Our Mission Statement

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
    We are all used to mission statements in work.  Many business have some written mission statement.  As a parish, we have a purpose statement that is on the front of our bulletin each week: “Our parish purpose is to use beauty and truth to inspire and develop disciples to transform the secular order by the grace of God, for His glorification and the edification of man.”    We’re also used to it on certain TV shows.  For example Star Trek: “Space: the final frontier.  These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.  Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”  

    In the Gospel today we hear both the purpose statement of St. Luke and the mission statement of Jesus.  St. Luke tells us that his purpose is “to write [a narrative of events] in an orderly sequence for you…so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.”  He writes his Gospel account in order to help us believe in what we have heard about Jesus, because he collected the information from those who knew the Lord.  He took his part in the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, by sharing in written form the good news, the Gospel, of Jesus.  
    Jesus, for His part, quotes the prophet Isaiah, as St. Luke tells us, as He explains in Nazareth, His home town, that He is the long-awaited Messiah.  He tells the people: “‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.  He has sent me 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.’”  And, in case there was any doubt about what He was saying, He tells the people there, “‘Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.’”  

    Perhaps this is from where the practice of bishops choosing a motto stems, though those are usually much shorter.  For example, Pope Francis chose Miserando atque eligendo, or “by having mercy and also by choosing.”  Or Pope Benedict XVI chose Cooperatores veritatis–cooperators of the truth.  Or Pope St. John Paul II’s famous motto, Totus tuus–Totally yours (referring to the Blessed Mother).  Bishop Boyea has In manus tuas–Into your hands, taken from Luke’s Gospel, as the final words of Jesus on the cross, which He quotes Psalm 31.  Even I have one for my coat-of-arms: In spiritu et veritate–In spirit and truth, which comes from Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman in St. John’s Gospel, and references how we are to worship.  In seminary as jokes, we would sometimes suggest mottos for our brothers when they were ordained, taking out of context other Scripture passages like, “Surely, Lord, there be a stench” and “And Jesus wept,” both from the account of the raising of Lazarus.  
    But it’s not a bad idea for us to have some Scripture that guides our spiritual life, even if it changes from year to year.  Because, like the Blues Brothers, we are all on a mission from God.  Our mission is generally the same, to bring others to believe in Jesus as well as to go to heaven ourselves.  But, as St. Paul reminds us in the second reading, we each have different parts to play in the Church, which does not diminish each person and their role, but helps each of us to shine in what God has called us to do.  Some are apostles; others, prophets; others, teachers; others do mighty deeds; others have gifts of healing or assistance or administration; others, speak in tongues; and other gifts, as well.  But God desires each of us to use the gifts that we have, which He has freely given us, to help us go to heaven and to help build up the Church.  
    Again, that role that we have may change over time.  Maybe at one point of our life we are really strong in apologetics; maybe at another time our role in building up the Church is raising a family as disciples of Christ; maybe at another time it’s helping with different groups in the parish; maybe at another time it’s bearing witness to the faith at work.  The list goes on and on.  But God desires that we, throughout our life and especially after we are confirmed, do what we can to share the Gospel and help the Church grow.
    So what would your motto or mission statement be?  What Scripture passage guides you at this time in your life?  You may not have thought of this before, so I encourage you this week to open up the family Bible (hopefully it’s not hard to find and isn’t simply collecting dust), and read through the Psalms or Gospel passages or the epistles of St. Paul to choose a Scripture passage that will guide you this year.  Maybe it will be part of what we heard in the Gospel today: “to bring glad tidings to the poor.”  Maybe it will be from our first reading: “rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength.”  Hopefully it’s not a joke, like the taken-out-of-context phrase from the second reading, “‘I do not need you.’”  Whatever Scripture passage you discern the Lord wants to guide you with this year, may it shape your activities in work and rest, and home and abroad, to help spread the Gospel and build up the Church, which continues the mission of the Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

What's in a Name?

Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Shakespeare famous wrote in his play, “Romeo and Juliet,” “What’s in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”  Today as we celebrate the Holy Name of Jesus, we may fall into the same nominalism error that Shakespeare seemed to espouse, that names don’t really make any difference.  But names contain power and access.
    When God first reveals His Name to Moses in the theophany at the burning bush, God reveals Himself as “I AM WHO AM,” or, more simply, “I AM.”  This doesn’t sound like a name to us.  But that’s on purpose.  When we know someone’s name, we have a certain power over that person.  When I stand in a crowded room with my parents with a fair amount of noise, I might say “dad” numerous times without him hearing me.  But, if I were to say “Robert,” it would likely gain his attention.  Or, when a pope dies, to make sure he is dead, they tap him with a decorative small mallet and whisper his baptismal name, figuring that he would respond to the name his parents called him.  When we know a name, we have power, as that person’s attention is turned to us.  But even God did not grant His Chosen People to have power over His Name.  He promised to be with them and to turn to them whenever they called upon Him, but they could not say His name.  In fact, they would simply use the Hebrew word Adonai, which means “Lord,” instead of using the Hebrew word for I AM, which is abbreviated by the consonants YHWH. 

Pope Benedict XVI, of happy memory, asked Catholics not to use this sacred name in the Mass, out of respect for our Jewish brothers and sisters.  Only one time, on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, would the high priest, standing before the ark of the covenant, utter the sacred Name of God.
    When our Lord, at least once, in the Gospel of John, referred to Himself as “I AM,” He taught us of His unity with the Father in divinity.  And the people recognized this.  They rise up to stone our Lord for blasphemy.  While some of the I AM statements in John work grammatically and could be interpreted simply as indicative statements using metaphors, the one that stands out is when Christ says, “Before Abraham came to be, I AM.”  That sentence makes no sense, unless Christ is identifying His oneness with the Father.  
    But, just as the prohibition against making images of God changes with the Incarnation, so does the relationship between God’s People and His Holy Name.  Part of the humility of the Incarnation was that God had a name that the people could freely use.  The name of Jesus means “God saves.”  It does, in a sense, define Him, as our Lord is the salvation of God.  No longer is the name not to be uttered at all, but it can be called upon freely in times of need.  Peter and John will heal a lame man “in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean.”  The people come to believe at this great act and Peter’s preaching, such that Peter and John are arrested and stand on trial before the Sanhedrin for what they have done.  That’s where our epistle comes in.  St. Peter proclaims that there is no other name by when men can be saved other than Jesus, a teaching the Church has continued throughout the centuries.  It is the name at which, as we heard in the Introit from St. Paul’s epistle to the Philippians, every knee should bend, whether those in heaven, on earth, or under the earth, because Jesus Christ is Lord.  Again, Lord was the term that a Jew would have used for God, so St. Paul is affirming the divinity of Christ through His Name.
    The custom of preaching during the Mass is not to use the name of Jesus too often.  I refer to Him as the Lord, or the Savior, or the Redeemer, or simply Christ.  But we should not be afraid to call upon the name of our Savior in time of need, because He has given us His name so that we can receive help.  In the Orthodox Church, there is a practice of simply saying the name, “Jesus” as one breathes in and out.  This beautiful prayer can calm us when we are anxious, and rely on the strength of the Holy Name to cast aside anything that seeks to harm us.  When exorcists cast out demons, they do so with the power of the Holy Name, at which the demons have no choice but to obey, because the power comes, not from the priest, but from Christ Himself.  
    So names are important.  The Holy Name of Jesus is the most important name, because it identifies who God is and what He does.  Whereas in the Old Testament, the name of God was used only rarely, our Lord invites us to call upon His Holy Name whenever we are in need, whenever we are giving thanks, whenever we pray as a church.  May the Holy Name of Jesus protect us from all assaults of the enemy, and may we receive salvation through the Holy Name of Jesus, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Pray, Hope, and Don't Worry

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Recently more and more journalists are reporting that sometime around the middle of this month, Pope Francis will further restrict celebrations of the Mass using the Missal of Pope St. John XXIII.  And while I’m loathe to accept rumors and gossip as fact, two previous similar situations have proven that, at times, rumors and gossip do have a ring of truth.
    I cannot and will not go into detail now about speculating on what will happen after Rome releases this document, if there will be, in fact, a document as feared, because we don’t know what it will say.  I have, through the Diocese of Lansing’s Office of Worship, asked Bishop Boyea to release a pastoral letter to the communities that celebrate using the Usus antiquior if further restrictions are levied against us.  Certainly, in times of upheaval and strife, the words of the spiritual father of our Diocese are most important.
    But what do we do until then?  One temptation is to worry.  But our Lord told us quite directly not to do that.  “Do not worry about your life…” he said in Matthew, chapter 6.  “Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?”  Worry is what the enemy seeks to have us do, because when we worry we try to take the place of God where everything has to be in our own hands for an appropriate answer and resolution.  No amount of worrying will change anything, but it will exhaust us and cause us to lack trust in God, who can do all things.

    St. Pio of Pietrelcina, more commonly known as Padre Pio, would say it this way: “Pray, hope, and don’t worry.”  Prayer is something we can do.  When we pray we take our concerns to God, for whom all things are possible.  Whether we pray Rosaries, or litanies, or novenas, or simple Paters and Aves, prayer draws us closer to the Sacred Heart, which always benefits us.  In prayer we become like the beloved disciple, St. John, who leaned his head against the breast of our Savior at the Last Supper.  And that is not a bad place to be.
    Obedience is also key.  St. Augustine of Hippo once wrote, “If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”  Analogously, we could say that if we only obey what we like, and disobey when we don’t like something, then we are not truly obedient.  Pope Francis, whatever we may think about the reasons for any upcoming decision, is the Pope.  He was validly elected.  If he weren’t, I’m sure Cardinal Burke, who was present for the election, would have said something by now.  I don’t have to agree with all of Pope Francis’s decisions.  I don’t have to find that his words or actions always to help foster faith.  But I do owe him, as Supreme Pontiff, religious submission of will and intellect.  And Popes have always retained the authority to adjust the form of the sacraments and the way the Mass is celebrated.  Pope St. Pius V did so in eliminating rites that were less than 100 years old.  Pope St. John XXIII did it when he added St. Joseph’s name to the Canon.  Pope Benedict XVI (who should be canonized) did it when he gave all individual priests that authority to celebrate using the pre-Conciliar liturgy. 
    In my time here, I have observed almost none of the criticisms which Pope Francis has leveled against those who prefer the Traditional Latin Mass.  Very few deny the dogmatic and doctrinal authority of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, even while some (quite rightly) do point out issues in its implementation.  Very few do what Cardinal Burke has condemned: lacking respect and obedience to the Holy Father by simply referring to him as Bergoglio or using other words to describe him which are not fitting for Catholics when referring to the pontiff.  Most, if not all, even while struggling with some of the things Pope Francis says (as do I, at times) pray for him and seek only to be good Catholics who appreciate the entire 2,000 year history of the Church, and prefer to worship using the older Mass.  We have united well in our parish with those who worship using the Missal of Pope St. Paul VI, and I truly believe we are united as one parish, not a divisive group within a parish.  So the attacks that some level against us are not true, and we suffer quietly those detractions, as St. Peter, our first pontiff, encouraged us to do.
    We also remain true to our conscience.  Conscience is a word that has been warped in the past decades.  Right now, most consider conscience as simply what they want to do or what they feel in their gut is right.  But conscience is the voice of God, and so God cannot contradict Himself, nor what He has revealed as true for the past 2,000 years.  Conscience has to be aided by the study of Church teaching, both in the Scriptures and in the Magisterial pronouncements.  Conscience is our practical application of those teachings in individual circumstances, not the changing of teachings to fit individual circumstances.  And the Church is very clear: whoever knows the Catholic Church to be necessary for salvation, but purposely chooses to leave her, cannot be saved.  We must follow our conscience, even if it errs.  But we have the responsibility to make sure our conscience is formed so that we can hear God’s voice and not rely only on our gut or instinct.
    When a recent parishioner who attends this Mass brought up to me the now-more-pervasive stories about further restrictions, his approach was an inspiring act of faith.  He simply said that he would trust God and not worry about what was ahead, because God is in control.  He said he chose not to worry because worrying wouldn’t accomplish anything productive, and could prove quite destructive.  I applaud that man’s faith, and hope that we can all emulate it. 
    Be assured of this: as your local shepherd, your pastor, and your spiritual father, I will never lead you away from what I believe to be the truth and the best course of action.  I will ardently yet gently encourage you to stay with the Church, even as waves sometimes seem to pummel the barque of Peter.  I will never encourage anything which I believe will endanger your eternal salvation, and I will do whatever I can to make sure that the Mass is still celebrated reverently according to whatever legitimate laws we need to follow.  I pray that you will not worry, but you will pray and entrust this present trial to God.  I pray that we will all have the wisdom to know when to be obedient and how best to do that.  And in this way, we can be assured that we are not simply those who say, “Lord, Lord,” but are truly those who do the will of our heavenly Father, and so prepare ourselves for heaven, where He lives and reigns with the Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen.  

"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.  

Benedict and Dominic

Fourth Sunday of Easter
    Throughout the past decade, especially as the United States started to drift away from the Judeo-Christian culture that had previously permeated the secular environment, people started to ask the question of what we should do as Catholics.  Even as many as ten years ago we came to realize that we could not rely on the federal or State governments to support people living out their faith, and, in some cases, the government grew very antagonistic towards Catholics and how they lived out their faith (think of the Obama administration’s seemingly hell-bent desire to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for contraceptives in their health plan). 

St. Benedict

    So some proposed a solution, based upon an historical precedent, which gained the moniker “The Benedict Option.”  While Pope Benedict XVI did reign during some of the past decade or so, the reference looked back much farther to Benedictine monasteries that preserved Catholic literature and formation from the barbarian advances all throughout what had formerly been the Roman Empire.  This perspective advised that Catholics form small communities and basically hunker down until the barbarians (those who attacked the Church) destroyed themselves (as those who promote the culture of death eventually do destroy themselves). 
    There’s a certain solace in the bunker mentality when you feel like you’re under attack.  While the analogy will limp given its drastic nature, living the faith right now can seem like fighting in the midst of World War I.  The trenches seem much safer, because if you try to advance, you’re going to get mowed down by gunfire or mustard gas.  So you stay low and just try to ride the war out, hoping to survive to the next generation.
    But, besides the fact that Benedictines were responsible for a lot of missionary activity, even during the Middle Ages (St. Augustine of Canterbury, St. Ansgar, and St. Boniface, just to name a few), this bunker mentality, while sometimes appropriate and certainly lived out beautifully by cloistered monks and nuns, misses what our readings reference today. 
    In the passages leading up to our first reading, St. Peter and St. John had been arrested because they healed a crippled man in the name of Jesus.  Peter didn’t cut bait and run.  He, the Prince of the Apostles speaking for the other apostles, proclaimed that Jesus had risen from the dead, and that He was the only way to salvation.  He proclaimed the Gospel because he knew that it was the truth, the truth which would set people free.  Any of the Apostles could have simply stayed in the Upper Room and quietly taught people about Jesus, trying to avoid publicity and controversy, but they didn’t.  They proclaimed Christ boldly, even in the face of persecution.  And the Church grew because of their witness.

St. Dominic

    This is what one author termed the “Dominican Option,” named after the Order of Friars Preachers.  St. Dominic only had a few cloistered nuns praying for him and his few friars, and yet he sent the friars out to the major universities of Europe, and his order grew almost exponentially.    It seemed like foolishness, even to some of the first friars, but St. Dominic said, “The seed will molder if it is hoarded up; it will fructify if it is sown.”  The Dominicans imitated the Apostles and spread the Gospel far and wide.
    Part of the animus for this is what Christ proclaimed in our Gospel today: “‘I have other sheep that do not belong to his fold.  These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.’”  Christ desires that all people would belong to His one flock, the Catholic Church.  He desires that all people are united in charity and in truth.  This won’t happen such an effective way if we rely simply on hunkering down and having more babies than the pagans who surround us (though I would say that having babies according to God’s will and your own discernment is another beautiful way to pass along the faith).  Yes, we can form communities of men and women who purposefully follow Christ, and not simply because someone told them to or because their family always did it this way.  Yes, we need to form people to understand the Gospel so that they can be able to preach it (and we’re striving to do that through our faith formation groups of all ages). 
    But at the end of the day, we cannot stay in our bunkers; we cannot remain in the trenches.  We should have the magnanimity to try to win souls for Christ, to help them see that following Him is not only the path to heaven, but a way to live life more joyfully and with more fulfillment than if we try to live life on our own terms and follow our own patterns of sin.  If Christ’s desire that we all join His flock are to come to fruition, then we have to cooperate with Him and share that good news with others.  And not just on the worldwide church level: if we wish our parish to grow, then others need to join us.  And the way that others join us is through people convincing them of the truth of the faith and having them be baptized or enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.  Yes, we also welcome and encourage our young families to engage in the very countercultural act of supporting life and having babies according to God’s plan, but we also have to bring others in.  We are growing, but if we each lived with the zeal of St. Peter and St. John, then I would need to add at least one more Mass because we had so many people joining the Catholic Church and our parish. 
    Yes, things are rough for the Catholic Church right now, and I don’t see them getting noticeably better any time soon.  Yes, some of us will support the work of spreading the faith by our prayers and attendance at Mass.  But most of us need to get involved in sharing the good news, or telling others why they should follow Christ and why they should be Catholic.  If we don’t share the seeds of the Gospel, they will become moldy.  But if we sow the seeds of the Gospel in the hearts and minds of those we encounter, they will bear fruit thirty, sixty, and one hundredfold.

Rules or Relationship?

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Some people view Catholicism as a set of rules, or maybe even a particular type of morality or ethics.  They hear the Church rightly say that one ought to do this, or ought not to do that.  They sense, whether from reality or from caricatures in popular culture, that being Catholic is all about going to Mass each Sunday, going to confession, saying the rosary, listening to the pope, not eating meat on Fridays, getting married in a church, not having sex outside of marriage, not contracepting, etc.  And those are all aspects of the way that a Catholic, every Catholic, should be living his or her life. 

    But, as Pope Benedict XVI said, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”  And the encounter that Pope Benedict mentions is not just a meeting, but really a falling in love.  That is why Jesus teaches us today in the Gospel that the greatest commandment is the two-fold love of God and love of neighbor.
    When we love someone, we love not only that person, but the things that he or she loves.  When we truly love someone, our affections change to better match that person’s.  Our life becomes not about us, but about the other.  We see this start to bloom even in adolescence when a boy starts to care more about the things that his crush likes.  I think I have mentioned this before, but that’s how I started listening to country music: a girl I liked listened to country, and I wanted to have something to talk to her about.  But the love of the other fully blossoms in marriage, where one’s life is not one’s own, but is inseparably joined to the other, intertwined at the deepest levels, and the importance of the other eclipses the importance of the self and one’s own desires. 
    God desires that we each have an encounter of love with Him.  God desires not that we simply know about Him (even the demons can do that), but that we love Him, that we give our heart to Him, that He becomes more important to us than we are to ourselves, and that the things He loves become the things we love, which are really what will make us happy, since God, as our Creator, knows exactly what will fulfill our human nature. 
    “‘The whole law and the prophets,’” says Jesus, “‘depend on these two commandments.’”  The phrase, “the whole law and the prophets” means the entirety of Scripture.  All of what God has revealed depend on love of Him and love of neighbor.  Every genuinely Catholic practice–every law, every precept, every commandment–needs to find its base in this two-fold commandment of love, or else it is built on sand.
    This may not always seem obvious.  What, we might ask, does giving up fish on Fridays have to do with love of God or love of neighbor?  Is it because I’m supporting the fish industry, and those who work in it are my neighbor?  Not entirely, though I suppose it is love of neighbor in that sense.  But much more deeply, God has revealed to us that our desires are not always in accord with His will or with the truth.  We want things we shouldn’t.  And in order to help train our wills and our bodies not to go astray, God tells us that we should give up good things to focus on that which is even better: not fish in se, but on growing closer to God through restraining our human desires, even the good ones, so that we can more easily say no to the desires that take us away from God. 
    Or consider going to Mass every Sunday and Holyday.  Can’t I love go through a screen on the TV or the computer?  Can’t I offer worship to God from my couch?  In a word, no; not in the same way.  Is FaceTiming your spouse the same as sitting with her at the table, holding her hand, smelling her perfume, seeing the radiance of her smile in person?  And God not only gives us His presence.  He enters into us through the Eucharist so that we are even physically united to Him.  You cannot have that watching the Mass on TV or via Live Stream.  Each time we stand, or sit, or kneel it is like we are dancing with God, our bodies moving this way and that based upon how the sacred liturgy is progressing.  And our encounter with God culminates in Christ giving Himself to us, giving us today the same sacrifice of some 2,000 years ago on the cross, though doing it not in an unbloody way.  True love of God wouldn’t want to miss out on that for the world.
    Love of neighbor follows from our love of God, because when we love someone we love the ones they love, and God loves all of His children, even the difficult ones.  As we grow in our love with God, we cannot help but love our neighbor.  And if we are not growing in love of neighbor, then it’s a good chance that we’re not really growing in our love of God.  It is as St. John says in his first epistle: “whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”  Any authentic growth in holiness means that we are growing in love of our neighbor.
    Yes, Catholicism has a lot of things that we do or don’t do.  Yes, it has its own morality.  But it’s not just dos and don’ts.  It’s not just a moral system.  Catholicism is a love story between the individual and God, and therefore also between the individual and God and those whom God loves.  If you name a teaching or a moral precept of Catholicism, it will find its way back to love of God and love of neighbor.  “‘The whole law and the prophets,’” and the whole exercise of our faith, “‘depend on these two commandments.’” 

For the Right Reasons

 Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When I started working out over a year ago, I did so at the suggestion of a friend, who encouraged me to lift weights in order to be healthier.  Along the way, around 9 months in, I was getting pretty frustrated because, while I had lost some weight, especially around my waist, I didn’t seem to be gaining muscle mass.  I had worked out for 9 months, and I didn’t have a chiseled body!  When I complained about this to my friend, he told me that lifting weights and exercising is a good unto itself, and shouldn’t be done just to make one look more toned.  I was doing all the right things, but I had started doing them for the wrong reasons.
    We hear this list in our first reading today about the things God wants us to do: feed the hungry; shelter the oppressed and homeless; clothe the naked; remove oppression, false accusation, and malicious speech.  And this seems to be backed up in our Gospel when Jesus tells us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  So we’ve got our list of things to do.  But, you can do all those things even if you’re not Catholic, even if you’re not Christian.  And I’m sure that there are a number of people who have left the Church over the years who have heard the message preached when they were younger about all the ways that they are supposed to love their neighbor, but mistakenly thought that they didn’t have to go to Mass, or believe in the Eucharist, or go to confession, or abstain from meat on Fridays, or not live with a significant other before marriage, or anything else that goes along with being Catholic.  You can almost hear the person asking why they need to do all those other things, as long as they are doing what Isaiah said in our first reading God wanted us to do.
    That person was like me: doing the right things but for the wrong reasons.  And that person probably heard the same message I did growing up: just love your neighbor and you will be good.  Bishops, priests, catechists, and all those who taught the faith had a tendency to boil the significance of being Catholic down to being a social worker or do-gooder.  And, to be clear, we are called to do those things.  But we do them, not because we earn our salvation by doing certain things, but as a result of our relationship with Christ.  
    St. Paul said in our second reading that he resolved to know nothing while he was with the Corinthians except Jesus Christ.  For St. Paul, knowing Christ (and not just knowing facts about Him) was the most important, and he wanted to pass on the message to the people of Corinth.  Everything in Paul’s life revolved around and was a result of his relationship with Christ.  His missionary zeal came because Christ called him; his sufferings were bearable because Christ was with him; his demonstrations of the Gospel came from the Holy Spirit, who was given by Christ.  But all of it was the consequence of St. Paul’s relationship with Christ, not a replacement for it.
    Being Catholic is not about being a do-gooder, or promoting a social program, or being a philanthropist.  Being Catholic is about being in a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, who saves us from sin and death, from which we cannot save ourselves.  Going to confession and Mass; abstaining from meat on Fridays; not living together before marriage; and all the moral teachings of the Church follow from being a disciple of Jesus Christ, because He has revealed to us the way to salvation and the means of true and lasting happiness.  They are not added on rules form old men who have nothing better to do with their time.  Those, and many others, are ways that we deepen our relationship with Christ and live a life like His (as St. Paul says, “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me”).  
    And as we become more and more like Christ, being obedient to the will of the Father, not only do we want to spend time with Him in adoration and in the Church, and mortify our bodies to help us say no to our fallen sinful nature and yes to the divine nature that God implants in us in baptism, but we also want to love the ones that Christ loves, and show that love in a variety of ways.  That love is shown by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and all the corporal works of mercy.  
    If we are truly becoming more and more like Christ, we cannot help but show that love by what we do.  Think of it like a marriage: if we truly love a spouse, then we show it.  But the things that we do are results and demonstrations of that love, not replacements for it.  A person can do all the things that a spouse would do, but if that person is not the spouse, it doesn’t have the same effect.

    Pope Benedict XVI, who should be canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church for his holiness of life, humility, and extremely insightful writings, once wrote in his Encyclical Deus caritas est, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”  Being Catholic is first and foremost about our relationship with Christ, which moves us to do certain things and avoid others.  As Catholics we serve others, not simply as a philosophy of service, but as the consequence of knowing and loving Jesus Christ.  Let’s not just do the “right things,” but do them for the right reasons.

Cut It Out

 VIII Day of the Octave of Christmas & Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  God, in calling Abram out of Ur in modern-day Iraq, said many amazing things to him.  We hear at the beginning of Genesis, chapter 12, that God tells Abram, “Go forth from your land, your relatives, and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.”  That, in itself, took a giant leap of faith.  Abram was being asked to leave the fertile crescent, the birth-place of civilization, as scholars call it, for an unknown land inhabited by unknown, and possibly hostile, people.  It’s hard enough for us to pack up our entire life and move to a different place.  Imagine doing it without having a home to which you were going, not knowing exactly where God was going to settle you (and whom you might have to dislodge to stay there), and doing it at the age of 75 years old.

    God also promised Abram, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”  Abram and Sarai (later Abraham and Sarah) were well past the childbearing years.  They had no children.  And yet God promised that he would make of them a great nation.  This must have seemed odd to them.  And yet Abram trusted in God to do the impossible.  This makes Abraham’s almost sacrifice of Isaac much later even more incredible.  God had finally given Abraham and Sarah a son, Isaac, and so perhaps they thought that becoming a great nation could actually happen.  But then God asks Abraham to sacrifice that son, that fulfillment of the promise, that promise of hope for the elderly couple.  And yet, Abraham is willing to do it (though God stays his hand at the last minute).
    Before that, in chapter 17, God appears to ninety-nine year-old Abram (who had conceived Ishmael with his slave, Hagar, but was still childless with Sarai), and says:
 

I am God the Almighty.  Walk in my presence and be blameless.  Between you and me I will establish a covenant, and I will multiple you exceedingly.  […] You are to become the father of a multitude of nations.  […] I will make you exceedingly fertile; I will make nations of you; kings will stem from you.  […] I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now residing as aliens, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God.  […] This is the covenant between me and you and your descendants after you that you must keep: every male among you shall be circumcised.  Circumcise the flesh of your foreskin.  That will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.

Luckily, Abraham was open to God’s will.  Because, put in his place, I think most men would have said, “You want me to do what?  To my what?”  
    And yet this was the sign of those who believed in and followed God.  And this sign of the covenant endured even to the time of our Lord, who, though He was the Lord of the covenant, was still joined to Israel by His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and His foster-father, St. Joseph, in a powerful way that united Christ to Israel as the People who belonged to God, the sons and daughters of Abraham.  Even for those who needed to be joined to Israel, this was a difficult sign.  Indeed, when the Bible talks about God-fearers, it speaks about those who wanted to become Jewish, but who had some issue preventing them from joining.  One can imagine that the thought of circumcision kept any number of adult men converts from becoming fully Jewish and part of the covenant.  God our Savior, who had no need to become part of the covenant, still underwent this sign.
    But the sign had a spiritual meaning in addition to the physical act.  The prophet Jeremiah prophesies: “Be circumcised for the Lord, remove the foreskins of your hearts, people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Or else my anger will break out like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of your evil deeds.”  Circumcision was a physical cutting away.  But God also intended it to be a spiritual cutting away of all that was fallen and of disobedience to God.  The covenant was not only to be part of one’s flesh, but also part of one’s heart, spirit, and soul.  
    Christ Himself, while He was subjected to the covenant as an infant, Himself established a new covenant in His Precious Blood, and a new sign of the covenant was given that had both a physical and a spiritual aspect.  That new sign was baptism.  The water washed one clean of original sin, but it also meant a washing away of all that is fallen from that point on.  It made men and women part of the new Israel, the Church, gathered from all the nations, as a people who belong to the Lord.  
    But think of the humility that Christ underwent in being circumcised!  He who is Lord of the Sabbath is certainly also Lord of the Covenant, and so is not bound to it.  But He allows the cutting of His flesh in anticipation of giving His flesh for the life of the world in His Passion.  He subjects Himself to the Law, though He is the Lawgiver.  And He does the same in His baptism in the Jordan, as John baptizes Christ, though John asks to be baptized by Christ.  
    This is a great model for us when it comes to humility.  How often do we bristle when we have to do something that we don’t think we should have to do?  How quick do we make known our importance, and how we think things should go?  But this is not the example of our Savior.  Like Abraham, Christ, the Son of Abraham, trusted in His heavenly Father, and went where the Father told Him to go, did what the Father told Him to do, and said what the Father told Him to say.  “Like a lamb,” Isaiah prophesied, “he was led to the slaughter, and he opened not his mouth.”  Yet, if we bear one unrighteous punishment, how quickly do we open our mouths to protest our own innocence?
    God does not call us to be doormats, but on the other hand, sometimes He allows the just to suffer unjustly for their own sanctity, their own growth in holiness.  The day after Christmas we celebrated St. Stephen, who was martyred though his only crime was to witness to the fact that Christ was the long-awaited Messiah.  The day after that we celebrated St. John, who, while not a martyr, was exiled to Patmos as a Roman punishment for following Christ; the day after that we celebrated the Holy Innocents, who could not even confess Christ with their lips, though they took His place with their deaths; the day after that we commemorated St. Thomas Beckett, who died at the hands of King Henry II for standing up for the rights of the Church.  These past days of the Octave haven been filled with witnesses who suffered unjustly.  Their witness should spur us on when we have to undergo sufferings much lighter than theirs.  

    I would also add Pope Benedict XVI to those who suffered unjustly, but utilized it for his own holiness.  He was often attacked in the media, was called “God’s Rottweiler,” despite his gentle and humble disposition, and suffered other attacks, simply for holding true to the unchanging teachings of the Church.  Yet I never remember him complaining once about those slings and arrows.
    God promised Abraham that he would become the father of kings and many nations.  Abraham remained faithful to God, even in hard times, even when the sign of that covenant meant the stripping away of flesh.  Christ subjected Himself to the Law, and paid the penalty for our sins, though He Himself was the Lawgiver and free from all sin.  What witness will we give through the new circumcision of the heart, holy baptism, by which we become united to God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

What We Offer to God

 Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    While the news has moved on to what it considers to be “juicier” stories, there was quite a bit of digital and literal ink spilled about the US bishops recently, who decided to write a document on our belief in the Eucharist.  Of course, the press focused on the political issues, especially with a baptized Catholic as president of the United States.  But the document that the bishops are drafting goes beyond Catholic politicians, and is meant to help teach us about the Eucharist.  Given that our next few weeks of readings will be focusing on the Eucharist anyway, I thought I would get a head start, and preach about the Eucharist.
    If you look at stats about how many Catholics actually believe what the Church teaches on the Eucharist, it’s pretty depressing (at least if you work for the Church).  From a survey taken in 2019 or so, I think it’s something like 33%.  That’s horribly low!  So the need is there.  I’ll try not to make this too academic, though.
    Before we get to the Eucharist in itself, we can look at what we’re giving God.  In today’s Gospel, the people are hungry, and Jesus wants to feed them.  But there’s only five loaves and two fish.  Still, God takes what the people has, miraculously multiplies it (this whole junk about sharing is trying to force a different message into this Gospel, rather than reading what the Gospel truly says), and then returns it to them.  And in our first reading, bread is brought to Elisha, who multiplies it for the people to eat.  So the people bring what they have and offer it to the Lord, who makes it enough for all who desire to eat.  
    At face value, what we offer for the Eucharist is bread and wine (aren’t you glad it’s not bread and fish??).  When we think of why we use bread and wine for the Eucharist, there is, of course, the reality that bread and wine were common items in Judea at the time of Jesus (and well before that, and well after that, as well).  Bread and wine were also already part of the sacrificial system of the Jews.  There was showbread, which was in the presence of the Lord in the inner temple.  And there were also libations, drink offerings, poured out to God.  So bread and wine were common, not only for food, but for sacrificing.
    But when we look at what we use for the Eucharist, there’s also the reality of how bread and wine are made, which also helps us understand something of why they are used for the celebration of the Mass.  Think of how bread is made.  For our Eucharistic bread, the hosts, it can only be made from flour and water.  Flour comes from wheat which is finely ground.  After baking the mixture of flour and water, we have unleavened bread.  
    Wine is made from grapes.  But you can’t just leave grapes on your counter and magically get wine (you’ll get raisins, I suppose).  You have to crush the grapes in a wine press, and let the juices ferment.  Then you get wine.
    In his 2006 homily on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, Pope Benedict spoke about the cooperation between God and humanity that is required to get bread and wine that we use in the Eucharist.  God has to provide the fertile fields, and even the water itself in order for wheat to grow.  But then we need to grind the wheat to make the flour.  God has to provide rain and sun for the grapes to grow on the vine, but then we have to press the grapes.  So what we need for the Eucharist is a cooperation between us and God, which is the original intent of God in the Garden of Eden: God and humanity working together to sanctify the world.
    Another text called The Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, which was written around the year 100, also says, “Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Thy Kingdom.”  The gathering of the different heads of grain is itself an image of the diversity of the human race coming together, and then being offered to God for Him to bless and transform it into something new.  
    But beyond the bread and wine that we offer, Jesus invites us to give all of who we are to Him, to allow Him to transform us into something new.  From the beginning, in the sacrificial system, humanity was invited to give God their all, represented by some earthly thing.  So we, as Catholics, are invited to give all of who we are, and unite it to the bread and wine offered by me on your behalf to God the Father through Christ the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.  We are invited to give God the good and the bad.  Did you have a horrible week, where nothing went right, where you lost friends or family, where the car broke down, where it rained every day on your vacation?  Offer it to God!  Did you have a great week, where you hit every green light when you were late, when your kids and grandkids visited, where you received an unexpected compliment or word of praise?  Offer it to God.  
    God wants all of it, the good and the bad.  He wants to transform it from something simply earthly, to something heavenly, like the Eucharist.  But He will not transform what we do not give Him.  If we do not give Him our life, the daily ups and downs, then they remain simply ours; they remain earthly and limited.  But if we give him what has happened since the last time we came to Mass, He will bless it, transform it, and return it to us as something that helps us draw closer to Him and experience the heavenly life.  
    The invitation has been extended.  Today, and at every Mass you attend, offer to God whatever you have, no matter how little you think it may be.  Let God transform your daily life, as He will shortly, through my ministry, transform the bread and the wine we offer Him, into the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Kenosis

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

    Usually for Palm Sunday, I contrast the beginning of Mass when we entered, waving palms, singing “Hosanna,” joyful in acclamation, and me wearing my very festive red cope, to the somberness that we get to by the Gospel, hearing the Passion narrative, and no longer singing “Hosanna,” but shouting, “Let him be crucified!”  But this year, there’s no waving palms, no singing “Hosanna” by the parish assembled here, no red cope.  #ThanksCOVID19.
    But it has pushed me to focus more on our second reading, from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians.  Bishop Barron notes that scholars hypothesize that this was an adaptation of ancient hymn or prayer that St. Paul was repeating to the people of Philippi, perhaps from only a decade or so after Jesus died and rose from the dead, as this letter was written by St. Paul sometime in the 50s.  And this part talks about Jesus emptying Himself, which is the crux (if you’ll pardon the pun) of this passage.  The beginning (“Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.”) leads up to Jesus emptying Himself, and the next verses describe the example (the how) and the consequences (the so what?) of Jesus emptying Himself (“taking the form of a slave…becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross…God greatly exalted him…every knee should bend…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”).  We talk about this emptying in theology by using the Greek word 𝜅𝜀𝜈𝜊𝜎𝜄𝜍. 
    Isn’t that what we heard about in the Gospel today?  Jesus emptied Himself through His Passion and Death on the Cross.  In modern phrases, we might say, Jesus “gave His all” or “gave 100%.”  But this was precisely a part of who Jesus is.  As the second Divine Person of the Blessed Trinity, Jesus, from all eternity, poured Himself out to God the Father, who, likewise, from all eternity, poured Himself out to God the Son, in a bond of love so strong that it eternally breathed forth the Holy Spirit.  And it’s who Jesus still is today; His emptying didn’t stop at the cross.  Jesus continues, for all eternity, to pour Himself out to the Father in that communion of love that I just mentioned.  
    We joke about people hoarding toilet paper, or panic buying in general, but hasn’t COVID-19 demonstrated the radical opposite focus of our lives?  Hasn’t it revealed a deep darkness in our world?  We, as members of the mystical Body of Christ, are not made for selfishness, for taking as much as we can, but for emptying ourselves for the other, for selflessness.  And yet, the selfishness of many parts of our culture are on display now more than ever.  When times get tough, the tough tend to only think of themselves.  It’s one thing to prepare in case a family is stuck at home for weeks on end.  It’s altogether different when those same supplies will be available week after week at the grocery store, to which we all can have access. 
    We are made for giving, even to the end.  And yet how many times are we afraid of giving ourselves?  Like any other virtue, selflessness has two extremes: too little, and too much.  We do have to take care of ourselves.  But more often than not, we’re not selfless enough, because we’re afraid that if we give ourselves away, we will lose something.  Maybe that goes for our marriage or family life.  Maybe that goes for work.  Maybe that goes for our relationship with Jesus.  We are afraid that if we give Jesus everything, then He might take something away that we like.  If we empty ourselves for Him, will He really empty Himself for us?
    Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI spoke about this to the youth in particular, but it applies to us all.  He said:

Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom? . . . No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return.
       
        During this Holy Week, following the example of Jesus, who emptied Himself for our salvation, who gave all of who He was, not only to God the Father, but “for us men and for our salvation” (as we say in the Nicene Creed), let’s also empty ourselves for God and for our fellow human beings.  What’s the result for us?  The same as it is for Jesus: when we empty ourselves, God greatly exalts us in Christ, and makes us sharers in the glory that is to come.  While we usually have on our lips “Hosanna” today, may this year’s struggles remind us today, this week, and every day, to also have another word in our minds and hearts, and on our lips: kenosis; emptying. 

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Solemnity of the Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Pius X Church
    Most of you are old enough (even I’m old enough!) to know the TV show that goes with these lyrics: “Making your way in the world today / Takes everything you got. / Taking a break from all your worries / It sure would help a lot. / Wouldn’t you like to get away? // Sometimes you want to go / Where everybody knows your name / And they’re always glad you came. / You want to be where you can see / The troubles are all the same. / You want to be where everybody knows your name.”  Of course, that TV show was “Cheers” (and now you’ll probably have that theme song stuck in your head).     
     But as we celebrate the Anniversary of the Dedication of this church, we celebrate not only the building, but what the building signifies, what it stands for, what it represents.  So many people find St. Pius X to be a kind, welcoming community, small enough where, at least at the Mass you go to, everybody does know your name, and generally they’re glad you came (we all have off days, right?).  St. Pius X is a smaller community, but it does encourage that sense of belonging and knowing the people at least who come to the same Mass, or join Bible studies, or volunteer together.
    And this building is celebrated because it is a foretaste of heaven.  In heaven, we are known better than we could ever be known here on earth.  Heaven is the place where God wants us to be, where He rejoices in our presence because He made us for heaven.  Heaven is that place where we take a perpetual break from our worries and troubles, basking in the love of the Trinity that brought all things into being, and sustains all things in being.  And this church is meant to remind us of that reality, and also to prepare us for that reality. 
    But sometimes we can get complacent about who is here.  We get so used to having the same people every week, that we can forget that, as people who are configured to Jesus in baptism, our mission is the same as Jesus’: to bring as many people as we can into the joy of heaven, the place where we are known and loved beyond all measure.  And before we know it, because we content with the people we have here, those people start to leave, as generations do, through changing jobs, or moving to be closer to family, or even death, until we’re a shell of the community we used to be.
    The way we used to keep parishes, the communities that gave us a foretaste of heaven, going was simply through baptism.  We conceived and birthed new members of our biological family that we also introduced into the family of God through baptism.  We lived the faith ourselves and shared it with our children, and that faith was also supported by the community.  But we no longer live in a world that supports faith, and we cannot rely on the osmosis of grace simply to do the work for us when we have children. 
    What Pope St. John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis have all encouraged us to do in the past forty years; what Bishop Boyea and our Diocesan Assemblies have encouraged us to do for the past ten years is not only to keep passing on the faith through baptism of our children, but also to bring in new people to the faith through our words and deeds.  Not pulling other Catholics into our parish from another Catholic parish, but reaching out to fallen-away Catholics, and reaching out to those who have no faith, and inviting them into this relationship with Jesus Christ where their name is known and people are glad they came. 
    Brothers and sisters, this doesn’t happen on accident.  This doesn’t happen by osmosis.  Sharing our faith only happens when we are purposefully doing it.  And if we’re not, we have to ask ourselves, why don’t I want someone to be in this community?  Why don’t I want to share with others a relationship with Jesus?  Are we afraid that it will make this place less of a home?  Are we afraid that Jesus cannot love other people without lessening His love for us?  If this is such a great community, which I know it to be, then why not invite others into that greatness? 
    St. Pius X church was consecrated on 23 September 1956, 63 years ago.  Priests, religious, and parishioners have worked hard to have this place be like “Cheers,” a place where you are known and loved, a place where you can offer your worries to God and be transformed by His grace, a place that anticipates that joy and peace and love of heaven.  Are we willing to invite others into this community?  Are we willing to invite others to the goodness that we have found here?  Do we really want others to have this foretaste of heaven?  Only you can answer that question, and the answer will be manifest in what you do.

Watching for Jesus to Return Together

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

So, ad orientem.  You’ve noticed that there have been no differences thus far.  But as I wrote in my bulletin, we’re only doing this for this weekend.  Still, the differences you’ll see are only during the Eucharistic Prayer.  But why ad orientem?  Is this simply another crazy Fr. Anthony idea?  Is it old stuff for the sake of old stuff?

For probably at least 1800 years, the Church celebrated Mass this way, and as my bulletin article says, there are hints that it’s still pre-supposed, as one of the instructions on the Mass will say, “”The Priest, turned towards the people…”.  But we celebrated Mass this way for a reason.  And that reason coincides with what we celebrate today: the Ascension of the Lord.  The Apostles, the Blessed Mother, and the disciples see Jesus ascend into heaven.  The site of Jesus’ Ascension is on a hill to the east (ad orientem) of Jerusalem.  And ever since then, we’ve been waiting for him to return.  This year, we celebrate 1,986 years of waiting for Jesus to return as He promised.  The orientation (which comes from a word that means east-facing) of the Church since Jesus left was looking for his return.  Honestly, that’s hard to do, especially after 1,986 years.  Nowadays, we get frustrated in the ten seconds it takes Siri to give us an answer.  We can forget that our Lord is coming back, “‘in the same way as you have seen him going to heaven,’” as the angel said in our first reading.

So our Mass has always reminded us that we’re waiting on Jesus.  Scott Hahn, a noted Biblical scholar and writer, speaks about how Tertullian, who lived form 160-220, already writes about Christians (and at that time there was really only one type of Christians, Catholics) facing east during our worship.  St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Basil the Great, and St. Augustine also all speak of this practice.  One of the early house churches in Syria, dating from 233, is arranged so that priest and people faced east, with an altar against the east wall.  St. John of Damascus in the 7th century also speaks of this practice.  

Scripture itself talks about the importance of the east.  In addition to our first reading, we can also look to Malachi, who prophesies Christ as the “Sun of Righteousness” (and the sun rises in the east); to Zechariah in the Gospel according to Luke who refers to Jesus as “‘the dawn from on high’” (and dawn comes from the east); and Jesus’ own words in the Gospel according to Matthew, who says, “‘For just as lightning comes from the east and is seen as far as the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.’”  

But all of these things point to the face that we’re waiting for Jesus to return from the sanctuary not made with hands, heaven itself, and restore not only Israel, but the new Israel, the Church.  And the way that we face reminds us in our worship of God to be ready for His return, to be like the wise virgins who are ready, or like the homeowner prepared at all times so that he is not robbed.  That’s why we’re doing this, for this weekend only.  

And there is something very unifying about this.  When I celebrate Mass facing you (as is common and allowed), it can seem like it’s a performance of sorts for you.  Your eyes probably naturally focus on me.  But if you notice, in order to highlight that we’re waiting for the Lord, I almost never look at you during the Eucharistic Prayer, unless I’m speaking to you.  I look towards the heaven, to God, whom I’m addressing most of the time during that holiest part of the Mass.  The common orientation can easily become a me versus you scenario.  When Mass is celebrated ad orientem, we are all united, facing the same direction, facing our Lord in the tabernacle and waiting for his return.  Yes, I’m still at the head of the assembly, leading us all to Jesus, but I’m also a part of you, not disconnected.

The common response is that my back is turned towards you.  But Pope Benedict XVI aptly wrote in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy, “The common turning toward the east was not ‘a celebration toward the wall’…it did not mean that the priest ‘had his back to the people’….  For just as the congregation in the synagogue looked together toward Jerusalem, so in the Christian liturgy the congregation looked together ‘toward the Lord’…They did not close themselves into a circle; they did not gaze at one another; but as the pilgrim People of God they set off for the Oriens, for the Christ who comes to meet us.”  Again, it all goes back to waiting for Jesus to return, to keeping our eyes fixed on him, to reminding us to be ready for the Second Coming.  

And this even remains uninterrupted in both Catholic and some Jewish cemeteries.  There is a large Jewish cemetery to the east of Jerusalem on the hill that leads up to the place of the Ascension.  It’s packed full, and it’s the prime cemetery, because the Jews also believe that the Messiah will come from the east of Jerusalem, and they want to be the first to greet him when he comes (of course, we know that He has already come, and will come again).  And in our own New Calvary Catholic Cemetery, and in every Catholic cemetery I’ve visited, when people are buried, they are facing the east, so that they can be ready to greet Jesus, the Dawn who comes from on high.  

But, as I mentioned, I have no plan to extend this practice here beyond this weekend.  And it’s not about turning back the clock, or about doing something traditional, and certainly not about turning my back on my people.  No, it’s about facing the Lord, being focused on him, and being ready for his return.  

Duc In Altum

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

One of my favorite saints has always been St. Peter.  No, I don’t want to be pope (being a pastor is enough responsibility for me!), but I like St. Peter.  He’s one of the great apostles of Jesus, who always has great things to say, unless he’s putting his foot in his mouth (as he also often does).  He is, we might say, very relatable.  I’d like to believe that I have had great moments of faith and trust in God (even if great is a sliding scale), but I also know that I have had my own outbreaks of foot-in-mouth disease.

And since I like St. Peter so much, today’s Gospel is one of my favorites.  It’s St. Luke talking about how St. Peter was called by Jesus.  St. Peter (still going by Simon at this point) is fishing all night and catching nothing (side note: have you ever noticed that St. Peter is never able to catch fish on his own?!?).  Then Jesus, who, from all outside views, knows nothing about fishing, tells him to go out again, and put into deep waters.  St. Peter begrudgingly does this, and then catches so many fish that he has to call his partners, James and John (who also became apostles), to help him drag it in.  St. Peter realizes that he is in the presence of someone special, someone great, and makes a confession of his own sinfulness.  Jesus tells him not to be afraid, because he will be catching men from now on.

When others hear this story, they sometimes ask me how I came to follow Jesus as a priest.  And certainly, all of our readings focus on calls: on the call of Isaiah to be a prophet; the call of St. Paul to preach the Gospel as the last apostle; and, as I mentioned, the call of St. Peter to follow Jesus as one, and the chief, of His apostles.  

Some priests I know have amazing stories like St. Peter of Jesus doing something great and spectacular in their lives.  But for me, that’s not the case.  As an eighth grader, I started thinking about what I wanted to do as an adult (so that I could concentrate on the right classes in high school, get into a good college in a field in which I wanted, and then get a good job).  If it were up to me, I wanted to be a lawyer, and then maybe go into politics.  I wanted to be married, have a few kids, a couple of dogs, and have lots of money.  But I knew that if I were going to be happy, I had to do what God wanted me to do.  So I started praying to God each night, asking Him to let me know.  And I heard nothing.  

So I started to go to daily Mass a few times at Lansing Catholic High School, and it was there that a stranger asked me if I were going to be a priest.  And other classmates and teachers started to do the same thing.  And before long, I started to realize that maybe God was asking me to consider a vocation to the priesthood.  I started to learn more about Catholicism, and fell in love with the Church, as one falls in love with his girlfriend.  And I decided that I wanted to give my life to serve her, just as a man decides (and hopefully the woman agrees) that he wants to give his life to serve the woman he wants to be his wife.  I applied to the seminary in my senior year through the Diocese of Lansing, and was accepted for my freshman year of college.  Each year I asked God to make it painfully clear if He didn’t want me to continue on.  And each year, I was asked to come back and continue studying to become a priest.  It wasn’t always easy; there were times where I thought (with the assistance of a rather attractive female lab partner) that maybe the priesthood wasn’t for me; but God did and has sustained me in my vocation.  God’s providential care for me has been more in the day-to-day events of life, not so much in the spectacular, like St. Peter.

But God knows what we need in responding to His call.  Some people don’t need the dramatic moments.  Some people do.  The key is that we are listening for the call of Jesus, and we respond with courage to the call of Jesus.  Because Jesus says to anyone who wants to follow Him, “Put out into deep water.”  In Latin that phrase is Duc in altum, and it was used by Pope St. John Paul II as he began his Apostolic Letter on the new millennium in 2001.  It was also a favorite of Bishop Mengeling, who told us seminarians not to dangle our toes in the water, but to put out into deep water.

Any vocational call–ordained ministry, marriage, consecrated life–and even while discerning God’s call, takes courage.  It takes faith in God, and confidence that He will show you the way.  As a priest it takes courage to serve when a very small percentage have tainted the good name of the priesthood, and it takes courage to say yes to never having a wife and a biological family of your own.  As a consecrated man or woman it takes courage to promise to not have any personal bank accounts and to be obedient to the religious congregation’s superiors.  As a married man or woman, it takes courage to commit to only being with one person in the special friendship of marriage for your entire life, to only be physically intimate with that person as long as that person lives.  Any vocation, and, again, even when trying to find out what God wants us to do, takes the courage to put out into deep waters and trust that God will not abandon us in those waters.

Many of you already have discerned your vocation here.  But some of you have not.  Be courageous in answering the Lord’s call, whatever it is, in your life.  Some of you may have spectacular calls like St. Peter.  Some of you will have more quotidian or ordinary calls like me.  But don’t be afraid to answer it.  Duc in altum!