Like St. Matthew

 Solemnity of St. Matthew

    Probably we take for granted that each church building is named after a saint, or after a mystery of our Lord’s life.  As we look around Genesee County we think of churches and parishes and immediately go to the name of the holy one or holy ones associated with it: St. Pius X, St. John Vianney, Holy Redeemer, Sts. Charles and Helena, etc.  But have you ever stopped to think why we do this?  
    Naming churches is not simply to distinguish one church from another, though that is helpful.  As a young child (some may still think I’m a young child), I was confused for a bit that every town had a First Baptist Church.  How could every town have the first one?  But we name our churches to put that church and the people who enter it, the people of the parish, under the patronage or protection of that mystery of our Lord’s life or that saint.  So we gather to worship God under the protection and with the assistance and intercession of St. Matthew, the Apostle and Evangelist.  He is, in the apse of the church (the rounded part of the sanctuary), looking down at us each time we gather, and looking out at us through the statue at the high altar.  
    We also talk about patron saints.  Certain saints are associated with certain professions or hobbies, and their intercession is sought for those particular needs.  St. Matthew is the patron saint of accountants, bankers, bookkeepers, security guards, and stockbrokers.  The money aspect makes perfect sense because St. Matthew was a tax collector, which was at best as popular then as it is now, perhaps even less popular because St. Matthew collected taxes for a foreign, occupying power.  
    But we also look to our patron saints to inspire us to live like they did.  We are not to “ape” them, just doing everything that he did (collect taxes, move to Israel, write a long story about Jesus’ life, Death, and Resurrection, etc.), but we are to live in our own day in our own vocation following the pattern that St. Matthew set out for us.  And it is on that aspect of our heavenly patron that I want to focus today.

    In our Gospel today we heard Jesus call St. Matthew to follow Him, and St. Matthew did just that.  He abandoned his profession, held a banquet for Christ and his disciples, and then abandoned everything to follow our Lord.  For most of you (but perhaps not all), Christ is not asking you to quit your job.  But He does desire that we make Him the most important thing in our life.  And that is something that we can all do.  Today our Lord is inviting us to follow Him; to put in second (or third or fourth) place the things that usually vex our mind, and to focus on Christ.  
    Notice that our Savior does not call St. Matthew because of Matthew’s perfections.  We don’t know anything about St. Matthew’s moral life explicitly, but if other tax collectors and sinners came to his house for dinner, there was likely some affinity with those who sinned.  Matthew didn’t have it all together, and our Lord didn’t make that a prerequisite for following Him.  All Christ required was a willingness to do what He said.  
    And if we want to be saints, Christ calls us to do the same, under the patronage of St. Matthew.  Christ is not calling us to follow Him because we are perfect.  If Christ waited for our perfection in order to call us, He would be waiting for an eternity.  But He calls us and comes to us because He came “‘to call [not] the righteous but sinners.’”  He wants to heal us as the Divine Physician of any wounds or sicknesses that afflict our hearts.  He knows we need Him, and He hopes that we, like St. Matthew, can recognize that and follow Jesus’ call.
    But following St. Matthew doesn’t stop at simply following our Lord, just as St. Matthew didn’t just follow Him until the crucifixion.  After the Resurrection and Pentecost, St. Matthew went, by tradition, to Persia and Ethiopia.  Having been transformed by Christ’s healing love, and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, St. Matthew could not help but share that Good News, the Gospel, with others.  He did so in writing in his account of the Gospel, written especially to a Jewish-Christian community, and by word of mouth in foreign lands.
    Again, we are not to ape St. Matthew.  I’m not telling you to go to Iran (modern-day Persia) or Ethiopia, though you are most welcome to do that if God is calling you to do so.  But right here in Genesee County, right here in Flint, are people who need to hear the Gospel.  In writing and by our speech, St. Matthew should inspire us to share the Good News with others, and not to keep it to ourselves like a lamp under a bushel basket.  
    I am new here, and so far only a small part of St. Matthew’s long, proud history.  I have heard from parishioners about times when the church would be filled, or at least be fuller than it is today.  And I know people want that again.  We may not ever have a high school again, but we want to have families so that we could.  We would love to have more Masses here like in days gone by, needed simply to accommodate all the people who seek God’s salvation in this church through the intercession of St. Matthew.  It is not impossible.  It’s not even improbable.  But it will take each of us becoming an evangelist, each of us becoming a sharer of the Good News of Christ.  There are so many people who need it, and the beauty of this amazing church draws people to our Triune God who is Beauty Himself.  But they will never get here if we don’t invite them.  And I’m not talking simply about stealing other Catholics from other parishes.  I’m talking about reaching out to those who are not Catholic, those who may be connected to Christ through baptism but who do not have the fullness of God’s revelation which is present in the Catholic Church.  Or even those who are ignorant of God and His ways, those who are unbaptized.  If we really believe that God is such an important part of life, then we are required, as an act of charity, to share it with them!  They may accept or reject it, but at least we have done our part to make sure they know it.
    When was the last time you invited a fellow Catholic and especially a non-Catholic to come to church with you?  Sometimes it takes just one time of entering a gorgeous church like this and hearing the Gospel for the heart to be moved to convert one’s life.  True, only Catholics can receive Holy Communion, but let the reception of Christ’s Body and Blood be the goal that the visitor desires and which draws them to convert their life and join the Catholic Church.  
    Today we ask St. Matthew, not only to intercede for us with God to make us saints, which is very important, but also to help us spread the Gospel.  If we truly want to be sons and daughters of so great an intercessor, if we truly want to call ourselves members of St. Matthew, then may our lives demonstrate that same zeal that St. Matthew had.  Today, let us recommit ourselves to inviting a friend to come to church with us, and sharing with them the Gospel, so that more and more may hear and obey the invitation of Christ to follow Him.

Jack Sparrow's Compass

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I will admit: when I first heard that Disney was making a movie based on the ride “Pirates of the Caribbean,” I was very skeptical that it would be a good movie.  But, 7 movies later, I am happy to be wrong.  One of the staples in every movie has been Captain Jack Sparrow’s special compass, which doesn’t point towards north, but points towards whatever the person holding it wants most.  The compass helps Jack find the Black Pearl, the fountain of youth, and all the other things and places that Jack or the other characters want, especially rum.  

Of course, a compass that points toward what we want is not real.  It would be a nice invention, but, as far as I know, it doesn’t exist.  If it did exist, though, where or to what would it point?  Would it be a new house, a new car, or something?  Or would it point to a place, or even to a person?

We are a society that generally gets what it wants pretty quickly.  If we want to know something, we simply ask Siri or Alexa.  If we want to buy something, we put it on the credit card, even if we don’t have the money to buy that thing.  Our desires are satisfied quite rapidly.  But we are probably also one of the most miserable societies in this history of the world, because more often than not, our desires fluctuate between very transitory or passing things or relationships.  When it comes to the deeper things of life, many people seem to set those aside.

And yet, our deepest desire is for God.  The cliché phrase puts it this way: we have a God-sized hole in our heart.  St. Augustine, the great Doctor of the Church, puts it this way in his book The Confessions: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”  We seek after so many things and people, but what we really want, what all those things and people cannot give us, is a deep relationship with God.  And the things and even other people cannot fulfill those desires because we really want the infinite, and those things and people are finite.  

A person on the road to heaven would have a compass that would point right here, to the tabernacle, because inside is Jesus, who is the deepest desire of our hearts.  The person who is living out the call that God gives to every baptized person to be a saint would want to have God.  Yes, that person would probably have other things–a house, a car, personal relationships–but they would all come second to God.

Is God the treasure that we desire?  Is God the pearl of great price in our life?  The person who is working in the field and finds a treasure, then does everything he can to buy that field so that he can have that treasure.  The merchant who is searching for a fine pearl sells everything he has so that he can get that one, perfect pearl.  What do we do to deepen our relationship with God?  What are we willing to give away?

Because in order to say yes to God, we have to say no to other things.  That’s not just true with our relationship with God, it’s true with everything in life.  Whenever we say yes to one thing or person, we say no to another.  When I said yes to becoming a priest, I was also saying no to every single woman that would cross my path for the rest of my life (in terms of a romantic relationship).  For a married woman, when she says, “I do,” to her husband, she is also saying, “I don’t” to every other man, no matter how handsome or kind he might be.  When a student says yes to partying on a Tuesday night, he or she is saying no to the homework that is due the next day.  Saying yes to anything means saying no to the other options.  That sounds tough, but it’s the way life works.  And it’s true whether the choice is for something good, or for something that is a lesser good.

Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular, is getting more difficult to live.  We no longer have a culture which supports living out our faith.  The truths of the faith which cannot change are so often now opposed by friends, family, and even the government at times.  We have not yet reached systematic persecution in the United States, but the groups who call those who live out Catholicism bigots, backwards, and hate-filled seem to grow every year.  More and more we will have to decide what religion we will say yes to: Catholicism or hedonistic secular humanism–a secular type of religion that tells us to do whatever feels good, whatever we want?  And that decision will be made by what we love the most, what we truly think is the treasure in the field or the pearl of great price.  

If we had a compass that pointed to what we want the most, where would it point?  If it doesn’t point to that tabernacle, more precisely, to Jesus who is inside it, then Jesus invites us to reprioritize our lives.  God has made us for Himself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him.  May God be the strongest desire in our life.