The Peace of the Risen Christ

Third Sunday after Easter
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I’m going to apologize up front here, because this will probably not be my best homily.  Between vacation (which wasn’t that restful) and trainings for the Michigan State Police I needed to attend, I feel like I’ve been playing catch-up and simply dealing with things as they pop up, like an arcade game of whack a mole.  In addition, a friend of mine who is a Trooper was shot early on Monday morning in Detroit, and I have been trying to help him and his fiancee, whose wedding I will celebrate in October, deal with his serious injury (he’s going to be fine, but he will certainly need some time before he gets back to work).
    So I’m giving this the best I have.  I haven’t had my usual times to think and pray over the readings like I normally do.  I don’t have any funny or deep connections to make at the beginning to draw you in.  I have to preach, and I’m relying on the Holy Spirit to hopefully help draw you ever more deeply into the sacred mysteries and how the Word of God applies to our daily lives (the Holy Spirit is always the one who gives any good message, I just feel like I usually have more time and energy to cooperate with Him than I have had this week).
    The Catholic life is always simply giving our best and allowing God to work out what has to happen.  We don’t see Christ in the Body in the same way that the Apostles did.  That should give us a certain sadness.  We fight through struggles; we can seem overwhelmed by our family situations, by work, by the fears of the world which seeks to silence the Gospel and which so often drives toward violence and division.  Sometimes all of this weighs heavy on our heart.  We are like our Lord described, a woman in labor, who struggles through intense pain, giving all she has.  

    In the midst of this; in the midst of the chaos and busyness of my own life and the reality that I cannot be everywhere to help everyone, nor can I be all things to all people, the first words of Pope Leo XIV rang in my ears: “Peace be with you.”  He continued, “this was the first greeting of the risen Christ, the good shepherd who gave His life for the flock of God.”  
    And this is the only greeting I can share with you today.  The Risen Christ gives you His peace.  He assures as, us His Vicar, the Supreme Pontiff, assured us, “evil will not prevail.”  You are struggling.  You are fighting for truth.  You are working hard to protect and serve your family, your community, your parish, your country.  Sometimes things go well, but so often things break down or go contrary to what you think is best.  Christ did not promise us a world without sorrow, without struggle.  Indeed, He promised us we would have it.  But He also promised that He would see us again and our hearts would rejoice in seeing Him again.  And He promised that the joy of seeing Him again would be a joy no one could take from us.
    The peace and joy that Christ desires to give us can only come when we make room for Him.  When we try to do everything ourselves, without His grace, it all collapses like a house of cards.  We cannot have the peace and joy of Christ if we do not make room in our hearts for Christ Himself.  Sometimes we act like atheists, who do not believe in God and so do not turn to God for help in the midst of our struggles.  But God does not want us to struggle alone.  He wants us to make room for Him in our hearts and in our days, even if it’s simply a few minutes or seconds here and there.  Those stolen moments while the kids nap, or during a snack break in the office, or driving somewhere in the midst of running what seems like a free Uber service, make all the difference in the world, because they invite the peace and joy of Christ back into our minds, hearts, and souls to strengthen us.

Our Lady, Queen of Peace

    And on this Mother’s Day, let us not forget to invoke our heavenly mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, in whatever struggles we may have.  She is the woman who labors in heaven for our safe deliverance to the Father’s house, who feels the pain of our sorrows and fatigue, who wraps us in her loving embrace when we feel overwhelmed, who shows us that the pains we go through, if united to Christ, can lead to a joy that words cannot fully describe.  Never be afraid to call on her when all seems lost, or like we can’t make it one more day, because she will help us to be open to receive the peace and joy that the risen Christ desires to share with us always.  I will end this homily in the same way our new Holy Father ended his first words at the loggia of St. Peter’s basilica: Hail Mary…. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Humility and Poverty

Sunday within the Octave of the Nativity

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of the foci (plural of focus) of St. Francis of Assisi (or, as the Dominicans call him, our Holy Father St. Francis), and the Franciscan Orders, is the humility and poverty of God.  This shouldn’t surprise us much, as Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone (as he was baptized) gave up his family’s wealth and prestige to become a begging or mendicant friar and took the name Francis.  He literally (and I use that word properly) stripped off his family’s wealthy clothes and put on a rough, brown habit, and relied on the generosity of others to survive.  And through this poverty, and with the assistance of our Holy Father St. Dominic, they did much to rebuild the Church, which had so greatly fallen into disrepair.
    But poverty and humility don’t only regard physical possessions or wealth.  Our Lord shows us great humility and poverty in His Incarnation.  And yes, the Gospels are clear that the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph did not have much wealth (they had to present the poor family’s offering of two turtledoves or pigeons to redeem their firstborn son).  But the poverty of Christ comes from recognizing how much He gave up to take our human nature onto Himself.  As pure spirit, before the Incarnation, Christ had no limits, experienced no lack, and existed in pure actuality.  After the Incarnation, Christ could be seen in only one place, few the pangs of hunger and thirst, and would grow from potentiality to actuality throughout His life.  The King of the Universe could be mocked by his neighbors.  He could get splinters and feel pain while working with St. Joseph in his workshop.  
    But beyond that, Christ subjected Himself to the Law of Moses.  Our Lord gave the Law to Moses, and knew its deeper meaning, as He would preach in the Sermon on the Mount.  But, as one like us in all things but sin, He subjected Himself to a Law to which He, as Lawgiver, should never have had to follow.  The Law was for children as a tutor.  He needed no such tutor.  And yet, He did not consider it beneath Himself to obey the law in all its commands.  He received circumcision on the eighth day (as we will hear on Wednesday); His parents redeemed Him in the Temple 40 days after His birth (as we will celebrate on Candlemas), which is the earlier passage of today’s Gospel; He went to the Temple for Passover and the Feast of Booths and the Day of Atonement.  He who would declare all animals clean to St. Peter in a vision, obeyed kosher laws.  He would pay the temple tax, though He was the Lord of the temple and the object of its worship.  
    And He did all this so that He could redeem those under the law, so that we might not simply be servants or slaves (though St. Paul will still use these words from time to time), but sons and daughters in the Son of God, so that we could have the same access to the Father that He has.  What great humility for the one who did not sin, which the Law was meant to guard against, to live according to the Law!  What great poverty that He would live under the same rule as slaves, though He is Son.
    So how do we demonstrate this humility and poverty?  Or are we too important to humble ourselves and live under the rules of others, even when they seem not to apply to us (as long as they don’t go against our conscience)?  Kids will often confess disobedience to their parents in one way or another.  I know I disobeyed my parents when I was a child (shocking, I know!).  I will often remind them that our Lord, when He was a child, obeyed Mary and Joseph, even though Christ made and redeemed Mary and Joseph.  Christ, strictly speaking, owed no obedience to anyone; He is God.  And yet, if Joseph told Him to wash His face, or help His mother with dinner, or join in in the workshop, Jesus would yes, “Yes, Abba.”  If the Lord of all Creation can obey human parents, then we, who are not divine, can certainly give our best attempts to obey our parents and what they say.
    How about when Holy Mother Church asks us to do something: how do we respond then?  Some laws are man-made.  They are rooted in what we believe, but they are not directly from God.  Do we take time to obey them, or do we figure that we know better and don’t need to be shackled by such limiting regulations?  When the Church asks us to do penance to unite ourselves to Christ on the cross on Fridays, do we do that, in one way or another?  When the Church asks for some support in prayer, can we add a little prayer time to our daily habits, or do we complain that we pray enough, and are too busy to add another devotion?  Certainly devotions are not necessary, but they can sometimes help.  
    It is so easy to think that we know best, and we shouldn’t have to do something because it doesn’t apply to us, or won’t have an effect on us.  But Christ, through. His Incarnation and Nativity, shows us how to humble ourselves, and how to live in poverty, maybe not of possessions or money, but in poverty of spirit.  May the humble Christ Child, whom St. Francis, il Poverello, the little poor one, loved so much and imitated, help us all to be a bit more humble, a bit more poor, so that we can be more like our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

"It is the Small Things"

Fourth Sunday of Advent

    Galadriel asks, “Mithrandir, why the halfling?”  “I do not know,” Gandalf replies.  “Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check.  But that is not what I have found.  I found it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keeps the darkness at bay.”  In the movie, “The Hobbit,” this is the exchange between Lady Galadriel, an Elven queen, and Gandalf, known to the Elves as Mithrandir, who is a wizard.  They know that a great, evil being, Sauron, is active again.  And yet, Gandalf seems very focused on Bilbo, who is a Hobbit, a halfling, who only begrudgingly acquiesced to Gandalf’s request and went on a quest with twelve dwarves to reclaim their home and treasure from a dragon.
    In our readings today, we hear about the small: Bethlehem, the Incarnate Christ, and the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Maybe Christ seems odd to have in a list of the small, but even Christ, in His Incarnation, became small, when compared to His Divine Nature.  But I’ll come back to that.
    First, Bethlehem.  Micah describes the little town as, “too small to be among the clans of Judah.”  Bethlehem means “House of Bread,” and had a long history in the Bible.  It was the burial place of Rachel, the wife of Jacob in the Book of Genesis; in the Book of Judges, Bethlehem was the home of a young Levite who served as an idol-worshipping priest, as well as the home of a concubine whose murder almost destroyed the Tribe of Benjamin; in the Book of Ruth, it is the home of Naomi, whose servant, Ruth, moved back with Naomi after they had left for Moab, and where Ruth married Boaz.  Boaz and Ruth gave birth to Obed, who was the grandfather of King David, who also came from Bethlehem.  After the Babylonians exiled the Davidic kings, it loses all fame, except in this passage from Micah, which is fulfilled when Christ is born in Bethlehem.  
    In our Gospel, we hear about the Blessed Virgin Mary, who, to us, seems anything but small.  But in her own time, she was not well known.  She was likely around fourteen years old at the time she conceived our Lord.  While she was from the family of King David, she had no power or prestige.  She was the daughter of an old couple Joachim and Anne, who had no other children.  She was, to everyone except God, a nobody.
    And even in the Letter to the Hebrews, the sacred author talks about Christ coming into the world in His Incarnation when He took on our human nature.  Even this was small, in its own way, because Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, who created the universe and whom the heavens cannot contain, allowed Himself to be limited by our humanity, to do the will of the Father and reconcile us to God.  When comparing Jesus’ divinity and humanity, He did become rather small.
    But this is how God works.  St. Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians, “God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God.”  When great people do great things, they might think that it is them, not God, who accomplishes it.  When a weak or lowly or despised person does something great, they know that they could never have done it by themselves; they needed help from God.

    And, as we prepare for Christmas on Wednesday, that’s what God wants us to remember.  We could not, we cannot, save ourselves.  No amount of right living on our part could have ever bridged the gap between heaven and earth that Adam and Eve created when they disobeyed God and passed on their disobedience through original sin to us.  God had to save us.  Without Christ, we could not enter heaven, not even Abraham or Moses or King David.  All had sinned, and were deprived of the glory of God.  But God sent Jesus to save us, He whose name means “God saves,” and opened heaven not only for Abraham and Moses and King David, but also for us.  And even now that we are baptized, God gives us what we need to respond to that salvation.  Without the grace of God, we cannot do anything good even simply to cooperate with God’s salvation offered us through Christ.  The only thing that we can do without God’s grace is sin.  Every good thing requires God’s help.
    When we remember this, nothing can stop us, because nothing can stop God.  With God’s grace, Bethlehem became, not only the birthplace of a strong, human king, David, but the birthplace of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ.  With God’s grace, a young virgin who seemed to have nothing special about her became the Mother of the Redeemer.  Jesus Himself made Himself small so that He could attract us to Himself and save us by His invitation, rather than by force.  And we need only, by the grace that God gives us, respond to that invitation in order to enter the enteral home that God wants for us in heaven.  
    Some do believe that it is only the powerful that can keep evil at bay.  But, it is in the small ways that God defeats evil, with those who know of their smallness and yet rely on God.  May we cooperate, in our smallness, with the grace of God through small things, everyday deeds of we, ordinary folk, and so participate in Christ’s victory over sin and death.

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.

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.

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.

A Father Who Keeps His Promises

Fourth Sunday of Advent

    I try to be a man of my word.  If I say something, I consider myself, except for extreme circumstances, bound to do what I said I would.  This has led me to become very particular with my word choice, and to say, when asked if I can do someone a favor, “Depends on what it is.”  If I make a promise, I intend to keep it, as far as I am able.
    But we have probably all had an experience (hopefully not from me!) when a promise has been broken.  I remember a local story from not too long ago about a contractor who took people’s money, but didn’t complete the work.  Or the sad broken promise of a marriage that ends in divorce, a promise not only made to each other, but also made to the children for their best upbringing. 
    How beautiful it is then, that we have a Father who keeps His promises.  God always is true to His word.  As St. Paul reminds us, when God says yes He means yes, and His no means no.  We hear God promise to David today that He will establish a house for David, and raise up an heir whose kingdom will be firm and endure forever.  David himself saw kingdoms fall and rise during his reign, and so this promise must have been quite encouraging! 
    But that promise seemed like it was broken.  David’s son, Solomon, was the only one who could claim a united kingdom.  The kingdom of Israel and Judah split into two due to the harshness of Solomon’s son, and they never rejoined.  Israel was eventually exiled because they worshipped false gods, so that only the southern kingdom of Judah was left.  But even then, eventually the king was captured by the Babylonians who exiled all the royal family.  After the Babylonian exile, the sons of David never ruled over a kingdom again, at least not an earthly kingdom.  Even after the Jews returned to Judah and rebuilt the temple, there was never a king to rule over them, and they soon found themselves a vassal territory of Rome.  King Herod, who ruled at the time of the Gospel we heard today, was not of David’s line, and he wasn’t even really a king in his own right.  He ruled only because Rome let him, and to try to appease the Jews.  For how many years must the people have thought that God had broken His promise to David!
    Enter the Archangel Gabriel.  The Blessed Virgin Mary, like her betrothed, Joseph, was of David’s house.  They were descendants of King David, though they had no political power.  But Gabriel assures Mary that her son, conceived by the Holy Spirit, will receive “the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”  God had not broken His promise.  He simply fulfilled it in a way that others did not expect.  And this unexpected way improved the apparent promise, as Christ’s kingdom would truly never end, because time could not limit the one who rules outside time, and the rule would not limit itself to only a particular piece of land, but upon all of humanity.  It would be like asking a parent for money for ice cream, but then not getting it when you wanted it immediately, only to find out that the parent was the heir to the Dairy Queen, and you had been named as the new owner and CEO.  It wasn’t what you expected, but it was better!

    We should keep that in mind when we think of God’s other promises: for example, God’s promise that He would never abandon us.  God is always there for us.  If He stopped being there for us, we would cease to exist; not just die, but disappear from existence, like George Bailey from “It’s A Wonderful Life” when Clarence the angel shows him what life would be like if he had never been born.  That’s not to say that we will always feel that God is with us.  St. Theresa of Calcutta rarely felt God’s presence.  St. John of the Cross felt abandoned by God, but knew that God would never forsake him, even in the midst of his dark night.  And what joy Sts. Theresa and John must have experienced when they, having remained faithful to God even in the face of difficulties and seeming abandonment, saw God face to face in heaven! 
    When we are going through difficult times, it is not that God has abandoned us.  God is simply allowing us to prove our love, not just for the good feelings that He so often sends, but for Him directly.  Sometimes God is so close to us that we cannot even sense Him.  Sometimes a struggle is meant to help us grow in a virtue or in general holiness, which will draw us even closer to God in the end.  But God never walks away from us.  He will never divorce us.  We are the only ones who can walk away, and even then, God always remains for us, watching for our return like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son, ready to run to us if we come to our senses. 
    God is a Father who always keeps His Promises.  Jesus Christ says yes when He means yes, but sometimes also says no when He means no.  We may not always live to see how the promise is fulfilled.  And the promise may be so beyond our expectations that we can’t imagine how the promise will be fulfilled.  But God will fulfill it.  Have faith; our Father only knows how to give us what is good, even better than we can dream.

Better than Christmas

Fourth Sunday after Easter
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I will beg your forbearance, as I address my homily primarily to the First Communicants, though I pray it will edify all present.
    My dear boys and girls receiving our Lord in the Eucharist for the first time: when I was your age, the celebration of Christmas was one of the highlights of the year, as I imagine it is for you.  Yes, we went to Mass to celebrate the real reason for Christmas (and the reason it’s even called Christmas: Christ’s-Mass), but honestly, I was more excited for what presents would be under the tree on Christmas morning.  Part of the joy was the wrapping around the presents, because it took some time to realize just what I had received.  And my parents didn’t let us pick out the presents (probably both to avoid the chaos of three kids all grabbing for gifts, as well as to get pictures of what we opened), but my dad would pick one out at a time and give it to us so that we could unwrap it and see what we received.  Some of the gifts would be less exciting than others (I was not often a fan of the clothes that we inevitably got as gifts), but I would usually have a gift or two that really excited me and which I treasured for the near future.

    Today is not Christmas, but today you are all receiving the most precious gift of all: the gift of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist.  You are all dressed so nicely, to show how important this special day is.  And I imagine you are maybe as excited as you might be for Christmas, because of this treasure that our Lord is giving to you today.  And yes, just like at Christmas, there will be pictures, too, at least with me after the Mass, but probably with your family as well.
    Our Lord gives you this gift because of how much He loves you, and how close He wants to be with you.  In this Mass, you get to come close to Christ because we participate in His crucifixion, which is what the Mass presents for us once more, though without the pain and the blood.  But even though you have come close to Christ at each Mass, today He comes closer to you than anyone else will ever be to you, as you receive Him into yourselves through this Most Blessed Sacrament He gives us. 
    Having met with you, I know that you know that this is not ordinary bread.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, and the ministry of me, a priest who gets to act in the Person of Christ, God Himself changes bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.  And in doing so He connects us back to the sacrifice that opened heaven for us.  Whenever we receive the Eucharist, we receive a little bit of heaven inside of us.
    And we need that bit of heaven, because it prepares us for that place that we all want to go many years from now when we die.  Our Lord tells us that the way to get to heaven is narrow, and not many people take it.  But He also says that if we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we have eternal life within us that helps us make the decisions that lead us on that narrow road to heaven.  Receiving the Eucharist takes away our venial or small sins, and gives us strength to follow Christ.
    Following Christ is sometimes hard, because we all have temptations to do things that Christ doesn’t want us to do.  Christ knows those temptations won’t really make us happy.  Maybe sometimes your siblings aren’t nice to you, so you are tempted to be mean right back to them, or even hit them or say things that hurt their feelings.  Sometimes your parents ask you to clean your room or don’t touch something that can be dangerous, and we don’t want to follow their instructions.  Receiving the Eucharist will help you to be kind to your siblings and be obedient to your parents.  As you grow, the temptations will change; adults have other temptations of their own.  But if you receive the Eucharist each week, you will have everything you need to say no to any temptation that comes your way, no matter how old you are or what those temptations are.

    Today we also celebrate the Blessed Virgin Mary, because we honor her in a special way in the month of May.  Mary is a model for us because, unlike Christ, she is not God.  She is like us in every way, though she never, ever sinned in her life.  She always said “yes” to God.  And so we also ask her to help us say “yes” to God.  And like your own mothers, she loves you very much and will help you to follow her Son, Jesus, and say “yes” to Him.  If you ever need someone to talk to when you’re sad, or someone to share really good news with when you’re happy, you can always turn to Mary, and she will help cheer you up or celebrate with you.
    St. James in our epistle said today that every good and perfect gift comes from above from the Father of lights.  He’s talking about God giving us every good thing that we need.  And today He does give you the best present ever: His Only-Begotten Son, Jesus, in the Eucharist.  Christ Himself also gave us Mary, His mother, to be our own spiritual mother.  Those are two amazing gifts, and you didn’t even have to unwrap them!  And you don’t even have to wait until Christmas to receive them.  From this point on, every time you come to Mass, as long as you don’t have a big sin, you can receive this perfect gift of the Eucharist.  And the gift of our Blessed Mother, Mary, is a gift that you can always have, even on the days when you can’t come to Mass. 
    Just like at Christmas, when we receive gifts, we say thank you to the people who gave them to us, today (and every time your receive the Eucharist) I invite you, after you receive Holy Communion, to kneel down and silently say thank you to God for giving you these amazing gifts.  Say thank you in your own words in your heart to God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Entering the Paschal Mystery (Precept #1)

 Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Part of my hope is that, as you listen to the Scriptures being proclaimed over these weeks where I’m preaching on the Precepts of the Church, you’re trying to guess, as you hear the different readings, which precept I’m going to talk about, or how I’m going to talk about a precept based upon these readings.
    This week is precept number one: You shall attend Mass on Sundays and on holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor.  I especially want to focus on why the Church would tell us that we need to attend Mass.  

    What is the Mass?  We often think of the Mass as the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, presented for us in an unbloody manner (and that is certainly true).  But it is not only Good Friday that is made present for us each time the Mass is celebrated.  When we participate in the Mass, we are participating in the entire Paschal Mystery, that is to say, the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ.  And that is what St. Paul proclaimed in the epistle today: “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; …he was buried; …he was raised on the third day…”. What St. Paul proclaims to us is precisely that in which we participate.
    Notice that it’s not simply a memorial, either.  I didn’t say that we remember the Paschal Mystery; we participate in it.  It’s not a bad thing to remember.  We have lots of memories that connect us to the past, whether our own, our families, or even the members of our Church.  But we do more than remember: we enter into the very mysteries that we also recall.  Sundays are our days as Christians because it is the day that our Lord rose from the dead.  So on those days we enter into all that proceeded the Resurrection (the Passion and Death), and the consummation of the Resurrection (the Ascension into heaven) as our primordial day of celebration, the day that we assemble as a community of faith to give thanks to God for what He did for us, saving us from sin and death and allowing us to be able to enter into heaven.  On the holy days, we honor other special parts of our Lord’s life, or parts of our Lady’s life, or All Saints.  
    And while we can remember the Paschal Mystery, or we can remember our Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, or All Saints from the comfort of our living room couch, or by a lake, or another outdoor setting, we cannot enter into that Paschal Mystery in any of those places without the Mass because the Mass connects us to an historical and eternal event, which is something we cannot do on our own, but must be gifted us from God.  Going to Mass is not so much that we go to God (though it’s important that we do), but that God comes to us and allows us to participate, even in a limited way, in His eternity, and in the eternal offering of our Lord to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit.  That is why not even watching Mass on TV or on the Internet is the same as going to Mass (though it could be a good second option if we are sick or otherwise unable to attend Mass through no fault of our own).  
    In the Mass, we also have a chance to be healed in a way that doesn’t happen anywhere else.  In our Gospel, we heard about Christ healing the man who was deaf and mute.  Other than the Sacrament of Penance (which should be a regular part of our life as Catholics anyway), the Mass is the ordinary place where our venial sins are forgiven.  Our lack of hearing the Gospel (like deafness) or our failure to proclaim the Gospel by word and deed (like the speech impediment) can be forgiven and we can be restored to the fullness of the relationship that God wants for us.  When we receive the Eucharist, our venial sins are forgiven (as long as we don’t have any mortal sins), as the culmination of those times of asking for the Lord’s mercy.  At the very beginning of Mass, I, as well as the servers, who represent you, confess that we have sinned through our own fault, and ask God to be merciful to us sinners.  And throughout the Mass we continue to approach God, recognizing that we are sinners, even right before the reception of Holy Communion, we we acknowledged, “Domine, non sum dignus,” “Lord, I am not worthy…”. But God makes us worthy and unites us to Himself through the Eucharist.
    Again, this aspect of forgiveness is not something that we can receive sitting by ourselves, no matter how comfortable or how beautiful it may be.  Only when we come together, as God’s holy people, and receive the Bread of Life, the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Son of God, do we have that level of access to the mercy of God.  Yes, God can forgive our sins outside of Mass, or even outside of the Sacrament of Penance.  But He certainly forgives our venial sins in the Mass, and all our sins in the Sacrament of Penance.  

    God wants His grace in us to be effective, and so He gives us a sure way that we can approach Him, be strengthened by Him, and enter into the very realities–the mysteries we call them–that save us.  What a beautiful gift to us, a gift that we should want to have access to each and every week.  But, for those times where we need a little extra encouragement, Holy Mother Church reminds us in the first precept, that we are to attend Mass each Sunday and holy day, so that we can participate in the Paschal Mystery, and be healed from our deafness and muted voice.  May God help us always to hear His voice, and proclaim what God has done for us: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Now in the Sacraments

 Sunday after the Ascension
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In Pope St. Leo the Great’s second Sermon on the Ascension, the saintly pontiff preached: 

such is the light of truly believing souls, that they put unhesitating faith in what is not seen with the bodily eye; they fix their desires on what is beyond sight.  Such fidelity could never be born in our hearts, nor could anyone be justified by faith, if our salvation lay only in what was visible.  And so our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments.

It may seem odd that Christ ascended into heaven.  Why not remain on earth to be with us, to govern His Church directly, and to continue preaching so that we would know exactly what He would have preached in new circumstances and situations, because He Himself instructed us?

St. John Henry Newman

    Pope St. Leo the Great says it has to do with faith. St. John Henry Cardinal Newman affirms this as well in his Parochial and Plain Sermons.  He writes:

Now consider what would have been the probable effect of a public exhibition of his Resurrection.  Let us suppose that our Savior had shown himself as openly as before he suffered; preaching in the temple and in the streets of the city; traversing the land with his Apostles, and with multitudes following to see the miracles which he did.  What would have been the effect of this?  Of course, what it had already been.  His former miracles had not effectually moved the body of the people; and doubtless, this miracle too would have left them as it found them, or worse than before.  They might have been more startled at the time; but why should this amazement last?

Remaining on earth instead of ascending may not have had any different effect than our Lord’s time on earth before He suffered and died.  Many saw Christ and still doubted.  St. Mark states that even the apostles doubted after the Resurrection.  Many would have likely done the same.  
    Instead, our Lord ascended, but is still present to us through the sacraments.  Indeed, the sacramental life is not only the work of those on earth; its efficacy is based upon Christ.  In one of his letters, St. Augustine says, “When Peter baptizes, it is Christ who baptizes.”  Christ continues His work through His Church, especially through the sacraments which are meant to transform us into the disciples we are called to be.  That work is made possible by the Holy Spirit, who gives power and efficacy to each of the sacraments when administered with the matter, words, intention, and minister that the Church requires.  
    This, of course, takes faith.  It takes faith to have confidence that, when water is poured over a person’s head, and the Blessed Trinity is invoked as the Church requires, that person’s sins are washed away, and he or she becomes an adopted child of God and a member of the Church that Christ instituted for salvation.  It takes faith to trust that, when we go to a priest and confess our sins (mortal sins in kind and number), that those sins are no more; they are forgiven.  It takes faith kneel before that which looks like a round piece of unleaded bread, but which truly is the Body of Christ, the flesh without which our Lord said we do not have life within us.  
    But faith is precisely who we are as a people.  Our father in faith, Abraham, had faith in a God he had never seen, but who called him to travel from modern-day Iraq to the Promised Land, a land which God promised, but which Abraham himself never fully possessed.  He also trusted in God to make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, even though Abraham and his wife, Sarah, were well past the child-bearing age.  And then, when God did give them a son, Isaac, the son of the promise, Abraham trusted that God would restore Isaac to life, after God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah.

    So, too, with the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Hers was a life of faith in God.  She had faith when the Archangel Gabriel appeared that, though she did not know man, she would conceive and bear the Son of God.  She trusted God would keep her, Joseph, and the Christ Child safe as they journeyed to Egypt, and then to Nazareth.  She trusted even when her Son was nailed to the cross, and as He ascended into heaven.      Do we trust in what God wants to accomplish with us?  Are we open to the graces that flow through the sacraments, graces that are meant to transform us to be who God desires us to be?  The sacraments always “work,” that is to say, they do what we believe they do when we celebrate them as the Church requires (we use the phrase ex opere operato-from the work having been worked).  But the effect that they have in our lives, what we call “fruitfulness,” is based upon our openness to them and our disposition to receive those graces (we use the phrase ex opere operantis-from the work of the one working).
    Just as Christ said to people while on earth, “Your sins are forgiven,” so through the Sacraments of Baptism and Penance, Christ says to us, “Your sins are forgiven.”  Just as Christ told the Apostles in the Upper Room, “Take and eat; this is my Body; take and drink; this is my Blood,” so He changes bread and wine into His Body and Blood through the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.  Just as Christ breathed on the Apostles and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” so through the Sacrament of Confirmation, Christ gives us the Holy Spirit.  Just as Christ blessed the wedding at Cana by changing water into wine, so Christ changes natural marriage into a supernatural marriage between two baptized persons in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.  Just as Christ healed the sick and cured their illnesses, so Christ heals us, especially of our spiritual maladies, but even of our physical illness at times, through the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  And just as Christ commissioned the Apostles and disciples to go and preach the Gospel, to heal, and to expel demons; and just as He said, “Whoever listens to you, listens to me,” so Christ ordains men to act in His person (Christ the Servant in the case of a deacon, and Christ the Priest in the case of a priest or bishop) and with His power.  
    Christ did ascend into heaven.  But He has not abandoned us.  He has not left us.  He still remains with us and acts in our world, allowing His visible presence to pass especially into the sacraments.  May we acknowledge Christ and His activity in the world, and be open to it, so that the grace of the sacraments may be fruitful in us, and transform us to be more like the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

The Gift of Adoption

 Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
    I enjoy giving gifts.  I try really hard to give good gifts, but I don’t always succeed in finding gifts that others truly want.  But there’s something about giving people something that makes me happy, especially for my close friends and family.  Sometimes people will say, “You shouldn’t have!” as a way of expressing their thanks for the gift.  Other times, they’re not the biggest fan of the gift, and mean, “You really shouldn’t have gotten me a gift!”  
    While I like providing for people, especially things that they really want but wouldn’t get for themselves, even things that they need, there’s always the danger that, in giving a gift, it’s really a quid pro quo, a this for that.  I know that sometimes friends have wondered if I get them gifts as a way to try to bribe them to stay my friends, as if giving the gift would earn their friendship.
    I thought about this when reading over the second reading from the epistle of St. John.  John writes, “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.  And so we are.”  God has given us a great gift: to be called and truly to be His children, sons and daughters in the Son of God.  That is a gift that we truly need, even if sometimes we don’t recognize that we need it.  But it is a gift; it cannot be earned.
    Still, sometimes I, and perhaps you, as well, try to earn that gift.  We think that if we just did enough good things, or avoided particular sins, or lived in this heroic way, that God would be happy with us and would make us His children based upon the gifts that we have given Him.  As Catholics, it’s very easy to fall into this trap that God only loves us if we do what He wants, that our adoption as His children is somehow based upon what we do.  
    But that is a lie that the enemy tells us, a lie which distracts us from the true love of the Father.  That love of the Father is not based upon what we do, but is based upon the fact that we are His creation, and His creation has been raised to a new dignity, not based upon what we have done, but what Christ has done for us.  In baptism, we become little christs, little anointed ones, and God sees the imprint of His Son, Jesus, in us.  That has nothing to do with how holy we are, because, at the time just before we are baptized, we are not holy; we are at enmity with God.  It has everything to do with God being Love, and the love that God has for His Son, and all those who are joined to His Son through baptism.  
    How much do we try to earn the love of the Father through trying to be perfect, and then get frustrated when it doesn’t work out, when we’re not perfect, or even as holy as we desire to be!  But it’s putting the cart in front of the horse.  Living the commandments is only possible through the love that we receive from the Father.  Keeping the commandments is important; our life is supposed to reflect the love of the Father that has been poured into our hearts.  But is the result, not the pre-requisite, of the love of God.

    And as we celebrate the Holy Family, and try to be holy families ourselves, we are called to model that same love and that same approach to love with our families that we have with our heavenly Father.  We love the members of our family, not because of something they have done for us, but simply because they are ours.  We hope that they live a good life, and we try to support each other in being holy, in following the commandments to love God and neighbor as Christ and the Church teaches us.  We want them to be good representatives of our name and our family.  But that comes as a result of our love for them, not as the pre-requisite of our love for them.  
    We see this especially with babies.  Babies don’t really do anything for the family; they pretty much just take from the family.  They cry whenever they need something; they demand food whenever they want it; they poop and spit-up on a regular basis; they never seem to sleep when you want (or need) them to.  And yet, how much love is showered upon babies, even before they’re born!  You can’t help but love a baby.  And that is how much God loves us, and infinitely more!  
    We are, no matter how old we are, the babies of the Holy Family.  God the Father loves us infinitely, even though we cry a lot, and demand a lot, and often soil our souls on a regular basis.  We really do nothing for God in the grand scheme of things.  But God the Father loves us.  And because we are loved by God the Father, we are also loved by God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.  And because Mary is the Mother of God, she loves what He loves, and so she loves us with her motherly love.  And because St. Joseph cares for Mary and her child, Jesus, he also cares for us, who are her children, too, given to Mary at the foot of the cross by Jesus.  Again, it is not based upon what we can do for Mary and Joseph, and even more so is not based upon what we can do for the Holy Trinity.  But the love is there, and is given freely as a gift.
    “Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed upon us that we may be called the children of God.”  Not because of what we give God.  Not because we could ever earn His love.  Simply because, in Christ, as a gift freely given, we are adopted sons and daughters of God.  “And so we are.”

Mary, The Ark who Leads Israel into Battle

 Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
 

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

Statue of Mary in Abu Ghosh

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

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

Gone and Yet Here

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

    If there’s one thing that has proliferated during our pandemic, it’s memes.  Memes, if you’re not familiar with the word, is a picture, often with a short phrase, that’s intended to be humorous.  One that came to mind today (which I saw in April but would have also been appropriate earlier this month!) was: Anyone else feel like life is being written by a 4th grader right now?  “And there was this virus, and everyone was scared.  And then the world ran out of toilet paper.  Yeah, and then there was no school for like a month, and then it snowed.”  If we bring it up to the present day we could also include murder hornets and, sadly, the recent floods in central Michigan and wildfires near Grayling.  It does certainly sound like a bad story!
    As we go through the main points of the Gospel, it may also sound a little like a disjointed story.  You can imagine trying to explain the Gospel to someone who has never heard it before: There’s a virgin, Mary, who conceives a Son.  But it’s not conceived with her husband, but by the Holy Spirit.  And Mary’s Son, Jesus, is also God’s Son, but he’s not half-God and half-human, he’s fully God and fully human.  And Jesus heals people and walks on water, and multiplies bread and fish for the hungry, but then He dies on the cross.  But then He comes back from the dead, not like a zombie, but in a glorified body which can pass through doors.  And He visits some people during 40 days after the Resurrection, but then ascends into heaven.  But He’s not really gone, because His Body is the Church. 
    Christianity holds in tension so many things: Mary who is mother and virgin; Jesus who is God and man; Jesus who truly dies, but is truly risen from the dead; and what we celebrate today, Jesus ascended into heaven, but did not leave us orphans without His presence.  He’s gone, but He’s still here.  After all, we heard it at the end of the Gospel today: “‘behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.’”
    So how is Jesus still present with us, if, as we heard in the Gospel, He ascended beyond our sight into the heavens?  There are two ways.  The first we’ll celebrate next Sunday on Pentecost.  When the Ascension was celebrated when it should be (on Ascension Thursday, 40 days after Easter), we could point to the first novena in the church.  This is where you can insert the bad joke, where a Franciscan, a Dominican, and a diocesan priest are all asked individually by a layman, “Is there a novena for a Ferrari?”  The Franciscan, when asked, answers, “What’s a Ferrari?”  The Dominican, when asked, likewise answers, “What’s a Ferrari?”  The diocesan priest, when asked, answers, “What’s a novena?” 
    A novena is 9 days of prayer, usually for an intention.  There are nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost, and the Blessed Mother, Apostles, and disciples were praying for those nine days to continue the work of Jesus, without really knowing what they should be doing.  And their prayers are answered by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, where all gathered in that upper room are empowered to preach the Gospel.
    The Holy Spirit continues Jesus’ presence in the world.  Through the Holy Spirit, the Good News is still preached, freedom from sin is still granted, the hungry are still fed, the sick are still healed, the dead are still raised.  All that Jesus did on earth continues through the work of the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes that happens directly by the Holy Spirit, but sometimes it happens by people empowered by the Holy Spirit, like the first Apostles and disciples, who continue that work through the Church.
    And the Church is the second way that Jesus’ presence is continued on earth.  The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, and is present in heaven with Christ at the right hand of the Father (what we call the Church Triumphant), is present in Purgatory, awaiting the time when they will be ready for heaven (what we call the Church Suffering), and is present here on earth, as St. Paul says, working out our salvation and trying to live the life of Jesus daily (what we call the Church Militant).  The Church continues the teaching of Jesus, frees people from sin through the Sacrament of Penance, feeds the hungry of body through food pantries, and feeds the hungry of soul through the Eucharist, heals the sick through the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, and prays for the resurrection of the dead in the funeral rites and Mass.  And in many more ways, the ministry of Jesus in Judea 2,000 years ago continues throughout the world.
    And that’s you and me.  Our call through baptism and confirmation is to continue the presence of Jesus in whatever way that we can.  People are no less hungry for Jesus than they were 2,000 years ago, and Jesus can satisfy their hunger through the Holy Spirit working through us as the Church. 
    Yes, there is that tension, that Jesus is both gone and present here on earth.  But His presence on earth is both the work of the Holy Spirit and us, in cooperation with the Holy Spirit.  This week, let’s make sure that our lives reveal that Jesus is alive and that, while He ascended into heaven, He is still working and active here on earth!

Jesus, Mary, and Judaism

Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God

    In the past year, there have been more and more attacks on Jewish people, both around the country and around the world.  Just this past Saturday night, a suspect stabbed five people during a Hanukkah celebration in their rabbi’s home.  Any attack on an innocent person is horribly evil, but that evil is compounded when the motivating factor is a person’s religion and/or race. 
    Why bring this up?  Why talk about anti-Semitic violence on the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God?  All three readings for today’s celebration point us towards the religion of Mary and the religion of Jesus: Judaism.  The first reading is the Aaronic priestly blessing, by which the Chosen people were to be blessed.  The Church includes this reading as a way to begin the new year, as a people blessed by the Lord with a blessing the Lord Himself gave to His People, Israel.
    The second reading reminds us that Jesus was born of Mary, “born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”  Perhaps this doesn’t sound so friendly to Judaism.  And many will twist St. Paul and select only certain passages to make it sound like St. Paul himself was against the Jewish people, though, St. Paul, or Saul as he was called among the Jews, was himself Jewish, and a most ardent practitioner of Judaism before He began to follow Jesus.  But St. Paul saw Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, who fulfilled the promises God made to Abraham and David.  And God, through Jesus, fulfilled the law and raised us merely from followers of the Law to the freedom of God’s children. 
    And at the end of our Gospel, we heard about the circumcision of Jesus, the sign that He was part of the Chosen People, and a recipient of the covenant between God and Abraham.  Jesus, yes, is the founder and Head of the Catholic Church.  But the Church herself is a sister, as it were, to Judaism, and truly the fulfillment of all that God revealed of Himself to the Chosen People throughout the Tanakh, the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament.
    To understand Jesus fully, and to understand Mary fully, we have to understand Judaism.  So often we gloss over things that would have been so important to the first Christians, most of whom were Jews.  In our first reading, we heard this phrase over and over again: “The Lord…”  In Hebrew, the language in which the Book of Numbers was written, this would have been said Adonai, though the letters spelled out the sacred Name of God, which we are not allowed to say in the Mass.  In Greek, it was translated into 𝛰 𝛫𝜐𝜌𝜄𝜊𝜍 which we translate into English as “The Lord…” in all caps.  If you’re ever reading your Old Testament, and wondered why that was in caps, that signifies that the word is the Sacred Name of God.  And when St. Paul proclaims that “Jesus is Lord,” he is saying, “𝛪𝜀𝜎𝜊𝜐𝜍 𝛰 𝛫𝜐𝜌𝜄𝜊𝜍” which means that Jesus is the same God as the God of Israel, the Lord.
    Which brings us back to Mary, whom we celebrate and honor today.  Because if Jesus is the Lord, God who revealed Himself to Abraham and entered into a covenant with the Chosen People, and Mary is the mother of Jesus, then she is also rightfully called the Mother of God, the 𝛳𝜀𝜊𝜏𝜊𝜅𝜊𝜍, as was solemnly defined at the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431.  She is not simply a woman who gave birth to a male child, but she gave birth to the creator of the entire universe, who saves us from sin and death by His own Death and Resurrection.  And because of that unique role in salvation history, we honor her (not worship her) above all the saints.  We love her as our mother, given to us by her Divine Son, Jesus at the foot of the cross, and we take every opportunity we can to shower our affection on her, as spiritual children and joint heirs with her Son Jesus.  So, as the deacon in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom chants, “Commemorating our most holy, most pure, most blessed and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary with all the saints, let us commit ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God.”