Chosen

Resumed 6th Sunday after Epiphany
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In the epistle today, St. Paul talks about being chosen.  Some translations use the word elect.  In any case, the meaning is the same: God has selected us.  And for what or to what end has He selected us?  For salvation.  But we need to avoid the Calvinist position of double predestination, that God has chosen who will be saved and who will be damned.  Instead, with St. Augustine of Hippo, we say that God saves us with our cooperation, though He knows from all eternity who will accept the grace of God and cooperate with Him.
    What a great mystery!  God relies on us, in a limited sense, to save us.  Of course, the means of salvation is the sacrifice of Christ, which is re-presented for us in an unbloody manner on this altar.  Still, we can choose whether or not to accept the salvation that comes from that once-for-all sacrifice, not just at the time of our baptism, but throughout our life, and, indeed, each day!  
    One of my favorite authors, Romano Guardini, wrote about this in his great work, The Lord.  While meditating on John’s account of the High Priestly Prayer at the Last Supper, Guardini writes:
 

[The Apostles] are his.  Jesus has taught them his message and the name of his Father.  He has lost none of them but the son of perdition.  Not even the implacable passages of the Epistle to the Romans speak with such harshness of the law of grace and the inviolate sovereignty of that divine will which chooses as it pleases, giving those it has selected to the Son–leaving the others so far behind that the Son does not even pray for them.  We should hear these words often, and God grant us the fear without which we shall never enjoy salvation!  The more deeply we understand them, the more unconditionally we should fling ourselves on God’s mercy.  Autonomous, he [God] can choose whom he will; there is no such thing as a “right” to be chosen, but nothing on earth should hinder me from pleading: Lord, let me be among your chosen, and my loved ones, and all mankind!  Do not add: for I have done no real wrong.  If you are tempted to, fear for your chances.  Before this tremendous mystery it matters little whether or not you have done your duty, whether you are noble or base, possess this or that intrinsically important quality.  Everyone should do what he can; every value retains its value; but in the face of this overwhelming mystery, such things are no longer decisive.  You must know only this, but as profoundly as possible: that you are a sinner and lost.  In this knowledge fling yourself on God’s heart and say: Lord, will that I be chosen; that I am among those given to your Son never to be lost–my loved ones and I and all mankind!

It was a long quote, but worth the reading, as he captures both God’s divine will and our participation.
    As Catholics, we can say that we are chosen.  But not with arrogance or as laurels upon which to rest.  Because, as Christ said in the Gospel of John, we did choose Him, but He chose us.  In one sense, we might say that because many of our parents had us baptized.  But even for those who, as young adults or adults chose to become Catholic, that choice was only possible because God gave us the grace to accept Him.  Being Catholic cannot simply be a matter of the will.  It is an openness to God’s grace which He begins in us.  
    And why did Christ choose us?  John continues relating what our Savior said, telling us that those who are chosen are selected to go and bear fruit that will remain.  We aren’t chosen for our own sake, or because we are the wisest, strongest, most attractive, or those with the best genes.  We are chosen so that the world can be converted to Christ, so that humanity can be what God wanted it to be in the Garden of Eden, and, even better, what Christ died so that humanity could be.  Our election in Christ is not so much as badge, as a catalyst that stirs us to evangelical action.  
    And, as Guardini noted, everyone should do what he can.  True, the Apostles didn’t really get this at first, but once they had been filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, they realized that importance of sharing what Christ had done for them.  They received the courage from the Holy Spirit to share with others, often in simple ways, but sometimes in very profound ways, that life in Christ changes everything, and that one can find the happiness for which he was made, perhaps not on this earth, but after death in heaven.  
    And while we do not earn our salvation, St. Paul urges us in his epistle to the Philippians to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.  Why would we do that?  Only if we are not sure if we will be chosen in the end.  When we recognize that we are sinners and lost, then we seek to do what we can to show God that we should be chosen, not because we can merit it, but showing that we know we need saving, and that we are open to the salvation God wants for us.  

Msgr. Romano Guardini

    Guardini also reminds us that we should pray that we might be part of the chosen.  That prayer helps keep our election as not something that we take for granted, but something we seek each day.  This prayer to be chosen throws us on God’s mercy, which is the only way we can be chosen.  And it reminds us that being chosen means bearing fruit, and not being like the fig tree that was cursed because it would not bear fruit for the Lord.  
    Our election in Christ is a reason to give thanks.  But it is also an impulse to spread the Gospel.  Our election is made at baptism, but it is a gift that we can accept or reject each day.  Lord, will that we be chosen; that we be among those given to your Son never to be lost–my loved ones and I and all mankind!  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Lord, It's Hard to Be Humble

 Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    There certainly is a country song for every occasion and situation, and as I read over this weekend’s readings, one came to mind called, “It’s Hard to Be Humble.”  When I first heard Willie Nelson singing it, someone I know comes to mind.  I have to adapt the lyrics a little to make them fit for church, but the refrain goes, “Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble/ When you’re perfect in every way. / I can’t wait to look in the mirror / Cause I get better lookin’ each day. / To know me is to love me. / I must be a [heck] of a man. / Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble/ But I’m doin’ the best that I can.”  The someone I thought of isn’t really that bad, but it does bear some resemblance at times, and brings a smile to my face.
    Humility is an often unpracticed and misunderstood virtue.  It sounds good when it’s encouraged by Tim McGraw in his song, “Humble and Kind,” but then we get busy with daily life, and we default to "My Way” by Frank Sinatra.  
    Often times we think of humility as putting ourselves down.  We may think we need to pretend that we’re not good at something, or don’t have particular gifts.  But that is not humility.  Humility is the acknowledgment of the truth, not the hiding of truth.  Romano Guardini, a great German Catholic author form the mid-twentieth century, wrote that St. Francis of Assisi kneeling before the pope was not an act of humility, but of honesty.  But St. Francis kissing the leper because he saw Christ in that leper was a great act of humility.
    Humility is also not puffing ourselves up, or lording who we are or what gifts we have over others.  When we think about bragging, we don’t think of that as an example of humility, and rightly so.  We sometimes also use the word arrogant as an antonym of humility.  
    Getting back to music, pride, another opposite vice to humility, is precisely expressed in the song, “My Way.”  Pride is a turning in on oneself, an elevation of the ego, an exaltation of one’s personal desires and wants over that of others.  Pride considers others, but only inasmuch as they promote the self or advance the desires of oneself.  Others exist only as pawns to be used.  Rarely does a person operate solely out of pride; we often do think of others, not just as they help us or provide for what we want, but also because they are good and we want to affirm that goodness.  But you often don’t have to dig far to find pride lurking around the corner, or coloring what can even look like selfless generosity.
    We might try to excuse pride by saying that it allows us to get things done.  Jesus taught us today that the meek (a synonym for the humble) will inherit the earth.  But we don’t usually see that.  Those who inherit the earth–power, prestige, land, etc.–are those who seek their own plans, who make sure that they rise to the top, even if it means climbing over others.  Those who do it their way seem to get their way more often than not, while the humble and kind are left behind with the scraps and to pick-up the pieces.  
    So how can we understand humility?  How can we understand meekness?  We have to examine things not from an earthly point of view, but from a heavenly one.  We need not look with the shortsighted vision of a decade, a century, or even a millennium, but with the view of life that never ends.  If all we do is work for ourselves, elevate ourselves, hold on to ourselves, then what happens when the self falls away at death?  Sure, we may have some lasting legacy of buildings constructed or other groups or peoples conquered, but what good is that when we’re standing naked before the throne of God?  When God judges us, as He will for all of us, what remains is what was rooted in God, not what was rooted merely in us.  That is why St. John of the Cross can say that, at the end of our lives, we will be judged on our love.  We will be judged on whether or not we participated in God, because all that is connected to God will last, because God is infinite.  While all that is simply earthly will pass away, because we, and everything connected to earthly existence, is finite.  
    True happiness, beatitude, we might say, is putting things in right order, with God first, others second, and consideration of ourselves and our desires last.  That is true humility, when we don’t seek to have the universe revolve around us, but to participate in the reality which God has set before us.  We can practice true humility by not considering ourselves first when making a decision, but taking our desires and considerations to God, and then thinking how those desires, considerations, and choices will affect the people around us.  Sometimes we may have to make decisions that help us get ahead in life–maybe get a better job or enjoy certain benefits–but are we doing things only for our own good, or to help contribute to the good of others and the building up of society, not to mention, is it what we understand God’s will to be.  
    Because of our fallen nature, which seeks its own good first, rather than God’s will and the good of others, it can be hard to be humble.  But can we commit to doing our best to be part of God’s plan and support others, rather than putting ourselves first and making others pawns in the games that we’re playing?  Can we do our best to be humble and kind?

"The Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity"

 Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

Calvary, where Jesus died

    “But the Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity.”  As we come to this Good Friday that was, at its face value, anything but good, this line can echo in our hearts and minds.  “But the Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity.”  Why?  Why was God the Father pleased to crush Jesus?  Why let Jesus undergo the cruel agony of the crucifixion: the unspeakable pain as nail pierces flesh; the utter humiliation of being naked on the cross; the gasps for breath as His lungs filled with fluid?  This seems too cruel for the one Jesus told us would run out to meet us when we had been prodigal, wasteful, with our inheritance; for the one who goes after the one sheep who has gone astray while leaving the other ninety-nine.  It almost seems sadistic.  
    We have no doubt that this was the Father’s will.  How can we be so sure?  Because it happened.  God the Father never allows anything to happen that is outside His will.  We hear this in the Gospel of John time and time again, when the authorities want to arrest Jesus, but He always seems to slip past them, until the Garden of Gethsemane.  Perhaps it wasn’t God’s original plan.  The great Catholic author and liturgist, Msgr. Romano Guardini, speculates that the desire of God was for the Chosen People to accept Jesus as the Messiah, in which case perhaps God could have saved us in another way.  But God, who stands outside time and could see what would happen because it is as the present to Him, knew that Jesus would be rejected, and would have to die the terrible death we enter into today.
    But why?  We can know that God allowed it, but the question still remains.  Why?  The only answer to that question is that God loves us.  We heard it in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He sent His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but might have eternal life.”  God’s love for us was so strong, that not even the threat of annihilation could hinder it.  We know Jesus struggled in His human nature, as anyone would, to embrace what looked like defeat, and what was certainly going to be painful.  But Jesus, the Icon of the Love of the Father, could do nothing other than express that Love which He is by the shedding of His Precious Blood, the Blood of a truly unblemished Lamb.  
    Did we deserve love?  No.  A million times no.  But God loved us anyway.  How many times had we broken our covenant with God at the point of the crucifixion?  How many times would the members of God’s Church continue to break it afterwards?  And yet, God loved us anyway.  We all have been the unfaithful spouse in the marriage covenant with our Divine Spouse.  But God did not divorce us; He didn’t walk away.  He loved us more, giving not just His exhortations and example to return to that love, but even giving His Blood, even giving His last breath out of love for us.  As the hymn sings, “What wondrous love is this!”
    What is our response to that love?  What is our response to that gift of all gifts, the gift that can never be fully repaid, a gift which we have no right to receive, but which God offers us anyway?  If your husband brought home a winning Powerball ticket worth hundreds of millions of dollars, what would be your response?  If your wife told you that she had just inherited a Caribbean island with a mansion, the plane to fly there, with unlimited fuel to power the plane, and unlimited food and drink, what would be your response?  This gift is better than both of those combined, times infinity.  
    And yet, we still cry out–by our lack of love towards each other, by our spiteful words, by our lack of desire to spend time with Jesus, by our disobedience to God’s law–“Crucify him!  Crucify him!”  We still pound in those nails each time we sin.  We still pierce His side when we decide that something, anything, is better than spending time with Jesus in the Mass just for one hour once or twice per week.  
    “But the Lord was pleased to crush him in infirmity.”  God the Father knew, as only He could, that this was the only way for salvation to truly be accomplished.  This was the only way to prove just how much He loves us.  And though the cost was great; though the agony was beyond that of any other person, since no other person was Life Incarnate; though all but a few gave in to cowardice and wouldn’t even be with Him in the last moments, God the Father allowed His Son to die; Jesus willingly, lovingly accepted death.  As we come to venerate the Cross: remember what Jesus did for love of you; remember how you have led Jesus here; remember the love we have rejected by our sins.
    But also remember: God loves us anyway.

Facebook Friends with Jesus

Fifth Sunday of Easter

            Stay connected: that’s what social media says it can do for you.  It tells you that if you use the site, then you can keep track of all your friends’ (and general acquaintances’) birthdays, see what they are up to, rejoice in their triumphs, weep with them in sorrow, and stay connected. 

            And yet, the social fabric of our society is very disconnected.  You can have 700 friends on Facebook, and not really have anyone with which to share truly personal details.  You can follow hundreds of people on Twitter, read all of their accomplishments, sing along with their mopey song lyrics after a break up, and retweet their hilarious messages, and not truly have a real relationship with that person.  Now don’t get me wrong: I have no problem per se with Facebook, Twitter, or social media.  But, what I have noticed is that as much as social media says that it connects people, there are way too many people who feel adrift, without a true friend in the world.

            So when Jesus tells us today in the Gospel, “‘I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,’” our idea of staying connected to Jesus might be a little skewed.  After all, we’ve liked that picture on Facebook that says, “If you share this picture with your friends, Jesus will acknowledge you in heaven,” and we’ve retweeted the tweet that says, “Retweet if you love Jesus; keep scrolling if you love Satan.”  So we’re connected to Jesus, right? 

            Jesus reminds us that, “‘Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless your remain in me.’”  Our life, especially our spiritual life, depends on our attachment to Jesus.  If we are connected, then we bear fruit.  If we are separated, then we die, just as a branch connected to the vine bears grapes, while the braches that have been separated from the vine die and are good for nothing other than fuel for the fire. 

            More and more as a society, we don’t know how to be connected with each other.  We try to fake it and take the easy way out.  We’re so busy, either with our own schedules, or those of our family, that we are losing the ability to stay in touch with each other, even when it’s our own families.  How long has it been since you had a nice, Sunday dinner, where you sat around the table and just spent time with one another: hearing about what’s going on, sharing jokes and funny stories, supporting each other in hard times?  Some families still do, and they tend to be happier families.  Too often, though, there’s a game on Sunday, or work to be done, and if the family eats at home, it’s whenever each person wants, not together, and is usually enjoyed while watching TV, so there’s no real conversation.  We run around, and get fast food, and are experts at doing lots of things.  But we have become novices at simply being together, which accounts for the deep feelings of loneliness and separation that exist, especially among our youth.

            And because we don’t know how to be connected in our human relationships, we also are lost in how to be connected in our spiritual relationships.  More and more people come to me and say, “Father, I feel like God has abandoned me.  I can’t feel anything from God.”  For some, this is due to the fact that they do not know how to be connected to God, other than the shallow connections that are as ubiquitous as the dandelions in a field of grass this time of year.  So let me suggest a few ways to be connected to Jesus.

1.     Carve out daily time for God.  We’re all busy, I know.  I often feel like I’m running from one thing to another.  But, I have found that the more I am able to set aside blocks of time: 30 minutes here, 5 minutes there, 15 minutes there, the more I can respond to the spiritual needs of the parish, because I am more connected to the vine, the life, the wisdom, the patience that comes from God.  Just like an iPhone, which cannot work very long without connecting the tether to an outlet, so our souls cannot be refreshed unless they are connected to God in daily talking and listening with Him.

2.     Follow the commandments.  In our second reading, St. John tells us that the way we know we belong to the truth—Jesus—is that we keep His commandments.  Do we follow the 10 Commandments, and the precepts of the Church?  Do we strive to live an honest life, putting God first, others second, and ourselves last?  And when we fail, as we all will, then return to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to be re-grafted onto the vine of life.

3.     Enjoy Mass.  Now, you might think this is outside of your control.  Maybe you don’t like the homily; maybe you don’t like the music; maybe the pew’s not as relaxing as you would like; maybe you can’t stand that young priest.  But, while we can’t control the homily, the music, the pews, or the priest, we can come to Mass thanking God that we can set aside time to rest and relax in Him.  We can come to Mass at least 5 minutes early for silent prayer, and not leave Mass immediately after communion, rushing off to the next event, but make time to be with the Lord.  Vatican II taught that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life.  It is where we get our energy to be Christians and it orients us, if we are open, to the eternal liturgy of heaven where the angels and saints (and hopefully someday we will be saints) worship God.

4.     Read your monthly copy of FAITH Magazine, or check out or download a spiritual book, like The Lord by Romano Guardini, or Story of a Soul, by St. Thérèse of Lisiuex, or Peace of Soul by Archbishop Fulton Sheen, or To Whom Shall We Go? by Timothy Cardinal Dolan, or another Catholic book.  The soul is not separate from the body, and so feeding our mind with spiritual reading also feeds our souls. 

We live in a disconnected world.  We are so busy doing things with other people or for other people, that we have forgotten how to simply be with other people, including Jesus.  And no matter how many friends we have on Facebook; no matter how many followers we have on Twitter, we are not going to feel whole, to feel connected, unless we are united to Jesus the Vine.  Take time to spend with each other.  Make time for Jesus.  It will be the best investment you will ever make.  

Silent Night

Nativity of the Lord, Mass at Midnight

            I’ve mentioned before my deep love of the book The Lord by Romano Guardini, and it is the third chapter in book 1 that I reference tonight.  Guardini, writing in 1937, mentions in that chapter that in the Mass (what we would now call the Extraordinary Form), the words of the Book of Wisdom help to guide the feast: “‘For while all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her course, thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne…’”  He continues, “The passage, brimming with the mystery of the Incarnation, is wonderfully expressive of the infinite stillness that hovered over Christ’s birth.  For the greatest things are accomplished in silence—not the clamor and display of superficial eventfulness, but in the deep clarity of inner vision; in the almost imperceptible start of decision, in the quiet overcoming and hidden sacrifice…The silent forces are the strong forces.”

            We are here, in the midst of the silence of this sacred night, recalling an event that took place almost 2,000 years ago in the silence of the night in Bethlehem, which forever changed human history, whether you believe in Jesus or not.  As Christians we date time from this moment: everything which came before is BC—Before Christ.  Everything which took place afterwards is in AD—Anno Domini, the Year of the Lord.  Even those who wish to separate our dating of time from Christian belief, who use the term BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (the Common Era), still point to the time when Jesus was born in the manger, in the silence of the night.

            The greatest things happen in silence.  The silent forces are the strong forces.  These words are no less true today than 75 years ago when Guardini wrote them.  The greatest things do happen in silence.  In silence the world was forever changed, not by some king, but by the King of kings; not by one who came to be served, but one who came to serve and give His life as a ransom for many; not by a strong, handsome adult, with thousands of Facebook friends, but by a child: a weak, helpless child, laying in a manger, surrounded by His Blessed Mother, His foster-father, and the animals of the stable. 

            But, as Isaiah prophesied, “upon his shoulder dominion rests.  They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.”  Do not let his lowly birth fool you.  Do not scoff at his humility.  For the child that the shepherds came to adore: the child who was helpless in His mother’s arms, is the Almighty God who created the heavens and the earth.  That little child caused a bush to burn without being consumed, split the Red Sea in two so that the Chosen People, His people, could escape from the Egyptian army.  This child is weak, but He is no weakling.  He is mild, but He smashes the yoke of slavery that burdened us and tramples underfoot the evil serpent, Satan, crushing his head.

            That power, that glory, did not come with human activity: the decorating, the hurrying about, the shopping, the partying, but was announced only by angelic hosts to the shepherds in the fields, who heard them say, “‘I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  For today, in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.’”

            So why come here now?  Why come to this church in East Lansing?  Why come each Sunday back to the Mass which, even given our new translations, does not really change that much?  Why come in the midst of this dark, cold night to hear familiar carols being sung?  We can do that at home, listening to the radio!

            We come, in the dark, silence of this night, and each and every Sunday because He who was born in Bethlehem, the city of David, the “house of bread,” as the name Bethlehem means in Hebrew, because Jesus Christ is born again for us in this Mass: not as a child, but under the appearance of bread and win.  His most holy Body and Blood adorn not a manger, but this altar.  He is surrounded on earth not by His Blessed Mother and foster father, but by His mothers and brothers and sisters, those who do the will of His heavenly Father, as He tells us in Sacred Scripture.  This holy night, this night divine, in the silence, broken only by the words of the priest saying those same words that Jesus spoke—“Take this, all of you, and eat of it;” “Take this, all of you, and drink from it”—Jesus Christ is made present to us today and at every Mass sacramentally just as He was made manifest to the shepherds 2,000 years ago in the stable in Bethlehem.  We get the greatest gift of Christmas, the gift of being able to receive the same Jesus into us that the angels proclaimed in the heavens. 

            “Beloved: The grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people as his own, eager to do what is good.” 

            “‘For while all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her course, thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne…’”  In the silence of this night Jesus Christ unites His Divine nature to our human nature, not just in the remembrance of His Nativity, but in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.  O come, let us adore Him: Christ the Lord.

The Sound (and Power!) of Silence

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            “How does God speak to you?”  It’s a question I get asked a lot, especially when talking about my discernment to become a priest.  “How did you know, Father, that God was calling you to be a priest?  Did you hear a voice?”  We want to know how God communicates to us, to see if He is communicating with us.

            We have three paradigms for divine communication in today’s readings.  I usually work towards the Gospel in preaching, but this time I’m going to go from the Gospel to the first reading.  And each reading contains ways that God communicates to us.

            In our Gospel, Jesus speaks to the disciples in the boat, as I am speaking to you.  But whereas many of us probably think that if God were to speak to us, we would clearly understand what He was saying and do whatever He asked, this isn’t true with the disciples.  They have been with Jesus for some time, hearing Him preach, watching Him heal the sick and possessed.  And yet, when Jesus appears, walking on the sea, they figure that it’s a ghost.  They do not recognize Jesus.  Peter, to ascertain Jesus’ identity, asks Jesus to command Peter to walk on water.  And when St. Peter does, but then falters, it is Jesus who picks him up and helps him back into the boat.  In this way, we see two ways that Jesus speaks to us: in the first way, He speaks to us in the same way that I am speaking with you now, so that we can hear His voice.  But what is surprising is that, just like the disciples, we don’t always recognize the voice of Jesus even when it’s a voice.  Secondly, Jesus speaks through His care for the disciples.  When Jesus rescues Peter from drowning, He is communicating through His actions that He will never allow Peter to sink amidst the crashing waves.  We see in this the foreshadowing of Jesus’ protection of His Church, sometimes referred to as the Barque or Boat of Peter, which is not allowed to sink in the storms of world events.

            The second paradigm is in St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans.  St. Paul says, “I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie.”  God speaks to us through His apostles, those whom Jesus called and sent out to build up and oversee the Church.  The bishops, as successors to the apostles, when speaking on matters of faith or morals speak “the truth in Christ.”  To them is given the charism, when they are united to the Pope, to teach what belongs to the faith infallibly.  Just as St. Paul says elsewhere, “It is not longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,” the bishops are given the grace to teach, not by their own authority, but with the authority of Christ on matters of faith and morals.  If we want to hear God speaking about what we must believe, and how we must live to as to be faithful to Christ, we can look to the bishops, the successors of the apostles, to hear the voice of God.

            The last paradigm from our readings comes from the first reading, and is a very powerful way that God communicates.  We hear the inspired author tell us that Elijah, the greatest prophet in all the Old Testament, did not hear God in the heavy winds, nor the earthquake, nor the fire.  No, Elijah heard the voice of God in the whisper heard in the silence.  This voice was so powerful, that Elijah, who had called down fire from the heavens to consume the oblation, offered to the true God to shame the prophets of Baal, had to hide his face because He heard God in the silence.

            Silence is a very powerful expression of God’s voice.  It is in silence that the great things of God happen.  When God created the universe, He did so in silence.  In the silence of meditation, according to most artistic renditions, Mary heard the Archangel Gabriel tell her that God had called her to be the Mother of the Son of God.  And in the silence of the night, the Word-Made-Flesh came to be known by us as He was born in Bethlehem.  In fact, in the extraordinary form of the Mass, what some call the Tridentine Mass, part of the Liturgy includes a prophecy from the Book of Wisdom about the Incarnation.  Romano Guardini quotes it in The Lord, his meditation on the life of Christ: “‘For while all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her course, thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne.’”  Likewise, the Resurrection happens in the silence of the early morning, when the guards are asleep and no one expects Christ to rise from the dead.

            In our days, however, we manage to cut out as much silence as possible.  Are we afraid of being alone with God?  Are we afraid of what God would say?  The answer is probably as diverse as the number of people here.  I bet that if I remained silent for a long period of time during the Mass, we would try to find ways to break the silence: thumbing through hymnal pages, reading the bulletin, looking around to others.  But we need silence.  My practice is to always give up the radio and music during Lent so as to allow more time for God to speak to me in His power.  But we don’t just need silence in Lent.  We need it all throughout the year. 

            We’re taught in seminary that every homily (at least the good ones) should have a practical way to apply the readings to life.  Today we’ll apply this teaching by taking some extended time of silence, first after my homily, and then after the reception of Holy Communion.  Listen to God during this time.  Don’t just make it a time of doing nothing, but make it a time of active listening to the whisper of God, heard only in the silence.

"The Lord" and Humility

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

            One of my favorite spiritual books is The Lord by Romano Guardini, a German monsignor who was born in 1885 and died in 1968.  The Lord is his meditation on Scriptures, and is a very rich and deep reflection on the life of Jesus Christ.  I would encourage all those here in high school or older to read it.

            One of the chapters in the book is on humility, the virtue that we hear about in our readings today.  Humility is a very misunderstood virtue, and Guardini first seeks to clarify the word.  He writes, “We use it to describe someone who bows to the grandeur of another; or who esteems a talent that surpasses his own; or who appreciates without envy another’s merit.  That is not humility but honesty.  […] When St. Francis knelt at the throne of the Pope it was not an act of humility (since he believed in the papal dignity) but only of verity; he was humble when he bowed to the poor.  Not as one who condescends to help them, or whose humanitarian instinct sees in every beggar a remnant of human dignity, but as one whose heart has been instructed by God flings himself to the ground before the mystery of the paltriness as before that of majesty.”  Humility is the virtue, the secured habit, whereby we lower ourselves with whatever greatness we might have, to another person’s need and want and baseness.

            We might think of humility when we assist the poor: when we who have such great resources spend time and donate food, money, clothing, or other goods to those who do not have such great resources.  Certainly this parish community in East Lansing is known for its generosity to the poor.  But why do this?  We can fall into the traps that Romano Guardini mentioned: condescension, whereby we pretend to debase ourselves and do the poor a favor by spending time with them or giving them something; or simply a humanitarian instinct, whereby we realize that we are all human beings, with dignity because we are created in the image and likeness of God, and therefore we should help each other. 

            While it is true that we all do share a common dignity through our being created in the image and likeness of God, this is not the virtue of humility.  That would be more of the virtue of solidarity.  No, humility seeks to lower ourselves without losing any of the greatness which is ours: both actually lived out, and that greatness that we only have in potential.

            We see the virtue of humility most perfectly in Jesus Christ.  When the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became a man, he did not condescend to us, in the sense that He pretended to be nothing more than one of us.  Rather, He comes down to us to dwell with us without losing any of His divine greatness.  He humbles Himself.  And so, in our Gospel, when Jesus talks about going to the lowest place at the table, He is simply telling us what He has done.  He is the guest at the table of God the Father, and Jesus goes to the lowest place, to earth, and even to the very abode of the dead in His passion, but brings His greatness even there.  As St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians, “Jesus did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at.  Rather, He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of man.”  Jesus did not abandon His divinity when He became incarnate, but neither did He claim any privileges while on earth because of it.  He, of all persons, had the right to claim the highest place and remain there.  But, He humbled Himself, and allowed God the Father to call Him up to the head of the table, at the right hand of the Father.

            And so, when the author of the book of Sirach, Jesus, son of Eleazar, son of Sirach, tells us to “conduct your affairs with humility, and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts.  Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God,” we listen to his words because we see them practiced in a most perfect way by Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man.  God favors humility because God is the source of humility and the summit of humility. 

But His humility is not limited to the Incarnation.  Jesus, from all eternity, was pouring Himself out to the Father, giving all that He is, with the exception of His identity as the Son.  And so the Incarnation was simply a continuation of that. 

But the Incarnation is not the end of Jesus’ humility.  Even now, as He sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven, Jesus continues to humble Himself, by allowing bread and wine to be changed into His body and blood at this altar, and letting Himself, the infinite God, be received into us, mere finite humans.  To paraphrase our second reading today, “We have approached Mount Zion, and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal fathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.” 

In this Eucharist, we are allowed to come to the antechamber of heaven.  While what we can see seems earthly, the reality we approach is the Wedding Feast of the Lamb from the Book of Revelation, where all the angels and saints are present, adoring the Lord, the judge of all.  We have come to the sacrifice where the Lord of All humbles Himself to be received by us.  So then, let us approach with honesty, mindful of the greatness that God brings down to us sinners.  And as we serve the poor, let us not do so because it simply provides physical needs for others, but in imitation of Jesus Christ who gave us of His greatness and riches, so that we, who were poor because we were separated from God, could become rich and be called to a higher place.  As long as we simply give because “it’s the right thing to do,” then we are no different from those who do not know Christ.  But, if we give because we are trying to live out in our lives the great humility of Jesus, then we will be witnesses of true humility first shown to us by Jesus.