And it’s not important because we have a new Ark of the Covenant: Mary.  In our first reading today, the Book of Revelation describes the ark in the temple, and then goes on to describe this woman “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars,” who gives birth to a son who rules the nations.  You don’t have to be a Scripture scholar to know that this refers to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  
    Usually as we celebrate this Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we focus on how Mary, at the end of her life, was assumed, body and soul, into heaven.  Our second reading talks about how Christ has been raised, and will bring all those who belong to Him to that same glory, “each one in the proper order,” which means Mary as first, since she is the perfect disciple.
    But our readings also draw us to Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant.  And it’s not simply in the first reading from Revelation.  The Gospel account of the Visitation is chosen for today’s celebration (as Mary’s Assumption is not directly explained in Scripture) bears striking resemblance to the account of King David bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.  Mary goes to visit Elizabeth, her cousin, who lives just outside of Jerusalem, in a village we now call Ein Kerem.  The new ark is on the move, just as David had it brought to him.  As David brings the Ark of the Covenant with him, he dances before it.  John the Baptist, in the womb of Elizabeth, leaps for joy before Mary, the new Ark.  Elizabeth says at the Visitation: “How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”  David says, after God promises to raise up a dynasty for him, “‘Whom am I, Lord God, and what is my house, that you should have brought me so far?’”  So Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant.
    Think, too, of what the Ark of the Covenant contained: not sand (like in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”), but a golden pot with manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the tablets of the Law.  Think about what (or better, whom) Mary carried with her: not the law written on stone tablets, but the author of the Law, who was God’s law made flesh; not the budding staff of the first high priest, but the Eternal High Priest Himself; not the manna which God had given the people in the wilderness, but the True Bread from Heaven, as we have heard over the past few weeks in the Gospel according to John.  Mary is this new Ark.  In fact, when I was in Israel as a seminarian on pilgrimage, I remember visiting a church in Abu Ghosh called Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant, and is said to have been built around the place where the Ark of the Covenant rested until King David took it to Jerusalem.
    Today’s Solemnity of the Assumption reminds us that God will raise up, not just our souls, but also our bodies, at the end of time.  What Mary shares in now, we hope to share in when God re-creates the heavens and earth.  But in order to do that, we, in our own way, need to become arks.  God also invites us, and Mary shows us it is possible, to carry the Law within us, written on our hearts, the new law of love that Jesus gave us that does not annul the Ten Commandments, but helps us to live it out more fully.  God invites us to be priests according to our baptism, those who offer our daily sacrifices to God.  We offer God our joys and sorrows, our successes and our failures, our work and our vacation.  Each day we can call on God, just as Aaron, the first priest of the Law, did.  And God invites us to be sustained, no longer by the old manna that decayed, but the new manna, the bread of life, the Eucharist, which is food for our pilgrimage from this vale of tears to the true Promised Land of heaven.  We are invited to worthily receive the Eucharist so that the Bread of Life can be within us, just as it was within the Ark of the Covenant.  In that way, we become arks of the new covenant, like Mary was and is.
    We don’t need to go to Egypt to find a secret cave that is filled with snakes (“I hate snakes!”) in order to find the Ark.  We don’t have to worry that “we’re digging in the wrong place!”  Following the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we can be arks of the covenant, the covenant made in the Precious Blood of the Spotless Lamb, Jesus Christ. 

Am I at the Right Movie?

Vigil of the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
    When I was a child, I went to a movie with my dad.  We were going to see the new “Star Trek” move that had just come out.  Not long after we arrived, the lights went down, and we got ready for the beginning of the movie.  The music that started to play was different than I expected, but I thought maybe it was on purpose.  And then, as images started to display on the screen, there was the image of two babies that had just been born.  Again, not what I expected, but I thought maybe it was doing a flashback to some character’s birth.  In fact, they had put the wrong movie in the theater, and we were being shown “Twins” with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito; very different from “Star Trek.”
    Perhaps you had a similar feeling as you sat down and started to listen to the first reading.  What does David and the Ark of the Covenant have to do with the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary?  And that confusion was likely continued in the psalm response, and we sang, “Lord, go up to the place of your rest, you and the ark of your holiness.”  Then, as the second reading started, you probably felt like we were back on track, as we spoke about Jesus taking away the sting of death.  And our Gospel at least indirectly mentions Mary when it talks about the womb that carried and the breasts that nursed Jesus. 
    But the first reading and psalm response have everything to do with Mary, at least in a spiritual sense.  The literal meaning is that David had taken the Ark of the Covenant, which the Israelites had made on their sojourn to the Promised Land, and kept as they entered the Promised Land, even taking it into battle during the reign of some of the Judges.  But it had really been left out of the newly developed kingdom that Saul ruled.  So David brought it into his newly captured capital city of Jerusalem, and then has the priests and people offer worship to God.  Eventually, that Ark would end up in the Temple that Solomon would build after the death of his father, King David.
    What was in the Ark of the Covenant?  There were three things that God commanded Moses put into the Ark: a golden pot with manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the tablets of the Law.  They were still in there as the Levites carried the Ark on their shoulders with poles into Jerusalem.  But what does this have to do with Mary?
    The early Christians understood Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant.  Think about what (or better, whom) Mary carried with her: not the law written on stone tablets, but the author of the Law, who was God’s law made flesh; not the budding staff of the first high priest, but the Eternal High Priest Himself; not the manna which God had given the people in the wilderness, but the True Bread from Heaven, as we have heard over the past few weeks in the Gospel according to John. 
    And even the first reading is, in some sense, duplicated in the Gospel of the Visitation.  Mary goes to visit Elizabeth, her cousin, who lives just outside of Jerusalem, in a village we now call Ein Kerem.  The new ark is on the move, just as David had it brought to him.  As David brings the Ark of the Covenant with him, he dances before it.  John the Baptist, in the womb of Elizabeth, leaps for joy before Mary, the new Ark.  Elizabeth says at the Visitation: “How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”  David says, after God promises to raise up a dynasty for him, “‘Whom am I, Lord God, and what is my house, that you should have brought me so far?’”  So Mary has everything to do with our first reading and psalm, because she is the Ark of the New Covenant.  In fact, when I was in Israel as a seminarian on pilgrimage, I remember visiting a church in Abu Ghosh called Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant, and is said to have been built around the place where the Ark of the Covenant rested until King David took it to Jerusalem. 

Statue of Mary at Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant

    

While Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant, par excellence, we, too, are invited to be arks of the new covenant.  Yes, Mary is the New Ark because she carries Jesus, the new Law, the Eternal High Priest, and the Bread from Heaven within her, but we are called to hear the word of God, and carry it and observe it in our daily lives.  In that way we become arks of the covenant.  Mary both carries Jesus in her womb, but also hears the word of God and observes it, so she is doubly blessed, most blessed, in fact, among women and men. 
    So no, you weren’t hearing the wrong readings.  David and the ark have everything to do with Mary.  As we celebrate this Mass, we join David and the Blessed Virgin Mary in heaven, as heaven joins with earth in every Mass, and we sing and make music and worship God, uniting ourselves to Christ’s one perfect sacrifice, that truly took away the sins of the world, and instituted a new and everlasting covenant that is not only celebrated in Jerusalem on earth, but the Jerusalem that is above: heaven.  

How God Heals Us

 Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Catholicism is a sense-experience religion.  When you come to Mass you can see beauty, especially in this church.  You hear different prayers throughout the Mass.  You smell the incense burning in the thurible.  You taste the Eucharist on your tongue.  You sit, stand, and kneel at different parts of the Mass.  Ours is not a quietist religion where you simply sit and think of God.  Worship of God and the practice of the faith in our day-to-day life involves the entire person, body and soul.

    We involve the body and soul because that’s what our Savior did.  We heard it in the Gospel today: there was a man who was deaf and mute.  Jesus takes him aside, and rather than simply willing the healing, He puts His fingers into his ears, spits, and touches the man’s tongue.  He then groans, looks up to heaven, and says, “Ephphatha!  Be opened!”  I don’t know what exactly the deaf and mute man was expecting, but I’m not sure that I would have expected that!
    It’s important to see that our Lord comes to heal.  One of the early Greek titles of our Lord was 𝛴𝜔𝜏𝜂𝜌, which means “savior,” but also has a context of healing.  We tend to think of salvation in merely spiritual terms, saving our souls, but Christ knows that we are a union of soul and body, and so healing one has an impact on the other.  How many people in the Gospels came to Christ with a physical malady, but ended up healed in body and soul, with their sins forgiven as well as their illness healed?
    That ministry of healing did not end when our Lord ascended into heaven.  He continues to heal us.  Again, we tend to think of the healing that our souls need, but sometimes our bodies need healing, and the Lord does that as well.  One of my classmates, Fr. Mathias Thelen, has a charism of healing, which, as he always says, is God healing through him.  There are a great number of people whom God has cured, healed of infirmities, or eased the pain.  We also require these types of miracles through the intercession of one who has a cause of sainthood.  And those stories not only involve healing the body of that person, but also bolster our faith in how God works in our everyday world.
    But it’s good not to put God in a box, and put limits on how He can heal us.  At least from time to time, God heals us in an unexpected way, or maybe even a way with which we’re not that comfortable.  Again, think about the man in the Gospel.  Imagine yourself being taken aside by our Lord, and you have a confidence that He is going to heal you.  You’re looking forward to being able to hear and speak.  You will not longer be stuck mostly in your head.  And then you see Jesus take his fingers, and put them into your ears.  Okay…a little awkward, but maybe some touching of the ears was expected to cure the deafness.  But then, He spits and touches your tongue!  Now we’ve gone into the realm of the unexpected.  I can’t remember a time where I let someone touch my tongue, though, granted, I’m not mute.  Still, I think it’s at least plausible that this healing was not in the manner that the man expected.  But the man was healed, and was so grateful that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut (it had been, after all, shut for so long before that!).  
    How is the Lord trying to heal you?  Sometimes it can come in unexpected ways.  Maybe we’re not having people put fingers in ears, spitting, and touching our tongues.  But are we open to how God wants to heal and save us?  Our eternal salvation was won in a very unexpected way: by the death of our Lord on the cross.  It was so unexpected, almost none of His followers bothered to be with Him in His last hours.  And the disciples are doubly astounded when He shows up alive, after they knew He had been crucified.  
    But our healing that comes to us in our everyday life from God can also be unexpected.  Some couples take a little while to find their spouse, and it can often come after serious heartbreak.  But that heartbreak with the wrong person sometimes leads to the right person, the spouse God wants for you.  To use sports as an analogy, sometimes you have to go through serious pain to become a better athlete.  Sometimes a parent needs to discipline a child, perhaps even with a spanking, to help the child understand what not to do (which will help the child be a better person and disciple).  Sometimes a friend needs to speak a harsh word, or take drastic actions, in order to truly help the friend move on from a bad habit.  
    Those are all negative, but healing can happen in positive unexpected ways, too.  No matter how we experience the unexpected, it can often be in those ways that our Lord heals us and helps us to grow.  God continued to help His Church grow through St. Paul, who had previously persecuted the Church of God, hence St. Paul’s acknowledgement that he is the least of the Apostles.  But God’s grace, which took a persecutor and turned him into a martyr, did the work; it was not in vain.  
    Do not be afraid to ask for healing from God.  Have faith that God can heal whatever ails you, whether it’s physical or spiritual malady.  Healing may not come how you expect it, or maybe not even when you expect it, but it will come, as a gift of God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Union With God

 Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Fr. Zach Mabee, who used to serve here in Flint (and who is probably best known as the tallest priest in the Diocese of Lansing), likes to share funny memes on Facebook.  His full time job is teaching at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, but some days he posts so many memes that you would think that posting memes is his job.  Anyway, he recently posted one meme that said, “Why would you say ‘half a dozen’ when you can literally say ‘six’?”  It is interesting to think about how we use a phrase when we can use just one word.

    The same could be said about the Eucharist.  Sometimes we refer to the Body and Blood of Christ as the Eucharist, but we often refer to the Eucharist as Holy Communion.  Perhaps not as long as “half a dozen,” but still it’s another term for the same reality.
    The word Eucharist comes from two Greek words, 𝜀𝜐 and 𝜒𝛼𝜌𝜄𝜍, which, when put together, means “give thanks well,”  The Eucharist is the way that we give thanks to God well, because it is Jesus’ perfect sacrifice that unites us to the Father and opens heaven for us.  The Mass, where we celebrate the Eucharist, is our prayer of thanksgiving that Jesus gave us.
    But we do also rightfully call the Eucharist “Holy Communion.”  We all know what holy means: set aside for God or belonging to God.  Communion is also a common word, which comes from the Latin word comunio, or union with.  When we receive Holy Communion, we have union with Christ, and, therefore, union with the entire Trinity.  How often do we think about this reality: that when we worthily receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, we are becoming one with God?
    St. Paul affirms this teaching in the sixth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians.  He writes, “whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.”  Certainly, receiving Jesus into our bodies in the Eucharist is joining ourselves to the Lord.  Later, in that same letter, in chapter eleven, he encourages people to think about (he uses the word discern) whether or not they should join themselves to Christ through Holy Communion, because those who partake of the Eucharist unworthily “will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord…[and bring] judgment on himself.”  He even goes on to say that the reason that “many” are ill and dying, and some are even dying, is because they are joining themselves to Christ when they shouldn’t be.  
    The Eucharist isn’t something that we should receive only out of habit, without considering the state of our soul.  We do not want to join a life that is objectively and gravely contrary to the same Person that we are receiving.  Communion means that we are, in the major ways, one with the other.  Think about it in terms of marriage.  Married couples sometimes have disagreements, but they are not necessarily major.  But if, hypothetically speaking, a husband were to forget his wife’s birthday, or their anniversary, that union might be damaged in a major way, and the man may find himself sleeping on the couch; hypothetically speaking, of course.  Because of the major offense, they do not engage in union with each other in the marital act, because that spousal embrace means that they are one, while forgetting such important dates denotes a lack of union or care for the other.
    So for us as Catholics, following what St. Paul says, we are to discern whether or not we should have Eucharistic union with Christ, or if we need to be reconciled to Him first.  Again, going to the marriage analogy, forgetting an important date is bad, but it does not mean that reconciliation cannot take place.  There should be an apology, and then possibly roses, or chocolates, or some gesture of contrition.  So with God, when we have failed to live according to His teachings in major ways, we first need to reconcile before we can have that great and Holy Communion that God gives us in the Eucharist.  We cannot ignore that wound that we caused without causing a greater wound.  Go back to the marriage analogy: telling your wife she has a birthday every year or that you’re always married when you forget those important dates does not help.  Just so, we cannot receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin without making a sacrilegious union with God, seeking to unite our sinfulness to His holiness.
    We shouldn’t approach Holy Communion and receive the Eucharist if we have any unforgiven mortal sin on our soul.  Recall that mortal sins are sins that are grave, that we know are wrong, and that we freely choose to do anyway.  Neither should we receive Holy Communion if our life is, in a public way, contrary to what Jesus (whether in Scripture or through the official teaching of the Church) teaches us is part of following Him.  
    What are some major ways of rejecting God?  The Ten Commandments are a good rule of thumb.  Yes, that includes taking God’s Name in vain, or unnecessarily skipping Mass on Sundays.  It also includes the offenses against our neighbor, like murder (including abortion), adultery or sexual sins, stealing when it involves a larger value, and lying under oath or to legitimate authority.  Living in a public way contrary to Christ is not only working publicly against Church teaching, but includes not being married in a way that is recognized by the Church (whether it’s a first marriage outside the church, or a second marriage without an annulment).
    Union with Christ means that we are in union with all that Jesus teaches us as necessary for salvation, whether in what we believe or in how we live.  That is also why non-Catholics cannot receive Holy Communion: they often reject one or more of the official teachings of the Church in faith and morals.  But if they do believe everything that we do, not only about the Eucharist, but about the pope, the sacraments, the Bible, the moral life, etc., then they should become Catholic, at which point they can receive Holy Communion.

    The point of all of this is that God wants communion with us through Holy Communion.  But in order to receive Holy Communion worthily, our lives need to be conformed (at least in major ways) to His way of life.  When we are conformed to Christ in major ways, Holy Communion, the Eucharist, becomes our strength to continue to following Christ day-by-day.

Ruined Crème Brûlée

 Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
  

 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of my favorite desserts, that I almost never get because it’s usually quite expensive is crème brûlée.  There’s something about the custard that is smooth and tasty, and ten the hard, caramelized sugar layer.  And then, if it’s really good, there’ll be a few berries on top, maybe even with a little whipped cream.  But imagine if you were dipping your spoon into the custard dish, mouth watering in anticipation of the mix of flavors about to explode in your mouth, and then you see a hair, or a fingernail.  Yuck!  Something so small, so insignificant, but it ruins the whole dish!!
    We hear our Lord today addressing the proper attitude in prayer.  And what ruins the prayer of the Pharisee was his pride.  We don’t hear our Lord say that the Pharisee was greedy, dishonest, or adulterous.  So we have no sense of his guilt.  But his prayer is tainted, ruined, by his pride; by puffing himself up and gazing inward, rather than gazing towards the Lord in humility.  The tax collector, on the other hand, while his physical eyes are not looking toward the Lord, his heart and his mind certainly are pleading with God for His mercy.  Christ tells us that the tax collector went home justified, not the Pharisee.  This should be no surprise, though, as the prayer of the Pharisee was not seeking justification–right relationship with God–while that was the far-off hope of the tax collector in his prayer.
    As a quick tangent, I mentioned last week that I have watched “The Chosen,” a new series that presents the Gospels.  It has made me think about certain passages in a new light, not changing what they mean, but changing maybe the background.  And I can’t help but wonder if this parable was based upon the prayers that Jesus had seen from a Pharisee, and perhaps from St. Matthew himself, one of the most famous tax collectors in the Gospels.  Perhaps St. Matthew, even as a disciple of our Lord, still felt the pain of his former profession, and the shame that accompanied that profession from most Jews, and had made that prayer himself: “‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’”
    Ok, back to the main thread.  Pride really is something that can ruin our prayer.  We see it in the way it is mentioned in the Gospel: I think I am better than someone (or everyone) else.  We can also see it when we feel we have to take our salvation in our own hands, or on our own terms.  That quintessential American virtue, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, while helpful in our civil life, is deadly in our spiritual life.  But pride, in any form, can ruin our prayer, since it seeks to put ourselves in the place of God.
    Pride can also rear its ugly head in terms of our relations with others, as it did with the Pharisee in regards to the tax collector.  Both were praying; both were worshipping the Lord (at least in theory).  But the Pharisee elevates himself over the tax collector.  St. Paul reminds us that we receive different gifts from the Holy Spirit, which are all meant to build up the Body of Christ.
    But how often do we play the comparison game about which gift is better?  St. Paul mentions different manifestations of the Holy Spirit, namely, wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, mighty deeds, prophecy, discernment of spirits, speaking in tongues, and interpreting tongues.  But all are meant to work together for the good of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church.  It is easy, though, to fall into the trap of thinking that our gifts are more necessary.  Or maybe to think that someone else’s gifts are more necessary and ours aren’t that important.  Instead, we are invited to utilize the gifts that we have, whatever they may be, so that Christ may be all in all.  
    Even we priests can fall victim to this at times.  While we love and support each other as brother priests, it is easy to wish that we had the gift of that priest in that parish to raise money easily.  Or that priest whose parish is growing substantially in numbers.  Or maybe our homilies are ok, maybe B- caliber, but we wish we had the gift of that priest in the neighboring parish whose homilies are more in the A range.  The devil loves to get us with pride, and say that we are better than others, or that we wish we had other gifts than what God gave us.  It is the age-old temptation given to Adam and Eve, to try to replace God with ourselves because we know best.
    Instead, we utilize our gifts as God has given them to us, not just priests, but all of Christ’s faithful.  God calls us not to worry about what gifts the other person has, but to use the gifts that God gave us to do what He has called us to do.  It’s like Peter and John at the end of John’s Gospel.  We don’t have to worry about the other person, we just follow Jesus.  
    So this week, let’s work on asking God to help us live the virtue of humility, and asking God to stamp out in us the sin of pride.  In prayer we should turn to God, rather than praying to ourselves and self-promoting like the Pharisee.  In all things we should welcome the gifts of others, and do the best we can with the gifts we have received.  Don’t put hairs and fingernails in your crème brûlée; don’t ruin your prayer or your spiritual life with pride.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Understanding the Deeper Meaning

 Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

One tradition that exists in law enforcement is challenge coins (it’s also a military tradition).  A challenge coin is just a coin that has some representation of a unit or a department on it.  We don’t quite use challenge coins in law enforcement the same way that the military does (which often has an effect on whether or not you’re paying for your drinks).  But it’s a way to honor a person by sharing a part of the unit’s history.  As an example, about a year ago was given a challenge coin from the State Police Emergency Support (ES) Team (most people would think of it as a SWAT team) that honored the last ES Trooper who died in the line of duty.  This was an amazing gift which I treasure because it honors one of the ES team’s members who gave his all.
    But if you are not aware of that tradition, you may think the challenge coin is simply a nice, little knick-knack, but nothing more.  If you don’t know the background of the challenge coin, you may not give that gift the same importance that someone who knows what’s going on would.
    As we continue our Gospel readings on the Eucharist, we hear that the people do not understand the deeper meaning behind the miracle of the loaves and fish.  The people were amazed at what happened, but their understanding was limited to the physical reality that they sensed, rather than the metaphysical reality that required going beyond the simple five senses.  Jesus even tells them that they are looking for him simply because they liked eating the bread and fish, not because of a deeper faith.  And then Jesus uses that to springboard to teaching about the true bread from heaven, which is not an “it,” but a “who”: Jesus Himself.  
    For followers of Jesus, this problem of not getting the deeper meaning still exists.  It exists in a particular way among those who are not Catholic nor Orthodox.  So many Christians see Communion as simply bread and wine.  Yes, it has been prayed over; yes it is a reminder of Jesus’ presence, but they stop at the level of their physical senses.  But sometimes even Catholics forget, or perhaps were never taught, that the Eucharist is not bread and wine, though it retains those physical properties, but truly Jesus–His Body and Blood.

We, as Catholics, believe that a valid priest of Jesus Christ, who was ordained by the successors of the Apostles (the bishops), and who follows the prayer of the Church, intending to do what the Church intends to do, by the power of the Holy Spirit changes the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, not just for the time of that prayer, but as long as the bread and wine have those physical properties that are proper to bread and wine.  It looks like bread and tastes like bread, but it is no longer bread.  It is the Body of the Lord.  It looks like wine and tastes like wine, but it is not longer wine.  It is the Blood of the Lord.  
    This wasn’t some new invention of the Middle Ages, either.  St. Paul talks about partaking in the bread and cup as a sharing in the Passion of the Lord, which is what the Eucharist is: our participation in Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice.  St. Ignatius of Antioch, who died around AD 107, says that the Eucharist is truly the Body of Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, and a descendant of King David.  St. Justin Martyr, writing slightly later, says the same thing.  So, too, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, in the fourth and fifth centuries (respectively) say that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ.
    It wasn’t until the eleventh century that controversy really arose about the Eucharist, and whether or not it was the Body of Christ.  Quickly, the Church re-iterated that it was, and solemnly proclaimed it in a the Fourth Lateran Ecumenical Council in 1215, using the word that has been codified: transubstantiation.  While this teaching was rejected by the Protestants as they sprung up in the 1500s, the Ecumenical Council of Trent reaffirmed the perennial belief that the Eucharist is Jesus, not just a reminder, not just a symbol, but truly our Lord’s glorified Body and Blood.
    That, of course, affects the way that we treat the Eucharist.  If it really is Jesus, then we are extra-careful with it.  We use precious metal to hold and house the Eucharist.  We do not give it to those who do not believe what we do, which is why Protestants and non-Christians cannot receive the Eucharist–they don’t believe what we do about the Eucharist.  Before we receive, we fast (currently the law is that we fast from all food and drink except water and medicine) for one hour before we receive Holy Communion.  And as we approach the Eucharist, we do so with profound wonder and awe, knowing that we are receiving, on our tongue or in our hands, the very same Lord who was born of the Virgin Mary, and who is now seated at the right hand of the Father.  We dare, only because He commanded us, to receive the King of Kings into ourselves.  We dare because He told us we needed to receive Him to have the spiritual strength to follow Him.  
    As a sign of our respect and reverence our hands should be clean if we receive in our hands.  And the Church invites us to bow before receiving the Eucharist (though some genuflect or kneel down).  The point is that we want to show reverence for the divine encounter we have, an encounter with God that is the closest we can get to God on earth; greater than even the best sunrise or sunset, or the best musical composition, or even the love of a spouse, or whatever other way the we might encounter God.  Nothing even comes close to just how truly awesome the Eucharist is.  St. John Vianney, the priest, said, “What the Angels behold only with awe, the radiant splendor of which they cannot sustain, we make our food, we receive into us, we become with Jesus Christ one same Body, one sole Flesh.”  He also said, “If we truly understood the Mass, we would die of joy.”  
    May we truly recognize that the Eucharist is not bread and wine, but our Savior, who chooses to humble Himself and make Himself vulnerable to us.  May we value and treasure the Eucharist as the greatest gift we can receive here on earth, because it is already a foretaste, a preview of heaven!