Right Place, Right Time

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time–Second Scrutiny

    As many of you know, Buffalo Trace Distillery is one of my favorite places to visit in the US.  Two different times I have been there at what I would call “just the right time.”  The first time I was visiting around 11 a.m. just to see what Buffalo Trace had for the day.  I had found all the special bourbon that I wanted, along with a few other bar accessories, and was in the check-out line, when someone mentioned that they had just put out a very special bottle of bourbon.  I was allowed to leave the line to get said bottle, which was an experimental bourbon Buffalo Trace released, and which I have never seen anywhere else.  A second time, on our Basilicas and Bourbon Pilgrimage, after our tour I went back to the gift shop, though I had already visited it earlier before our tour to pick up any of the special bottles I sought.  Sure enough, they had just put out another very special bottle of bourbon called the Single Oak Project.  Twice I was in the right place at the right time to score a special bottle of bourbon to add to my collection.
    In our Gospel, the man born blind also finds himself in the right place at the right time.  There’s no evidence he sought out Jesus, but Jesus and the disciples walk past him, and ask whether the blindness served as a punishment for the man’s sins or the sins of his parents.  But Jesus uses the opportunity to heal the man, in a very earthy way.  

Statue of David in Jerusalem

    In a similar way, David never sought to be king.  In fact, Samuel, one of God’s great prophets, thought that David’s other brothers would be good kings.  But God did not choose the greatest king of Israel based upon appearance.  And so David, who did not seek the position of king, ends up receiving the rule of the land of Israel.
    Skyler, I imagine if I would have known you and asked you ten years ago if you had any desire to join the Catholic Church, you would have said no.  But God sought you out and, with the help of others, piqued your interest in the Catholic Church, which has brought you to today and your upcoming baptism.  Through new connections with others, you were in the right place at the right time to hear God’s call that He makes to every person: to join the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church.  
    And it is this relationship with Jesus that will help you see the world more clearly.  We all have blind spots in our lives, things that we don’t notice, or sometimes even that we choose not to see because admitting that we see could be painful and necessitate change, which always seems difficult.  Our world often proposes that happiness comes from having power over others, having large amounts of money, and ever-increasing varieties of physical pleasure.  But Christ shows us that true happiness comes from laying down our life for another, being poor in spirit so that we recognize our dependence on God, and that while physical pleasure like the taste of a good meal or good bourbon, or the embrace of a loved one, is good, it cannot be the goal of our life, because we are made for more than just what this world provides.
    And while this transition can feel difficult, which is why we have a ritual before you are baptized to pray over you and ask God to strengthen you to leave behind in you all that is fallen, we do gain true liberation and joy from living more and more for God each day.  And as you open yourself up to God more and more, you find that you are in the right place at the right time, and actually become yourself a conduit of God’s grace and action, just as others helped draw you in, Skyler, to the Catholic faith.
    Today is also special for Xavier, who will be making his First Holy Communion today.  Xavier, you are also in the right place at the right time, as the anniversary of your baptism is just in a few days, and we remember your baptism as you carried the candle in procession with us.  Today, Xavier, you get to receive Jesus into you in a very special way, in a way closer than you’ll ever be to Jesus until you make it to heaven.  Jesus loves you so much that He doesn’t want anything to keep you from being united to Him, and He wants to strengthen you with spiritual food that will continue to help you choose Jesus and do what He would do. 
    And while I’m sure there are days where you wish you could be an adult and do all the cool things that adults get to do, today Skyler, a young adult, is actually wishing she could be you, because you will receive the Eucharist today and Skyler will have to wait two more weeks until she is baptized and gets to receive Holy Communion for the first time.  
    But God has called both of you, Skyler and Xavier, and all of us, my brothers and sisters in Christ, to allow Him to put us into perfect place at the perfect time.  Sometimes it benefits us, like the man born blind.  Sometime it also benefits others, like when God chose David to be king.  But may we all seek docility to the will of God to allow us to glorify God in every circumstance.

"What is truth?"

Fourth Sunday after Easter

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  We might say that we live in the age of Pontius Pilate.  What do I mean by that?  Pontius Pilate, while trying our Lord in the Praetorium, skeptically asked Christ, “What is truth?”  Pope Benedict XVI warned us of the effects of relativism, of the assertion that there is no such thing as objective truth.  But our times have continued down the path of relativism, despite its inherent contradictions.
    We use phrases like, “live your truth.”  We have media outlets of all kinds, conservative and liberal, who twist the truth to promote their agendas.  We have fact checkers, which would seem to be a good thing, except they, too, consider facts from a particular perspective, and their results do not always ring true.  Those who have great power or great prestige often say one thing, but then do not live up to what they say, or live in a way contradictory to it.  We even have leaders of the Church who openly posit teachings which the Church has taught is wrong and contrary to what our Lord revealed.  In the midst of all this, is it any wonder that people doubt if there is truth, or find themselves asking the same question as the governor of Judea: what is truth?
    Our Lord today tells us that He will send us the Spirit of truth, who will lead us into all truth.  The Savior doesn’t modify the truth, or say that He will help us to know our truth.  The Holy Spirit will teach us the truth.  Truth, by definition, is one, like God.  It does not admit of variations, even though people may have different perceptions of it.  There was a picture floating around Facebook a while back, and I suppose, in the best light, it was trying to help us look at things from another perspective.  It showed a number on the sidewalk in chalk, and two people arguing about whether it was the number 6 or the number 9.  But, as one commenter pointed out, someone put the number on the sidewalk, and intended it to be a 6 or a 9.  So even with perspective, there is still an objective truth, a reality to which the image refers. 
    And truth cannot change based upon the time in which one lives.  Our understanding can certainly grow and develop, but the truth is eternal, again, like God.  It’s not as if the world was flat at one time, until we started to learn more about the earth and the solar system, and then it became spherical.  It was always spherical; we just thought, from our base of knowledge, that it was flat.  Or, to use an item of faith, it’s not as if God was a monad until the New Testament, and then He became a Trinity.  God was always a Trinity of Persons, but we didn’t fully understand that until our Lord revealed it to us. 
    To live a successful life, we have to acknowledge the truth.  Otherwise, truth will exert itself in painful ways, no matter how much we try to ignore it.  I do not have to believe in gravity, but if I try to ignore it while walking off the roof of a building, gravity will impress upon me that it exists whether I want it to or not.  And, depending on the size of the building, my desire that gravity not exist may prove fatal.  I may want to walk through walls, but if I try, I will end up getting a serious headache and body ache. 
    The same is true with the truth about how God made the world when it comes to religion.  Just because we do not want something to be true, does not make it less true.  A person who does not believe in God will come face to face with that false opinion when he or she stands before God in judgement.  A person may convince him or herself that saying God’s name in vain doesn’t really matter, but at some point he or she will recognize the truth of the pain that the violation of that commandment brings.  Yes, our ability to know that truth, whether our ignorance was vincible or invincible, conquerable or unconquerable, will affect God’s judgement of us.  But the reality will impress itself upon us, and perhaps cause us a longer time in Purgatory, or perhaps even mean our eternal damnation.
    On a much happier note, we have children today who are making their first Holy Communion.  They are receiving our Lord in the Eucharist for the first time.  They have come to recognize that what looks like bread and wine is not bread and wine, but has become, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of the priest, the Body and Blood of Christ.  You, my dear children, fulfill today the words of Psalm 8: “on the lips of children and of babes / you have found praise to foil your enemy, / to silence the foe and the rebel.”  Though there is still a lot of truth you need to learn, you have come to understand the truth that our Eucharistic Lord gives Himself to us at each Mass so that we can eat His flesh and have life within us, even though it looks like ordinary bread. 
    And the way that you receive, kneeling and on your tongue, helps to demonstrate the truth that you have come to learn.  If it were only a matter of eating regular food, we would pull up a table and chairs and have you eat like normal.  But because Christ gives Himself to us, we kneel down in adoration, and allow Him to nourish us, like a baby bird receives its nourishment from its parent in its mouth.  In some ways, children, you are wiser than some adults, and know a truth that they have rejected.  Hold on to that truth.  Never doubt what Christ has taught us through the Scriptures and through the Church, that if we wish to have eternal life within us, we need to eat His flesh, which is the Eucharist.
    And for all of us, pray that the Holy Spirit will guide us all into the fullness of truth.  Not just the opinions that we like or that seem easy for us; not just the soundbites that support our pre-conceived notions; but the truth, the reality of how God has made the world.  There is real truth, because God exists who can ground the truth in Himself.  Our goal, aided by the light of the Holy Spirit, is to acknowledge the truth and live according to it, the truth that grounds itself in our Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

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.

A Catholic View of Work

 Second Sunday after Easter

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Today we are celebrating two important people: St. Joseph the Worker, and our First Communicants.  First, I'll speak about St. Joseph.

St. Joseph's Workshop in Nazareth

    Holy Mother Church chose today, 1 May, to celebrate St. Joseph as a way to combat and convert celebrations that celebrated work in a communist mentality.  Pope Pius XII established the feast in 1955.  While we are not communists (at least I hope no one here is!), in many ways our understanding of work is still not fully in line with the Scriptures.  Many think of work as the thing to avoid at all costs, to get away from as much as possible.  We even may look back at Genesis and see that God cursed Adam and Eve and told them that only by their toil would the fruits of the earth come forth.  But in Christ, our understanding of work developed, no longer as a curse, but as a way that we can grow in holiness.  Christ was not subject to sin, and yet He still chose to work as a carpenter with His foster-father, St. Joseph.  He redeemed work as He accomplished it.  And so for us, work is no longer simply a drudgery, something to be avoided as a curse, but as a way that we grow in holiness, following the pattern of our Redeemer.  

    This may still seem counter-intuitive.  And may ring empty from a priest who just got back from a vacation.  But, we see that God has given each of us gifts, and our Lord tells us that we are to use our talents to progress society, as He tells us in the parable of the talents.  It is to the lazy servant that Christ has the harshest words.  You have gifts and talents that I don't, that are meant to build up society and help it to grow to be more like the City of God.  When we don't use those gifts and talents, society suffers.  We see that, not only from our unemployment numbers, but from how our society suffers when we don't band together to make it better.  

    But it even affects our salvation.  When we use our gifts and talents, we are giving glory to God who has given us those gifts, and letting our light shine before others.  When we don't use those gifts, we are hiding them under the bushel basket.  We are not to brag about our gifts, but we are to use our gifts, recognizing that, without God we cannot do anything.  At the same time, rather than looking in jealousy or envy towards others, we should see that they, too, have a part to play in building up society with their gifts, just as we do with ours.  Both they and we are necessary for the building up the world, whether we feel like our job is glamourous or is menial.  All work has dignity, and is a means of becoming a saint.  In fact, some of our more popular recent saints had very menial work, and yet are celebrated more.  St. Theresa of Calcutta worked with the poorest of the poor, taking those society had rejected, those who were often treated like trash and smelled worse than trash, and embracing them with the love of Christ.  Or think about our own Michigan saint, Bl. Solanus Casey.  He was ordained a priest simplex, not given all of the faculties that other priests had.  He was a porter at St. Bonaventure, opening the door for and greeting people.  And yet how many pilgrims flock to his site and seek his intercession!  I think this is a beautiful way that God elevates the humble and shows their importance, even while so many "important" priests and bishops and lay-faithful are not counted among the saints and blesseds.  They may have exercised jobs that the world considered more important on earth, but an earthly perspective doesn't count for much, if anything after death.  

    Indeed, St. Joseph was a nobody in his own day!  He toiled without making much money, but had the important role as protector of the Holy Family.  While he was one of the most unknown among his contemporaries, he is numbered among the greatest of the saints, after the Blessed Mother.

    My dear first communicants, St. Joseph is also a perfect model for you today as you receive our Lord for the first time in Holy Communion.  St. Joseph was obedient to the will of God in caring for Christ during the time before He started His public ministry.  He cared for our Lord, making sure that He was safe, and felt the love that a child should from parents.  Like St. Joseph, Christ will be coming to you in a miraculous way.  Holy Communion is nothing other than a miracle, the greatest miracle we have.  God changes ordinary bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ so that Christ can enter the home of our heart and live there.  

    You, like St. Joseph, are able to welcome Christ into your home today.  Our Lord will be even closer to you than He was to St. Joseph.  Your "job" as it were, is to welcome Jesus into you, and live a life that shows that you want Him to continue to be a part of who you are.  No one else will know, except God, how well you do that, just as no one really appreciated all that St. Joseph did while he was alive.  But the better job you do at making Christ feel at home within you, the more you can look forward to an eternal home in heaven with St. Joseph many decades from now.

    I encourage you to never stop loving our Lord, especially in the Eucharist.  Never lose the joy that you have today at being able to receive the Lord.  And when you fall into sin, let that gift of Holy Communion push you towards the Sacrament of Penance, which we often call confession, so that you can, by the grace of God, clean your house of anything that makes our Lord not feel like a welcomed guest.  It is so easy to treat Holy Communion like something that is a habit, something you do every Sunday just because it's what we do.  But Holy Communion is the greatest gift God can give to you, greater than any present you could ever receive.  

    After you have received Holy Communion and returned to your pew, make sure you thank God for the gift that you just received in the Eucharist.  I imagine St. Joseph, before he went to bed each night, thanked God for another day that he was able to spend with Jesus.  Each time you receive Holy Communion, thank God that you were, once more, able to receive the same Jesus for whom St. Joseph cared.  In that way, you will live like St. Joseph, and receive the same reward he received for always caring for our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live for ever in heaven.  Amen.

Broken for the Lord

 Solemnity of St. Pius X

    There’s a Trooper I know who used to work in Flint, but now works for our Aviation Unit, flying helicopters.  He and I both enjoy drinking bourbon (a quality pastime if ever there was one), as well as watching movies.  Obviously the latter has become impossible in theaters during the pandemic.  But, over the past couple of months, we’ve gotten together to watch movies in each other’s homes, either on Netflix or on DVDs that I own.  His wife is not a big mafia movie fan, so when she’s been gone, I’ve introduced him to “The Godfather” trilogy (we’ve finished one and two so far).  
    In the second movie (spoiler alert!), there’s a scene where Michael Corleone and his brother Fredo are in pre-Castro Cuba celebrating the New Year in the presidential palace.  Michael has learned that his brother, Fredo, has betrayed Michael and his family to competing interests, and in one of the famous movie lines of all time, Michael says, “I know it was you, Fredo.  You broke my heart.  You broke my heart.”  Hold that thought.

    This weekend we celebrate our heavenly patron, Pope St. Pius X.  He was known for many things, but one of the things he is especially known for is lowering the age for First Holy Communion to the age of reason, usually around 7, and encouraging frequent reception of Holy Communion (as well as of confessing regularly).  For that reason, he is often called Pope of the Blessed Sacrament.  
    Perhaps we have heard the encouragement to be Eucharistic people.  And that certainly is a good thing, especially as we celebrate the Pope of the Blessed Sacrament.  Maybe we think that means that we need to go to Mass (and confession) frequently, or spend more time in adoration.  Both of those things are good, and are ways to be Eucharistic Catholics.  But sometimes being Eucharistic Catholics is a bit more messy than simply going to Mass.
    It’s like First Communions themselves.  On the holy cards we’re used to seeing cute little girls in a white dress with a veil, kneeling down, about to receive the Sacred Host, or a little boy, all gussied up in a suit and tie, with an angelic look on his face.  Any parent knows that, while that one moment may happen, it was preceded by the young girl not wanting her hair done the way you want it done, or trying to brush out the tangles five minutes after you were supposed to leave for church; or by that young boy, dressed up and ready to go, who found a cool-looking frog or snake and just had to pick it up, never worrying that the animal may release a liquid surprise on the hands, or even the suit, of the boy.  The reality is often messier than the image we try to create in our minds.
    The same goes for being Eucharistic Catholics.  Again, going to Mass (and confession) frequently is a great thing.  Spending time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, especially during Eucharistic Adoration, is a marvelous way to grow in our love and appreciation of the Eucharist.  But another part of being a Eucharistic Catholic is having happen to us what happened to Jesus, and to Michael Corleone: our hearts are broken.  
    The Eucharist comes from grains of wheat that have been crushed into flour.  And so, we are invited to have the same happen to us: to be crushed to make of ourselves an offering to God.  The flour is added to water, and is baked to make the unleavened hosts that we use for the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.  So for us, when our sufferings are added to the water of baptism, and baked in the fire of the Holy Spirit, they become an offering that we can give to God, which He receives, and transforms by His power, into something that gives us life.   
    Being Eucharistic Catholics doesn’t mean we betray our family to its enemies, and celebrate in Cuba.  But it does mean that our hearts are going to be broken, just as the Sacred Heart of Jesus was.  We don’t have to go looking for that suffering; it will find us easily enough.  But when it comes, we have the choice to accept it as merely people of the world, and try to ignore it, fight our way out of it, or pass it along to another.  Or we can be Eucharistic Catholics and accept necessary sufferings, unite them to Jesus on the cross in His perfect offering to the Father, and receive God’s life-giving grace from that sacrifice. Suffering is not the only part of being a Eucharistic Catholic, but during this continued pandemic, we can find ways to unite our sufferings with Jesus and grow in new ways in our faith life.
    Being crushed was the path that Jesus took when He suffered and died.  That was the way of the Master; that is the way of his disciples.  In the first “Godfather” movie, (again: spoiler alert!) Vito brings the dead body of his son, Santino, aka Sonny, and says to the undertaker: “Look how they massacred my boy.”  God the Father could have said the same thing about Jesus.  And yet, Jesus willingly offered Himself to the Father, in all the pain and the suffering of the crucifixion, so that we could be reconciled to the Father.  Jesus’ love for His Father and for us, His Bride, meant suffering.  Our love for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as well as for each other, will also mean suffering in our lives, suffering that can be salvific.  Just as the wheat is ground so that it can become bread which gives eternal life, so our suffering can become an acceptable sacrifice which, when united to Jesus, brings salvation to us or to people we love.  
    A broken heart is part of being a Eucharistic Catholic: a heart broken for the Lord and His people.  Jesus asks us today if we love Him enough to be broken and offered to the Father.  He asks us as He asked St. Peter and St. Pius X: “‘Do you love me?’”

"Love is in the Air"

Sixth Sunday of Easter
     So clearly, St. John is focusing on love this weekend.  Our second reading, from the first Letter of St. John, says "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God."  And in the Gospel, also from St. John, we heard, "'As the Father loves me, so I also love you.  Remain in my love....This is my commandment; love one another as I love you.'"  As John Paul Young sang, "Love is in the air."
     And this weekend, as we have our second grade students receive their first Holy Communion, we celebrate what love is: love is the gift of self.  Jesus gives Himself in the Eucharist because He wants to remain with us, so that we can remain with Him.  And if we remain with Him, our joy will be complete.
   

 Love, as seen in the Eucharist, is a sacrifice.  We are so often told by basically every secular source, that love is about me.  Love is supposed to make me happy.  Love is a good feeling that I have with another.  Love completes me.  But that's not what Jesus shows us in the Eucharist.  What Jesus shows us in the Eucharist is that love is concerned with making the other person happy; love sometimes is not accompanied by any good feelings; love is about helping the other get to heaven.
   Because in the Eucharist, we receive Jesus' sacrifice of His own life on the cross.  In the Eucharist we receive Jesus' Body and Blood which was poured out for the one He loves, His Bride, the Church (that's us!).  If love was about the self, Jesus would not have died for us.  If love was about feeling good, Jesus would not have been crucified.  As St. John says, "In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins."
     Love is difficult; it's not easy.  Love is difficult even when the beloved loves you.  It's always a joy to celebrate anniversaries of couples at Mass.  When I see a couple that has been married for 25, 40, 50, or even 60 years, I see their joy and happiness with each other.  What I don't see on those days are the days that they maybe weren't so in love with each other, the days when maybe they didn't have good feelings towards each other, the days when the maybe they wanted to kill each other (metaphorically speaking, of course...I hope).  Because we are human we fail at love, because we have a tendency to be selfish, which is the opposite of love.  We are afraid to be selfless, because we are afraid that the love we express will not be returned.  That's part of what makes love so beautiful: it requires great vulnerability.
     But love is even more difficult when the beloved does not love you, even if it's just temporary.  Parents know this all too well: those moments when your own child says that they hate you, that you're a bad parent, that they never want to talk to you again, because you took away their iPhone, or grounded them for bad behavior.  Kinds don't usually mean it, they are generally just taking out their frustration.  But sometimes we do find people that generally have o love for us, who maybe even wish us ill.  But we are still called to love them.
     Love doesn't mean letting them engage in destructive behavior, or letting them do anything they want.  That's not love, that's apathy, not caring either way.  But loves means  we do what's best for the beloved, even if it's not appreciated or understood.
     Jesus tells us that love means laying down our life for our friends.  If anyone could say that, Jesus could, as the following day (this Gospel recounts what happened at the Last Supper), Jesus would lay down His life for His friends, the Apostles, for His Blessed Mother, and even for those who hated Him.  Whenever I hear this passage I think of our military personnel who lay down their life for our country, even if laying down their lives doesn't mean paying the ultimate sacrifice, but is led out by delaying their own plans for life, being away for their families, and daily doing jobs that many others never want to to.  I also think of our police officers, and specifically for me our State Troopers.  Law enforcement personnel daily also lay down their lives for the citizens that they serve.  Sometimes they, too, pay the ultimate price and sacrifice their lives.  Other times it's the nights or days that they're away from their families, interacting with people with whom most other people would rather not come into contact, and running towards danger while everyone else is running away.
     The reason why we especially honor veterans and first responders is because they show love in a way that many of us could not even fathom.  But mom and dads also sacrifice greatly; employees sacrifice for the good of their company; kids sometimes also know how to sacrifice for others in simple, yet profound ways, like sharing a favorite snack with a friend who doesn't have much food.  Love is not only a vocation for the great, it is a vocation for everyone.
     So as we who are prepared to receive the Eucharist today come forward, may we be inspired by love.  Not by a false sense of love which focuses on the self, but on true love that focuses on sacrificing for the good of the beloved.  May the sacrifice of love that we receive in the Body and Blood of Jesus help us to live out Jesus' message that we hear from St. John: love.

"Let your words teach and your actions speak"

Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I think we have all been on one side or another of the following situation: a mother or father says to a child, “I need you to take out the trash, dear,” and the child says, “Ok,” and then some time passes, and the trash is not taken out because the child is playing a game, or watching tv, or doing something that he or she considers a little more important (and definitely more enjoyable) than taking out the trash.  That’s basically the same parable that Jesus gives today in the Gospel, and this parable is one to which we easily relate.

Talk, as is said, is cheap.  What really counts is actions.  We all know this.  If we loan someone money, and they keep telling us, “Oh yeah, I’ll get that to you by the end of the week,” but the weeks pass, and there is no reimbursement, we learn not to loan that person money.  Kids can sometimes get in trouble for not doing the chores they say they will but never seem to accomplish.  We can sometimes find out who our true friends are when we are in need and someone does or doesn’t stand by us.  What we say has exponentially more force when we follow it up by what we do.  St. Anthony of Padua said it this way: “Actions speak louder than words; let your words teach and your actions speak.  We are full of words but empty of action, and therefore are cursed by the Lord, since he himself cursed the fig tree when he found no fruit but only leaves.”  People say lots of things, but if they really want to make a difference, then those words need to be followed up by action.  The son in the Gospel who was praised was the one who originally said no, but did what the father wanted.

We have, in our life as Christians, said yes to the Lord on numerous occasions.  The minister of baptism says to parents,

You have asked to have your children baptized.  In doing so you are accepting the responsibility of training them in the practice of the faith.  It will be your duty to bring them up to keep God’s commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbor.  Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?

Parents say to God that they will raise their child or children in the faith.  And yet, how many times do we never see those parents again at Mass?  How many times do children, especially as they approach First Holy Communion, not know how to pray, either conversationally with God, or even our simple memorized prayers like the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be?  It is not uncommon, even for parents who send their children to a Catholic School, to think that they no longer have to worry about raising their children in the faith, and yet, my personal experience and so many studies have shown that when the faith is not lived out at home, even if the child attends a Catholic school, that child will abandon the practice of the faith.

Or if we look at another sacrament, the Sacrament of Confirmation.  In that sacrament, we are given more grace and power of the Holy Spirit to share our faith with others, and to live as witnesses to the faith that was, for most, professed for them in baptism.  But out of those who have been confirmed, who said to God that they want to accept the grace of the Holy Spirit, how many show that faith in their words and actions?  How many simply leave the majority of the practice of their faith at the doors of this church, so that their worship of God at Mass has no effect on the choices they make in their daily lives?  And that’s if people even continue to practice their faith after Confirmation.  The old cheesy joke about a pastor with a bat problem comes to mind: a young pastor has bats in the church.  He tries to kill them with a tennis racquet, but no luck; he tries an exterminator, but the bats keep coming back.  So he asks a neighboring, older pastor who previously had bats what to do.  The older pastor says, “I just confirmed my bats, and I never saw them in church again.”

The other temptation for us, as children of God, is to do what we probably all have done as kids.  When it came to our life at home, we have all probably said to ourselves ‘I’ll do my chores later when it’s more convenient.’  We have all also probably said to ourselves, ‘I’ll grow in my faith when I’m older.’  Whether it’s saying a rosary more frequently, saying daily prayers, going to an extra Mass or two during the week, or any other religious practice that we know is good, it can be very easy to say, “I’ll do that when I’m older or retired.”  And certainly sometimes our Mass time is not conducive to working people, since we start at 8:15 a.m.  But, I know we have more retired people in our parish than come to daily Mass.  It’s not a requirement, so I’m not saying you have to come, but how many of you have thought about daily Mass, and maybe even told God you would go more, but then don’t follow through?  It’s very easy for all of us, myself including, whether we’re in school, working, or retired, to promise God that we’re going to grow in our faith, and then not follow through, and so we keep saying that we’ll do it later.  But in reality, we never have later.  The future is never ours to own.  All we ever know is that we have today, and how we can live our faith in the present.

Today the Lord invites us to let our actions speak; to follow what we say by what we do.  May we all take seriously the admonition by St. John in his first letter, “let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.”