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].     

Pain and Glory

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I recently spoke with a Powers Catholic High School graduate who played hockey for Powers Catholic when he studied there.  He has since graduated and, as part of his life, helps train kids who play hockey.  In our recently conversation he mentioned that some of the kids he trains have the drive to excel, and just need work with particular skill sets.  But he struggles with other kids who want the trophies and the medals, but don’t want to put in the work to excel.  They, like so many, have fallen prey to the cultural milieu that one can have it all without working for it and suffering for it.
    St. Paul mentions in the epistle that he suffers for the Ephesians, which is their glory.  Of course, St. Paul’s sacrifices for the spreading of the Gospel also meant his own glorification by God.  But whether the Apostle directed the sufferings towards the people or towards himself, the sufferings yielded the results, not the ease of sitting at home.
    To know Christ, in His expansive love, is to know suffering.  But to know suffering for Christ is to know glory.  Mothers know this when they carry a child in their womb for 9 months.  Especially towards the end, mothers often can’t wait until the child is (safely) delivered.  But the pain of childbirth leads to overwhelming joy at the birth of the fruit of marital love.  Men know this with sports or the weight room.  You cannot excel in a sport, you cannot grow muscles, if you’re not willing to push yourself beyond what you think your limit is and endure pain as muscle fibers break and repair.  But when you win the championship, or when you are able to bench 225 lbs. or more, you recognize how much the sacrifices contributed to your success.  Or for students when it comes to a class or test.  Studying often does not feel good.  The brain gets fatigued from going over again and again the material that you need to learn or be able to produce for a class or an exam.  You put other fun activities on the back burner to make sure that you can truly comprehend the material and reproduce it for a teacher or professor.  And when you pass the class or the exam, you feel a sense of relief and accomplishment.  

    Christ demonstrates for us, as do the saints, that the cross is the only road to victory.  We think it would be better to get to heaven without the cross, but that’s not possible.  Christ’s glorification only comes about because He willingly suffered for us.  Our glorification only comes about when we suffer with Him and in Him.  We like to think, as Christ mentions in the Gospel, that glorification happens when we seek and take the highest place of honor.  But our exaltation comes when we take the lowest place, which is a way of putting our ego to death, which often feels painful.  Our glory comes from our cross.
    That is true in my vocation as a priest and as your spiritual father.  You are my cross and my glory.  That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy being with you and serving you.  I love being at this parish and being your pastor.  I am blessed beyond measure to be at such a beautiful church and serve wonderful people striving for holiness.  But sometimes some of you drive me up a wall.  And you may not be doing anything wrong or sinful, but I suffer for you to help you grow as best as I am able, though I myself am also subject to sin and driving you up a wall, I’m sure.  You are my cross, but you are also my glory.
    For spouses: you are each other’s crosses and glory.  Again, it’s not like marriage should only be suffering through, like you grin and bear it.  But every couple I know has moments where they don’t like each other, even while they love each other.  Sometimes some idiosyncrasies manifest at just the wrong time.  Or a word said in jest hurts especially because of what happened earlier in the day.  Or the kids have decided that today is the day to get out all excess energy and fight with each other and ask a million questions, all while mom and dad are trying to provide and keep a good house.  Your suffering for each other and your children is the way you’ll go to heaven.
    If we wish to have true glory, we cannot seek after earthly honors and the highest place at the table.  If we wish to have true glory then we cannot be all about having our will be executed by all.  If we wish to have glory than we take up our cross and suffer for God through the daily crosses He allows in our lives.  Because our cross is our glorification, just as it was for Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever.   

Caring for Lazarus

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When it comes to funny quotes in a musical, “Fiddler on the Roof” definitely has its fair share: “Rabbi, is there a blessing for the czar?”  “May God bless and keep the czar…far away from us!”; “As Abraham said, ‘I am a stranger in a strange land…’”  “Moses said that.”  “Ah.  Well, as King David said, ‘I am slow of speech, and slow of tongue.’”  “That was also Moses.”  “For a man who was slow of tongue, he talked a lot.”  And, one that is apropos for the readings today: “I realize, of course, that it’s no shame to be poor, but it’s no great honor either.”
    God reminds us today, both through the Prophet Amos and through the Son of God, Jesus Christ, that we have a responsibility to care for the poor.  That might make us a little uncomfortable, as we have a lot of poor people here in Flint, and caring for them requires a certain amount of resources.  Pope St. Paul VI, in his homily for the canonization of St. Juan Macias, a Dominican friar, said, “When we say that Juan Macias was poor, we do not mean the kind of poverty that can never be sought or blessed by God: the poverty which is culpable or due to passive inertia with regard to earning a legitimate sufficiency.”  So there is a type of poverty that is, we might say, vicious, because it stems from laziness.
    But, there also exists a poverty which does not come from natural sloth, but comes from an inability to care for oneself, as Lazarus in the Gospel was unable to do.  His sores meant that he had to keep away from most people, which certainly meant he could not earn a living.  Jesus says that he should have been a reminder to the rich man at whose door he rested.  But the rich man ignored Lazarus.  Even the dogs cared for Lazarus more than the rich man, as the dogs licked the sores to try to clean them.  
    This type of poverty we have a responsibility to alleviate according to our means.  Why?  Because God has a special love for those who cannot care for themselves.  In Old Testament times, this meant the poor, widows, and orphans, who had no means of familial support but had to rely on the generosity of strangers.  In our times, when we have many agencies that care for the poor, be they religious groups or government offices, which can make us think that we don’t have to do anything any more.  I think of the exchange between Ebeneezer Scrooge and two men collecting money for the poor:
 

“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge…it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time…”
“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.
“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman…
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge.  “Are they still in operation?”
“They are.  Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.
“Both very busy, sir.”
[Scrooge said,] “I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Scrooge supported with his taxes prisons for the poor and workhouses for the poor, which often had deplorable conditions themselves, but in the end, felt that the poor should rather die and not burden society so much.  How much of Scrooge still remains in our heart?
    God calls us to care for the poor because through our care, people learn about the loving concern of our heavenly Father.  Those who are not able to work, whether because of a physical limitation, and all too often these days mental handicaps, are still children of our heavenly Father and human beings worthy of respect.  Do our actions, the way we treat people who are poor, demonstrate respect or something other treatment?  
    This is why we annually provide toys for Christmas for low-income families; food for people, especially at St. Mary Oratory on the east side of Flint; the work with the North End Soup Kitchen; and Hope in a Box for Catholic Charities: when we work together, we can do more to help them poor than we could by ourselves.  But we try to offer opportunities so that we can live up to our call to care for the poor and imitate our heavenly Father.  
    Certainly, it can be hard to discern who truly needs assistance, and who tries to scam people.  Those who are poor from laziness, or those who try to get money pretending to be poor, certainly have a harsh judgement awaiting them, as it not only affects their own person, but makes many people question assistance to the poor.
    But there is also spiritual poverty, which is no less prevalent and no less problematic.  St. Teresa of Calcutta once said, “The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty–it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality.  There’s a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”  You can have a full belly and warm clothes and a house in which to sleep, but if you do not have God, you are still poor, because you lack the treasure buried in the field and the pearl of great price: a loving friendship with God which makes all of life worth living. 
    [Cameron today you have been accepted into Order of Catechumens.  You have acknowledged your spiritual poverty and God wants to make you rich.  No, you may not increase in financial stability, but God will pour out all His graces that you need to go to heaven, where no one lacks for any good things.  Like all of us baptized, it is only when we recognize our poverty, our need for God, that God fills us with His grace and love.  You have cried out to God in your poverty, God has heard you, and God is preparing to give you the best inheritance you could imagine: eternal life in heaven after a life of following Him on earth.  When you have God, even if you have nothing, you have it all.  When you don’t have God, even if you own everything the world can give you, you have nothing.]
    May all of us, then, continue to work to provide for the poor, whether financial or spiritual poverty.  May we do so, not begrudgingly, not as a “requirement” that we have to check off, but as an expression of love for our brothers and sisters who lack sufficient resources, be they food, clothing, or the knowledge and love of God.  May we not live like the rich, who ignored Lazarus right in front of him, but see each person as a child of God, worthy of dignity, respect, and whatever assistance we can give, even if that is simply prayer. 

What Makes You Follow Him?

Solemnity of St. Matthew
    Whenever I think about the apostles following Jesus, I wonder what it was about the Lord that made a group of men leave everything they knew behind and follow a rabbi who had, from a worldly perspective nothing.  Now, in some cases there were miracles that helped.  Think about Peter, who participated in a miraculous catch of fish when Jesus told him to go out into deep waters to fish.  Or Nathaniel, to whom Jesus said that He had seen Nathaniel sitting underneath a fig tree.  And maybe we might even suggest with Andrew, Philip, James, and John, who had been disciples of St. John the Baptist, that having your rabbi basically say, “Follow him,” would make it easier when the Lord invited you to follow Him.

    But with St. Matthew, our parish patron whose solemnity we celebrate today, as with other apostles, there doesn’t seem to be any miracle or direction given by another.  Jesus simply says, “‘Follow me,’” and St. Matthew follows Jesus.  What was it in the look or the tone of voice or maybe simply the way Christ carried Himself that made St. Matthew want to leave behind the lucrative, albeit despised, job of collecting taxes for Rome?
    No matter what it was that drew St. Matthew to Jesus, what made Matthew a great evangelist and a martyr was the witness to the Resurrection.  He knew that Christ had died, even if he didn’t see it with his own eyes.  St. John, his fellow Apostle and later fellow Gospel writer, did see it with his own eyes, and certainly reported it back to the group.  And then, three days later, they saw Jesus, all Eleven of the Apostles (because Judas had killed himself), risen from the dead, but with the marks of His crucifixion.  And then, fifty days later, the Apostles received the gift of the Holy Spirit so that they had power to spread the Good News that God, in Jesus, had conquered sin and death, and that no one needed fear anything, because God had shown His power over all things and would raise up those who followed Him and were baptized.  Matthew took seriously the last words that he recorded in his Gospel account, that the mission of the followers of Jesus was to go and make disciples of all nations and baptize them in the name of the Trinity.
    What makes us follow Jesus?  Many, if not all, of us were likely baptized as infants.  Our parents chose to configure us to Christ to give us the grace we needed to live a truly happy life.  Just like they chose, before we could choose, what foods to eat, what clothes to wear, what activities we could or could not do, as a sign of their love for us, so they chose to claim us for Christ.  But at some point, we have to also accept our call and follow the Lord.  Being a disciples is not something to which we default.  It has to be a choice, and a choice that we make after encountering the Lord.  Christ invites us, too, each day, to follow Him, but we have to actually get up and follow Him, or risk missing out because we would rather have the mediocrity of the known rather than the sometimes uncomfortable and dangerous adventure of leaving all behind to follow Jesus.
    So where have we encountered the Lord?  When did we hear His call?  It’s important to reflect back on a moment where we encountered the Lord, because it gives us strength for the often hum-drum ways we live our lives, the times where the Lord does not appear to us as powerfully as He sometimes does.  
    And if we’re afraid that we haven’t had a chance to encounter the Lord, do not fear!  Because each time you come to Mass, you encounter the same Lord who called St. Matthew; the same Lord who died on the cross; the same Lord who rose from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit to strengthen His disciples and give them what they needed to share the Good News.  Each time you come to Mass, Jesus proves His love for us in giving us a taste of His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, which gives us eternal life within us.  God knows we need Him and so He gives Himself to us to be closer to us than any other person could ever be, even a spouse. Even in these simply, 8 a.m. morning Masses, the God of all glory comes down on this altar to make Himself present to us and to invite us to follow Him.  And if, perchance, you doubt this, as can sometimes happen, then during the Eucharistic Prayer, ask the Lord in the silence of your hearts: “Reveal yourself to me, Lord, and call me to follow you.”  I promise that if you ask in sincerity of heart and make those few words your own, Christ will answer you.  He will reveal Himself to you and call you to follow Him.  Again, all you have to say in silence is: “Reveal yourself to me, Lord, and call me to follow you.”  Especially as you first see the Body and Blood of the Lord, as I turn to you and say, “Behold the Lamb of God,” God will be revealing Himself, and may even grant you a miraculous appreciation of this through a special gift, if that is what you need to deepen your faith and relationship with Him.
    God calls you today to follow Him, just like He called St. Matthew.  God has filled you with the Holy Spirit through the Sacrament of Confirmation, so that you have what it takes to share with others the good news of the Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Lord, and that He has freed us from sin and death.  What will you do?  Will you stay at your customs post?  Or will you get up and follow Him?

Faithful to the Covenant

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  When it comes to family or friends, we probably have some sort of red line that, if crossed, would mean a break in that relationship.  For me, loyalty and honesty are two virtues that I insist on in order to maintain a friendship.  If I find out a person has lied to me, or has been disloyal, I find it very difficult to continue that friendship.  It may seem fine at the surface for a little while, but I tend to disengage that friendship until the friendship dies from lack of contact.
    Thanks be to God that our God does not operate in the same way!  God remains faithful to the covenant He entered upon, even when we don’t hold up our end of the bargain.  And, in fact, God outdoes Himself by not only upholding a covenant that we break time and time again, but even giving us a better covenant than we had at the beginning.
    St. Paul mentions in our epistle how God made a covenant with Abraham and to his seed.  What was that covenant?  In Genesis, chapter 15, God promised to be Abraham’s God and to give Abraham the land of Canaan, and to multiply Abraham’s descendants so that they would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.  God’s People were then to simply follow God and His will.  To enact this covenant, God asked Abraham to cut a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, and a three-year-old ram in two, and then to sacrifice a turtledove and a young pigeons as well.  This action, sociologists tell us, was to signify the penalty if either party broke their side of the bargain: what happened to the animals (death) would happen to the one who broke the covenant.  As another sign, God commanded Abraham to be circumcised and to circumcise all the male descendants as a sign that they belonged to God.
    The first few generations did ok: Isaac, Jacob, and his twelve sons (though the twelve sons did try to kill their brother, but instead sold him into slavery into Egypt, which ended up saving the day).  But then the people, now enslaved in Egypt themselves, forgot the Lord.

    So God gives a new covenant, the Law, to instruct the people on how to be God’s Chosen People.  The blood of animals is sprinkled on them to join them all to the covenant and to again reaffirm that whoever breaks the covenant deserves death, and the people agree because God has saved them from slavery and from Pharaoh’s army at the Red Sea..  Before Moses has time to communicate this new law, they build a false god, a golden calf, and begin to worship it.  Fail.
    But God remains faithful to His covenant, and leads them to the Promised Land, even though they complain regularly that the food isn’t good, or that Moses has too much power, or that they’re going to die of thirst.  Time and time again, the people do not live up to their side of the covenant.  Even at the door of the Promised Land, the people lose faith that God can grant them entry and push out foreign armies, even though they had just destroyed a couple armies of pagan kingdoms, and so they have to wander in the desert for 40 more years.  
    But God remains faithful to His covenant, and gives them the Promised Land, displacing kingdoms and entire peoples.  But even then, the Chosen People follow false gods, then get into trouble, then are oppressed, then cry out to God.  And God saves them time and time again.
    God sends prophets to remind them to follow the law, to care for the poor and the orphans, to live justly and walk humbly with God.  But they always end up rejecting God and not living according to the covenant.  And while God does allow the consequences of their disobedience and idolatry to fall on them (like the exile and dispersion of the ten northern tribes and the destruction of the temple and the exile into Babylon of the two southern tribes), He remains faithful to His covenant, and sends a Messiah.  While the people expect an earthly Messiah to free them from Roman oppression, God provides a true Messiah who frees them from slavery to sin and death and opens up heaven.  God even takes upon Himself the punishment for infidelity to the covenant, though He was the only one who had remained faithful to the covenant, and did not deserve death.
    All of this is to say that God remains faithful in the midst of our infidelity.  God fulfills His promise even when we don’t.  And He does so to draw us back to Himself.  He lets the rain fall on the good and the bad, and the sun to shine on the just and the unjust in order to woo us back to Him, our Lover, so that we can enjoy the close relationship that He desires for us.
    As we look at the Gospel: only one leper returns to give thanks, and He’s outside this covenant.  But God doesn’t give the other nine leprosy again.  They are healed, even though they do not give thanks to God for the miracle they received.

    In our lives, are we like the nine or are we like the one?  God has given us so much, and we don’t deserve any of it.  We cannot claim any merit on our own, because we could not do anything good without God.  Every time we sin we walk away from the covenant, not just that to Abraham or Moses, but to the covenant sealed by the Precious Blood of the true Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who offered His life, taking upon Himself the punishment that should have been ours for our infidelity.  God gives us so many good things, but do we give thanks to God for His fidelity?  Do we worship God wholeheartedly for forgiving us every time we ask in the Sacrament of Penance?  Do we do our best to avoid sin and breaking the covenant?  Yes, sometimes God does allow the consequences of our actions to fall upon us, but more often than not He is patient with us and does not give us what we deserve so that we can return to Him.  
    At one point, though, our ability to turn back to God will end.  When we die, we no longer have a chance to return to the covenant that Christ made with us in Holy Baptism.  If we, in the end, reject that covenant, then we will face the punishment of breaking the covenant: eternal death in Hell.  But if we turn back to God, if after the disease of sin has affected us and we ask God to heal us and we return to Him to thank Him for that healing, then we will receive the rewards of the covenant that we did not deserve, strictly speaking, but that God will grant to us as a merciful and loving Father: residence not simply in an earthly Promised Land, but eternal life in the true Promised Land of heaven.  May God’s patience with us allow us time to convert and do our best to be faithful to the covenant sealed in the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit are God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Having a Beer with Jesus–Sacrament Edition

Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time–Christian Initiation of Adults/Confirmation

    In his song, “Beer with Jesus,” Thomas Rhett sings about what many a person would like to do: sit down and share an adult beverage with the Lord.  And, as the country music singer muses, he would ask Him numerous questions including: “Do you hear the prayers I send?”; “What happens when life ends?”; “What’s on the other side?”; “Is mom and daddy alright?”  As rational human beings we seek knowledge, we seek to understand.  And yet, as we heard in our first reading, “Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?”
    In humility we must acknowledge that we do not always know why God does what He does, nor do we always find an answer on this side of eternity.  Even if we did sit down and drink a beer with Jesus, there would probably be some things that He didn’t tell us, or He’d tell us not to worry about certain things because we don’t need to know some things, even when we think we do.
    But God has a plan, and He calls us to trust Him that His plan will bring about the best result.  This is where faith comes in, where we go along with God and His ways, even when we can’t make out how it makes sense.  And while God sometimes asks us simply to trust, He proves Himself worthy of that trust by what He did for us.  
    It would be odd for God to tell us that we have to take up our cross and follow Him, unless He took up His cross and followed the will of God, even when it meant extreme suffering and death.  And He proved, by His Resurrection, that though following God and trusting in His plan can mean great anguish, that anguish passes and a joy and life beyond all imagining follows.

    Today, as Raegan and Skyler receive all three Sacraments of Initiation, and as I receive Andrew into Full Communion with the Catholic Church, and as Andrew and Nico receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, we see how God’s ways do not always seem clear to us.  Wouldn’t it have been better if Raegan and Skyler were baptized as infants and grew up in the faith?  Wouldn’t it have been better if Andrew were born into the Catholic faith?  Wouldn’t it have been better if Nico had been confirmed as a youth?  At this point, all we can say is that was not part of God’s plan.  Only God knows why, but this was the way, from all eternity, that God would grant different forms of sanctifying grace to all four of these young women and men.
    We see this in the second reading, as we hear about Onesimus, a slave, who befriended Paul and became a Christian through baptism, and his owner, Philemon.  Slavery is not good.  Philemon certainly thought that Onesimus running away was not good.  And yet, God used all of that as Onesimus met St. Paul and came to know Christ Jesus so that Onesimus could return to Philemon, himself a Christian, as a brother in Christ, rather than a slave.  The path didn’t make sense until you saw the ending, and then it made all the sense in the world.
    The same could be said for the crucifixion.  Jesus said today that His disciples would need to carry their cross.  We lose how startling that phrase would have been because we have accustomed ourselves to the cross.  But that phrase certainly scandalized the first hearers.  And it would have continued to scandalize them, if not for the fact that Christ Himself took up not just a metaphorical cross, but an actual cross, a literal cross (to use the word literal correctly), to prove His love for us.  And while Good Friday didn’t seem to make any sense at the time, on Easter Sunday we came to see that crucifixion in a new light: that God redeemed suffering and death and conquered it by Jesus’ Resurrection.
    Raegan, Skyler, Andrew, and Nico, to quote the character Saruman from “Lord of the Rings,” “So you have chosen death.”  You have each chosen to take up your cross, your means of suffering and pain, and follow Christ.  You have chosen to make His way your own, whether through a first choice of baptism, through your entrance into Full Communion with the Catholic Church, or through your reception of the Sacrament of Confirmation.  But in choosing to die with Christ, or deepening how you die with Christ, you have also chosen life.  Because when we take up our cross with Christ, He also grants us the resurrection.  
    And you each will taste the fruits of that Paschal Mystery–the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Lord–in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist that you will receive for the first time today.  That will be your reminder of what God has done for you.  That will be your strength to help you carry your cross.  That will be your foretaste of victory as you eat Eternal Life.  
    And while we don’t know why God allowed you on the longer path that has brought you to today, we trust that it is the best plan, and that your witness of receiving these sacraments will continue to bring about great good in the Church.  May God strengthen each of you in your pilgrimage towards heaven, and may we all carry our daily crosses according to the sometimes mysterious plan of God, so that we may one day enter into Eternal Life.

Having a Beer with Jesus

Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

    In his song, “Beer with Jesus,” Thomas Rhett sings about what many a person would like to do: sit down and share an adult beverage with the Lord.  And, as the country music singer muses, he would ask Him numerous questions including: “Do you hear the prayers I send?”; “What happens when life ends?”; “What’s on the other side?”; “Is mom and daddy alright?”  As rational human beings we seek knowledge, we seek to understand.  And yet, as we heard in our first reading, “Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?”
    In humility we must acknowledge that we do not always know why God does what He does, nor do we always find an answer on this side of eternity.  Even if we did sit down and drink a beer with Jesus, there would probably be some things that He didn’t tell us, or He’d tell us not to worry about certain things because we don’t need to know some things, even when we think we do.
    But God has a plan, and He calls us to trust Him that His plan will bring about the best result.  This is where faith comes in, where we go along with God and His ways, even when we can’t make out how it makes sense.  And while God sometimes asks us simply to trust, He proves Himself worthy of that trust by what He did for us.  
    It would be odd for God to tell us that we have to take up our cross and follow Him, unless He took up His cross and followed the will of God, even when it meant extreme suffering and death.  And He proved, by His Resurrection, that though following God and trusting in His plan can mean great anguish, that anguish passes and a joy and life beyond all imagining follows.
    So many people will ask the question, “Why does a good God allow good people to suffer?”  Or, “How can there be evil in the world if God is good?”  The only answer we have is that free will, which allows us to love God, also allows us to disobey God and cause great pain and suffering to others.  Robots and pets cannot truly love because they cannot truly choose.  And a person feeling affection for us without having a choice doesn’t feel good at all or affirm that it is good that we exist.  To use a very recent and probably still raw example, the same free will which allows a very confused man to shoot at a school Mass in Minneapolis, also allows a student to lay on top of his younger schoolmate so that any bullets don’t hit the younger student.  “Greater love has no man than this, to lay down his life for his friend.”  But love can only exist where free will exists.
    But rather than asking why evil exists, for us as Catholics I would argue we gain more by asking what God does with suffering.  What does God do in the face of the cross?  He endures it with us.  He shows us that He will never abandon us when the going gets tough.  Where was God in Minneapolis?  He was with the students, giving some courage to put their own lives on the line, even though they can’t even drive a car or vote.  He was present with the teachers, helping them to use their training and give instructions and provide as much calm as they could so that their students could be as safe as possible.  He was there with the students who died, mourning that their lives had to be cut so short and that a person would misuse free will in such a way as to bring unbearable pain and sorrow to the families who now bury their children.  He was there with the parents, wondering if their child was alive or mourning the loss of their own flesh and blood.  Never did God say that the suffering was too much for Him to remain.  Never did God shy away from that pain and heartache.  He was there, on His cross, suffering in Minneapolis as He suffered on Calvary for the salvation of the world.

    And just as Christ brought the Resurrection from all the evil, hate, and sin that was thrown at Him on the cross, so He will bring a resurrection from Minneapolis and from every evil that happens at every moment in every place around the world.  Somehow, God will cause greater good, not at the expense of the innocent, but transforming a privation of good, that which we call evil, into an overflowing of good, so that even though evil thinks it wins, it ends up in defeat, no matter what evil does or how hard it strives to find victory.  As St. Paul says elsewhere, “Where, O death, is your victory?”  
    And the fact that God brings good out of evil should cause us consolation, because we, all too often, perpetrate evil.  We, all too often, misuse our free will in private or in public, but because all sin is communal, we weaken the entire Body of Christ by our rejection of God, no matter how big or how little a sin we commit.  But God can use our rejection of Him to bring about great goods, even if that good is simply our own conversion as we repent of our sinful deeds and turn back to the Lord to strive, by His grace, to choose good and build back up the Body of Christ.
    Certainly, it would be cool to have a beer, or bourbon, with Jesus.  We would likely have some questions which Jesus may or may not answer, not to hide stuff, but because we really don’t need to know.  But what we do know is God’s love for us, because He proved it on the cross, and makes present in an unbloody manner that same sacrifice as we celebrate this Mass.  May our worthy reception of Holy Communion strengthen us in choosing the good, and strengthen our trust in God’s plan, even when it seems so mysterious to us.

American Pie, the Letter, and the Spirit

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Don McLean produced a hit 8 minutes and 42 seconds long called “American Pie.”  And while most red-blooded Americans know the song, and maybe have even sung it at a karaoke bar, I imagine that as generations get further and further from its release in 1971, fewer and fewer people know that the song, which is mostly upbeat, speaks about the loss of innocence in America, beginning with the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper in 1959.  
    As we heard the Gospel today, we heard about the Pharisee who stood as far removed from the Law of Moses as many young people do today from “American Pie.”  The Pharisee knew the words.  He knew the right answer that the two greatest laws to uphold included the love of God with all of one’s self and the love of neighbor as oneself.  But he didn’t know the deeper meaning.  

    And so Christ has to give him a parable to talk about love of neighbor and how love of neighbor is demonstrated.  The Samaritan, the one outside the law, actually demonstrated love of neighbor, rather that the priest or the Levite.  Those who should have known the law the best, and certainly its deeper meaning, practiced the law the least, and become the bad guys in the parable.  The one who had no direct access to the law, because his people had abandoned the law when they intermarried with the local pagans, lived the law of loving one’s neighbor as oneself, even sacrificing his own money to care for the robbery and assault and battery victim, though the neighbor in this case was a stranger.
    There can be a challenge for us as Catholics, and Catholics probably better educated that in any century before.  If you want to know what the Church teaches on any issue, simply Google it.  I understand there’s even a Catholic AI that can help synthesize the Church Fathers, Doctors of the Church, and Magisterial documents to answer questions.  But are we like the Pharisee, who knows the right answer, but lack the gift of understanding to know how to put that knowledge into practice?  
    Many will refer to the practice and the deeper reality of what God has revealed as the spirit.  We hear that dichotomy today from the epistle between the spirit and the letter.  The spirit gives life, while the letter kills.  Sometimes this dichotomy is used to advance things which are patently contrary to the letter by placing it under the spirit of the law.  Some will say, for example, that while St. Paul clearly teaches that those who obstinately practice homosexual actions cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven (and notice that the actions separate us from God, not necessarily the disordered affection), that because our Lord taught us to love people, we cannot say that homosexual activity is wrong, because St. Paul was referring to the letter of the law, while the desire to let people love whomever they want to love (to use their phrase, not our understanding of true love) is part of the spirit of the law.
    But, that’s like saying that we can’t say adultery is wrong simply because Christ loves the person who commits that sin against the sixth commandment, and would never want to condemn that person.  Christ doesn’t want to condemn that person, but that person does have to choose the good that God has revealed, which is part and parcel of how God made us.  
    The spirit of the law does not mean anything goes.  But it does mean we have to look more deeply than the surface.  There’s a difference between looking beyond and looking more deeply.  To look beyond means that we ignore what we have received.  To look more deeply means to investigate how what we have received can be more fully understood.  It is the difference between changing a teaching (looking beyond) and legitimate development of doctrine (looking more deeply).  
    I think one good example of this is the more nuanced teaching of the Church on suicide.  The Church has taught, and in some cases will always teach, that taking one’s own life means committing a grave sin.  God clearly states in the Scriptures that He is the author of life, and the only one who can legitimately end an innocent life (though sometimes people have to end lives in the interest of defense of self, family, friends, or country without sin).  However, we have come to understand the complexity of a human mind that thinks that the best way to ease the psychological pain that he or she undergoes is to take his or her own life.  In some cases, and really the full knowledge of what is going on only God knows, a person is not free to make a choice because of chemical imbalances in the brain.  And, as we know, if a person cannot freely choose an action, no matter how grave it is, it cannot be a mortal sin.  So when a person commits suicide, unless we know it was made with a clear mind, we have some doubt as to how culpable that person was for an objectively evil action.  
    This is also what makes assisted suicide, also known as euthanasia, so horrible.  If people of any age feel that their lives have no value (and often times society tells them they have no purpose if they can’t be fully active or somehow benefit society), they are vulnerable to depression and rejection, and a doctor or nurse who comes to them to help them kill themselves takes advantage of that depression in an action which does not admit, generally, of repentance because of its finality; once completed you don’t get a do-over.  On the one hand, the Church reminds us that if we undergo euthanasia or assisted suicide and we know what we’re doing, we don’t know how that person could go to heaven, and that person would be denied anointing of the sick beforehand, and a Catholic funeral afterwards.  However, only God knows fully the mind, and so we also need to not presume omniscience and have some understanding for a person who may have dealt with mental illness in some form while trying to make the decision, especially if it was more encouraged by those who swore an oath to do no harm.
    The face value of the law and the commandments is not always the final word.  We don’t go beyond what God has revealed for our moral life, as if there are no moral absolutes or as if God’s teaching always changes with cultural adaptations.  However, we do need to go deeper to better understand the full implications of what God has revealed of how we are to love our neighbor and how we are to love God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.