Race Prepping

Septuagesima

2010 Lansing Catholic Soccer Team

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In my first assignment as a priest in East Lansing, I also worked closely with Lansing Catholic High School.  And, having formerly played soccer, I was fairly active with the boys’ soccer team.  Jokingly, one of the athletes, Joey, challenged me to a race, and I eventually accepted at the end of a later school day.  Students came out to the soccer field to watch me race Joey.  I think we even had the athletic director tell us when to start.  
    When we started, I was surprised at Joey’s speed, a speed he didn’t show that often on the soccer field.  But I tried to keep it close, hoping that I could pull ahead.  At about three-quarters of the field, Joey still had a small lead, but I felt funny, and my legs were feeling like jello.  Before I knew it I had fallen flat on my face, and Joey had won the race.  I was taken aback a bit, and it occurred to me just how out of shape I was, even at the young age of 27 or so.  It turns out 27 is different than 18, and when you don’t really do physical exercise, and you have a few adult beverages the night before, and don’t eat so well or hydrate the next morning, you can’t just race a seventeen-year-old and expect to win.  
    St. Paul in the epistle today talks about training, something I did not do in my race with Joey.  He talks about training bodies to win a race, but more importantly, training our souls to win an incorruptible crown, the ancient sign of victory.  And as we enter the -gesima Sundays–Septuagesima today, Sexagesima next Sunday, and Quinquagesima the Sunday after that–we are training ourselves for Lent, the time of great asceticism and self-denial.  Because sometimes, if we wait until the last minute and then decide to do these difficult penances, we may fall flat on our faces, hopefully not literally like I did, but spiritually.  
    Today, then, is a good day to start thinking about what you want to give up for Lent, and perhaps what extra prayers or works of charity you could add to your routine.  Do you have time in your schedule for daily Mass?  Or how about joining us for Stations of the Cross on Fridays after the 12:10 p.m. Mass?  Or maybe simply making the first Saturday Masses more regularly.  
    How about restraining the body from what it desires?  Do you give up meat every Friday?  Is fasting a regular part of your life?  Or maybe start pulling back on how often you’re on your phone for social media or games, and use that extra time for prayer, or for more time with your family.  No matter what  we are going to do, we should probably start training for it or at least thinking about it now, so that it doesn’t hit us all at once, and we then fail because we were not prepared.
    We should also not feel bad or despair if we haven’t had the strongest Lent before.  I know that sometimes we can defeat ourselves before we even get started by bemoaning the fact either that we have tried something hard and have not yet succeeded, or perhaps that we have not really tried anything difficult at all.  We may be like those who were standing around, even towards the end of the day.  But if we give our all, even for a small amount of time, the Lord promises in the Gospel today that we will receive a full wage; not because we deserve it, but due to His generosity.  
    And the payment that we receive has much more value than money.  What we receive by disciplining our bodies and restraining our desires is a fuller correspondence to the life of Christ.  Each time we say no when our will wants us to say yes, we are utilizing God’s grace for the proper ordering of ourselves, as happened in the Garden of Eden before the Fall: our bodies and minds were subject to our soul, which was subject to God.  And that was how Christ lived perfectly.  So the more that we allow God’s grace to configure us to Christ, the more we will be prepared for heaven.  And the more that we are prepared for heaven, the more likely it will be that we will inherit that great bequest of beatitude, or inherit it more quickly and have less time in Purgatory.
    But it’s also important to remember that our discipline does not earn us heaven.  It is easy to become like the servants hired at the beginning of the day, and feel like we have “earned” heaven because we have been working hard to follow Christ, and Christ owes us eternal happiness.  Christ owes us nothing.  Everything is a gift.  The ability to respond to God’s grace is itself a grace, and we cannot claim it as our own.  However, when we seek to respond to God’s grace, when we seek to conform our wills to Christ, He deigns to give us rewards as if we had earned it, but always doing so out of His Divine beneficence.  
    So, over these next few weeks before Lent begins on 14 February, start thinking about what you think God would encourage you do to for a Lenten discipline.  Prepare yourselves to enter the desert of Lent.  Don’t just show up and expect to succeed.  Seek God’s grace to mortify the flesh, so that you maybe be transformed by God’s grace to be more like Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns for ever and ever. 

An Evangelical Counsel

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Probably one of the most common questions I get, especially after people gain more ease and confidence in asking a priest questions, is some why I chose the priesthood when it meant that I wouldn’t have a family of my own.  It’s a great question, and given our second reading today, I want to look at virginity, celibacy, and chastity.
    Chastity is the virtue the governs our sexual desires.  A lot of people think chastity means that you don’t have sex.  They confuse it with celibacy.  But chastity is a virtue for every Catholic, and simply means that we’re using our sexuality appropriately: if we’re single, no sexual activity at all or even misusing our sexuality by ourselves; if we’re married (and marriage is only between a man and a woman), only having sexual activity with one’s spouse, and only that which is loving, unitive, and open to life.  So a husband and a wife can be chaste (c-h-a-s-t-e) when they are trying to conceive a child together and engaging in the activity by which children are conceived. 
    Chastity is one of the evangelical counsels (chastity, poverty, and obedience) which can be vowed for one’s personal sanctification.  Vows are for the sanctification of the individual, though they also benefit the Church.  A vow of chastity is usually made when one becomes a member of a religious institution, like the Dominicans, Franciscans, or Benedictines, and means that a person will live as a single person for the rest of his or her life. 
    Chastity is one of the virtues that many people struggle with today, as the misuse of sexual activity, which includes using another person simply for one’s gratification, whether in person or online, runs rampant and society often praises unchastity.  But chastity is for everyone who follows Christ, not just those who make a vow of chastity.
    Celibacy is a promise made to God through the Church to abstain from anything proper to the married state, or even dating, and to practice the virtue of chastity as a single person.  Single people who are not dating, or who are dating but not engaging in sexual activity, are not celibate; they are chaste.  Celibacy, as a promise, is for the benefit of the Church, just like other promises made are for the benefit of the Church (marriage vows are technically marriage promises, since they are for the good of the Church).  During my ordination Mass to the diaconate, I made a promise to God, through Bishop Boyea, to live celibacy as a witness to the kingdom.  That promise can only be dispensed by the pope or his representatives in Rome.
    Virginity is the state where one has not engaged in sexual activity at all.  It can be simply the reality of a person’s life (as in a young person who has never committed the sin of fornication or adultery).  Or it can be made as a vow by someone through consecration.  While one may be able to regain virginity in a spiritual way, physical virginity cannot be regained once lost, whether for males or females.  One does not have to be a virgin to promise celibacy, as some priests have lived an unchaste life before they were ordained, then had a conversion, and then promised celibacy at ordination. 
    So what does all of this mean?  And why did St. Paul say what he did in the second reading, about the unmarried man or woman being anxious about the things of the Lord and so on?  Some see celibacy or virginity simply in a practical light, and our reading might seem to suggest that at first.  St. Paul talks about how a person who is unmarried, whether a celibate or a virgin, concerns him or herself with the things of the Lord.  And I will certainly say that, while there is a part of me that would like to be married and enjoy physical relations with a wife, and conceive children, I can’t imagine having to care for a family and a parish.  There are Catholic priests who are legitimately married and then become priests, mostly Eastern Rite Catholics, and I don’t know how they do it.  I don’t even have enough time for a dog, let alone a wife and kids! 
    But celibacy and virginity is not simply about practicalities.  Celibacy and virginity witness to the heavenly life, where, as Christ says, there is no marrying and giving in marriage.  Why not?  Because in heaven, we are focused most intently on God and worshiping Him.  This is not to say that we’ll have amnesia in heaven about a spouse if a person was married on earth.  But that special relationship of marriage, which is meant to witness the life of the Trinity on earth, is no longer necessary, because in heaven we behold the Trinity face to face in the beatific vision.  There are no sacraments in heaven, because we don’t need physical realities to communicate the spiritual realities of God; we receive the spiritual realities or mysteries of God directly, unmediated. 
    Those who promise or vow themselves to focus directly on God are reminding us that, even though marriage is very good, and not just because it creates children who increase the size of the Church, even family comes second to God, and in heaven we will rely totally on God for our happiness, whether it be in our sexuality (the vow of chastity), our possessions (the vow of poverty), or even our will (the vow of obedience).  This is why consecrated life, those who vow the three evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience, is, in one sense, the highest form of life on earth, because it most perfectly (in an objective sense) imitates the life of heaven while still on earth.  That is why the Church so often praises virgins, especially the Blessed Virgin Mary, because they dedicated themselves entirely to God, which is something we all hope to do in heaven.

    Having said that, a happy married couple can be holier than a grumpy monk, nun, priest, or bishop in a subjective sense.  God calls each of us to different vocations, and we shouldn’t strive for one vocation just because it’s objectively higher.  We should strive for the vocation that is subjectively suited for us, because that is how God wants us to be saints.
    And, for all people, the virtue of chastity still applies, because it properly orders our precious gift of sexuality according to the plan of God, whether that plan for us is marriage, celibacy, or virginity.  All people can be saints, and part of being a saint is integrating our sexual drive into the vocation to which God has called us.  May we all be chaste–whether priest, married couple, or single individual–and seek to follow God through the vocation to which He has called us so that we might enter heaven and enjoy eternal happiness and fulfillment by worshipping God for eternity.

We Can't Fix It Ourselves

Third Sunday after Epiphany
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Perhaps it’s just a guy thing, but I guess that at least the men here, and possible the women here, have had a time in their lives when someone said that they had a problem that needed to be fixed.  It could be a big problem or a small problem, but somehow something is not working.  And while the person may have worked on the issue for a while, the new person says, “Lemme take a look at it,” and goes to whatever is malfunctioning.  Maybe the person looks at it, maybe taps a few buttons, or maybe even tries some real troubleshooting.  Not always, but at least sometimes, the second person looking at it is just as lost as the first, and says something like, “Yeah, I can’t really figure out why it’s not working.” 

    Our Lord in the Gospel today first heals a leper by touching Him.  This would have shocked people, since leprosy was so contagious, and lepers had to stay away from the public.  But Christ “fixes” him by healing the disease.  And then the centurion comes with another person to heal, and the Lord is about to go over to help that one.  But then a funny thing happens: the centurion says that physical presence is not necessary; a simple word will suffice.  The Lord, unlike us with our limitations, “fixes” the servant from afar; no tapping, kicking, or troubleshooting involved.  He wills it and it is done.
    Our world is, in many cases, broken.  But we can’t fix it.  No matter how many times we take a look at it, or how many times we tap here, kick there, re-read the manual, and press buttons, the healing of the world cannot be accomplished by human effort alone.  It needs Christ.  But how many times are we like the proverbial man, wanting our chance to take a look at it and fix the broken appliance? 
    Instead, the Lord invites us to have the faith of the centurion, and to trust that He can fix it, even without taking a second look, because He is the manufacturer, and knows exactly what is needed.  We are often closet-Pelagians: we figure if we simply do the right things, teach the right things, fast on the right days, then we will be saints.  We leave no room for God to fix us, and then wonder why we keep ending up broken.  We lack faith in God’s ability to heal and save.  And when we lack that faith, then like in Capernaum where people didn’t have faith in their local friend, Jesus, He’s not able to do many miracles. 
    How many times do we think that if we just did something ourselves, or if something within human control changed, then the world would be better?  We can go from the macro to the micro scale: if we had a different president; if we had different politicians; if we had a different pope; if we had a different bishop; if we had a different pastor; if we had a different spouse; if we had better-behaved kids.  All these different scenarios are where we are the agents of change and healing.  The Church survived and survives persecutions and bad governments; the Church survived bad popes, bishops, and priests; family holiness comes with the family we have, not the mythical family where everything seems perfect.  And all that is possible, not because the people were so great, but because God is, and the people relied on God for fixing the world.
    This is not to say, of course, that we shouldn’t do our best to elect politicians who promote what we know are universal goods; that we shouldn’t expect our pontiff to speak clearly and charitably about the unchanging truths of the faith; that bishops and priests shouldn’t be models of holiness and sound preaching; that families shouldn’t do all they can to respond to God’s grace and live in harmony and charity with each other.  Of course all those things are good.  But there has never been a time when everything was perfect in the Church, not even when our Lord walked the earth.  And the biggest changes came simply from individuals deciding to open themselves up to God’s grace and respond by doing their best to follow God’s will rather than their own.
    This also impacts what happens when others harm us.  St. Paul reminds us not to take revenge into our own hands, but to do good to those who wrong us.  Revenge belongs to God, because God is the only one who can effectively change the world for the better at its root.  When we decide to be agents of vengeance, we do not mete out perfect justice, but add at least a little bit of injustice to the equation, to try to convince the other not to wrong us again.  But that only leads to a vicious cycle where the other person, not truly aggrieved, takes revenge on us, giving us a little more than what justice demands, etc., etc.  Again, revenge is the Pelagian tendency in us that says that I have to be the one to fix the world, and hopefully God will bless my efforts.  Instead, St. Paul tells us to overcome evil with God, which will be its own revenge upon a person who does us wrong. 
    On this last Sunday before the -gesima Sundays, God invites us to have faith in Him and how He works, to trust in His timing and His ways over our own.  Yes, we should still cooperate with God’s grace, and achieve whatever good we can, but not as if we’re going to fix the world.  The good we do will be a response to God’s grace, which is the only thing that can fix the world.   Whenever we try to take God’s place, we do a very poor job of it.  Let God be God, who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.  

An Ordinary Epiphany

Second Sunday after Epiphany
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  If you were to ponder or ask which Gospels are the most radical, would this passage come to our mind?  I’m guessing not.  We might think of the cleansing of the temple; or maybe the denunciation of the Pharisees and scribes as a brood of vipers; or maybe even the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, or the raising of Lazarus from the dead; certainly the crucifixion.  But the miracle at the wedding at Cana? 
    There is something radical, or rooted, in this Gospel passage that we probably most often fail to see.  And it’s connected to Christmas and the Epiphany (the Epiphany, remember, historically celebrates the visit of the Magi, the Baptism of the Lord, and the wedding at Cana: the three manifestations of Christ).  At Christmas, the God of all creation, whom the heavens and the earth cannot contain, we saw in a tiny baby.  The God who created time allowed Himself to be subject to time.  God manifested Himself in a very ordinary way.

Church at Cana in Galilee

   And at the wedding at Cana, our Lord manifested Himself in a very ordinary way.  He helped out a couple who had run out of wine by changing water into wine.  You can imagine someone who didn’t know Christ sitting down to talk to Him, listening to the Gospel, and the circling back to say something like, “So you have the power to make blind people see?”  “Yes.”  “And you can heal leprosy?”  “Yes.”  “And you can multiple five loaves of bread and two fish so that it’s enough to feed five thousand people and have leftovers?”  “Yes.”  “And you can raise people from the dead?”  “Yes.”  “And you chose, as your first miracle, as the first thing you would do to show your divinity, that you would change water into wine?”  “Yes.” 
    That is pretty incredible.  With all that Christ could do, His first revealing action was to take care of a basic party foul.  He created light from nothing; He separated day from night; He separated land from the seas; He created vegetation, fish, and animals; He created man from the earth and woman from the side of man; He created the universe out of nothing.  And He changes water into wine.  That is incredible! 
    But our God so often works in the ordinary, in the mundane, in the unexceptional.  Look at Abraham.  Yes, he was fairly wealthy with all his flocks, but he and Sarah had no children (at least at first).  Yet God chose Abraham to become the father of many nations.  The Israelites were literal slaves, and yet God chose them as His People, peculiarly His own, as Deuteronomy says.  David was a shepherd, yet he was chosen to be king of God’s People.  The Blessed Virgin Mary, a young, unknown girl, but became the Mother of God.  Bethlehem, least of the cities of Judah, became the birth place of the Messiah.  The twelve apostles were generally uneducated or unappreciated men, yet became the foundation of the Church.  So if we really understood God, the miracle at Cana wouldn’t actually be that shocking.
    And it also shouldn’t shock us that God continues to operate this way.  God so often operates in the everyday realities.  He still so often chooses the least powerful to demonstrate His glory.  Yes, there are times, like Mount Tabor and the Resurrection, where His glory and His power shine forth.  But those were two times in His three-year public ministry.  The rest were among the poor, the outcast, and the simple.
    Do we have eyes to see how God is working in our life?  Or are we looking for the wrong thing?  Are we looking for a Mount Tabor when we should be looking for a blind man on whose eyes our Lord puts mud made from his saliva?  Are we looking for glory on a mountain when our Lord is walking next to us through a field?  If we only seek God in the grandiose moments, then we’re missing the ways that He manifests Himself in everyday life.  In the embrace of a loved one; in the smile of a baby; in the unexpected good news; in the delight of a good glass of wine. 
    When we notice God in the ordinary, we tend to live more grateful lives, conscious of how God is working, rather than wondering why God never does anything for us.  Even something as simple as living becomes a moment to give thanks, because without God willing each of us, individually, to be alive, we would cease to exist.  He who keeps our solar system aligned just so, also feels that it’s important that you exist.  So often we can think of God setting things in motion and then letting them go their way.  But perhaps a more accurate view is that, at each nanosecond, God is willing each and every thing, animate and inanimate, into existence out of the joy of having something that He created continue in being.  That certainly would help us live that gift of the spirit of wonder and awe in the presence of God.  I can barely chew gum and walk at the same time.  God at each moment wills every thing in existence and ensures the functioning of its properties according to His divine will.  And He does so out of love and with joy, not begrudgingly, as we so often do when we have a task at work to which we don’t look forward. 
    The miracle at the wedding of Cana manifests God.  We have an epiphany of the divinity of Christ.  And yet, we also have an epiphany of how God so often works: not only in the big moments of power and grandeur, but even the daily humdrum needs and desires of life.  Perhaps recognizing all that God does for us at each fraction of a moment can help us be obedient to the command of Mary, “Do whatever he tells you”: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Incremental Growth

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

(l-r) Anthony and Fr. Anthony

    When you have a goal, sometimes it’s easy to want to be at the end result, rather than being satisfied that you have done today what you need to in order to achieve that goal.  My best friend Anthony is very strong and very much in shape.  And when I started lifting weights over a year ago, I wanted my body to look like his.  I wanted the big biceps and pecs.  Now, if Anthony were to stand up next to me today, you would see that I have not yet achieved that goal.  But, I am bigger than I used to be, with better defined muscles.
    When it comes to our spiritual life, it is easy to fall prey to the same mentality, that we should achieve the goal immediately.  We read the lives of the saints, which helps us because we see in them the goal of living our baptismal promises.  But then we realize that we’re not at their level yet.  This can push us onwards, or it can also lead to a bit of despair, because we can worry that we will never achieve our goal because we haven’t achieved it yet.
    As we hear the call of the first Apostles–Andrew and John, and then Andrew invites Peter–we can see them searching for a more meaningful life, searching for the Messiah and desiring to associate themselves with Him.  To use the weight-lifting example, it’s as if St. John the Baptist says about Jesus, “Look at that guy flex!” and Andrew and John are amazed enough to follow a new leader, and Andrew even invites his own brother to join in.
    But Jesus doesn’t lay out for them everything that will happen, either to Himself or to them.  He doesn’t unfold how life will fully be like following the Messiah and being part of His inner circle.  He doesn’t explain that He’s going to wander around Judea and Galilee preaching and performing miracles.  He doesn’t tell them that He will forgive sins, which is reserved for God, or heal the blind, sick, and lame, and even raise a dead girl to life.  He doesn’t tell them that the Pharisees are not going to be fans, and are going to dog Him and His followers everywhere they go.  He doesn’t tell them that He will walk on water, multiple bread and fish for five thousand, or ride triumphantly into Jerusalem.  He certainly doesn’t tell them that the same crowd that joyously welcomes Him to Jerusalem for the upcoming feast of Passover will call for His crucifixion, which He will undergo, abandoned by most of His disciples. 
    He doesn’t tell them that they will be called Apostles, and will be the new patriarchs of the new Israel.  He doesn’t tell them that they will heal people and exorcise demons in His Name.  He doesn’t tell them that they will, more often than not, lack understanding of His teachings.  He doesn’t tell them that they will be sent out, rather early in the game, to preach His arrival.  He doesn’t tell them that one of the most trusted friends will betray Him for money, while the leader of His trusted friends will even deny knowing Him. 
    What does He say?  “‘Come, and you will see.’”  And Andrew, John, and Peter will stay with Jesus that day.  All that would happen, both to Christ and to the Apostles, is contained in that simple phrase, “Come, and you will see.”  He knew they weren’t ready for everything yet, that they had to slowly prepare for everything, so He didn’t share everything yet.  Just like, when I started lifting weights, I didn’t try to bench 205 lbs. (my current best).  When I started, I think I was lifting 75 lbs. and feeling the burn.  If I would have tried 205 lbs. when I started, I would have failed, and maybe given up.  But I persevered, and now am trying to get up to 225 lbs. 

NOT Fr. Anthony or Anthony

    God doesn’t give us everything all at once, even when we might desire to know it.  Like so many things in nature, the growth happens slowly, organically, methodically.  Yes, sometimes there are spurts of growth, but if the weight of the final goal was placed upon the embryonic beginning, it would crush the start so that the finish would never happen.  I think about it in terms of my own parents’ marriage.  In 1979, when my parents said, “I do,” they had no idea that my dad would convert to Catholicism and be baptized; that he would eventually become a deacon; that they would have three kids; that one kid (me) would fall eight feet, head first, onto a concrete floor (I know some of you are thinking, ‘That explains it!’); that one would be in a horrific car accident that would require weeks of hospitalization and rehab, and leave scars over her arm; that one would have difficulty with her hips at a young age, and then require lots of trips to the ER and breathing treatments for asthma; the time and effort they would put in to caring for their moms in their last days of life; that they wouldn’t both be able to be close to their fathers at the end of life due to COVID.  I’m not sure any couple could handle that at the age of 21 and 19, or any age.  But they have gone through all that and more, taking things one day at a time with Jesus, and seeing where He leads them. 
    Striving for holiness is a day-by-day affair.  We are not saints all at once, but each day choose to say yes to God and no to anything opposed to Him.  If you want to be a saint, then commit yourself, just for each today that you have, to stay with Jesus that today.  After the numerous todays that you spend with Him and cooperate with His grace, you’ll see the difference.  Your end will be determined by the daily decision you make to remain with Jesus.  Where does God want to lead you?  “Come, and you will see.”

Come, and You Will See

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time-St. Pius X

    Once the Bishop Boyea decreed that St. Pius X parish would be closed and which date the closing Mass would be, I was curious about what the reading would be for the week before (today), the last time I would preach as pastor of St. Pius X parish.  The last homily of a pastor at a parish is always a big homily, but especially when the parish is closing.
    So as I looked for the Gospel today, I was grateful that this Gospel passage would close out my preaching at St. Pius X.  This Gospel of the call of St. Andrew, St. John, and St. Peter (formerly named Simon) may not seem perfect, but it truly is.
    Today, and even more so next week, you may have this sense of, “What am I going to do?  Where am I going to go?”  In this way, you are like St. Andrew and St. John, whom St. John the Baptist directs to Jesus.  Today, as then, Jesus asks you, “‘What are you looking for?’”  Your answers certainly have a common thread, but also are as diverse as each person is.  Each of you seeks something the same and something different from the Lord.  Perhaps your question is like St. Andrew and St. John’s: “‘Where are you staying?’”  Or maybe better for today and next week, “Where are you?”  There is nothing wrong with that question.  All honest questions are welcome to the Messiah.
    Today, Jesus says to you, as He did to Andrew and John, “‘Come, and you will see.’”  Jesus didn’t tell them all that would happen to them over the next three years.  He didn’t immediately give them the term “Apostle.”  He simply invited them to stay with Him, and they did, starting with that day.  
    On 29 June 1955, Bishop Joseph H. Albers, first bishop of Lansing, erected St. Pius X parish.  And on 7 August of the same year, Fr. John A Blasko, the founding pastor, celebrated the first Mass in the Flint CIO Labor Temple at the corner of Corunna and Downey.  On those days, and all the days that followed, the invitation was the same: Come, and you will see.  Jesus didn’t show us then the ups and downs of the parish; the different locations where Mass would be said; the different priests who would serve as pastor or parochial vicar; or even how long the parish would last.  He simply said, “‘Come, and you will see.’”  And we have seen God working.  For 68 years and 7 months God has revealed Himself.  He has done so through the Mass, through the sisters and lay people who taught in the school, through the CCD classes, through the faith-sharing groups, through the food pantry, through the priests, through the buildings, and through the parishioners who became more like family.  
    And next week, as Bishop Boyea closes the doors to this church and declares it de-consecrated, the message will not change.  Jesus will still invite you: Come, and you will see.  And whether you stay with Jesus by joining St. Matthew or by joining another parish, Jesus wants you to stay with Him.  Today: stay with Him.  Tomorrow: stay with Him.  The rest will work itself out.  As long as you stay with Him.
    It wouldn’t always be easy.  Simon, after meeting the Lord, got a new name.  This group of three would grow to a group of twelve, which would shrink by one when Judas betrayed the Lord, and then would add Matthias and later on Paul.  Christ would demonstrate great miracles like the feeding of 5,000 with fives loaves and two fish.  Pharisees and scribes would seemingly constantly harass this wandering Rabbi and His disciples.  Most would abandon the Lord after He said that they had to eat His flesh and drink His blood to have life within them.  All of Jerusalem would welcome Him right before Passover, and then they would all yell out, “Crucify him!” five days later.  All but John and Peter would abandon the Lord after He was arrested, and even then Peter would deny he even knew Jesus.  Talk about your ups and downs.  But, even after abandoning Him, they would gather to stay in the place He celebrated the First Mass with them, and see Him risen from the dead and receive both His peace and His commission to spread the Gospel.  
    It has been and always will be the same: someone points out Jesus to us, and Jesus invites us to stay with Him.  It’s that simple and that complicated.  Stay with Jesus; stay with the Church.  I don’t know what that will entail for you, but the Lord of History, Jesus Christ, does.  What will happen if you stay with Jesus?  “‘Come, and you will see.’”

Becoming a Holy Family

Feast of the Holy Family

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  As we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family, perhaps some of us think that holiness as a family is always just beyond our reach.  What can be difficult is that God is the ultimate judge of holiness.  He knows the inner working of our hearts, our motivations, how praiseworthy or culpable we truly are for our actions, etc.  While there are objective norms for being holy, our participation in those norms, and how close we come to them, is always an act of faith.  But today I wanted to outline a few important points, first in general and then directed at fathers, mothers, and children.
    First of all, from our Gospel today, we learn that holiness does not mean that we never make mistakes.  We know the story well, that our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph accidentally leave behind our adolescent Lord in Jerusalem, figuring that He’s with other family members.  It’s not until after a day of traveling that they realize they left Him behind in Jerusalem.  We know that Mary never sinned, and the Gospel doesn’t really put blame on St. Joseph either.  So holiness includes doing our best but sometimes not quite getting everything right.  I’m sure that both the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph felt awful about leaving Christ behind in Jerusalem, and they likely experienced the panic that any parent has when he or she can’t find a child.  But they were not at fault.
    Secondly, holiness can, of itself, seem beyond our grasp, like a goal that we can never reach on this side of heaven.  But holiness is, more often than not, continuing to do our best, even if there are falls from time to time.  An Orthodox monk by the name of Elder Thaddeus put it this way:
 

The Holy Fathers and the Saints always tell us, “It is important to get up immediately after a fall and to keep on walking toward God.”  Even if we fall a hundred times a day, it does not matter; we must get up and go on walking toward God without looking back.  What has happened has happened–it is in the past.  Just keep on going, all the while asking for help from God.

Repentance is a sign that you are seeking holiness.  It is only when we give up, when we stop trying to be as God created us to be, that we fail.  Even if you don’t think you’re holy yet, and I know I’m still working on it, keep striving for holiness.  God is the only true judge of whether or not we are being the saints that He called us to be in Holy Baptism.
    For each member of the family, there are particular attributes that help us know that we are truly trying to be a holy family.  And I want to mention just a few today.  Certainly these admonitions are not exhaustive; there are many more that help us to be saints.  But hopefully these will help you to be a holy family, like the model Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
    Fathers: your witness of living the faith is of the utmost importance.  Recent studies have shown that when the father of the family takes the faith seriously, his children are much more likely to continue practicing their faith after they leave the home.  Your love for your wife (first) and your children, a love which you often demonstrate by sacrifice, pays dividends.  By the way you treat your wife, you show your sons how a man should treat a woman, and you show your daughters what level of respect they can demand from young men when they start to date and seek a husband. 
    The words you use (and don’t use) are important; even more so the actions that prove which words you truly value.  We are in need of masculine witnesses of faith in our times when masculinity in general is under attack.  Do not be a chauvinist, but do not be afraid of being a man, willing to sacrifice for a greater good.  Make sure your family makes it to Mass each Sunday and Holyday, and that confession is a regular part of your family life, too, with your wife and kids able to see you enter the confessional, proving that you, too, have your faults that require God’s forgiveness, even as your seek to imitate the love of God the Father in your family home.  Bless your wife and children.  Entrust them to the care of their guardian angels daily.  In this way, you will be holy fathers of a holy family.
    Mothers: faith and trust so often come easier for you, which is why so many women are active in the life of faith and of the parish.  You help your husbands to continue the process of changing from a boy to a man.  A boy thinks only of himself; a man thinks of the other; a husband has been trained to value you and your children more than himself.  Your husband wants to do what is best, and you can help him see things, not only from his perspective, but also from yours.  You help him to value and support what is tender in him, especially when it comes for caring for you and your children.
    Your connection with your children is always different than your husbands, since you bore each child for nine months before their father even got a chance to connect with them.  They often look to you first for guidance, and especially for that maternal love which is gentle when comforting a husband who has the “man flu” or a child who is sick or hurt, but which love is ferocious when defending a child under attack from the outside.  Like Mary, your heart is often pierced with many sorrows, but you demonstrate how to suffer them patiently, with trust that God will make all things right in the end. 
    Your witness to the faith is also so important, and imitates the witness of the Blessed Mother who was attentive to God’s will, and pondered the working of God in her heart.  You help your husband and your children learn quiet meditation and how to listen for the voice of God in the silence.  We need holy women in today’s society, which do not seek to be the same as men, but which seek to compliment authentic masculinity with the feminine genius.  Pray for your husband and children daily.  Entrust them to the care of their guardian angels daily.  In this way, you will be holy mothers of a holy family.
    Children: you, more than your father and mother, are constantly in a state of becoming.  Your life as a child always develops, from a small life in the womb, to a baby, to a toddler, to a child, to an adolescent, to a teenager, to an adult.  You are constantly bumping into rules and limits as you discover who God made you to be.  There are so many influences in your life: first family, then friends, then a boyfriend or girlfriend.  Amid all these changes in your lives, seek God first.  Seek His guidance first.  Your parents will be good, but not perfect, examples of what God wills for you.  Learn to emulate what they do well; learn to avoid what you observe of their struggles.  Both are helpful for your growth in holiness.
    Be patient with your parents.  Just as you don’t know how to become the person God wants you to be perfectly, so they don’t know perfectly how to raise you to be that person.  You didn’t come with an instruction manual.  You will make mistakes, and so will they.  But be respectful of them and, until you’re an adult, obedient to them.  Look to them to understand when love needs to be tough, and when love needs to be gentle.  Pray for them each day of your lives, as you are not always easy to raise.  Commend your parents to St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary each day.  In this way, you will be holy children of a holy family.
    You can each be a holy family.  I can be a holy family.  It does take discipline and sacrifice.  Holy families always seek God’s will, and do their best to follow it when known.  Persevere in trying each day to be holy, as all you have is each day.  If you do your best to cooperate with God’s will, He will complete the good work He has begun in you, through Christ Jesus the Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.

Prayer over the Offerings

Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord
    When people talk about preparing for Mass, they often speak of getting dressed with better clothes than usual, brushing teeth, combing or brushing hair, maybe the ladies putting on make-up, maybe guys using that button-up shirt and maybe even a tie.  Or sometimes they mean looking at the readings ahead of time, which can be found at the Daily Readings tab of the usccb.org website.  Rarely do people look over the prayers that are said at Mass before they attend the Mass, but this is also a good way to prepare, as the prayers are usually based on saying from the Church Fathers, and often are poetic and filled with rich imagery.
    I want to focus today on the Prayer over the Offerings for the Solemnity of the Epiphany, which we celebrate tonight/today.  For this ancient feast, there are different prayers for the day before than for the day itself, and I want to focus on the Prayer over the Offerings for the actual day of Epiphany.  The prayer reads: “Look with favor, Lord, we pray, / on these gifts of your Church, / in which are offered now not gold or frankincense or myrrh, / but he who by them is proclaimed, / sacrificed and received, Jesus Christ. / Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.”  You will hear me chant that prayer after the altar is prepared for the celebration of the Eucharist.  It is the same prayer from the pre-Conciliar Mass, and I would guess the prayer likely is quite old, much older than even the 1570 Missal that Pope St. Pius V promulgated as a result of the Council of Trent.
    But what does the prayer say?  It is poetic, but what about the meaning?  It starts by talking about the gifts of God’s church, and asks God to receive them favorably.  Those gifts are the same gifts the Church has used since the Lord instituted the Eucharist on Holy Thursday at the Last Supper: bread and wine.  And it compares those gifts to the gifts we heard about in the Gospel: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  But it talks about how these gifts are not the same gifts of the Magi, but rather, Jesus Christ Himself, who “is proclaimed, sacrificed and received.”  It looks forward to the purpose of the presentation of these gifts of bread and wine, their transformation or transubstantiation into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.  It reminds us that what we offer here is not only our gifts, like the gifts of the Magi, but the gift of Christ Himself to the Father, the very offering of His life on the Cross, which is made present for us in an unbloody manner through the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.  It’s as if we being catapulted through different scenes from the Gospel: first the adoration of the Magi when Jesus was little, to the Last Supper, to the Crucifixion. 
    But it goes even deeper than that.  Because our gifts of bread and wine are meant to represent something much more precious: the gift of our very selves.  Christ is our model, and He offered His entire self to the Father, even to the shedding of His Precious Blood.  He did not hold anything back.  So we, who claim to follow Him, are meant to offer all of who we are, not so much right now in the shedding of our blood, but if the pouring out of all that has happened in our life since the last time we went to Mass like a libation, a liquid offering.  We put on that bread the credit card bill that’s due with all the charges for a Christmas dinner with the family and Christmas presents; we place the joy of conceiving a new child; the concern for an infirm family member; the sorrow of a death at what is usually such a joyous time of year; the excitement of a new job or new opportunities; the extended time spent while on vacation with the kids; the relief of sending the kids back to school.  All of that and more, really our very selves, are supposed to be united to the bread and the wine spiritually.

    And this is the gift that Jesus wants.  Sure, the gold represents Christ’s kingly identity; the frankincense His divinity; the myrrh His Death.  But Christ still wants to receive gifts from us even if we don’t have those items to offer up.  He wants us to offer ourselves, united with Him, to the Father, and to receive, like Him, new life back from the Father who never lets us remain empty-handed.  The Father transforms whatever we give Him, and returns it back to us as a vehicle of grace, a chance to grow closer to Him, which is our ultimate happiness.
    All of that, and more, from a prayer that is six lines and forty-three words long.  How often do we miss those words, not just on the Epiphany, but each Sunday, because we haven’t truly prepared ourselves for Mass?  We miss the poetry, the connections, the deeper meaning of these very deep prayers that the Church has perfected over two millennia of encounters with God. 
    Perhaps this week you can give God a little more of your time and attention.  Perhaps this week, maybe on Saturday morning or even before that, you can look ahead and try to see what the prayers for the Mass are.  Or even if you can’t do it ahead of time, to accustom yourself to paying close attention to the prayers that are said during the Mass.  Offer to God that aspect of yourself, that time of preparation, and be prepared for God to enrich your life even more than you thought, because God will not be outdone in generosity.

Taking Adoption for Granted

Sunday within the Octave of Christmas

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Sometimes we get so used to something, that we forget how amazing it really is.  I personally take for granted that, if I need to travel across the country in a short period of time, I can get on a plane and travel in a few hours what would take days to drive (and even that it only takes 2-3 days to drive at speeds of 70 mph would have been unheard of in the earliest days of automobiles). 
    When we hear St. Paul describe in the epistle today that we are sons and daughters of God and heirs of his inheritance, we probably take it for granted.  We have heard the phrase “children of God” so often that it doesn’t seem so spectacular for us.  But to be an adopted son or daughter in the Son of God is anything but humdrum.  This revelation makes up part of the good news of the Gospel that God revealed to us.
    This news of our adoption in Christ connects to our celebration of the Nativity, which we are still celebrating today.  As a side note, I took some clothes to the dry-cleaners last Tuesday, and I wished the woman at the counter Merry Christmas.  She said, “Belated Merry Christmas to you, too.”  I responded that as Catholics there’s nothing belated about it.  We celebrate Christmas Day for eight days, and the Christmas season even longer than that, because it’s too big of a celebration to be fit into just one day.  She mentioned that she thought it was only Chanukah that was eight days long, but I told her that Catholics love celebrating, and we celebrate for eight days as well.  When I went back on Friday morning to pick up the dry cleaning, she asked if I was still celebrating Christmas, and explained how long we celebrate Christmas.  It’s simple opportunities like that where we can share our faith.
    But back to the point about our adoption in Christ.  In Christ, God took our human nature to Himself.  And because of that, humanity was joined to God in a way that never happened before.  But that didn’t mean we immediately became co-heirs with Christ.  The Incarnation set the stage for this great news, but wasn’t the accomplishment of it. 
    God allows us to become His adopted children through baptism, when we die and rise with Christ in the waters of redemption.  Through holy baptism, God joins us individually to Himself, just as He joined us corporately to Himself through the Incarnation.  The redemption that Christ won made possible our status, no longer as servants, but as sons and daughters in the Son of God.  The Father remade us, as it were, by the power of the Holy Spirit which the Father gave us in holy baptism. 
    And St. Paul outlines that, while we serve God, we are not servants.  No, God exalted us to a status far beyond any servant.  Think about it: a servant has no rights in the family, but exists only to take care of the family’s needs.  He can be let go for any reason, or no reason at all.  He lives in the same house, but only because that is his occupation; it is not, properly speaking, his house.  He has no expectation to anything that belongs to the family, other than just compensation for the work actually accomplished.
    As a child in the family of God, we have rights.  And these rights are not based upon anything we have done, but only upon our status as a child.  Think about your own children: especially when they are babies, but even when they are older but acting like babies, they don’t really do anything for you as parents.  A baby sleeps, eats, dirties diapers, and cries (usually because he or she wants to do or has done one of the first three activities).  Yes, there’s a certain amount of love that a baby brings, but the baby isn’t really trying to be cute and lovable.  They just are.  And yet, simply because the baby is the child of the parents, the parents commit themselves to feeding the child, to clothing the child, to providing shelter for the child, to helping the child develop physically and intellectually (and spiritually, for believers).  Parents can’t simply say, “I’m tired of waking up the middle of the night.  Let’s send the baby away so that we don’t have to deal with him anymore.” 
    In a similar way, we don’t do anything for God, not by ourselves anyway.  We cry out a lot to Him; we ask to be nourished by His grace and the Eucharist; we dirty the diapers of our souls.  We add nothing to God in Himself, and we’re not all that cute or lovable all the time.  But, because we are joined to Christ in holy baptism, God makes a commitment to us to provide for us all that we need to be saints and to be with Him forever in heaven.  We don’t deserve it, but God gives it anyway.  We did not earn any good thing from God, but as a loving Father, He showers His blessings upon us. 
    Again, we are used to this exalted status.  But it did not have to be that way.  God did not have to offer us a place in His household.  But out of His great love for us, He invited us to a greater status than we could have ever imagined.  May Christmas help us remember not to take this great gift for granted, but to treasure it and operate out of our identity as sons and daughters in the Son of God, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.  

The Blessing of Children

Feast of the Holy Family

    During Christmas we so often focus on children.  One of the greatest blessings in a family is a child.  A child signifies the fruit of the love between a husband and wife.  A child means that the human race has one more person to continue it.  The child shares certain traits with its parents.  A child means an increase in love, not only from the mother and father, but also, in a mysterious way, from the child itself, who can do very little on its own.  For this reason we celebrate with baby showers or diaper parties; we prepare food for the new parents; we offer to help in any way we can, especially during those first few very difficult months.
    And while all of this rings true for the earthly birth of a child, it is also true for the spiritual rebirth of a person, of whatever age.  A baptized person is the fruit of the love of God.  A baptized person means there is one more disciple, one more follower of Christ.  A baptized person is called to develop the traits of God the Father.  A baptized person means an increase of love from the Most Holy Trinity, but also becomes a vessel of love to return to the Trinity the love he or she first received, but also to share that same love of God with others.
    Right now our society and even our members of the Church at times struggle with welcoming earthly children and with passing on the faith to the next generation.  While it is no longer a constitutionally protected activity in the US Constitution, the citizens of Michigan voted to make abortion a protected activity within our State Constitution.  Our governor has touted how much easier it is now to get an abortion, and has tried to convince others to move here so that they can have abortions whenever they want to.  Apparently the math is lost on her that, when we encourage the killing of the next generation, it doesn’t help the population grow; you can’t add people by subtracting people. 
    While I will also never fully appreciate the challenges in raising a child, and a couple’s discernment through prayer and reflection of how many children to conceive using Natural Family Planning, as well as with compassion for those who want children but who cannot receive them, those who prayerfully choose to have more than two children are often, whether jokingly or not, ridiculed or their intelligence questioned.  “Don’t you know what causes that?” they are sometimes asked.  I once heard a person say, in response, “Yeah, and I like doing it!”
    Spiritually, too, some families struggle to pass on the faith.  In some extreme cases, they advocate delaying baptism until the child can choose for him or herself.  If we were to extend this analogically to the other important aspects of life, the foolishness of this position becomes quite apparent: I’m not going to feed my child until she can decide what she wants to eat; I’m going to let my child choose what clothes to wear, or whether to wear any at all; I’m not going to love my child until he asks for it.  Loving parents force all sorts of things of their kids that they need: food, clothing; and love, to name a few. 
    Kids are smart, too.  They can tell what parents prioritize.  So when sports always or often comes before Mass; when families don’t pray together in the home; when the name of Jesus is more often used as a curse word than to invoke God’s blessings; kids figure out if faith is something that happens when convenient, or if it is a regular part of family life.  People wonder why there are fewer attendees at Mass.  Frankly, it’s because attending Mass, learning about the faith, and prayer are not prioritized in many families.  Kids don’t learn how to follow Christ, or that it makes any real difference, so they stop going to church and growing in their relationship with God as soon as they can. 
    God promised Abraham descendants as numerous as the stars.  And while Abraham struggled with seeing how this could happen, God fulfilled His word when Abraham and Sarah conceived Isaac, whose descendants quickly multiplied in Egypt, and who became a nation, a group of people in their own right.  But it went beyond Abraham’s physical descendants.  The Gentiles, the non-Jews, who were joined to Christ through baptism, also becomes descendants of Abraham, because Christ is a son of Abraham.  God fulfilled His promise through physical and spiritual means.
    But for this to happen, Abraham had to have faith in God, and offer to God the sacrifice of his family.  This happened in a very dramatic way through the almost-sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah, as the Letter to the Hebrews reminded us.  For us, this means offering our family to God, not through death, but through their lives.  Is Mass a priority for you as a family, or is it something you get to if it’s not too inconvenient?  Do you pray at home each day as a family?  Do you pray before meals?  Do you share the stories about Jesus, and, as the children grow, the teachings of the Church?  Another great tradition that has been lost is for a parent to sign their children with the sign of the cross on their foreheads before they leave for school or just to hang out with friends.  This simply gesture, which is proper to parents, reminds the children that they belong to Christ through baptism, and asks Christ, along with their guardian angels, to watch over them wherever they go.  The faith becomes as natural a part of life as eating, getting dressed, and going to school or work.
    Children are a great blessing.  They are, not only the future, but the present.  If we wish our society and our church to grow, we should support life, including helping mothers who have little to bring their children to birth.  We should make sure that, in our families, the faith life is not optional, but is part of how we live every day.  And if you can’t have children for whatever reason, find ways to help other parents and other families.  Because families who center themselves on God and not on the lesser goods of the world help make our society and our church better places to be, filled with more of the grace of God.