A Better-Than-Anticipated Gift

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  There are numerous movies where the protagonist goes out searching for one thing, only to find something different, and usually more fulfilling.  One movie that comes to mind is “The Wizard of Oz.”  Dorothy, having found herself trapped in Oz, as colorful as it is, seeks the Wizard of Oz to send her back home to her family in Kansas.  But, spoiler alert, after the Wizard goofs up and flies away in a hot air balloon, seemingly trapping her in Oz, in the end she finds out that she’s always had the power to return to Kansas in herself, and that home is where she really desires to be (even if that home is in black and white).
    In today’s Gospel, a sick man is brought to the Lord, and while the people who brought the man to Christ presumed that a physical healing would take place, the Savior tells the man that his sins are forgiven.  Everyone is shocked, for one reason or another.  The man was probably shocked, because he was hoping to be healed.  The pharisees were shocked because the Lord was claiming for Himself powers that properly belonged to God.  And they weren’t wrong that only God can forgive sins.  But our Lord was demonstrating His divinity and His unity with the Father.  And as proof of His divinity, beyond forgiving the man’s sins, the Savior also heals the man.

Frodo, Gollum, and Samwise

    I can imagine that, as I mentioned, our Lord surprised the man by saying his sins were forgiven.  If I go to Texas Roadhouse and ask for a bone-in ribeye, and then bring out a slice of deli roast beef, I’m going to be surprised.  It’s like Samwise Gamgee receiving a rope from Galadriel, while Perrin and Merry get elven daggers.  Samwise says, “Have you run out of those nice, shiny daggers?”
    But, in fact, the gift that our Lord gave was much better than what was asked, though it likely didn’t seem that way at the time.  Going back to the Texas Roadhouse analogy, what happened in the Gospel is more like me asking for a New York strip, and getting the finest cut of filet mignon, that is so tender it barely requires a butter knife to cut.
    But we can all too often miss the gifts that the Lord wants to give us because we want something else.  Still, the gifts that the Lord wants to give us far outweigh the physical treasures that our minds often think would be better.  The sick man did receive a physical healing, but eventually his body would break down, as all bodies do, and become dust after death.  But the gift of forgiveness of sins allowed the man to enter heaven and enjoy enteral happiness in a life that knows no end.
    God does still heal people physically today.  And those are amazing and can help increase our faith.  But all too often He wants to achieve a spiritual end that will have a much longer lasting effect.  He wants to heal our soul, not just heal our body.  The Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, which used to be called Extreme Unction, or Last Anointing, demonstrates this.  The purpose of the sacrament is to grant spiritual healing to one who is both seriously ill and spiritually troubled.  Serious illness can often give us anxiety, or increase doubts in our hearts about the care and providence of God.  But God doesn’t want anything to stand in the way of our relationship to Him, and so, through that sacrament, grants us a spiritual healing, both to comfort our fears but also to forgive venial sins (if we are conscious) and even mortal sins (if we are unconscious and do not have the opportunity to confess).  A secondary effect of the sacrament can be physical healing, but that is not the primary effect of the sacrament.
    Still, what do we tend to focus on more?  We wonder, ‘did I get physically healed?’  Praise God when that does happen, but eventually physical healings will come to an end.  To paraphrase Christ: what does it profit a man to regain his health but lose his soul?
    To understand the gifts that the Lord wants to give to us, we need conversion of heart.  If we are not configured to the mind of Christ, all we will think of is whether our body got healed and what sort of physical or visible miracle took place.  As we put on the mind of Christ and think of the things that are above, we recognize how God’s invisible grace can transform our souls and help us be more like Him and be more prepared for heaven, which is the goal of every human life.  To return to the image of “The Wizard of Oz,” we often prefer the color of Oz, even though we’re lost, we’re not near our loved ones, and there are witches trying to kill us, to the black and white of home where we are loved, we are familiar, and others will protect us.  
    God desires every good gift for us.  God wants to give us what we truly need, even when our attention is drawn to other things that do not last as long and are not as powerful.  May our worthy reception of Holy Communion help us to see the world with the eyes of God, and recognize the great miracles He works in our life every time He forgives our sins, or helps us avoid temptations, or reminds us of His love and protection.  May we better appreciate the miracles God wants to work in our lives, even when they are not flashy or what we expect.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Repaying God

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    For many young people, what got them through the COVID pandemic and the isolation that came with it was the sitcom “The Office.”  In one episode, Dwight, the Assistant to the Regional Manager, decides that he wants people to owe him, so that he can get his office frenemy, Jim, fired.  In the ubiquitous one-on-one interview with the camera crew, Dwight says, “Can’t a guy just buy some bagels for his friends so they’ll owe him a favor which he can use to get someone fired who stole a co-manager position from him anymore?”  Unfortunately another salesman, Andy, hates to be in debt to anyone.  So he starts finding ways to return the favor, thus not owing Dwight and thwarting his plans.  In Andy’s interview, he says, “You give me a gift, BAM! thank you note…You do me a favor, WHAM! favor returned.  Do not test my politeness.”  They both then go back and forth trying to give and return favors in pretty comical ways.
    In our first reading and Gospel we hear about people giving thanks for what God has given them.  Naaman receives healing from God for his leprosy, and one of the ten lepers whom Jesus healed returns to Jesus to thank Him.  Naaman even goes so far as to take with him “two mule-loads of earth” so that he can offer sacrifice to God on holy ground, even back in his home country of Assyria.
    While we’re not quite at the Thanksgiving holiday, God reminds us today that we owe Him thanks.  He reminds us, not as a Catholic guilt trip, but because He made us and He knows that we have a built-in desire to thank those who have given us gifts, and most especially the one who has given us everything.  Gratitude helps us live up to our potential as humans.
    But so often we pretend as if what we have comes from our own doing.  Yes, we do cooperate in our own excellence, but all that we have comes as a gift from God.  It starts with our life, which we do not arrange.  Even if a couple seeks to conceive a child at a time when they suspect conception could happen, it only happens by God’s will.  Then our family forms us, but they are also a gift from God.  And we naturally have some gifts and talents, which are also from God.  Some of those we choose to develop, but our ability to develop them is also a gift from God.  And we often take advantage of certain opportunities that come our way, but that also is a gift from God.  The only thing that God does not give us is sin; that is only from our making.  Everything else is either given to or allowed for us from God.  But do we thank God for those things?  Do we thank God not only for the big events and opportunities in our lives, but also for the things that we so often take for granted?
    Our attendance at Mass on Sunday is one way that we give back to God.  The word Eucharist, the sacrament which Mass makes possible, comes from two Greek words meaning “to give thanks well.”  In the Mass we give thanks to God for all the natural things He gives us, but especially for the supernatural gifts He gives us, like the possibility of salvation, and the grace to say yes to His will and live in a way that make us truly happy and prepares us for heaven.  God, strictly speaking, owes us nothing, and yet gives us all we need for eternal happiness.  Certainly that deserves some means of thanks.  
    The virtue of religion, the virtue by which we offer service to the Divine (to use the definition from the Roman writer, Tully), is the acquired habit, the repeated purposeful good act, of giving back to God for all He has given to us.  St. Thomas Aquinas notes different etymologies of the word religion, but connects it to the Latin word religare, to bind together (think of ligaments which bind bone to bone), and quotes St. Augustine who writes, “May religion bind us to the one Almighty God.”  God binds us to Himself, not because of any need, but because of His great love and generosity.
    And yet, how our sinfulness and ingratitude manifests itself when it comes to attending even just weekly Mass, which is part of the way that we fulfill the third commandment to keep holy the sabbath.  Obviously, you are all here.  And yet the numbers are pretty atrocious in the general Catholic population counting those who attend Mass each Sunday and Holyday.  How sad that so many cannot give one hour to the God who has given them everything, and even gives them the Body and Blood of His Son (presuming they’re in a state of grace) to sustain their spiritual life!
    But let’s go deeper so that we’re not just pointing out the splinter in our neighbor’s eye or casting stones at others when we ourselves are not innocent.  How do we treat the Mass?  With young children this can be difficult, but do we try to arrive five or ten minutes early for silent prayer with God?  Do we look forward to Mass as my opportunity to spend time with God, or do we begrudgingly go so we don’t go to Hell (and yes, you can go to Hell simply from skipping Mass on Sundays and Holydays)?  Do we do our best to pay attention and participate interiorly and exteriorly through silent prayer and responding when appropriate?  Are we upset if Mass is one second longer than the usual Sunday 60 minutes?  Do we leave Mass, having just received the Sacred Body and the Precious Blood of our Lord, and think to ourselves, ‘I didn’t get anything out of that Mass’?  Living the virtue of religion goes beyond simple attendance.  God deserves our best each Sunday, which, granted, is slightly different for everyone.  But there are probably ways that we can all grow deeper in gratitude to God.
    God has given us everything, even those things that we cooperate with God’s grace and the talents He gave us to earn.  Are we like Naaman and the Samaritan leper who insist on thanking God?  Or are we like the nine lepers who walk away without any acknowledgement of the one who gives us gifts?  God grant that we thank Him, not only with our voice on Thanksgiving Day, but with our voice, mind, and heart each day of our lives and especially every time we come to Mass.

Stopping the Cycle

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time/Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  Most Sundays I preach on the word of God in the Scriptures or a particular season or feast day.  But last week, during the 10 a.m. Mass, our country experienced yet another act of violence.  But this time it hit closer to home, as this mass shooting occurred in Grand Blanc, where many of you live.  I will admit that, before this past Sunday, it was always somewhere else, some other State, some other community.  
    Perhaps we can identify with the Prophet Habakkuk, who wrote, “How long, O LORD?  I cry for help but you do not listen!  I cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not intervene.  Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery?  Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and clamorous discord.”  In the wake of these tragedies, we seek to understand how this could happen, and what we could do to bring these tragedies to an end.  
    I’m not going to suggest any political solutions today.  And that’s not because political solutions cannot do anything.  We need to examine causes and do whatever we can to stop the natural causes of these acts of violence and terrorism.  

    But it’s all too easy to get stuck on arguing about external causes and political solutions to problems which go deeper than what we see on the outside and what government can do to solve our problems, though government certainly does have a role in preventing these evils in some ways.  Whenever these evils manifest, we seem to go through the same cycle every time: sympathy for those who died or were injured; moral outrage that this should happen; divergent views on how to prevent these acts of terror from happening in the future, be it gun control, mental health funding, violent video game restrictions, or other solutions upon which we divide into two major camps: liberal and conservative.  Then, because there is no consensus between liberals and conservatives, we do almost nothing, and basically wait for the next act of terrorism, where we go through the same steps again, and achieve nothing.
    Again, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do anything in the political arena.  Government’s first responsibility is to protect life.  But government cannot solve the problem, because the problem is not, at its heart, political.  The problem is not liberals or conservatives, Democrats or Republicans.  The problem is here, in our hearts, in our souls.  The problem that we don’t want to admit is that evil exists, and we are all too comfortable with evil, only to be surprised when it reaches its natural conclusion in horrible acts of violence.
    To be clear, I composed this homily before I learned much of anything about the shooter, whose name I will not share, and who has now stood before the just and merciful judgement of God.  So I can’t and won’t talk in any cogent matter about this particular person and what could have motivated him to cooperate in grave evil.
    But the reason what we continue to go through this cycle of violence is because our society has rejected God, at least at a wholesale level.  We are unwilling to acknowledge our sins, both as individuals and as a society.  We cooperate with evil, and then act surprised when evil does what it always does, seek destruction and chaos, whereas God is the source of creation and order.
    It doesn’t start with horrible evil, of course,  It starts when we say that something else is more important than God; when parents decide that the traveling sports team is more important than Sunday Mass; when a man or a woman decides that lust on a screen seems more enjoyable than following God’s plan for our ability to create new life; when prayer is too much of a burden each day; when we try to pretend that a loving father and loving mother are not key to stable and mentally healthy children; when we treat life only as valuable as it can serve some purpose for us and our utilitarian ends; when we accept the lie that our life has no relationship to God and how he has created us; when we live in an ungodly way; when we turn away from God and exalt our will and our egos; when we do these and other smaller acts of evil, we decide that we want these evils to continue again and again, until it strikes closer to home than we wanted or ever thought possible.  
    God has plans for us to thrive.  God can bring  this cycle of violence to an end, if we follow Him.  But we have to follow Him.  External policies can help, but they cannot solve the problem, any more than a band-aid can heal a severed artery.  The solution to our national problem with violence requires us to live Godly lives.  It is that simple and that complicated.  We have to love the Lord our God with all of who we are, and love our neighbor as ourselves, even when they are difficult to love.  Men and women need to truly love each other and commit to marriage before they have children.  We have to stop demonizing those who disagree with us, but rather use logic and God’s revelation to form them to understand the truth, not simply an opinion that seems easier to follow.  We need to go to Mass each Sunday and Holyday and recognize our dependence on God, rather than pretending that we are gods and the masters of the universe.  Until this happens, there will be more examples of Columbine; Sandy Hook; Nashville; Oxford; Minneapolis; Grand Blanc.  Until this happens, we’re just spending more money on better security, which others will try to beat with better guns and weapons and tactics, which will lead to more money being spent on security, in a vicious cycle.  
    If we want this unending violence to come to an end, then we need to submit ourselves to God and His law.  It may seem like this won’t do much.  But God promises: “For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.”  If we wish to live in a safe society, then do not join the diabolical forces that seek to exult the self over God and do whatever we want and whatever feels good.  God’s vision, subjection to Him and His rule, will not disappoint.  It will transform it into the world that we want at our deepest core, the desire that God has put into our hearts for order and peace, a desire that comes only when we conform our wills to His[: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen].