What Heaven Requires

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

    There are definitely a few extended family members of mine that think, quite incorrectly, that just because I am a priest and they are related to me, they will automatically go to heaven.  Sometimes people joke about that, but I’m pretty sure some of my extended family members are quite serious.
    There are also probably large amounts of people who think that, as long as you’re not Hitler or Stalin, then you can go to heaven, too.  We presume Hell is only for those who are the worst of the worst, and that you have to do something horribly evil even to be considered for Hell.  In contrast to that, Jesus says in today’s Gospel that “many…will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough” to go through the narrow gate.  It’s not even enough to have dined with Jesus and listen to His teaching.  There is something more that is required. 
    We honestly don’t know much about what exactly it will take for us to go to heaven.  Jesus didn’t give us a list to check off or leave blank, and if we get everything done, and don’t do any of the things on the naughty list, then we’ll get in.  We do know that the ordinary way of preparing to go to heaven is through baptism.  But even that is simply a beginning to our salvation, not the end.  We also know that part of our judgment is how we treated Jesus by the way we treated the least of His brothers and sisters (see Matthew 25, and the parable about the Rich Man and Lazarus).  But even in those accounts, there is surprise: surprise by those who cared for Jesus when He was in need; surprise by those who didn’t care for Jesus when He was is need; surprise by the Rich Man who enjoyed a pleasant life on earth, but then ended up in Hell. 
    I think part of our issue is that we often view heaven like becoming an Eagle Scout: if I get all the right merit badges by the time I die, then God has to give me the reward.  Instead, I believe the Lord, in today’s Gospel, is inviting us to view our path to heaven in a similar way to a marriage.
    After all, a good, happy, and holy marriage is not about doing this and not doing that.  Certainly there are things you should do, and things you shouldn’t do.  Do remember your anniversary and your spouse’s birthday; don’t have an affair.  Do things that your spouse will appreciate; don’t verbally or physically abuse your spouse.  Do things that make your spouse’s life easier and more enjoyable; don’t treat your spouse like you would treat a maid or butler.  And the list goes on. 
    But, the loving husband (the image that comes easiest to me as a guy; but ladies, just flip it around for yourselves as a loving wife) isn’t checking-off the boxes of things that need to be done.  He anticipates his beloved’s needs and wants, and does his best to fulfill them.  He prioritizes his wife above everything other than God, and shows that priority by the way he works, the way he takes time off, the words he says to her, the things he does for her, the way he loves their children, etc.  The couple who has been happily married for 50 years didn’t get there by only having a great wedding and celebration, or only doing the things that were the bare minimum for the relationship.  The happily married couple was always looking for new ways to grow in their love for each other and express it in word and deed.
    Is that how we view our relationship with God?  Because heaven is simply being with God forever, and God will not force us to be with Him if we don’t want to be.  If we’re not in love with God, then we may find the teaching that skipping Mass without a good reason (and no, sports is not a good reason) could lead you to Hell very difficult.  But if we love God, we work the rest of our day, even our recreation, around Him, because we want to spend time with Him.  If we’re not in love with God, then following the Church’s teaching to not use artificial contraception is going to seem “out of touch.”  But if we love God, we see that the sexual act has a meaning given to it by God, and when we go against that meaning, we do not express love in the way God wants us to express it. 
    The key that Jesus gives us today, it seems to me, on how to get to heaven is precisely about if we showed our love for Him by following Him.  It wasn’t simply about being the Chosen People; people “from the east and the west and from the north and the south” would be entering the kingdom of God because they fell in love with God and made Him the most important part of their life.  I think Jesus would say to us that it’s not simply about being a baptized Catholic, or going through the motions of what our faith requires (hearing the teachings of Jesus, getting the right sacraments, and making sure to avoid the big sins).  It’s about being in love with Him and letting that love be manifest by the choices we make in our home, in our office, in our recreation, in our voting, and in every aspect of our life.  Listen to the words of the Letter to the Hebrews: “Make straight paths for your feet.”  Set out for heaven, not as a task to be accomplished with certain actions to be avoided, but as the final destination of a heart transformed by the love of God which seeks to grow ever more deeply in love with the One who first loved us.

Familiarity with Jesus

 Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time-St. Pius X
    Apparently phrases that I have heard used and have used myself are now a bit dated.  I was shopping with a friend at Home Depot, and we couldn’t find everything we needed.  But he had found one of the things he needed.  So he was wondering out loud if he should buy the part at Home Depot, or put it back and hope that the next hardware shop had it.  I said, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” and he looked at me like I was speaking in a foreign language.  At the same time, a Vietnam vet was walking by and said that he hadn’t heard that phrase in a long time.  Perhaps it is a bit old.  

    We’ve probably all heard the cliché phrase, “Familiarity breeds contempt.”  And that’s what we see going on in the Gospel today.  Jesus is teaching in the synagogue in his home town, and people are shocked at the authority with which He is speaking.  And they write Him off, because he’s just a local boy, the son of Mary.  
    Now this isn’t like other local boys.  In my home town, people know what I was like before I was a priest.  I wasn’t bad, in fact, I tended to behave myself quite well, as you might have guessed.  But one could understand how the neighbors might sometimes not give a local boy his due, as they know his faults and failings.  But Jesus didn’t have faults or failings.  They couldn’t point to some scandal as the excuse why they shouldn’t listen to Him.  But still, they lacked faith, and so Jesus was not able to do many miracles there, which probably only added to the sense that He wasn’t all that special.
    In our first reading, God warns the prophet Ezekiel that, though God will send Ezekiel with a message he needs to speak, the Israelites will not listen, because their hearts are obstinate.  They do not want to hear what God has to say.  But, God does promise that they will know that a prophet has been among them, even though they won’t listen.
    I think we often have this perception that if there are holy people around us, people whom God is sending, then we will listen to them and believe.  But the entire Bible is proof that, more often than not, people do not listen to God’s messengers.  They find some excuse not to listen.  It could be that they are too close to the messenger, or that their hearts are stubborn and hard, or that it’s not the message that they think God wants to send to them.  And so they close their ears and hearts to the Word of God, which is actually what will bring lasting happiness.  
    We can sometimes do this when we read the Bible.  We read the parts that we like, that are what we want to hear, but then we reject the parts that are hard, or that we don’t think sound right.  We all love hearing that God loves us.  We love hearing about Jesus forgiving the woman caught in adultery, or healing the lepers, or curing the man born blind.  But then when we get to the part about only marrying once or else a person commits adultery; or the part about turning away from sin and being faithful to the Gospel; or the part where Jesus says the way is narrow that leads to salvation, and few find it; or the part where Jesus establishes His Church with the apostles exercising authority over it, we do all sorts of mental gymnastics to excuse why we don’t have to listen to that part or why it doesn’t mean what it clearly says.  St. Augustine 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 in, but yourself.”  And faith in self does not lead to salvation or heaven.
    Even more than we do it in the Bible, we do it with the way God continues to speak authoritatively in His Church.  We like it when Pope Francis talks about loving, caring for the poor, and not judging, but when he talks about marriage being only between one man and one woman for life, or that the diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate are reserved for men, we write him off.  The same could be said when the Church teaches about how artificial contraception is wrong, or that people are the gender that they are born with, or that abortion is wrong and we should not support those who support abortion.  We decide that we know better than the Mystical Body of Christ.  And yet, the Church, when speaking on faith or morals, does speak with the voice and the authority of God, since Jesus Himself said to His Apostles, “‘He who hears you, hears me.  And he who rejects you, rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects Him who sent me.’”
    Does this mean that we should not be familiar with Jesus, because we’ll hold Him in contempt?  I would suggest the opposite.  The more we draw closer to Jesus, the more we hear God speaking through Him, and the more that we come to love His word, even when it’s difficult.  As we come to know Jesus better, we understand the wisdom that He shares with us, even when it goes against our culture or our mindset.  Be open to the word that God speaks through His Word and His Church.  Do not rebel against God’s prophets!

History is Going Somewhere

First Sunday of Advent

If you asked a seminarian for a description of Hell, he would likely say that Hell would be remaining in seminary forever.  Don’t get me wrong, seminary is a great place, and were some of the best eight years of my life (four in college, four in theology), but it had a goal: ordination to the priesthood.  Of course, there’s no way to teach us all the things we’ll need to know in seminary, but if they kept us until we knew everything we needed, we’d never become priests; we’d be seminarians forever; which would be Hell.

It think sometimes we forget that history has a goal.  History is not aimlessly meandering throughout the centuries and millennia.  History is proceeding to the final judgement.  History is going towards Jesus.  And our goal, as Catholics, is to make sure that we’re on the right side of history.  

History for the Jews was going towards Jesus, their long-awaited Messiah.  Jeremiah speaks the Lord’s message that God was going to “raise up for David a just shoot.”  God was going to fulfill His promise that a son of David would sit on the throne of Israel forever, and that promise was fulfilled in Jesus.  Of course, the Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, but He is the Messiah, and proved it throughout the Gospels .  

For us as Catholics, as the fulfillment of Judaism and  even the Gentiles (those who were joined to Judaism who were not originally part of the Chosen People), our goal is to remain faithful to Jesus the Messiah until He returns to judge the living and the dead.  St. Paul reminds us that we know how to conduct ourselves as pleasing to God, through the instructions that St. Paul gave us.  And not just St. Paul, but the apostles, joined in union with St. Peter and his successors, the popes, who are called to authentically teach us how to live out our faith, and how to follow Jesus in new times and places.  

Jesus Himself reminds us in the Gospel not to become drowsy from immoral behavior and the daily grind of life.  Instead, we are to be vigilant, waiting for that culmination of human history in the return of the Messiah who, at the end of time, will bring to fulfillment the victory He won on the cross.

And this season of Advent is our reminder to be ready, and to keep ourselves on the right side of history.  Advent is the time when, as the days grow darker, we focus more intently on the Light of the World that is Jesus.  Nations will be in dismay because they are not faithful to the teachings of Jesus.  The ending of the world will cause non-believers to fear because they will be on the wrong side of history and their days of power and control will come to an end.  Those who follow Jesus will “‘stand erect and raise [their] heads because [their] redemption is at hand.’”

What will remain?  Jesus and all that is in Him and His Mystical Body, the Church.  What will pass away?  Everything that is contrary to Jesus and His Mystical Body, the Church.  Sadly, we tend to see things more in a political view than in a Gospel view.  We give allegiance to this or that political group, but not as much to Jesus and His Church.  The Gospel and the unbroken teaching of the Church tell us that we cannot support abortion, artificial contraception, homosexual activity, and the philosophy that we can determine our gender independent of the way God has created our bodies.  Of course, to our American ears that sounds like I’m attacking women and diversity and the Democratic party.  And certainly, we are called to love those who try to promote or get an abortion, those who engage in homosexual acts, and those who are confused about their gender.  But at the same time that we love them we cannot endorse their actions.  The Gospel and the unbroken teaching of the Church also tell us that we have an obligation to assist the poor, especially those who cannot care for themselves, and to care for the stranger, the alien, and those in prison, to strive for just working conditions and a fare wage.  Of course, to our American ears that sounds like I’m supporting laziness, like I don’t care about national security, and am in the pockets of the unions, and attacking the Republican party.  But God the Father doesn’t call us to be part of a political party.  He calls us to follow Jesus with all that it entails, which cannot be entirely encompassed by one political party (at least not one that I’ve seen).  We can have strong borders, encourage others to work, and make sure that employees are not taken advantage of for profit.  But we also have to make sure that we are treating all people with human dignity, no matter what their circumstance in life.

Our goal is to advance our life and the lives of those around us, towards Christ, following what He teaches in its fulness, not picking and choosing the parts we like.  Our goal is to be part of the trajectory of history that is going towards Jesus, committed to Him entirely, not committed to other groups or ideologies before Jesus.  During this Advent, let’s recommit ourselves to moving towards the goal of history, towards Jesus, and avoiding being on the wrong side of the judgement of Christ.

It's About the Yes

Fifth Sunday of Easter

It’s a sad reality that talk is often cheap.  This is not universal, but is especially true in our Western culture.  We need a contract for everything.  When planning for my pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I wanted to go with a local group from Palestine.  However, they’re not big on contracts, and as an American that makes me leery.  Because I have been to the Holy Land before, I know that, in the Middle Eastern culture, a person’s word is everything, and if they do not live up to what was agreed, that person can lose everything, including his honor.  But I also know that, as Americans, we like to have things in writing.  So instead of going with a more local group, I went with an American tour company that has pilgrimages to the Holy Land.

St. John reminds us that we are called to love, not only “in word or speech but in deed and truth.”  It’s very easy to say that we follow Jesus, but do our actions back up what our mouths say?  In fact, St. John goes on to say that loving Jesus means keeping His commandments.  If we do this, then the Holy Spirit remains in us.  On the contrary, if we don’t keep Jesus’ commandments, then we lack a reality of the life of Christ.

John could say this because He heard Jesus say what was in our Gospel today, which is also from St. John.  Jesus told us that we need to stay connected to Him, as branches with the vine.  It’s not enough to say that we’re branches, we have to truly remain connected to Jesus.  If we are not connected, we’ll waste away and be good for nothing else then burning.  If, however, we stay connected to Jesus, then we’ll bear fruit that proves that we not only profess faith in Jesus, but also live in the way He shows us.

Words do mean, something, however.  They are cheap if they are not followed up by actions, but they can also be profound if they are connected to action.  For example, a relatively recent Pope wrote about the dangers facing society.  He warned against increased dangers of marital infidelity, and a lowering of moral standards.  He warned about how easy it is for young people to be tempted, and how they need to be taught how to live the moral law.  He also warned of a lack of respect for women, and how men could so easily make them objects of the satisfaction of their desires, rather than an equal partner “whom he should surround with care and affection.”  This pope wrote about these dangers 50 years ago, in 1968.  And in many ways, his prophecy, his words spoken from God, have come true.  It is more and more common for spouses to cheat on each other; I don’t think anyone would argue that morality has decreased over the past 50 years; young people more and more don’t know how to live the moral law, and are exposed to grave evils at younger and younger ages; and women are seen more and more not as people, equal in dignity and respect, but as tools to satisfy lust.  

These words were penned by Pope Bl. Paul VI.  And he wrote this in his very famous, and often derided, Encyclical, Humanae vitae.  This summer we celebrate 50 years since the promulgation of this prophetic document about human life.  I know it is a very contentious document, but Bishop Boyea has asked us to preach about it this weekend.  I think that one reason it is so often seen as negative is because it seems to simply say no to artificial contraception.  In fact, it actually talks about the great value of human life, something that needs to be reinforced, especially in light of the Alfie Evans’ recent.  Many people think that all the Church says is “no.”  But in fact, while the Church does say no, that no means an ability to say yes to other goods.

The Church teaches that all artificial contraception is gravely wrong, not because it can spread out childbirth, which can be a moral decision, but because the marital act between a woman and a man is meant to be a full gift of self, and artificial contraception of any kind means holding back one aspect of the gift of self, the ability to conceive, and makes that moment a lie, because one is not truly giving his or her entire self.  

But again, we can see it as no.  But in fact, sometimes, in order to say yes to a good, we have to say no to other lesser goods.  Think about when a man marries a woman.  That man, in marriage, is saying no to every other woman that has ever or will ever come along.  He is forsaking that special relationship of marriage with any other woman (and vis versa for a woman towards other men).  But I have never met a man who is so focused on the no to other women.  He is focused on the yes to that one woman.  He can’t say yes to that one woman without saying no to all others.  But it doesn’t meant it’s about the no.  It’s about the yes.

And look at what has happened with the ubiquitousness of contraception: we have a lower sense of morality, marriages break apart more and more, and we have recently seen the epidemic of men treating women in a way that is beneath the dignity and respect that they deserve.  Pope Bl. Paul VI’s words have been followed up by actions, a reality that is sad and has caused no small amount of pain in the lives of perhaps most families in America.

Today the Lord challenges us to not simply say that we will follow Him, but to actually do it, including in the ways that we regulate the size of our families.  May we not be focused on all the things we give up by following Jesus in word and deed, but in all the greater yeses that are made possible by following Jesus “in deed and truth.”

Love and (of?) Shamrock Shakes

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

           

On 11 February of this year, Bishop John Doerfler was ordained and installed as the 13^th bishop of Marquette, and 12^th successor of the Venerable Frederic Baraga, in Marquette.  Being the church junky that I am, I watched some of it online.  And I caught his opening words as the newest bishop, his pastoral plan for the diocese: be a friend of Jesus; make a friend; introduce your friend to Jesus.  Pretty easy to remember these three points: be a friend of Jesus; make a friend; introduce your friend to Jesus.

            I’m not as good with sound bites as Bishop Doerfler.  I could only keep my homily to four points, not three.  But the first and the last one are the same, so hopefully it’s not too challenging.  My four points are: love the person; do not condemn; call to conversion; love the person.  Did we get that?  Love the person; do not condemn; call to conversion; love the person.

            That is certainly the message of today’s readings, though the Word of God expresses it better than I do: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” we heard the Book of Leviticus say from our first reading.  First, of course, we must actually love who we are, not with the egotistical, self-centered, narcissistic love that our culture promotes, but with the realization that we are created in the image and likeness of God and so are basically good, even though we suffer under the effects of desiring what we should not want to do, what we call concupiscence.  But if we realize that we are in the image and likeness of God, then and only then can we treat others like we treat ourselves.  Love the person.

            The Gospel continues with Jesus telling us how God loves those who don’t love Him, and that we are called to the same.  He lets his sun shine on the bad and the good, and lets the rains fall on the just and the unjust.  God does not condemn the person.  He does not approve of evil or unjust deeds, but He does not condemn the person as soon as they fall into sin.  Instead, He continues to love them.  Do not condemn.

            To what end?  Why would God love someone who has turned away from Him?  Why would God give good things to those who deserve bad?  He showers His love on them so that they might be changed by His love.  The cliché way of saying this is: “God loves us as we are—but too much to let us stay that way.”  God loves us even though we turn away from Him in sin, but His love that He continues to give us is meant to encourage us to return that love and choose Him rather than sin.  Call to conversion.

            This is the part that our society really has a problem with.  We’re all too ready to say that God loves us.  We’re all too ready not to be condemned by God.  But when it comes to conversion, we shrink back.  We have fallen into the error that loving a person means loving everything that person does.  That is not how God’s love works, and therefore it’s not how our love as followers of God should work. 

Let’s say I had an evil twin, who was the antithesis of who I am, sort of the Bizarro Fr. Anthony (if you don’t know Superman, that probably didn’t make sense).  And let’s say Bizarro Fr. Anthony is just a very angry man and his anger overflows one day because McDonald’s just ran out of the shamrock shake and he didn’t get to enjoy one at all (this is not a true story, just in case you’re wondering), and so he kills the McDonald’s employee.  Does God still love Bizarro Fr. Anthony?  Yes!!  If God didn’t love Bizarro Fr. Anthony, Bizarro Fr. Anthony wouldn’t exist.  But God does not love the murder that Bizarro Fr. Anthony just committed, even if McDonald’s did just run out of shamrock shakes.  The same goes for any sin with any person.  God loves us, but he doesn’t love everything we do.  We, too, can love the person without loving everything they do.  Don’t believe me?

None of you would probably call Pope Francis a hateful person, full of bigotry.  In fact, I would guess that if we had to come up with one word that described Pope Francis, that word would be: loving.  And yet, in the interview Pope Francis gave to a Jesuit priest in September, Pope Francis stated that the Church’s teaching on abortion, gay marriage, and artificial contraception is clear.  Does that mean he does not love certain people?  Of course not!  Pope Francis loves us all!!  And he is an image, an icon, if you will, of Jesus’ love, which is fitting since he is the Vicar of Christ.  And he is teaching us how to love a person without loving everything they do.  And the key is that we love people, not just at the beginning, but throughout, even when we disagree with them, even if they do things with which we cannot agree because Christ has taught us otherwise.  We love them, because God loves us, even when we do things which God does not agree with, and which He taught us not to do, no matter how big or how small.  That is why the fourth point is as same as the first: love the person.

Jesus summed up the law and the prophets in two commandments: love God with all of who we are, and love our neighbors as ourselves.  Everything the Church teaches as true and part of our faith stems from those two commandments.  As we seek to live those commandments out we try with all our strength to love the person; do not condemn; call to conversion; love the person.