Flirting with Death

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

A trail at Zion National Park

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In my visits to National Parks, which are a great treasure of our country, there have been some, like Zion National Park, where you can hike up high mountains and use trails that seemingly climb to the heavens.  Now, when I say trails, I don’t mean nice, paved, even trails.  These are usually parts of a mountain, sometimes with rudimentary railings, but often not, with sharp drop-offs if one were to lose his or her balance.  Some more adventurous folk like to get right to the edge.  As for me, I try to stay as far away from the edge as possible, because I definitely have a fear of losing my balance and falling to my death.
    While I, and many others who have a fear of heights, may not enjoy the idea of flirting with death by falling off a path, how many others enjoy flirting with the death that comes from sin.  St. Paul says it clearly enough: “The wages of sin is death.”  And even if the English grammar doesn’t hit our ears quite right (wages, though it sounds plural, is a singular idea, and so yields a verb in the singular), the message is clear enough: do you want to die?  Then sin!  Sin is like floating one foot over the edge of the gorge with nothing to hang on to in case you fall.  

    It can be hard to take sin so seriously, especially with such ready access to the Sacrament of Penance at this parish.  If I sin, then I go to confession.  And that is a good rule to follow.  We rightly focus on the mercy of God, because God, through Christ, has revealed the Father’s great love for us, a love which never wants us to be separated from Him, and a love which will be wasteful in mercy and look foolish just to reconcile us to Him.  
    But while not giving sin more power than God’s mercy and grace, we do also need to recognize the horror of sin.  And, our appreciation for the mercy of God increases with our appreciation of just what we deserve when we sin.  If I don’t think that sin makes all that big of a difference, then God’s mercy also doesn’t mean as much.  But if I know that the wages of sin is death, that I deserve death every time I sin, then when I do confess my sins and when God reconciles me to Himself through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, I recognize just what an amazing thing God has done.
    If we forget just how awfully sin takes a toll, then we need only look at a crucifix.  And, if we really want to understand crucifixion, then a Spanish crucifix is probably the best, as they are the most gruesome depictions of the death of Christ, rather than the very placid depictions we are used to seeing in bronze, silver, or gold.  Think of the excruciating (literally, from the Latin, from the cross) pain of having nails hammered into your hands and feet.  No matter where exactly the nails would have entered, they would have hurt.  Think of the struggle just to breathe, which is the way most died from crucifixion, as your lungs slowly filled with fluid and you struggled just to take a quick breath, all the while your body seeking any way to stay alive, but without any way to do so.  Add to that the shame of being totally naked before all, and we begin to get the idea of how terrible undergoing crucifixion was.  
    That, the crucifixion, was the wages the of sin.  No just sin up to the time of Christ.  Not just sin at the time of Christ.  But all sin, from all time, nailed to the cross and carried upon the shoulders of the spotless Lamb of God.  That was the price for our salvation.
    But the Apostle doesn’t end with “the wages of sin is death.”  He continues: “but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Death does not get the last say, though we deserve it.  We don’t have to fear falling off the side of a steep cliff.  God remains vigilant, ready to grab us and pull us back to safety if we but call upon His Name.  Earlier in this epistle, St. Paul reminds us that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.  God’s mercy and grace are infinitely more powerful than our sins.  It’s as much a competition as my legos trying to fight me.  
    But it’s still good to keep in our mind that sin yields death.  Because the Church teaches us that if a person were to die in a state of mortal sin, we do not know how that person could go to heaven.  When we choose separation from God who is the source of life, we choose separation from eternal life.  It’s not that God sends us anywhere, as much as we choose by our actions if we want death or if we want life.  God will lovingly take us back if we desire, but if we don’t, God loves us enough to respect our misuse of free will, because true love never forces itself on another.  
    Yes, God is merciful.  If we ask for God’s mercy then He will grant it to us.  But if we choose sin, then we choose death.  And if we choose death, no matter how attractive it looks at the time, we will get death, eternal death.  Do not presume that just because we can say, “Lord, Lord,” we will go to heaven.  But do not despair of God’s mercy, as long as you seek to do the will of God the Father, who with the Son and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.   

Remembering a Past (and Current) Teaching

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Sometimes, after a number of years or decades, if the meaning of something is not refreshed in the minds of the people, things once taken for granted are forgotten.  Take Veterans’ Day: you may or may not know that Veterans’ Day is always 11 November, no matter on what day of the week that date falls.  But many people probably don’t know that 11 November wasn’t a random day chosen for this federal holiday.  11 November marked the end of World War I in 1918, and was celebrated as the end of the war to end all wars.  Of course, we know that World War II followed, and so, in 1954, rather than simply celebrating Armistice Day and the end of World War I, the name was changed to Veterans’ Day, honoring all those who served in war.  
    Today in our second reading, we heard about a particular sin: that of withholding wages from laborers.  St. James writes, “the wages you withheld from the workers…and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.”  This is one of a list of sins that Scripture notes cry to heaven for vengeance.  The full list is: the blood of Abel (homicide); the sin of the Sodomites (homosexual activity); the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt (slavery); the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan; and injustice to the wage earner, which we heard today.  You can find this list in paragraph 1867 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
    We probably don’t use this phrase that often, and because we don’t use it, we forget that it still holds true.  Certain sins cry out to God for His divine justice.  And even though one may think that he has gotten away with it because no one has noticed, God has taken notice; He has heard the cry from that sin, and will repay accordingly if there is no repentance.  Some make sense, especially homicide and slavery.  Others, like the sin of Sodom or maybe even the sin that St. James mentions today, may not seem serious.  In fact, some would not even call them sins.  But they are gravely against God’s plan for human happiness and the justice that He desires exist among all people.
    In the Gospel, Jesus also reminds His disciples, which includes us, that while good deeds, even the smallest ones, can echo into eternity, so can evil deeds.  Jesus advises us to take seriously the punishment for sin, because one will account for the evil done in the “unquenchable fire” of Gehenna, another name for Hell.  Jesus even notes hyperbolically, that if a part of our us is causing sin, then cut it off.  Of course, he’s not asking us to perform surgery and mutilate ourselves.  But He is encouraging us to figuratively cut out the parts of our life that separate us from God, so that we can enter heaven.  
    We don’t talk about sin too much, because talking about sin makes us admit that we are wrong, and no one likes to do that.  We don’t talk about the consequences of sin because we prefer to think about God as more of a grandparent who never tells us no, and who will welcome us into His home no matter what we may have done at ours.  Sin has an effect on us, and draws us farther away from God.  God, who is Justice Himself, cannot ignore unrepentant sin, anymore than light can allow darkness to continue in its presence.  The light always destroys the darkness whenever it is present.  This doesn’t take away from God’s mercy, which is also who God is, but somehow in God justice and mercy meet perfectly.
    Dr. Peter Kreeft, a Catholic apologist, notes:
 

If you really think that you can endure and enjoy the full light and fire of God for a second after you die, being essentially the same kind of being you are now, without any kind of divine operation on your soul, then you dangerously underestimate either your sinful nature, God’s holiness, or the gap between them.

It’s not as if God can let sin go, in the sense that He can allow sin to persist in His divine presence, like it’s a permission He can grant.  God, being holiness itself, burns away sin, which is why God told Moses that he couldn’t see God face to face on earth and live.  Instead, God had to shield Moses in the rock, and only let Moses see God as He passed by, so that Moses would not be destroyed.  
    So, for us, all unrepentant sin will receive its consequence.  Venial sins will not be treated harshly because they were not a strong turning away from God and His life.  But God will still deal with them.  And even more harshly will God deal with mortal sins and the sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance, because they signify serious, even deadly repudiation of God’s presence in our life.  We can deal with those mortal sins in confession, where the Blood of Jesus washes those sins away so that they are no more, or we can deal with them at our judgement, at which point, as the Church teaches, we have no hope of salvation if we have not yet repented.  Again, we don’t talk that way often, but the Church teaches, and I quote, “If [mortal sin] is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell.”  
    So today, it’s a good thing to ask ourselves, do I have serious sin that needs to be forgiven through sacramental confession?  Do I participate in or encourage any of the sins that cry to heaven for vengeance?  Am I forming hatred in my heart for another that can lead to homicide?  Do I encourage human trafficking through the viewing of pornography?  Do I oppress those who have no one to help them, like the foreigner, the widow, or the orphan?  Am I just to those who work for me?  Are there other mortal sins, even simple ones like taking God’s name in vain or skipping Mass out of laziness or preference for other things that are endangering my eternal salvation?  If so, today is the day for repentance.  Today is the day to return to the Sacrament of Penance so that the mercy, rather than the justice, of God can wash over you and save you.  
    Just because we don’t talk about sin as much does not mean that it has gone away, or that it no longer matters.  May we not forget just how serious sin is, but rather accept God’s grace to turn away from our sin, and turn to God to be wrapped in His divine mercy.  

The Jesus Prayer

Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Over the years that I have been a priest, I have come to love and appreciate the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom that Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox use for most of their Divine Liturgies (what we call the Mass).  It’s interesting that, based on my research, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, and our own Roman Canon likely find their roots sometime in the fourth century or so.  From time to time I am able to attend in choir an Orthodox Divine Liturgy and have developed friendships with the local Orthodox priests here in Genesee County.  We know we don’t agree on everything, but we celebrate our millennium of shared faith and help each other understand the millennium that we’ve been separated.
    One of the hallmark prayers in the Orthodox prayer tradition is from our Gospel today.  They call it the Jesus Prayer, and it is simply the words, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”  This is the prayer that they encourage people to pray throughout the day, to make it part of their very life.  I have even heard some priests connect it to breathing, so that on the breath in the person says, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,” and on the breath out the person says, “have mercy on me a sinner.”  The idea is that, if practiced enough, especially while simply breathing, it becomes a part of each person’s day, and helps us to do what St. Paul admonished: “pray without ceasing.”  
    The first part of the prayer is connected to the epistle.  St. Paul told us today that no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.  This beautiful prayer includes all three Divine Persons: the Lord, who is Son of God the Father, which proclamation is only possible by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Now, obviously, any person can say the words, “Jesus is Lord,” but to truly mean it; to truly recognize that Christ is God and that His way of life is normative for me because He is my Creator; that kind of faith and obedience can only happen as a gift from the Holy Spirit.  We cannot have that surrender of our lives without God giving us the grace to do it first.  And then, while we do need to cooperate, it is only God’s grace which allows us to bring that act of faith that He inspired to competition.  This is what we mean when we say that our life in Christ is all grace.  

    The second part of the prayer, “have mercy on me a sinner,” is the words of the tax collector in today’s Gospel.  The man knew who he was.  As a tax collector, not only was it his job to collect money for the Roman government, who oppressed the Jews and who advocated the worship of false gods, but, in order to make a decent living, he had to exact more money from his own people than what Rome really wanted.  Tax collectors, the word publican is also used, were notoriously hated for their exaction of money from their own people.  The very call of St. Matthew by the Savior probably scandalized many people at first, and maybe even some of the apostles took time before they warmed up to him.  
    In any case, this tax collector was reaching out to God for mercy.  We don’t know if he left his job after this prayer.  We don’t know if he changed his life.  But we do know that, at this moment, he knew he needed the mercy of God, and so he cried out to it from the back row.  And our Lord said that his prayer was answered.
    When it comes to receiving God’s mercy, are we willing to humbly come before God and acknowledge that we are sinners?  Each of us has a need for forgiveness from God.  Even the saints, who rose to the heights of perfection during their lives, knew that they needed God’s mercy.  Do we take that second step (the first being God’s nudge in our hearts to even ask for mercy) and actually make that prayer our own?  
    We might wonder what good it would do because we don’t know how we can move away from that sin.  And certainly, to receive God’s forgiveness, we do have to have a firm purpose of amendment to not sin in that way again.  But just because we think we might sin again doesn’t mean that we can’t want not to give into that sin in the future.  When I was a young boy I didn’t want to antagonize my sisters in the future as I went to confession, but it was probably going to happen again.  Sometimes all we can muster up is that act of hope that, if God gives me enough grace, I might be able to never fall into that sin again, and that’s what I want.  But that little opening to the grace of God can be all that’s needed to truly start making progress in rooting sin out of our lives.
    I am also aware that I may be unaware of certain sins in my life.  That’s why, when I go to confession, I include the words, “and for any other sins that I cannot recall, or any sins from my past.”  And each Mass after I purify the vessels, I add the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner.”  The Eucharist cleanses us of venial sins.  And this prayer, the prayer of the tax collector, can also, if said honestly and devoutly, can cleanse us of venial sins, because when we say that prayer in earnest, God will justify us as He justified the tax collector.  
    I pray that you will make that prayer your own as well.  Maybe you will say it once a day.  Maybe you will work on incorporating it into each moment so that, as you breathe in and out, it flows naturally out of you like a breath.  But this prayer has value and can change our lives if we are open to the mercy God wants to give to us when we call upon Him: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Mercy in the Present Moment

Second Sunday of Easter/Low Sunday
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  Today we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday.  The paradox of mercy is that we all want it regularly accessible, but we can often struggle to actually dispense it.  When someone has wronged us, we can so easily focus on justice and how the other person should make restitution for what he or she has done.  But when we have done something wrong, how quickly do we run to God and ask for His Divine Mercy, hoping that we can obtain it without too much effort.
    Our Lord reminds us of our obligations to share with others the mercy that we receive in the parable of the unforgiving steward.  If you remember, the steward owes the master a large amount of money, and cannot pay back the debt.  When about to go to debtor’s prison, the steward pleads with the master to give him more time, and the master forgives the debt.  But when the steward sees fellow workers who owe him a much smaller amount, the steward throws them into debtor’s prison, despite them using the same plea that the steward had used earlier with the master. 
    That call to mercy reflects what God has already done for us.  His mercy, which was won at the price of the Blood of the Son of God, granted us freedom from the bonds of sin.  It released us from the hold of Satan so that we could freely continue as sons and daughters in the Son of God.  If we are adopted sons and daughters, then our vocation is to live like our heavenly Father, whose mercy endures forever, as Psalm 118 (117) states. 
    Part of living a merciful life means showing mercy to ourselves.  St. Faustina, the great apostle of Divine Mercy, once said, “The past does not belong to me; the future is not mine; with all my soul I try to make use of the present moment.”  How easy it can be to dwell on our past mistakes, or hope that we can make up for sins in the future.  Instead, God invites us live in the present moment, because that is all we have. 
    As far as the past goes, we can all say, to one degree or another, that there are things we wish we would have done differently in the past.  For some of us, that means major deviations from the type of life Christ wants us to live.  For others, that means smaller veers away from the path of holiness.  But we all have things that, in hindsight, we should not have done.  On this Divine Mercy Sunday, God invites us to commend our past to Him, and no longer be shackled by past mistakes, no matter how big or how small.  Sometimes this is done by making a general confession or life confession, where, in an appointment for confession with a priest (not at the usual weekday times), one gives all the past sins that he or she can remember to the Lord to be washed clean in His Blood.  But, aside from those rare times, we should not bring up past, confessed sins.  Because ruminating on those past sins and treating them like they still exist is lacking confidence in the power of God’s mercy.  Satan will often try to get us to act as if past confessed sins are not forgiven, but we should reject that temptation as a lie from the father of lies.  Yes, each act has a consequence, and sometimes those consequences reach into our present.  But, if we have confessed our sins, we can trust in the mercy of God and know that the sins are no more.
    As for the future, it can be easy to act like everything depends on us; that we have to do everything to save ourselves, and so we fret about what might happen.  Just as God wants us to entrust our past to Him, He also wants us to entrust our future to Him, a future that is purified by the mercy of God.  We don’t know what the future will hold.  We know that our present choices affect our future, but God can mercifully guide our future in spite of our present choices.  It is a mercy not to worry about what might happen, because we can spend so much energy and time on fretting about what could be, but what might never be. 
    As a planner and a type A personality, this is probably the hardest way for me to accept God’s mercy.  It is so easy for me to get worked up and lose sleep over how something will turn out, or if someone meant something by a particular choice of phrasing.  If, instead, I am doing my best to seek the will of God and do it, then no matter what I know God will help me through whatever consequences may come from any of my actions, good or ill.  There is a real freedom in not trying to be God and be in all the possibilities of the future.  It is part of God’s mercy that we don’t worry about what tomorrow holds.  Today, as our Lord says, has enough concern for itself.

    Mercy means living in the present, because it is all that we have, and it is the only opportunity that we have to reach out for God’s mercy, and share God’s mercy ourselves.  God’s redemption, His act of mercy, stretches into all time: past, present, and future.  But we can only accept and share that mercy in the present, because that is the only time in which we operate.  The Apostles in the Upper Room could have worried about how they had abandoned the Lord at His Passion.  Peter could have worried about how he had denied even know the Lord only a few days before.  The disciples could have wondered what this Risen Lord would do with them in the coming days, weeks, months, and years.  Thomas could have fretted not being in the Upper Room when Christ first appeared.  Instead, Christ invited them to be in the present moment, to receive His peace, a true gift of the Holy Spirit.  Instead, Christ gave His Apostles the power to extend that mercy in a formal and sacramental way so that the work of mercy, culminated in the Cross, could be accessed by generations of followers of Christ.  Christ did not encourage them to worry about the past.  He did not encourage them to plan for the future.  He only invited them to receive His peace in the present moment.
    [Mia, God’s mercy has brought you here to us as a catechumen.  Though not fully, you already belong to us by your desire for baptism.  As you continue to come to know the Lord in the coming weeks, you will see how God has worked in your past to bring you to this day, but you will also remember ways that you lived according to your ignorance of Christ and His Church.  Give that to God and His mercy, which will be poured over you in the waters of baptism.  You may worry about living as a Catholic after you are baptized, and if you will have the strength to continue in the path to which God called you.  Entrust that future to God’s mercy, and know that He will give you the strength to follow Him.]
    God wants to show us His mercy.  He wants us to share His mercy with others, but also to be receptive to His mercy ourselves.  He does not invite us to dwell on the past, nor to fret about the future.  Instead, in His mercy, He invites us to live in the present, and to be vessels and vehicles of the mercy of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Same Words, Different Results

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

St. Thomas Aquinas

   In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  When I served at St. Thomas Aquinas parish in East Lansing as a parochial vicar, I spent a fair amount of time in our parish school.  One day I was asked by a teacher to come over at the end of the school day to talk to a few students who had been picking on another kid, such that the other kid had locked himself in a bathroom stall and brought to tears.  I pulled the two students aside into a classroom and asked them what had happened.  They explained that they had continuously stolen and hidden the other student’s folder, seeing how upset it made him.  I asked them why they would do such a thing.  The responded that they didn’t think it would affect him so much.  I said, “That’s right; you didn’t think.”  After that point, things become a bit hazy in my memory, but I remember thinking to myself after those words came out of my mouth, ‘I have become my father,’ because my dad would say the same thing to me if I had done something wrong and had responded that I didn’t think such and such would happen.
    I was struck in today’s Gospel by the words that the servant uses to the master when his freedom is threatened: “‘“Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.”’”  Later that same day he hears those same words from another servant who owed the first servant much smaller amounts than the first servant owed the master: “‘“Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.”’”  But apparently the light didn’t come on in the first servant’s head, and rather than recognizing that he was now in the position of the master to be generous and patient, the first servant took immediate and decisive action to put the other servant in debtor’s jail until he could pay back what he owed.  Where the master was patient and lenient, the servant was intolerant and rigorous.  

    One of the great blessings God has given us is the Sacrament of Penance, what we often call confession.  And I try to offer generous times for the celebration of God’s mercy in this sacrament.  I am also pleased that so many people, from both our parish and from other parishes, take advantage of these opportunities.  I myself try to go to confession every two or three weeks.  Besides the primary effect of forgiveness of sins (especially if we are in a state of mortal sin), as well as giving us grace to avoid temptation in the future, one of the graces that God desires to give us is to make us more like Him, our Master, in His Mercy.  
    People can often confuse mercy with license.  Especially in today’s culture, where no one takes responsibility for anything, mercy tends to mean letting me get away with something I have done.  But a priest I recently heard at convocation said that, in order to receive mercy, we have to acknowledge what is just.  And this priest used the example of the prodigal son to back up his point.  We are very quick to jump to the part of the parable where the father runs out to meet his son and puts a ring on his finger, a robe around him, and sandals on his feet, and throws a big party.  But right before that, the son acknowledges that he has sinned against heaven and against his father, and he no longer deserves to be called a son.  This priest made the point that it was because the prodigal son made that admission in justice that the father granted mercy and restored him to his previous place in family life.  Imagine if the son would have come back and simply said, “Could I have a job?”  
    Now, these two points may seem contradictory.  The parable from today’s Gospel highlights mercy, while the parable of the Prodigal Son seems to highlight justice.  But both are truly operative, and both guide how we show mercy.  In the Gospel parable the servant says that he will pay the master back.  He admits the justice.  And that admission of justice opens up mercy, a mercy which does not have a timeline.  It restores the relationship immediately, and even cancels.  And we are invited to have that same level of mercy.  When someone admits that they have wronged us, we should be ready to grant them mercy, just as God grants us mercy as soon as we confess our faults in the Sacrament of Penance.  As long as we will try not to commit that sin again, even if we think it would take a miracle to avoid those temptations, then God will forgive us.  If someone admits to us that he or she is wrong, then Christ calls us to be like the merciful Father and immediately grant mercy.
    To drive home this point even more, the Lord says elsewhere that the measure we measure out to others will in turn be measured out to us.  If we come before God, admitting our faults, and expect God to forgive us, then we should also forgive those who come to us and admit their faults.  If we do not, then how can God grant mercy to a heart that is hardened?  If we have no mercy for others in our life, then we have no room for the mercy of God, either.  If we are not willing to receive another’s act of contrition, then how could God receive ours?
    Probably many of us of a certain age have had those moments where we think: ‘I have become my parents.’  And maybe sometimes that idea scares us.  But it should be the goal of each one of us to become like our heavenly Father, who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.

Revenge

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  When I was (I think) in first grade, there were these fifth graders at my parochial school who liked to pick on me.  They weren’t horrible, but they would sometimes just grab on to my arms, which I didn’t like.  One time they were holding my arms on the playground, and I could feel the frustration welling up inside of me, wanting to break free of their grasp, but not having the physical strength to wrest myself away from them, so I did what I could: I bit one of their arms.  They let go, and I was free; at least until a teacher found out and I had to go to the principal’s office, and eventually write an apology letter to them.
    Revenge is a primal urge that we all can have.  We experience some sort of injustice, no matter how big or small, and we want to make it right on our own terms.  The sense that something is not right and should be addressed, which leads to the emotion we call anger, is a sign that we recognize good and evil.  If we didn’t want wrong things to be righted, that would not be a good sign of the state of our soul.
    The problem is that our view of what is truly just is not always accurate, since it is limited by our restricted view of reality (as compared to God’s omniscient view of reality), and our passions for justice often goes beyond what is truly just.  When we respond to someone who has done us wrong, we tend to give them a little more than they gave us, just to make sure that they know not to mess with us again.  It’s like kids in the back of a car, where one looks at the other in a funny way, so then the other pokes the first with a finger, and then the first hits the other with a hand, and it just keeps escalating (until mom or dad says, “If I have to pull this car over…” and metes out their best justice to get them both to stop). 
    Which is why St. Peter and our Lord both instruct us this weekend not to give into revenge.  St. Peter tells us not to render evil for evil, but a blessing instead.  And Christ tells us that the true life of God to which He calls us does not suffice not to kill someone, but to stop that anger in the heart, which is where all action begins.  Murder, which the commandment forbids, is the end result of seeking to administer justice on our own terms, which often, as I said, goes beyond true justice.

St. Paul the Apostle

    St. Paul, quoting Leviticus and Deuteronomy, reminds us that vengeance belongs to the Lord.  So our desire to exact punishment on those who have done us wrong is also a form of pride, a desire to supplant God and put ourselves in His place.  St. James takes up a similar theme in his epistle when he writes, “There is one…judge who is able to save or to destroy.  Who then are you to judge your neighbor?”  When we try to take revenge, we are trying to take the place of God, falling to the temptation that the enemy gave to Eve in the garden, when he enticed her to evil by suggesting that eating the fruit would make her like God.
    But if we truly wish to be like God, then we should seek to reconcile whenever possible.  Yes, God is the judge of the world, and He will judge justly.  But He is also merciful, because in Him justice and mercy have embraced.  He is patient with us sinners, giving us so many opportunities to turn away from our sins and repent, so that we can have union with Him.  That is why our Lord not only teaches us that we should seek to root out anger in our hearts so that we don’t turn to revenge, but also encourages us to make sure that we reconcile before we offer our sacrifice to God in the Mass.  How can we be in communion with others through Holy Communion if we are at the same time seeking their downfall? 
    Instead, God wants us to bear others faults patiently, as he bears ours.  This doesn’t mean that we can’t correct and call others to right behavior, but no matter what, not to carry a grudge if others have done us wrong and have not repented.  A great way to accomplish this is through the Sacrament of Penance, which we often call confession.  Through the sacrament, we are not only reconciled with God, but we are also reconciled with the the community, both of whom the priest represents.  We turn to our brother and ask his mercy for our offenses, and then God invites us to be merciful with others, just as He has been merciful with us.  And having been reconciled with God and with the community, our gift is then acceptable to God, because it is truly offered in communion with Him and with the rest of the Church. 
    A good examination of conscience today will ask ourselves: against whom do I seek revenge?  What harm have others done to me that I have not forgiven?  What anger do I bear in my heart towards my neighbor?  What might they bear against me?  If I truly wish to be like God, then I should offer opportunities to show mercy, just as we have been shown mercy by our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Charlie Brown and the Meaning of Christmas

 Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord

    I’m pretty sure my mom’s favorite Christmas show is  “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”  I’m sure we’re all familiar with the story: Charlie Brown wants a great Christmas, there’s a school Christmas play, Snoopy has decorated his dog house over the top, and the tree that Charlie Brown picks is a small, pitiful tree that barely has any needles left on it.  The play is falling apart, Lucy is being her usual self, and nothing seems to be going right.  Enter Linus, who, responding to Charlie Brown’s query if anyone knows what Christmas is about, says:
 

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.  And the angel said unto them, “Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

There is so much that goes on at Christmas, so many things that we prepare for, so many parties to attend, presents to buy, houses to clean, that sometimes we forget what Christmas is all about.  And we’ve celebrated it so many times, that perhaps it has lost some of its newness and power.  Perhaps we have become numb to the real meaning of Christmas, what Christmas is all about.
    To properly understand the real meaning of Christmas, we have to start at the beginning.  Adam and Eve had offended God by disobeying Him and seeking to be God on their own terms.  They were sorry.  God accepted the apology, and sought humanity out time and time again, but humanity kept distancing itself more and more away from God.
    Christmas, then, is about God making the ultimate move of reconciliation.  We could not approach God on our own.  We were hopeless that anything could be done to fully restore what we had broken.  And knowing that we had caused the pain, knowing that we had done wrong, we stayed to ourselves.  But God didn’t leave us to ourselves.  He sent us someone who could reconcile us to Himself, and someone who could do so without shaming us.  Christ was and is one like us, but without sin.  He took on our human flesh so that we could be comfortable in the presence of God again.  God became man so that man might become God.  Rather than seeing us continually suffer by our separation from Him, He came to us so that we could be healed.
    And He came in a way that utterly disarmed us.  The Incarnation was like the Trojan Horse, because how could we not accept one so tiny and fragile?  How could we not smile at a cute baby, whose face looked like ours, but was truly the face of God?  It would be like being estranged from a dear friend or family member, not knowing if we could ever be amicable with them again because of the pain that we caused, but then that dear friend sends us a little gift, something that we treasure, as a way of restoring that relationship.  We certainly did not earn that gift, and would never have expected it, but that friend sent it anyway, and the healing could commence.  

    The real meaning of Christmas is God’s love and mercy for us doing the unthinkable: lowering Himself beyond all expectation, just so that we could be reunited with Him.  The snow is beautiful (though you may think otherwise having driven in it to get here); the glimmering trees and the presents that often are under them give us passing happiness; the favorite and timeless songs that we sing give our hearts a certain levity.  But all those things will pass, and will be put away for another twelve months.  The love and mercy of God will remain, long after the snow has melted, after the trees have dropped all their needles and the presents are forgotten or broken, after you can only find Christmas songs on YouTube or Spotify.  
    Are we willing to embrace that mercy?  Are we willing to accept the love of God offered to us to restore us to friendship with God?  It seems like a silly question, but sometimes, after we know we have done something wrong, we fear even accepting an offer of mercy and love, because we so define ourselves by our faults and failing.  We think that the broken relationship cannot be made whole again.  Or we are afraid that, having restored that friendship, we will break it off again once more.  
    As the angel said to the shepherds in the field at Bethlehem, “Be not afraid.”  We are not the sum of our failings, as Pope St. John Paul II once said.  God can make what is broken whole again.  And yes, we may offend God again, but God, through Christ, will reach out His hand again when we turn back in sorrow for our sins, and will not reject any who come to Him, even if our sins were like scarlet.  And he will not do so begrudgingly, but with great haste and intention, because He would rather lower Himself and take on human frailty; He would rather die than have one of His beloved be separated from Him.  So great is the love of God that He will go to any lengths He can to save us.
    That is what we see at Christmas.  That is what we experience in the Incarnation.  That is what we celebrate today, every Sunday, and even every day as the priest, and the people united with him interiorly, offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  God loves you so much that He became like you.  Accept that great gift of love and mercy, and allow it to transform your life today, tomorrow, and all the tomorrows that you will have.  We broke off our friendship with God, but God has given us the opportunity to be His adopted sons and daughters in the Incarnate Son of God.  That is the real meaning of Christmas.  That is what Christmas is all about.

As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us

 Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  When we think about participating in the divine, what occasions first come to mind?  I know for me, the sacraments are the most obvious answer.  The mysteries of our Lord’s life, Pope St. Leo the Great says, have passed into the sacraments.  Specifically, I think about the Mass, the joining of heaven and earth that takes place here in our church.  Not only do we hear God’s Divine Word, proclaimed for us in the Scriptures, we also receive God into us through the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, which is the very Flesh and Blood of Christ.  The Eucharist best exemplifies the way in which we can become like God, as St. Augustine reminds us that the intent of the Eucharist is to make us more like the one whom we receive.
    But another way to participate in the divine is through the act of forgiveness.  We heard this very familiar story about the paralytic being brought to our Lord.  He forgives the man’s sins, at which the Pharisees become indignant because only God can forgive sins.  But, to demonstrate His authority to forgive sins, Christ then heals the paralytic as well.
    The Pharisees were not mistaken in their estimation that only God can forgive sins.  In fact, our Lord demonstrated His divinity to them by this miracle.  So any time you hear someone say that Jesus never asserted He was God, point them to Matthew, chapter 9.  There are other times that our Lord reveals His divinity also, but this is certainly one of those times.
    So, if only God can forgive sins, then how can we say, “sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris”; “as we forgive those who trespass against us”?  How can we forgive if forgiveness belongs to God?
    As a good Thomist, we can consider forgiveness in two ways.  The first way, which is reserved to God alone, is the remission of sins.  When God deals with sin, He eliminates it, wipes it away, and makes it so it ceases to exist.  Only the consequences of that sin remain (and even those can be dealt with through pious acts).  When we examine who forgives our sins in the Sacrament of Penance, it is God.  Yes, God uses the ministry of the priest to convey that forgiveness, but it is God who forgives, which is why the priest is bound to secrecy (we call it the seal of confession).  Those sins have been absolved by Christ through the ministry of the priest, but their use belongs only to Christ, not even to the minister, who then does not divulge or act on those sins in the future.  It is the sacrifice of Christ which washed away the sins of the world, the sacrifice of the unblemished Lamb of God.  We cannot add to that, but we can participate in it.
    But, as with so many aspects of life, God allows us to participate in His work.  We see this in the garden of Eden, as God calls Adam and Eve, not only to continue to care for the garden of Eden, but to create with Him and order with Him, and even to create new life (procreation).  God, further, calls humans to speak for Him when He calls prophets to proclaim His Word, both of comfort and of conversion.  We see that especially with Moses, Samuel, and the prophets that follow them.  God also allows men to exercise governance over His people, as seen through Kings David and Solomon, and the kings of their line.  God shepherds His people through kings who cooperate with His will.  
    But God also allows us to participate in His forgiveness.  He gives us the gift of saying “I forgive you” to a person, and not having it be empty words, detached from reality.  When we forgive someone, something in that person changes, and something in us changes.  We participate in the mercy of God.  It may not eliminate that sin (because a person has offended not only us, but also God), but it does eliminate the attachment of that sin that exists between the two  or more people.  God’s mercy flows through us, and the burden of sin can be lifted from hearts.
    To be Catholic is to be a person of forgiveness, because Christ tells us that the measure we measure out to others, will in turn be measured out to us.  He calls those who show mercy blessed because they will be shown mercy.  And He condemns the servant who was forgiven a great debt, but who could not forgive others their smaller debts.  We are merciful because God was first merciful with us, just as we love God because He first loved us.

    And He showed that love for us by sending His Son to die on the cross so that we could be forgiven.  God’s forgiveness wasn’t an ethereal reality.  God demonstrated His forgiveness by the spit that was hurled upon the face of Christ; by the skin viciously torn out from his back and side at the scourging; by the bruises and scrapes and split skin that came from falling under the weight of the cross as He carried it to Golgotha; by the holes in His hands and feet from the nails that pierced them; by the gall put to His lips; by the thorns pressed into His Sacred Head; by the gash in His side to prove He was dead, whence came Blood and Water that are the streams of Divine Mercy.  God forgave through the crucifixion.  Though He doesn’t ask us to be nailed to the cross in the same way, He does ask us to forgive in the same way.
    And the easiest way to forgive others is to first recognize that we need to be forgiven, not only directly by God, but also by our neighbor.  I wish that I could tell you that I’m a perfect priest, that I always make good decisions, that all my words are the words that our Blessed Savior would speak.  But that would be a lie.  I myself am beset by weakness, and sometimes I act out of my pride; or choose a hurtful word when a loving one works much better; or I choose the easier path instead of the virtuous one; and so many other ways that I fall short of the image of the Good Shepherd, to whom I am configured by sacred orders.  I am a sinner; sometimes it is hard to admit that I am wrong and have followed the wrong path.  And so I ask your forgiveness, as your brother and your father.  For any ways I have hurt you, or not demonstrated the love of Christ the Good Shepherd, I seek your mercy.  And perhaps, to those in your life who have hurt you, you can also show mercy.  
    One of my favorite quotes from saints is from St. Maximus of Turin, who preached, “Sinner he may indeed be, but he must not despair of pardon on this day which is so highly privileged; for if a thief could receive the grace of paradise, how could a Christian be refused forgiveness?”  If our Lord could shower His mercy on St. Dismas, the good thief, in the moments before He died, how could he not have mercy on us whenever we come to Him as He reigns in glory?  And, having received that mercy, our Lord also instructs us: “Go, and do likewise” to the praise and glory of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

How God Offers Mercy

 Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    There is a kind of parable told about a man whose house was in the path of a flood.  The waters were starting to cover the roads, and a patrol car came by to take him to safety.  “No thanks,” he said, “God will save me!”  The water kept rising, until it was up to his porch.  A rescue boat came by to take him to safety.  “No thanks,” he said, “God will save me!”  The waters kept rising, until it was up to his roof.  A helicopter hovered over his house and offered to take him to safety.  “No thanks,” he said, “God will save me!”  The waters kept rising, and the man drowned.  Standing before the judgment seat of God, the man asked the Almighty why He didn’t do anything to save him.  God said, “I sent you the patrol car, the rescue boat, and the helicopter to save you.  You didn’t want my help.”  
    God is merciful.  We hear it again and again in our readings.  Our first reading mentions the mercy of God after Moses pleads for the people.  The verses of our responsorial psalm is the prayer King David wrote after he realized he had sinned greatly by committing adultery with Bathsheba and then having her husband, Uriah, killed in battle.  St. Paul recounts in our second reading how God treated him mercifully, even though he was a blasphemer and arrogant.  And in our Gospel, Jesus speaks about how the mercy of God goes out, seeking the lost to return him to wholeness, in three parables of His own.
    God is merciful.  But do we accept how He sends His mercy?  God’s mercy was shown in a most perfect way in the Incarnation.  Jesus revealed the mercy of God.  And yet, we rejected Him.  The very people God had chosen to be His own; the people who had the prophets, telling the people about the savior God would send them; the people who knew God’s revelation from Genesis to Malachi; many could not accept God’s merciful presence in the Incarnation because it was not the way they wanted to receive God’s mercy.  And so Mercy Incarnate took upon Himself the justice that should have been meted out to us because of our sins.  As Isaiah prophesied about Jesus: “He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, knowing pain, Like one from whom you turn your face, spurned, and we held him in no esteem.  […] We thought of him as stricken, struck down by God and afflicted.”

    How does God offer us His mercy?  He offers it through the Sacrament of Penance.  This is the ordinary way that God forgives sins.  Can He forgive in other ways?  Certainly; He is God.  But God told His apostles that they would have the power to loose and bind, the power to release people from their sins.  Why would God give a power if He didn’t intend that power to be exercised?  
    The Church has discerned two ways in which a person may be sorry: perfect and imperfect contrition.  Perfect contrition is when sorrow for sin “arises from a love by which God is loved above all else.”  That is, we recognize how our sins have offended our God and our relationship with Him, not because of any effects it may have on us, but simply because it is contrary to who God is, and “breaks the heart” of the Beloved.  Imperfect contrition is when sorrow for sin is “born of the consideration of sin’s ugliness or the fear of eternal damnation and the other penalties threatening the sinner.”  In other words, imperfect contrition is more so the sorrow that comes from knowing that we will, eventually, get caught, and have to pay the price for our sins.  As I reflect on my life I would like to hope that I am moving towards perfect contrition when I sin, but I am often at least partially sorry simply because I don’t want to suffer the consequences of my sins.
    In the Sacrament of Penance, God transforms our imperfect contrition into perfect contrition so that we might be forgiven.  But through the Sacrament of Penance, God also reconciles us with the Church and with each other, which is why confession to a priest is necessary.  Standing alone in our home or in the woods, we can certainly ask God for forgiveness.  But each sin, no matter how private or personal, also affects the other members of the Body of Christ, to whom we are connected by Baptism.  So we also need to ask forgiveness from them, and the priest is authorized by God to act in the name of the entire Body, including the head (Jesus Christ, who, as God, is the only one who can forgive sins) and the other members.  
    This way of receiving God’s mercy is not as popular now as it has been.  But do we seek this ordinary way of being forgiven by God?  Or do we reject it like some of the Chosen People rejected the Incarnation?  God is seeking us out through the Sacrament of Penance.  He is looking for us while we are still a long way out, so that He can run to us and restore us to our status and sons and daughters in the Son of God.  But are we like the man in the parable at the beginning of the homily today: convinced God will save us, but not open to the way that He wants to do so?  If it’s been a while since you’ve been to confession: do not be afraid.  The confession of your sins is merely the means by which God conveys His mercy.  Let God save you in the way He has chosen.

A Second Look at God's Mercy

 Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of the great things about Sacred Scripture is that it is a treasure that can never be fully mined, a spring that never runs out.  I was reminded about that as I was reading over this very familiar parable about the unforgiving servant.  It’s funny how you sort of skim over the parts that you think you know: a servant has a huge debt, he can’t pay it back, so the master decides to sell him and his family to pay the debt.  But the man pleads, and the master gives him more time to pay it back.  But when faced with the same situation where the servant is like the master, and someone else owes him a little bit of money, the servant is not as merciful.  That’s what I thought I had heard all these years.

    But then I looked closer at the Gospel, and noticed that the master didn’t give him more time to pay back the debt.  The servant offered to pay it back, if he could have more time, but the master forgave the entire debt.  That changes the tone of the parable a bit.  I don’t know why I never noticed it (I’m sure a psychologist could have a field day with that), but I always presumed that the servant was expected to pay the money back.  
    It doesn’t take a great Scripture scholar and knowledge of Greek to know that the master represents our heavenly Father in the parable.  Our Lord reveals someone of who the Father is as He shows that, faced with the pleading of His children, He does not give more time; He eliminates the debt.  And isn’t that what we see with salvation?  
    We can sometimes have this idea that if humanity in general, or we in particular, just had more time, we could pay back the debt of sin.  But that’s wrong.  We, whether in general or in particular, could never pay back the debt that was incurred because of sin.  By true justice we should have been handed over to the jailers (Hell) to pay the price of our sins.  But as we pleaded for the mercy of God, God did not give us more time, but forgave us our sins as Jesus paid the price for it on the cross.
    What generosity!!  How prodigal (wasteful) God is with His mercy!  Just thinking about that should make us fall to our knees, not in pleading, but in gratitude for what God has done for us!  No matter what our sins, when we plead with our heavenly Father in the Sacrament of Penance, He forgives us, wipes away our debt, so that nothing stands against us.  As the hymn states, “What wondrous love is this!”  
    But then, the Lord says and the parable clearly teaches, we are to imitate the Father in His mercy.  Just as we receive mercy, so should we give it.  When others offend us, they offend merely another human.  When we sin, we offend God and our fellow man, so the debt is much greater than being offended by another person.  And yet, how often are we quick to plead for God’s mercy, but not show it ourselves?  Oh the irony that sometimes the angriest drivers are the ones who are leaving the church parking lot on a Sunday!
    We are invited to emulate the mercy of God the Father, and, in doing so, fight the fallen powers of the devil.  To do that, we have to wear the armor of God: the breastplate of justice, the shoes of peace, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.  St. Paul also mentions girding our loins with truth, so I guess we could also add the compression shorts of truth to that list.  In any case, we should be surrounding ourselves with prayer and the mercy of God as we go to interact with people.  Yes, people may sometimes be nasty, but the devil can use other’s nastiness to tempt us to fall into sin by being nasty right back.  Earlier in the month on 2 October we celebrated our Holy Guardian Angels.  We can ask for their assistance in helping protect ourselves from the attacks of the enemy.  We can ask them to clear away any temptations to sin, especially if we have to prepare for a difficult conversation.  
    And as we do so, we should keep a clear head that the measure with which we forge, is the measure that we will be forgiven.  Again, a sobering reality.  As we go to confession, it should not only forgive us our sins (which it does), but also allow us to demonstrate the mercy of the Father more readily.  If that’s not happening; if we are not (however slowly) finding it easier to forgive others and be patient with them, then we’re not allowing the sacrament to be as fruitful as God wants it to be.  God intends His mercy to change us, to convert us, to change our hearts.  May we leave the confessional each time feeling well-armored from the darts of the enemy, and ready to enter the battlefield of the world and extend the mercy of God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Like Fr. Mulcahy

 Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of my favorite TV characters, for reasons you might guess, is Fr. Francis Mulcahy from the TV show “M*A*S*H.”  As the seasons progress, they really develop his character into a leading role in the show.  He often is known for his dry humor and his witty one-liners.  But one of my favorite episodes with Fr. Mulcahy is when a soldier who is AWOL (absent without leave) decides to claim sanctuary in the mess tent, which is serving as the chapel.  Though other, higher-ranking officers, the Judge Advocate General corps (think military lawyers), and even the head chaplain of the Army all say that the protection of sanctuary does not apply, Fr. Mulcahy is very serious about providing the soldier with the protection that is needed.  However, when the soldier, who is pressed in by the MPs (military police), grabs a rifle, Fr. Mulcahy is just as serious about rebuking the soldier for claiming sanctuary on the one hand, but then taking up arms in the same “house of God” on the other hand when things don’t seem to be going his way.  He bats away the rifle, almost on instinct, while scolding the soldier.  And then, when the soldier is visibly upset and penitent, Fr. Mulcahy is just as serious about comforting the soldier and getting him the help he needs.
    As Catholics, we could all learn a thing or two from Fr. Mulcahy; not just me as a priest and a chaplain for the State Police.  And I want to focus on his seriousness, because there are two things we should be very serious about: our sins and their effects on the one hand, and God’s mercy on the other.  
    St. Paul reminds us today that there are certain actions which are inconsistent with going to heaven: “immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like.”  Some of the English words don’t need an explanation.  But for a word like immorality, in Greek porneia, we could say any type of sexual activity outside of marriage (and this Greek word is the word from which we get the word pornography); impurity is also broad and has a sense of any physical act of lust; licentiousness has the meaning of an unbridled lust or excess of sexuality (no restrictions on sexual activity); the words that underline idolatry (false worship) and sorcery are fairly clear.  
    The word hatred is connected to the Greek word for enemy.  Rivalry can also mean strife or fighting.  Jealousy is pretty obvious, but fury could also be translated as rage or intense anger.  Acts of selfishness can also mean selfish ambition or selfish rivalry, and dissensions is about dividing.  Factions is connected to the word for heresies, which means a separate (and false) teaching.  The definitions for the rest seem fairly obvious.  
    In any case, St. Paul is clear that these types of behavior are not only opposed to the Holy Spirit, but “those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”  That’s very serious!  And so should we take them: seriously; we might even say “gravely.”  Some on that list are not surprising as keeping one out of heaven: sexual immorality and the like, outbursts of fury, drinking bouts, etc.  But others, perhaps like jealousy, envy, and even dissensions might not seem as serious.  And yet, if we take the Word of God as given to us by St. Paul seriously, then even those things can keep one from heaven.  
    And yet, we also have to be as serious about the mercy of God, not undermining the evil that can keep us out of heaven, but also not giving more power to sin than to God’s grace.  The Galatians included probably many people who, as pagans, had lived in such a way as St. Paul describes as contrary to the Spirit and part of the works of the flesh.  But they had turned away from such things, at least for a while.  The fact that St. Paul is writing to remind them about not living according to the flesh leads one to believe that at least some had fallen back into old habits, and they needed a little encouragement and admonition about living according to the Spirit.  God’s mercy is more powerful than our sins, and can restore us to a right relationship with Him, no matter what we have done.  
    But, we want to respond to the grace of God, which is the source of any good we do, and not try to serve two masters.  Our Lord talks about the choice between God and mammon, which means money or wealth.  But the choice of which master we serve can also go for any of the sins which St. Paul lists out.  If the master we serve is not God, then it makes sense why we would not go to heaven, because we would not want to go there.  If we prefer to indulge our illicit sexual appetites, or our passions, or even our own self-importance or the superiority of our intellectual positions, then we have made no room for God.  We should take seriously whom we wish to serve, because the small choices we make daily can determine our eternity.
    At the same time, we should take seriously God’s mercy, and his patience with us if we are trying to repent.  In times such as these, while it doesn’t excuse sexual immorality of any kind, sex is ubiquitous and it is very easy to get snared, sometimes even unwittingly at a young age.  Are we turning to the mercy of God, not presuming on it, but truly seeking to do better, doing our best to cooperate with God’s grace, and returning, sometimes even time-after-time, to the confessional?  Going to confession is our part in asking the Lord to re-establish Himself as the Master of our life.  That is why exorcists say that the best way to avoid demonic oppression or possession is to make regular confessions.  And we have a good amount of times here and at St. Pius X where the Sacrament of Penance is available.  As those times consistently fill-up, I can look to add other times.  
    But do not despair of God’s mercy, or take it lightly.  God desires our salvation, and, as as Jesus told us, He will seek us out like a lost lamb or a lost coin.  “God already proved His love for us in that, while we were still sinners, he died for us,” St. Paul writes.  There is no place God will not go to rescue us from our sinfulness.  So take courage and ask for God’s mercy.  Ask for God’s help to put to death the works of the flesh (which is impossible to do by ourselves) and to live, guided by the Holy Spirit.  When we call upon God in true sorrow for our sins, moved by God’s grace, we can have confidence that God will help us to live by the Spirit, who with the Father and the Son is God, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Justice and Mercy

 Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
    

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  The saints are often known for pithy quotes that make one think, or sometimes chuckle.  For example, St. Theresa of Avila is quoted as saying to the Lord, “If this is how you treat your friends, it is no wonder you have so few!”  Or St. John XXIII, who had a particularly good sense of humor, would say to God each night before he went to bed, something to the effect of “Dear Lord, it’s your Church; you take care of it.  I’m going to bed.”  Or St. Theresa of Calcutta, who said, “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle.  I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.”    I bet we all can or have once had the same feeling.
    St. Paul reminds us today that “God is faithful and will not let [us] be tried beyond [our] strength.”  This is a good thing to remember in our day-to-day life.  We do not have to give in to our temptations; we do not have to sin.  God gives us what the scholastics called sufficient grace, or the power of God which is required to say no to temptation.  Certainly, venial sins may pop up which are simply due to weakness of our character or pre-dispositions, but when it comes to knowingly being tempted to commit a venial or a mortal sin, we do not have to give in to the temptation and act contrary to God’s will.
    But how often do we call upon that grace?  How often do we call out to God to save us in time of temptation?  Or how often do we rebuke the temptation as having no power over us?  In our daily temptations, we can turn to the Lord, and then rebuke, mentally or verbally, that temptation as not being from God.  Sometimes out-loud is especially effective, because it gets us out of our head.  
    The other option, giving in to temptation, leads to consequences.  It’s a kind of spiritual law of physics.  Just as for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so in the spiritual life, for every sin to which we acquiesce, there are consequences with which we might have to deal.  It is true that sometimes God can withhold that consequence, for a time or for ever, but He can also let the consequence of sin (which is death) affect us.  
    St. Paul mentions that in his epistle as well.  He mentions the fall of the twenty-three thousand as a consequence of immorality, or those who died by serpents on the way to the Promised Land.  And in our Gospel, we hear our Lord prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem, because the city did not recognize the time of its visitation.  
    We tend to look at these things as punishments.  We think that God is striking this person or that person down because of evil.  But, from other parts of the Gospel, it’s not quite that simple.  Our Lord himself, when talking about the tower that fell, or those who were killed by Pilate, argued that they were no more guilty than others.  Only God knows how, why, and when to allow the consequences of sin to catch up with a person or a group of persons.  And His patience is always for the purpose of allowing for conversion, as St. Peter says in his second epistle.  
    There’s a rather horrible contemporary hymn that was written, and which was very popular in my first assignment, called “The Canticle of the Turning.”  It’s a kind of very, very loose paraphrase of the Magnificat written to the melody of an Irish bar song (sort of the example of everything wrong with contemporary hymnody).  The refrain states, “My heart shall sing of the day you bring / Let the fires of your justice burn.”  I don’t know about you, but if I have the choice between God’s mercy and God’s justice, I will take God’s mercy every day, and twice on Sundays, as the saying goes.  
    But what we want to receive, we need to give to and desire for others.  Our Lord’s teaching on loving our enemies is one of the tougher teachings of the Gospel.  It’s easy to immediately want what we consider to be justice, for the other person to get their just desserts.  How often when I am driving do I see a car run a red light, and I opine, sometimes out-loud, that I hope that there’s a cop around to pull them over.  I can tell you it’s not so much because I’m concerned about my own safety or the safety of others that I want that person pulled over (which would be fine), but because I want that drive to be punished for breaking the rules, which I strive so hard to follow.  If we want to receive mercy, we need to show mercy.  If we want others to have Divine Justice, then we need to be prepared for it to fall upon us as well.

    There is a small chapel on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the city of Jerusalem from the west, called Dominus Flevit, which, for those whose Latin isn’t that sharp, means The Lord Wept.  It’s called that because it is the place (or at least it’s around the place) where today’s Gospel took place and the Lord wept over Jerusalem.  It’s one of my favorite chapels, because as you attend Mass, you see the present-day city of Jerusalem.  But you see it through a wrought-iron image that includes a cross and a host over a chalice.  Outside of pandemics, I would guess that chapel is used every day.  It’s a great reminder for us that the Mass is the prayer of reconciliation of Jesus to the Father, pleading for, not just Jerusalem, but the world, which should be seen through the mystery of the Eucharist.  May our hearts be moved daily to show the mercy of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Not Giving as Good as we Got

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When I was around 5 years old, my sister and I were racing up our basement steps on our hands and knees towards the first floor.  On the way up, I slid off the side, and fell, around 8 feet, head first, onto our concrete floor (I’m sure some of you are thinking: that explains a lot about Fr. Anthony!).  I suffered a concussion, and was in the hospital for some time.  While I have no evidence to support this, I jokingly say, to my sister’s chagrin, that she pushed me off so she could beat me to the top.
    I don’t really believe that my sister pushed me, but I do know human nature, and I know that, often, when we feel slighted in some way, we not only give back what we got, but go a little further to make sure that the other person understands that they shouldn’t mess with us again.  This is the tricky thing with justice: we’re good at demanding it, but quite awful at exacting it.  We always give a little bit more than we got.  We see this with kids all the time: one sibling touches another, which leads to a slap, which leads to a punch, with leads to an all-out fight.  But adults aren’t much different, except that as adults were a little bit better at hiding our retribution. 
    As Jesus teaches us in the Gospel today, the idea of exacting justice for ourselves does not always lead to justice.  When we keep returning offense for offense (“an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”), we continue a cycle of violence that will never stop.  Even if we could exact perfect justice, the cycle would still continue: you offend me, so I offend you back, but then you are offended so you offend me, and then I offend you back, etc., etc. 
    Instead, Jesus invites us to end the cycle, and turn the other cheek.  Jesus is not teaching us here to be punching bags or victims of others’ aggression, but to remove ourselves from this cycle where we think we need to get revenge any time someone does something wrong to us.  Jesus invites us to forgive the other and will the good of the other, or said more simply, to love the other. 
    Now, we can all think of times when this would be unreasonable.  For a cop, he or she may have to use force to subdue an attacker or arrest someone who is not following lawful commands; for our justice system to work we have to punish those who do wrong to the city and help them to understand that breaking legitimate laws is not something that promotes the common good; for our men and women in the armed forces, they are called on to fight enemies of the USA in defense of our country; and even for individuals, one has a right and often an obligation to defend oneself or one’s family against violence. 
    But at the same time, in our day-to-day lives, we have many opportunities to end the cycle of vengeance at home, at work, on the road, and elsewhere.  And when we do, we imitate our heavenly Father who offers even those who offend Him time to repent and to turn away from their evil and live a life of holiness.  Nowhere is this more evident than with St. Paul.  The Acts of the Apostles documents, and St. Paul himself writes in some of his epistles, that he persecuted the Church that Jesus founded.  He even consented to the stoning of St. Stephen.  But God didn’t stop loving Paul, or only give him bad things.  By God’s grace, which was showered upon Paul, he became the greatest missionary in the history of Christianity and gave his life in witness to the faith. 
    So today, let us recommit ourselves to doing as we heard in the first reading, to loving our neighbor as ourselves.  As disciples of Jesus, may we follow the example of our Master, and not respond in vengeance, but end the cycle of giving back at least as good as we were given when someone offends us.  As we have received mercy from our heavenly Father, when strict justice demanded punishment, so may we also be merciful, as our heavenly Father is merciful.

Admitting We're Wrong; Receiving God's Mercy

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Sacrament of Penance, aka Confession, is one of my favorite sacraments to celebrate, both as a priest and as a penitent.  Not because I like hearing all the juicy details of your life.  Lord knows other priests have heard mine.  I love giving and receiving the mercy of God.  As a priest, a person’s confession is never about what they have done.  Yes, they have to be sorry; and sometimes I try to get them to truly make the changes that will help them not commit those sins in the future.  But the sacrament is about God’s mercy, and restoring that person to sanctifying grace, that is, the grace that makes us the saints that God called us to be in baptism.  When a person comes into the confessional, he or she may be in serious danger of going to hell because of mortal sin.  When that same person leaves, he or she is once more on the track to being a saint.

I think one of the difficulties in confessing our sins is that it can be embarrassing.  Some sins are embarrassing to confess, or even just to say.  Sometimes it’s the embarrassment of knowing that we did something we knew was wrong.  But when we confess our sins, when we admit that we have done wrong, we are not alone.  David, the best king Israel ever had, the image of what the Messiah would be like, was an adulterer and a murderer.  He got Bathsheba pregnant when she was married to Uriah, tried to have Uriah have relations with his wife so that he would think it was his, and then had Uriah killed when his planned deception did not work.  In today’s first reading, we get part of that story, where God chastises David for doing what was wrong.  But notice that, as soon as David said, “‘I have sinned against the Lord’”, God responds immediately through his prophet Nathan, “‘The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin: you shall not die.’”  As soon as we admit that we are in need of God’s mercy, which is itself made possible by God’s grace, God rushes in to forgive us, and to keep us from death and hell.  

The woman in today’s Gospel passage doesn’t even say she is sorry with her words.  She provides a service of love to Jesus to express how sorry she is.  She can’t even speak her sorrow, but cries because of how much she knows she has strayed from God.  And in her act of love, Jesus says, “‘Your sins are forgiven.’”  She knows the value of God’s love, and wants to be restored to it.  She knows that what she did was wrong, and she seeks God’s mercy.  And God, in Jesus, gives her the mercy for which she was looking.

It’s hard admitting that we’re wrong.  We love to justify ourselves as much as possible, and rationalize what we do when we sin.  Or, in some cases, we do not refer to sins as sinful; we ignore how they are contrary to God’s plan for our happiness.  We know by faith, that our chances of getting into heaven if we die in the state of mortal sin are not good.  God never forces His love upon us, and we can freely choose to reject Him in our actions.  Yet we also know of God’s mercy, that is waiting to be showered upon us.  Pope Francis has especially encouraged us to seek God’s mercy in this Jubilee Year of Mercy.  He invites us to experience personally what Psalm 32 said today: “I acknowledged my sin to you,/ my guilt I covered not./  I said, ‘I confess my faults to the Lord,’/ and you took away the guilt of my sin.//”

In his Papal Bull starting the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis wrote, “Let us place the Sacrament of Reconciliation at the centre [sic] once more in such a way that it will enable people to touch the grandeur of God’s mercy with their own hands.  For every penitent, it will be a source of true interior peace.”  The Lord wants to shower his mercy upon us, but we must first admit that we are the ones who need mercy.  In the Sacrament of Penance, we admit that we are a sinner, and the Lord looks upon us with love and forgiveness.  Or, we recognize, as Pope Francis said in an interview, that, “‘I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.”

So we should not fear the Sacrament of Penance.  Even if it’s been 5 or 10 or 20 or 40 years since your last confession, I invite you to experience the ordinary way that God gives His mercy to us.  Don’t worry if you don’t remember your act of contrition; I’ll help you through it.  Or, if you don’t want to go to me, Fr. Shaun is always available, or you can go to one of the surrounding parishes in Lenawee County.  But don’t miss out on the chance to receive God’s mercy!