Christ's Friends and Ours

Second Sunday of Lent
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  One of the great blessings of friendship consists in having someone who can urge you on when you’re being a wimp, or console you when things are legitimately difficult.  Sometimes, on our own, we don’t recognize how much we can do, until someone pushes us beyond our comfort zone.  Sometimes, on our own, we don’t realize that we don’t have to carry a burden alone; others stand by to assist us.  

    As we hear the familiar Gospel account of the Transfiguration, the Gospel we always hear on the second Sunday of Lent, I want to focus this year on the two people our Lord has beside him on Mount Tabor.  While Christ is sui generis, a unique individual because He is both God and Man, Moses and Elijah certainly assist Christ with their witness as Christ prepares for His impending Passion.  I’m not saying that Christ needed Moses and Elijah to learn something, because as God Christ had access to every piece of knowledge and bit of wisdom that He needed.  But still, it helps to have friends to urge you on towards that which is difficult.
    When we look at Moses, we see someone who carries the entire Chosen People in their exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land, from slavery to freedom.  Moses’ experience shows that, while the goal is good, people don’t always move towards what is in their best interest, and do not always trust in God.  From the very beginning, as Moses tells Pharaoh to let God’s people go, the people grumble against Moses because the change isn’t happening quick enough or easy enough.  Even after they leave Egypt because God had struck down the firstborn, they still doubt God’s ability to save them as they come to the banks of the Red Sea with the Egyptians pursuing them behind.  And even after God saves them through the waters of the Red Sea, and destroys the Egyptian army by the same waters, the Chosen People still doubt that God will provide food and water for them.  As much as Moses shows the people God’s fidelity, they still doubt.  And Moses ends up interceding for the people numerous times as God threatens to start over just with Moses.  
    When we look at Elijah, we see a prophet zealous for the Lord who works mighty deeds.  And yet, the political leadership, King Ahaz and Queen Jezebel, still promote foreign deities for the Chosen People to worship.  We think of the great religious showdown on Mount Carmel between Elijah and the prophets of Ba’al, the pagan god.  While the prophets of Ba’al fail to get the pagan deity to consume their sacrifice, Elijah pours water on his sacrifice, but fire from heaven still consumes the sacrifice and evaporates the water around the altar that Elijah had built.  Elijah then destroys the foreign prophets, but has to flee because the monarchs seek Elijah to kill him.  Elijah runs first to a broom tree and hides there, but an angel encourages him to eat so that he has enough strength for the mission.  Elijah then goes to Mount Horeb, and experiences God, not in the powerful phenomena of thunder or earthquake or fire, but in the silence of a whisper.  He feels alone, since he was the last remaining prophet of the true God at the time.  
    Christ has similarities in His mission to Moses and Elijah.  Like Moses, Christ carries the entire people, not just the Jews, who trust when they see amazing signs and miracles, but then doubt shortly after the miracles come to an end.  Christ is the one Mediator between God and men, whose blood saves not just the firstborn, but all those born of water and the Spirit through Holy Baptism.  He takes death upon Himself, in order that God’s justice against sin might be satisfied.  Like Elijah, Christ is also zealous for the Lord, and puts to death not the false prophets, but the false gods themselves, the kingdom of Satan and his minions.  Still, as the only-Begotten Son of God, He, like Elijah, stands alone as the local political leaders, like King Herod and the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, will seek to put the Lord to death, like King Ahaz and Queen Jezebel before them sought Elijah.  
    So who are our friends who push us on and console us with their experience?  Who are our Moses and Elijah?  In one sense, we can look towards good friends we have who can push us onwards despite our trials and tribulations.  These are the true friends who see the virtue we want, who see how much we might have to struggle for that virtue, but don’t let us give up on ourselves.  Or they might be the friends who see the pain and the suffering we endure, and help us to know that we’re not alone, and that others do truly care for us.  We may not have many friends like this, but even just one or two can make all the difference in the world.
    But, also important to consider are our friends who are saints.  Maybe it’s the saints from the Scriptures, who stories remind us of how God works with those who struggle for righteousness, and how God consoles those who struggle through difficult times, saints like Moses, Elijah, Job, the Apostles, the Holy Women, and others.  If we read Scripture regularly we can understand more adeptly how God works and how we can make it through difficult times.  But we also have the saints who have come after the Death and Resurrection of Jesus who help us by their example and their intercession.  When we’re struggling, do we pray to our patron saints like our name saint, our Confirmation saint, or a saint associated with our vocation or profession?  When we’re sad and feel the weight of the world, do we turn to our Blessed Mother or other saints whose lives inspire us to persevere in the midst of difficulties and struggles?  
    God made us for communion: with Him and with others.  God Himself said about Adam that it was not good to be alone.  Especially during Lent, but even during the entire year, may we rely on good friends, both those on earth and those in heaven, who will push on on when the times get tough, and comfort us when we feel down and out.  May we recognize that we are not alone, but that myriad of witnesses surround us, encouraging us towards the heavenly homeland to which we hope to return.  [Where Christ reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen.].

Silence and Stillness

Sunday with the Octave of the Nativity
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  “When peaceful stillness encompassed everything and the night in its swift course was half spent, Your all-powerful word from heaven’s royal throne leapt into the doomed land.”  This is the translation of our Introit today, and it’s one of my favorite verses connected with our liturgical celebration of the Nativity of our Lord.  Which is funny, because it comes from the Book of Wisdom in the Old Testament.  And it forms part of a pericope about the Chosen People, while they were still enslaved in Egypt.  In the New American Bible, the title of this particular passage is: “Fifth Example: Death of the Egyptian Firstborn; the Israelites Are Spared.”  That may seem very fitting as we also commemorate the Holy Innocents today, but this Introit is not for the Holy Innocents, but for the Sunday within the Octave.
    But, the Church reads these two particular verses, numbers fourteen and fifteen, in light of the Nativity, when the All-Powerful Word, Jesus Christ, came to us from heaven in the middle of the night, into the land of sinners doomed to eternal death.  Like so many passages from the Old Testament, we didn’t come to know the true meaning, even though we could understand these verses in light of the plagues of Egypt, which is how the human author, no doubt, intended it, while the Divine Author intended so much more.

    Msgr. Romano Guardini, a magnificent Catholic teacher and author from the mid-twentieth century, has a beautiful Christmas meditation precisely on this passage.  And he makes the point that the great works of God happen in silence and stillness.  We can point to the creation of the universe, which happened without anyone else other than God there.  We can point to the Nativity of the Lord, which happened in a backwater part of the Roman Empire without any great human celebration.  We can point to the Resurrection of Christ, which happened without any human witnesses, except the guards at the tomb.  The great works of God happen in silence.  We can even point to the creative cooperation in human conception.  While the act which brings about children might not be so silent in terms of the spousal union, the moment the sperm fertilizes the egg happens in silence, without the parents knowing for some weeks after.  
    So if we wish to see the great things of God, we need to cultivate periods of silence in our lives.  Now, I’m saying this to a group of families who, each in their own way, have taken seriously God’s call to be fruitful and multiply.  Whether you have one child or ten children, you probably dream about silence for any amount of time, rather than the din of one or more children crying, screaming, or just making noise seemingly for noise’s sake.  Some of you parents may be thinking: “yeah, right, Father, I don’t get silence in my life; I have kids.”  
    But the silence in which the great things of God happens cannot simply equate with the lack of noise.  I love that we have so many children at Mass, and applaud you parents for bringing them to Mass, even when it’s very difficult and even when you spend half or more of Mass trying to keep them quiet, or keep them from crawling away, or taking them to the bathroom, etc.  Do I notice the noise?  I’m not deaf.  But it’s a great blessing.  St. Pius X, which closed in 2024 while I was pastor, had no noise because it had practically no kids.  If you don’t hear cryin’ your parish is dyin’.  
    But the noise generally doesn’t distract me.  As I’m celebrating Mass, I may hear it, but I can still stay focused on what’s happening and how I’m leading the worship of God by His Church.  And I don’t mean the way a husband says he’s listening to his wife while he’s watching a football game (because, generally speaking, he’s not really listening to you at that point).  I can create an atmosphere of silence even with the noise of children, bells, crashing kneelers, etc., by focusing on God.  And I think that’s not impossible for parents, either, though it does take practice.

    But even if you don’t feel you can find silence there, I know that there exists moments of silence that you can take advantage of each day.  The question is do we protect that time for God and prayer, even if it’s only the five minutes between a child starting to sleep and a child waking?  Or do we decide that doom scrolling, or finding every funny cat video on YouTube, or catching up on Facebook, or seeing what political parties are up to seems better to us than a quick five minutes of prayer?  As a parent, your vocation does not consist in praying like a monk or nun in a cloistered monastery or convent.  But God does want you to take even the few minutes you have throughout the day, or at the end of the day, after the kids are asleep, for Him, rather than simply looking to social media, the Internet, or the television to numb your minds.  It doesn’t mean we can’t find a funny cat video at all, or that we can never watch our favorite episode of “The Office,” but do we capitalize on the time that we have and utilize it for growing in our relationship with God?
    When God appeared to Elijah, He didn’t come in an earthquake, a fire, or a storm.  He came in a whisper.  God so often works in silence, an reveals Himself in stillness.  If we distract ourselves with noise (and I’m not talking about kids), we won’t attend to what God wants to say to us our wants us to do.  Take time for silence, as you can according to your vocation and circumstances, as often as you can.  Because in that silence and stillness, the All-Powerful Word will leap down from His royal throne in heaven and enter your heart, Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Not Why, but What

Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Sometimes the way that God answers prayers doesn’t appear obvious.  Some people pray for a miraculous cure for their family member or friend and they get a miracle.  Other people say the same prayers and yet their loved one dies.  A natural disaster like a tornado or a hurricane demolishes one church, but another which is in the direct path has only minor damage.  Why?
    Some would like to attribute it to personal holiness.  And certainly being a friend of God, not only in name but also in deed, doesn’t hurt when asking God for a favor.  But that’s not what happened in the first reading.  The prophet Elijah went to Zarephath, which was a pagan town.  The widow he helped during the famine was not Jewish, but worshipped false gods.  Yet God answered her prayer for sustenance through Elijah, though many Jewish widows had to see their children die of starvation.  Jesus also speaks about how “there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”  

    So how does God answer prayers?  Why do the prayers of some get heard, while others seemed to be ignored?  God never ignores prayers, but He doesn’t always answer them as we want.  And, to be honest, we don’t often know why He answers some prayers as people want, but not others as they want.  Why God allows good things to happen to bad people, and bad things to happen to good people is a conundrum we won’t know on this side of eternity.  Sometimes we do see that an answered prayer helps a non-believe believe, or that even a seemingly-unanswered prayer doesn’t shake the faith of one who believes in God, who accepts even a negative outcome gracefully.  But often, we don’t have the answer to why.
    So what do we do?  We ask a different question.  And that question is not “why?”, but “what?”.  What do we know?  We know that God loves us, and that, as St. Paul says, “all things work for the good of those who love God.”  Whatever God wills for us, and even whatever He allows us to undergo, helps us to be the saints that He wants us to be.  Sometimes what God wills and what God allows seems beneficial to us, like an unexpected raise, or recovery from an illness.  Sometimes what God allows does not seem so beneficial.  But He desires that everything we might undergo, even the tragic death of a loved one, would increase or faith, hope, and love in Him.
    We also know, as we hear in the second reading, that Christ is forever interceding for us to our heavenly Father.  Though He is also God, Christ stands in the heavenly Jerusalem, the sanctuary not made with hands, bringing our prayers, made in the power of the Holy Spirit, to God the Father.  Christ offers Himself, not in a bloody way, but in an unbloody way, to the Father, bringing our humanity to God throughout all time.  He offers Himself always so that our sins might be taken away, just as He offered, once for all, the perfect sacrifice on the cross for the salvation of all the world.  And Christ, who shares our human nature, always asks the Father to give us what we need for our sanctification.  
    During this month of November, which we began with the celebration of All Saints, we also know that all the saints plead with God for us and our needs.  They do so, not to change the will of God, but to submit our desires and our prayers to the will of God which is always for our good.  I often ask St. Anthony to help me or others find things that they have lost.  Or maybe you pray to St. Monica to ask God to give your children who have left the faith the openness to the grace to return to His Holy Church.  Or maybe you ask St. Joseph to intercede for a loved one who is terminally ill for the grace of a happy death.  Or whatever other desire you might have.  The saints cannot do anything but that which is in accord with the will of God.  But they always ask God that our desires might be aligned with His so that our faith, hope, and love will find more strength and resiliency.  
    Lastly, we know that God desires that we trust Him.  The poor widow who gave all the money that she had trusted that God would provide.  God doesn’t always ask for money, though we should support the Church financially, but He does always ask for the gift of our entire selves.  He wants all of us, not just parts of us.  He even wants the sinful parts of us, so that He can transform them by the power of his grace and mercy.  Just as Christ offers all of who He is to the Father in the Holy Spirit, so the Father desires that we offer all of who we are, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to Him.  And when we offer all of who we are, God offers all of who He is, which is a treasure beyond imagining, not in the sense the world uses treasure, but in the sense of the deepest longing of our hearts.  
    We don’t always know God’s ways.  We may never fully understand why some prayers are answered the way we want, but others God does not answer the way we want.  But we know that God loves us, that He always acts for our good and salvation, and that the best gift we can give God is the gift of ourselves, trusting in His will and plan for our salvation.  

Rest and Good Food

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Doing the will of God can sometimes be tiring.  Elijah, in our first reading, feels fatigued, even enough to die.  Why he feels this way comes from the chapter before the one we heard today.  Elijah had just challenged the prophets of the false god, Baal, to a test on Mount Carmel, and they lost, and he slew the prophets of Baal.  King Ahab and his wife, Queen Jezebel, were none too thrilled, since they worshipped Baal, so Elijah had to run away.  In fact, Queen Jezebel had said, “‘May the gods do thus to me and more, if by this time tomorrow I have not done with your life what was done to each of [the prophets of Baal].’”  So Elijah is tired from running, and from running for his life while the king and queen of Israel try to capture him to kill him.  

    And it is here, underneath the broom tree, that an angel instructs Elijah to eat from a hearth cake.  Elijah eats, regains his strength, and then walks for 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, which was another name for Mount Sinai.  This food must have been pretty good stuff to have him go from wanting to die and napping to walking for over a month.
    God knows we need rest.  He knows that we go through some awful things sometimes.  Even when we’re doing His will, we can get tired, especially when not everyone wants us to follow God’s will.  So what does God do?  He gives us the Mass as our time of rest.
    Now, I’m not advocating that you all fall asleep right now, and for those of you who already fell asleep because of the dullness of this homily, wake up!  But God gives us a day of rest, which for the Jews was Saturday, but which Christians almost immediately transferred to Sunday, so that we can regain our strength.  He Himself teaches us, as Jesus quotes in the Gospel today.  And He gives us the Body of Christ, under the appearance of bread, to satisfy us to go as long as we need to throughout the following six days, until we reach our next day of rest on the following Sunday.
    I think most people know they need rest, at least deep down in their heart, but how often people find excuses not to rest.  They will fill their Sundays with all sorts of other things, things which wear them out and make them more tired, but they won’t spend around one hour at Mass and they won’t take the rest of the day to just take it easy with family or friends.
    Mass is supposed to be restful.  It’s not meant to be frenetic and boisterous.  This doesn’t mean that Mass should put us to sleep.  But it is meant to be restful.  We rest intellectually when a church looks like a church.  We may not think about it much, but our minds constantly seek to understand the world around us.  They are constantly taking in pieces of information to help us interact with reality.  When everything makes sense, our minds are at ease; when something is off or not the way it’s supposed to be, our minds tend to focus on that.  So with this beautiful church, part of the draw is not just that there are expensive things, but that our minds understand that this place leads us to the worship of God and draws us out of the fallen world towards the heavenly Jerusalem by the precious materials and its orientation towards where God rests, in the tabernacle.  When a church looks like a church, no matter how ornate or simple it might be, it helps our minds to rest.
    God also teaches us in the Mass as we hear His word proclaimed to us and hear it explained in the homily.  Sometimes the Bible does not come so easily to us, because it is complex and God has inspired it to sustain us until Christ returns.  So it applies to AD 400, and AD 2024.  Sometimes it gives us historical facts, sometimes it gives us poetry, sometimes it gives us analogy, sometimes it gives us apocalyptic literature.  Some we can easily understand passages, sometimes we need help understanding what God is saying.  But there is a rest that comes from listening to good stories.  I remember in third grade that, right after recess, my teacher would read to our class a chapter of a small book, and that helped quiet our bodies and our minds down after the frenzied pace of recess.  Or think of a parent reading a bedtime story to kids as they try to get them to fall asleep.  Hearing helps us rest, and hearing the inspired Word of God gives rest to our souls.

    Lastly, God gives us Himself as food, which strengthens us.  The Eucharist is the source of our strength to live as Catholics in a world that increasingly opposes Catholicism and the teachings of Jesus.  The Eucharist is to Catholics what spinach is to Popeye.  Without it, we cannot be the people God wants us to be.  But how often do people skip Mass because there’s a sports tournament, or because they’re up north, or simply because they were out too late on Saturday night?  People bemoan that there are youth sports played on Sundays, but then they take their kids to the games and tournaments anyway.  If you want Sunday sports for young people to stop, stop taking your kids.  Let your coach know that you don’t participate in games on Sundays.  If enough people do it, they will stop having games.  Sandy Koufax, a Jewish pitcher who played for the Brooklyn, and then Los Angeles Dodgers, refused to pitch even in game one of the World Series because it was Yom Kippur.  
    We need rest, and God has given us a day of rest, where we can rest with Him in a place that helps our mind to rest and worship, while hearing the truth given to us through the Scriptures, and being sustained by the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist.  Don’t skip your rest.  You will need it for the road that God will lay out for you over the next six days!

The Sound of Silence

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Around 8th grade, I was given a basement bedroom that my dad created so that my sisters could have separate bedrooms (so that they didn’t kill each other).  And in that bedroom was an old stereo system that had radio, two cassette decks, and a turntable, with storage area for records at the bottom.  One of the records that my dad has was “Simon and Garfunkel: The Concert in Central Park.”  It was a great set of records, and included on of their more famous songs: “The Sound of Silence.”  The title of the song itself is something that tickles the brain, as we usually don’t associate silence with any sounds.  And yet, if we reflect upon silence it does almost have its own unique sound to it.
    Today in the first reading, we hear the well-known story about how Elijah was at Mount Horeb, another name for Mount Sinai.  Elijah was fleeing from Queen Jezebel, who had threatened to kill Elijah after he had put the prophets of the false god, Ba’al, whom she followed, to death on Mount Carmel.  This was the mountain where God had revealed Himself in the dark cloud, in thunder, and trumpet blasts as Moses approached the mountain.  This was where the finger of God wrote out the Ten Commandments.
    But as Elijah is there, while he hears wind strong enough to crush rocks, feels the earthquake under him, and sees fire, Elijah only comes into contact with God through a tiny whisper, which could only be heard in the silence.  It was if God revealed Himself to the prophet Elijah in exactly the opposite way that He revealed Himself to Moses, himself also a prophet. 
    Silence confuses modern man, who so obsesses himself with activity and noise.  But if we don’t make time for silence, if we are always busied about with actions and sounds, then we lose one of the ways that God communicates with us.  Yes, like with Moses, God sometimes reveals Himself in the truly awesome, that which fills us with awe, due to magnificent displays.  But, like with Elijah, God sometimes reveals Himself in ways that we can only appreciate if we practice silence.
    Silence is meant to be a part of the liturgy, of the Mass.  Bishop Boyea, in one of his challenges in The Road to Emmaus, part of our activity during this Eucharistic Revival, was to arrive to Mass 15 minutes early for silent prayer.  Did you do that?  Did you even attempt it?  Or was talking to your friends before Mass more important that spending time with God?
    Besides a beautiful way to prepare for what happens at the Mass, silence is also supposed to be a part of the Mass.  There are different times when the Church calls for silence.  Why?  Cardinal Sarah, former head of the now-Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and originally from the Africa, had this to say:
 

When we encounter the sacred, when we come face to face with God, we naturally fall silent and kneel in adoration.  […] We await His Word, His saving action, in awe and anticipation.  […] If I am so full of myself and of the noise of the world that there is no space for silence within me, if human pride reigns in my heart so that it is only myself of whom I am in awe, then it is almost impossible for me to worship Almighty God, to hear His Word or to allow it space to take root in my life.”

Silence can be so difficult to us because it forces us to acknowledge that we are not God, and that God cannot be summoned to respond to us like a genie from a bottle.
    Do you notice the times of silence in our Mass?  The first is during our recollection of sins during the Penitential Act.  After I ask us to acknowledge our sins, “and so prepare ourselves to celebrate these sacred mysteries,” I give us time in silence to think about the ways that we have fallen short of following Christ in our daily lives.  I’m not lost; I’m not catching my breath.  I’m giving myself and you time to think about the sins for which we need to ask for God’s mercy.
    The second is after the homily.  After we have heard God speak through His Word in the readings, the Psalm, and the Gospel, and after we have heard how that Word is to be applied to today (however good or poor the homily may be), we need time to be silent with God and let that Word sink into our hearts, and challenge us to repent and change our lives.  Otherwise it is like seed that falls on the path which the birds come and eat up.
    The third is after Communion.  After we finish singing the Communion chant, that is especially your time, not to watch me purify the vessels; not to prepare your exit strategy from the parking lot so you don’t get caught by Sunday drivers.  That time is for you to thank Jesus for offering Himself for our salvation, and giving us a way to connect with that salvation through our worthy reception of the Eucharist.  Communion is God’s greatest gift to us.  Do we even say thank you, or are we waiting until some more noise can fill our minds?
    The Gospel talks about recognizing Jesus amidst the waves and winds.  This reminds us of the chaotic, noisy times of life.  And it is important to recognize God at those times, too.  But we will all-too-often mistake God’s voice for that of our own during chaos if we have not made time to listen for the voice of God during times of calm and silence.  “Do not be afraid” of the silence.  As you are able each day, make some time for silence, and don’t just turn on music or the TV to have background noise.  Because if our life is filled with noise and distractions, we will likely miss many opportunities that God desires to be close to us and remind us of His love and His truth.

Giving God Your Nothing Left

 Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time
    People think priests have a hard life.  And, in some ways, we do.  We’re on call 24/6 (I do get one day off per week), it’s not uncommon to have evening meetings after a full day of work, because that’s when people are most often free to meet.  Because people have their own ideas (sometimes based in theology, sometimes not) about how long homilies should be, how warm (or cold) the church should be, what songs should be sung, etc., the priest often gets peppered with complaints from all sides.  So yeah, it is tough at times, but we are also taken care of and loved pretty well.
    I think parents have a hard life.  If it put myself in their shoes, I wouldn’t want to be working all day, probably putting up with many similar things as priests in terms of working conditions, complaints, expectations, etc., and then come home, only to have to prepare some dinner, often from scratch, clean-up after dinner, help the kids with homework, and then, hopefully, have some time to catch up with a few things around the house, maybe have a little alone time with the spouse, before going to bed to start all over on the next day.  That sounds like a tough vocation!!
    I know I have been, and I’m sure parents have been, at the point where I feel like I’ve got nothing left.  Maybe it’s been a long day, or there’s a long day coming on the following day, or an earlier start, and I’m exhausted, and then there’s a call to go to the hospital, or, because I work with MSP, to go out to a homicide or meet with a Trooper who can use some comforting words.  And I know parents are in a similar boat so frequently.  So you give, even though you think you’ve got nothing left to give, and somehow, it works out to be enough.
    The same was true for the widows we heard about in the first reading and the Gospel.  Can you imagine being in a famine, and all you have left is a handful of flour, just enough to make a couple of cakes for you and your son, and then this man of God comes and asks you to make some for him?  I think if I did that, I’d be run out of the house, maybe even the parish and county!  But the woman gives, and Elijah makes sure that the woman doesn’t run out during the famine.  She gave beyond what she thought she could, and God rewarded that generosity.

Examples of the widow's coins

    Or in the Gospel, the widow is giving two coins that she needs probably to feed herself to the temple, to offer to God something.  The value wasn’t large, but the sacrifice was her everything.  She gave, even after she had nothing left.  And yet, the Lord commends her gift, more than those who were putting in large amounts of money, because she was giving when she had nothing left, while the others were giving while making sure they had something left over.  
    God invites us to trust in Him as we give to Him.  And I’m not talking only about money (though, we’re always happy to receive that from you).  I’m talking about giving to God time and energy and whatever is going on in your life, even if you don’t think you’re giving God much, even if you feel like what you have to give to God isn’t worth giving.
    Maybe life is crushing you right now, and it takes all you can muster to come to Mass.  It would be so much easier to stay home and rest.  And yet, you came to give God that little bit.  And God will reward that.  Or maybe you’re just trying to make sure your kid doesn’t run away during Mass, or trying to make sure that he or she is not a major distraction (though, truth be told, I am rarely distracted by kids and love having them around at Mass).  You don’t think you’re getting much out of Mass, but you’re giving to God what little attention you can call up while you supervise your child at Mass.  And God accepts that and makes it a loving sacrifice, received with gratitude because it’s your gift.
    Parents often get gifts from their children that are made at school that are not that expensive, and maybe are not Michelangelo sculptures or Rembrandt paintings.  But those are still treasured gifts (how many moms have kept those little gifts throughout the years!?) because the child is giving what he or she can.  The same is true for God: when we give God what we can, He treasures it as the perfect gift.
    God even receives the fallen parts of us, our sins.  Through the Sacrament of Penance (aka confession or reconciliation), God deigns to take our brokenness and failings from us, so that we can be made whole.  I know that sometimes it seems like the sins may be small, or maybe the sins are awkward to acknowledge, or maybe it’s just that we confess the same sins over and over again.  In any case, God wants to receive that as our small gift, the last little bit we have left, so that it doesn’t stand in the way of our relationship with Him.  Obviously our sins are not good; they’re not our finest moments as human beings.  But God takes it upon Himself so that we might have life in place of death, grace in place of sin, light in place of darkness.
    I don’t know about you, but I feel like more and more people are at their wit’s end these days.  I meet people who feel like they have nothing left to give.  At that moment, offer to God that nothing, that fatigue, that exhaustion.  It may not seem like much, but neither did the two coins offered by the widow in the Gospel, or the handful of flour offered by the widow in the first reading.  But if it’s what you have, God will accept and bless it, and will make it enough.

The Whole World Is Changed

Easter Sunday–At the Easter Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter

Tonight the whole world is changed.  Tonight we participate in the most wondrous, unexpected, joyful event ever: the Resurrection.  We keep watch, or vigil, with Jesus, knowing that at some point, during the night, the tomb which had sealed Jesus was broken, the guard scattered, and Jesus went forth from the tomb, not dead, but alive.  The holy women went to the tomb at daybreak on the first day of the week, on Sunday, and the stone had already been rolled away.  They see two men in dazzling garments, who tell them that Jesus has been raised.  And the whole world was changed.

The Aediculum, the place of the Resurrection of Jesus
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Nothing like this had ever happened.  Sure, people had been raised from the dead before.  Elijah and Elisha both raised a boy from the dead; Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.  But no one had ever risen from the dead on His own power.  And that is what Jesus did.  Jesus, who had no sin, took upon Himself the penalty for sin, and because He suffered willingly for a crime He didn’t commit, sin itself was defeated, and with it death.  And the world was created anew.

We heard about creation in the first reading tonight.  God ordered the chaos.  He separated light from darkness, day from night, earth from water, animals of different kinds, and crowned His creation with man and woman, made in His image and likeness.  But tonight, the night of the Resurrection, God created the world again, no longer under the burden placed upon it by Adam and Eve and their disobedience, but liberated by the Son of Adam and His obedience, even when this meant death, death on a cross.

Abraham showed us a prefigurement of the sacrifice of Jesus in his willingness to sacrifice Isaac, his beloved son.  Isaac carried the wood upon the mountain, Mount Moriah; he willingly let himself be bound to it when his father was about to sacrifice.  But at the last moment, God stayed Abraham’s hand.  Yesterday, Jesus carried the wood of the cross up Golgotha, the place of skull, so named because it was, by tradition, the place Adam died.  It was the place of his skull.  Mount Moriah is also, according to some, the place where King Solomon built the temple a thousand years later.  And so Jesus would have died somewhere around that mountain.  But no ram took the place of Jesus, as it did for Isaac.  Jesus suffered the fate that the angel of God stopped when it came to Isaac.  And because of that death, life, eternal life, became possible.

From the pierced side of Jesus, blood and water flowed.  The water flows from the side of Jesus, which quenches the thirst of all who approach it.  The Blood is the Eucharist; the water is Baptism; both are essential to the life of the Church.  The water renews the covenant God made with David, and makes the new creation fertile and fruitful.  It is the clean water that Ezekiel prophesied, which cleanses us of our impurities and false gods.  It is the water which gives us a new heart and a new spirit, so that we can live by the statutes of God, and become truly His people, His children by adoption.

Tonight the whole world was changed because of what one Person did.  And tonight, the whole world is changed because of what two people are doing.  Tonight, Bilal, with your new baptismal name, Maron, and Mikayla, you two are changing the world.  You are dying with Christ in the waters of baptism, and rising with Him to new life.  You are becoming a part of that new creation, no longer weighed down by the slavery to sin and death, but called to live in the freedom of the children of God.  And it is by people such as yourselves that the world is changed.  

Tonight you become children of God, whereas before you belonged only to your parents.  Tonight you become friends of God, though before you were at enmity with Him.  And that friendship and that identity as a son and a daughter of God in the Son of God will allow you to make the life of Jesus your own in your day-to-day lives.  You may not look different, but you will be different.  The Spirit of God will dwell in you, to help to you love God and love your neighbor; to help you to choose good and avoid evil; to be the light of Christ in a world surrounded by darkness.

People wrote off Jesus when He died on the cross.  Even the holy women, with the exception of Mary, the Mother of God, expected only to anoint Jesus’ body, which they were not able to do on the day before because of the solemn Sabbath of Passover.  They did not expect to see Jesus raised.  But Jesus outdid their expectations.  So you, too, may not seem like much.  You’re only two young people.  But if you stay faithful to Jesus, then you have the same power in you that Jesus had, to change the world, not by force or violence, but by grace and love.  Jesus now shares with you the power to help re-create the world according to the will of God, not the reign of Satan.  

Tonight, we, too, already baptized in Christ, stand with you, assuring you of our support, but also recommitting ourselves to be that new creation in Christ.  As we wait for Jesus to return to put an end to all sin and death and usher in the fulness of His Kingdom, we sometimes forget that we have the power to change the world for Christ by His grace.  We become complacent.  We write ourselves off.  Tonight, we are reminded, as we are every Sunday, that Jesus is alive, not dead; that life conquers death and holiness conquers sin; that God can change the world by His grace active in us.

Tonight, the whole world is changed through Christ.  Tonight, the whole world is changed through God’s grace in you, Maron and Mikayla.  Tonight, the whole world is changed through God’s grace in us.  Tonight, the whole world is changed.  

Disciples are Made for Greatness, Not Comfort

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

There’s a temptation that can creep into any believer’s life, that if we just do the right things, then everything in our life is going to go well.  Maybe it comes from a desire for justice, for everyone getting what is owed them, but we can easily think that if we follow God, if we live our life according to what the Church teaches, then life should be easy for us.  We should be rewarded for good behavior, just like bad behavior should be punished.  There are even those who claim to preach the Gospel (they are really just perverting it) who say that if we follow God’s laws and if we give 10% to the Church, then God is going to make us rich and give us every earthly pleasure that is holy that we could desire.  We call that the Gospel of Prosperity (note that it’s not the Gospel of Jesus Christ).  

This perhaps also betrays a certain tendency in our human nature to want comfort, which is especially prevalent today among the young.  We want the good life, where we don’t have to struggle, don’t have to put forth effort, but we still get the rewards that would come from struggle and effort.  In one sense, we might say that this is built in to us because we were created for prelapsarian life, the life before the Fall in the Garden of Eden.  But we are living in postlapsarian times, the time after the Fall, where we earn our living by the sweat of our brow.  Furthermore, as Pope Benedict XVI reminded us, “The world promises you comfort, but you were not made for comfort.  You were made for greatness.”  Greatness takes work.  Works means struggle.  Struggle means pain.  And it even applies for those who follow God.

Take Jeremiah in our first reading.  God appointed him a prophet.  In fact, God says that He appointed Jeremiah a prophet even while Jeremiah was in his mother’s womb.  And yet, Jeremiah has a tough life, so much so, that God says, “gird your loins; […] Be not crushed on their account.”  Jeremiah is the prophet who immediately prophesies the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of God’s people to Babylon.  As you might imagine, no one liked hearing this dire message.  But even as God tells Jeremiah that he will undergo a lot, he also promises that he has “made you a fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of brass…They will fight against you but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.”  

But besides the fact that God does not promise that those who follow Him and speak for Him will have it easy, Jesus also reminds us that sometimes those who don’t follow God get blessings.  The widow in Zarephath to whom Elijah was sent was not a Jew, and yet God took care of her.  Naaman the Syrian was a foreign general, a general of an army that was constantly threatening to destroy the Jews, and yet God, through the Prophet Elisha, cured him of leprosy.  Those who don’t follow God can still receive His blessings and healing.

And, if we look at Jesus, the co-eternal Son of God, He was perfect.  He never sinned, never did anything wrong.  He followed God’s will perfectly, and extended healing to many, both Jew and Gentile alike.  And what did Jesus get for perfectly doing the will of God and healing those who were ill?  He was led to the cross do die for our sins.  He suffered the most painful and embarrassing way to die as nails pierced his hands and feet and he hung naked outside the walls of Jerusalem.

But just in case you thought that being a disciple of Jesus means that life is going to be quite painful and horrible, that’s not the truth either.  Yes, our life on earth, in the vale of tears, may have a lot of suffering, but faithfulness to God always leads to eternal life in heaven.  Jesus shows us that in the most perfect way in His Resurrection.  Yes, following God’s will led Jesus to the cross, but the cross led to the Resurrection.  Yes, Jeremiah was treated poorly for speaking a difficult word from God, but he was received into heaven when Christ opened the gates of Paradise.  We long for the ease of Eden, but God promises, after our trials and tribulations on earth, a paradise and a comfort that exceeds anything that earth can offer to an infinite degree.  To tweak Pope Benedict’s words slightly, we were not made for comfort on this earth, but we were made for eternal joy in heaven.  

And what guides us amid the joys and sorrows of life?  Love.  True love, which means the type of love that is patient, kind, not jealous, not pompous, not rude, not quick-tempered, not brooding, rejoicing in the truth.  Love guides us to our eternal joy because perfect love is eternal joy in heaven, where God, who is Love itself, shows us himself face to face.  

It would be nice if everything came to us without effort; if following Jesus did not require sacrifice and struggle.  But because we are fallen, following Jesus does not mean that we will get everything we want and life will not always be easy.  But, if we stay faithful to Christ, especially when it requires sacrifice and struggle, we know that we have a treasure, not made by hands, eternal in heaven, waiting for us, and fulfilling beyond measure the desire we have on earth for true joy.

Trusting God with our Future

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

These readings for the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time providentially connect well with my final Sunday as pastor of St. Joseph.  This is one of the amazing things about the Word of God.  It always has something to say to us to strengthen us, to comfort us, and to provide us with the way forward in our lives, no matter what is happening.

I do have to say, though, it is a bit funny that the first reading is about Elijah calling Elisha away from his home, and the Gospel includes a passage where Jesus affirms that He has no permanent home in His ministry, unlike the foxes and birds who have their dens and nests.  

When I was ordained a priest, six years ago, I put my hands in Bishop Boyea’s hands, and Bishop Boyea asked me, “Do you promise respect and obedience to me and my successors?”  I answered, “I do.”  Bishop Boyea then continued, “May God who has begun the good work in you bring it to fulfillment.”  Bishop Boyea didn’t tell me that moving to Flint was part of my promise of obedience to him.  But as he asked me to leave my home, Adrian, behind, I knew that God was asking me to let go of that which I treasured, and entrust myself to Him, just as Elisha had to entrust himself to God as he followed Elijah.

One of the things that may seem crazy is the life of a priest.  The decision to give up money, the ability to make the major decisions in our life, to be obedient to another, as well as to give up sex and a biological family, seems, in the view of our society to be crazy.  It might even sound boring or too much to give up.  But, even with the very real sacrifices that I do make, I am grateful to God that He called me to be a priest, and I would make the same decision again if I had to.  I also can think of at least 8 young men who are in the parish (in addition to Jake, the seminarian who is living with me) or are from the parish who would make a good priest (I won’t embarrass them by naming them).  If you are a young man, even if you think you know exactly what you want to do with your life, do not be afraid to be open to the will of God.  If you have heard that little voice in your heart suggesting a priestly vocation, at least look into it.  Keep praying about it.  And do not be afraid to see if that is where the Lord is calling you.

But that attitude of abandonment to God’s will is not just for priests.  As Christians, we are all called to a radical trust in God in every circumstance.  And sometimes God calls us to walk away from what we think is best in order that we can continue to grow in faith in Him.  Sometimes that means moving, like in my case.  Sometimes that means letting go of a favorite hobby, food, or especially a sin without which we are sure we cannot live.  Maybe it means being open to another child when we think we’ve had enough.  Of course, when it comes to a new life entering our lives, we want to pray about it, and use the gift of reason that God has given us as we discern God’s will.  But just because our will says one thing, does not mean that it is necessarily God’s will.

We are called to live by the Spirit, as St. Paul reminds us in the second reading.  And not just any spirit, but the Spirit of God.  Our fallen human nature sometimes says one thing while the Spirit of God says another.  We are always tempted to take our lives into our own hands and make all the decisions ourselves.  We still struggle with the same temptation that afflicted Adam and Eve: to put ourselves in the place of God and decide our future without any relation to God.  But by our baptism, we can know God’s will, and we can choose to make what may seem like an insane decision according to the wisdom of the world, but which is the best decision according to the wisdom of God.

The Lord calls us throughout our lives to put our trust in Him and to follow Him, even to places we didn’t expect to go.  Will we have the courage to be like Elisha and leave what we know behind in order to serve God where He leads us?

But That's None of My Business

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Having spent four years working with high school students, I learned some interesting phrases and words, some that I can even say in church, but which will all sound rediculous, I’m sure, coming from my mouth: you don’t even know (sometimes abbreviated UOENO); but that’s none of my business (usually on a meme with Kermit the Frog sipping from a cup with Lipton tea); fo sho (which means for sure); bae (slang for a significant other; allegedly the abbreviation for before anyone else, as in, she comes before anyone else); and you don’t know me (which is usually used as a response when a person a being accused of something).  If Scripture was translated into slang of the new millennium (which I don’t advise), perhaps Jesus’ response to his neighbors asking, “‘Isn’t this the son of Joseph?’” would be “You don’t know me!”  Or maybe, after talking about how Elijah went to a foreigner, a Gentile, to provide bread during the famine, or how Elisha cured Naaman, who was not Jewish, of leprosy, Jesus would have said, “But that’s none of my business.”  Maybe He wouldn’t have.  

But the point is the same.  Last week we heard about how Jesus went back to His home town and read from the scroll of Isaiah about the Messiah, and said that the Scripture was fulfilled in the hearing of his neighbors.  This week, we hear their reaction, their disbelief.  And Jesus gets upset at their lack of faith, because they think they know who this guy is.  He’s just the neighbor boy from down the road, who was poor and seemed to be special in no way whatsoever.      So He needs to prove that He is special by doing some miracles, by putting on a show for His neighbors, so that they can believe.  But of course, we know human nature all too well, and Jesus knew it even better: even if he would have done a miracle, they would have found some excuse to not believe, because their minds were already made up that He was no one special.  And all of this, because He spoke God’s Word.

It can be tough to speak God’s Word, especially around the people we know.  That’s what it means to be a prophet, and we were all called to be prophets, to speak for God, when we were baptized.  But people know us.  They know our faults.  They know where we came from.  All too often they will not listen.  That is why God tells Jeremiah in the first reading, that he will have to gird his loins, a phrase which literally means, “make sure your underwear’s tight so you’re ready for combat or strenuous activity,” but which we could also say means “be prepared.”  God warns Jeremiah that the people to whom God is sending Jeremiah (the Chosen People) will try to crush him, and that Jeremiah will need to be “a fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of brass.”  He will have to be strong because his own people will reject what he says as he speaks on God’s behalf.

We have to be strong if we’re going to speak for God.  To speak out against the dirty joke or internet site that our friends are telling or viewing; to encourage a family member back into the Catholic faith who has been away for a while; to defend the Catholic faith when someone is mocking one of our beliefs; these are all difficult things to do, and we need to be strong like Jeremiah and especially like Jesus.  Neither of them backed off when others challenged them speaking for God.  In fact, they reiterated their message.

But, as St. Paul reminds us in the beautiful hymn of love in our second reading, we have to speak God’s Word with love.  “If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.  And if I have the gift of prophecy, and comprehend all mysteries and knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”  If one temptation is to shrink back from speaking God’s word, the other temptation is to speak God’s Word in a sanctimonious and overbearing way.  Neither of these are the right approaches.  The virtuous middle is to speak God’s Word, but to do so out of love for the other.  

How do you know if you’re speaking with love?  Are you impatient in your speech?  Are you rude?  Are you seeking your own interests, quick-tempered, or brooding over an injury?  If so, St. Paul tells us that we’re not speaking with love.  Love, rather, “does not rejoice over wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”  

It is challenging to be a prophet, to speak God’s message.  If it were easy, everyone would do it.  But the Lord calls us to be strong and speak His message, His Word, to those we know and those we meet.  He calls us to spread His word, even when it calls for conversion and change of life, with love.  We don’t have to be perfect to speak for God.  Jeremiah wasn’t.  But if we are followers of Jesus, then we, too, are called “‘to bring glad tidings to the poor…to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.’”  That is fo sho what we are called to do.

A Leap from the Lion's Head

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Early in our pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2017 we are traveling to Petra in Jordan (sign-up on our webpage if you’re interested!).  Petra is the place where the final scenes in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” were filmed, that building that seemed to be carved into rocks.  Yes, it’s real (at least the outside is).  If you remember, in the movie, Indiana, has to face three trials before he can reach the chamber with the Holy Grail, and to do so he uses three clues.  In the first trial, he kneels, as “only the penitent man will pass.”  The second trial deals with the Name of God, which is very inaccurate because the Name Jehovah was not used until much later and is a German invention based upon the Tetragrammaton, the sacred Name of God in the Old Testament.  In the third and final trial to get to the grail chamber, Indiana is faced with a deep chasm, too wide to jump across, but which must be crossed.  His clue is: “only by a leap from the lion’s head will he prove his worth.”  As Indiana says, “It’s a leap of faith.”  I won’t spoil the rest of the movie for you.

Our readings present us with a challenge of faith, not to seek the Holy Grail, but to grow in our relationship with Jesus and be prepared for heaven.  Our first reading and Gospel in particular give us examples of faith to encourage us to have faith.

In the first reading, the widow of Zarephath and her son are about to run out of food because of the famine that God has sent upon the Land.  God sends Elijah to the widow for water and bread.  We hear this story, and we know the end, so of course we know it’s going to work out.  But for the widow, who had no idea, and who was not even a Jew, Elijah’s request must have been horribly painful: “‘Please bring along a bit of bread.’”  She has only a little bit of oil and flour, and after she makes a cake, she and her son will have nothing left, and they will die from starvation.  But Elijah promises her that she and her son will have food enough until the rains return and she is able to get more food.  She complies, and they have flour and oil enough for a year.  Again, we know the ending, so we easily gloss over it.  But imagine that you had only one pack of ramen noodles left for you and your child, and someone who claimed to speak for God, but belonged to a different religion, asked to share that one pack with you, all the while promising that you would have enough.  Would you have shared?  I know we all want to think that we would, but would we truly have faith to share?

Or the poor widow who gave her two small coins to the temple treasury to pay for the upkeep of the temple.  She gave all that she had, even though it was a little bit of money.  As a widow, she had no one to plead her cause, no one to provide her with food, and no one to protect her.  But she had faith that God would provide, and so she offered God what little she had.  Jesus commends that faith in the Gospel passage we heard from today, and makes her the example, though we don’t even know if she knew Jesus, had faith in Him, or ever encountered Him.

Faith is easy when our bellies are full.  Faith is easy when we feel like we have enough to make ends meet.  Faith is much harder when we have nothing and no one to rely on but God.  That happens with all too many people who lack food and drink.  That happens to all too many people who have no money even though they have tried to work and save.  But it is not limited to our bellies and our pocketbooks.  Whenever we feel like the rug has been pulled out from under us, it is hard to have faith.  But that’s when we find out how strong our faith is.  That’s when we find out in what or in whom we really do put our trust.

Some priests on this weekend will preach about money, and donating to the Church, just like the widows did with Elijah and in the Temple.  This is not that homily.  I’m not asking you to give more money, because, as you seen from our bulletin updates, you are already being generous, and I thank you for that generosity.  But I will ask you to give something much more precious than your money to God.  The gift of money sometimes is the sign of the gift that God truly wants, but not always.  God wants your heart, and he’s asking you to make a leap of faith, to trust in Him, and to give Him your love.

When we truly love someone, they become the focus of our attention, and we rearrange our lives around that person.  Parents take off work, and maybe even lose their jobs because they love their children who are sick or in danger.  Do we love God more than that?  Do we love God enough to make our relationship with Him the number one priority in our life?  Not: I’ve got a million things to do this weekend, so hopefully I make it to Mass; not: my bed’s so warm, I’ll sleep a little longer and skip my daily prayers; not: I know our St. Vincent de Paul Society or Knights of Columbus or CCW could use some help, but I’ll do that next month when I have more time.  Instead: Mass is the first thing I plan on the weekend, and everything else fits around that; or: I’m tired, but God loves to hear even my tired prayers; or: how can I serve others with my time?

It takes a leap of faith to make God the number one priority in our lives.  It can be scary.  God can sometimes take us places we never expected to go.  But a relationship with Jesus requires faith: faith like the widow from Zarephath had; faith like the poor widow in the Temple had.  Lord, we want to have faith in you; help us have faith in you more.