On Pilgrimage

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord/Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  On this past Christmas Eve, Pope Francis opened the 2025 Jubilee Year, choosing as its theme “Pilgrims of Hope.”  There are numerous opportunities to gain plenary indulgences during this Jubilee, including pilgrimages to our Cathedral in Lansing, to two of the three churches on the pilgrimage to Kentucky that we hope to do in June, or to certain churches in Rome and Jerusalem.
    We hear in our Gospel of the first pilgrimage of our Lord to Jerusalem for the two-fold purpose of celebrating the purification rites for a woman who had given birth, in accord with Leviticus, chapter 12, and the redemption of the first born son, from Exodus, chapter 13.  Our Blessed Mother offers the sacrifice for her purification, and our Lord is given back to God as the firstborn son, remembering how the angel of death passed over the Israelites who marked their lintels with the blood of the lamb.
    This idea of pilgrimage to the Temple, for various reasons, finds its root in the Old Testament, which our Lord fulfilled.  Generally, a good Jew would travel to the Temple each year at least for the Feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Booths.  The temple signified the dwelling place of God, and so all the people would travel to God’s home to be near Him and to thank Him for freedom from slavery and the life of the firstborn (Passover), for the blessing of produce and giving of the law (Pentecost), and the blessing of the harvest and exodus from Egypt (Booths).  But in each case, one traveled to be near God.

Simeon and the Christ Child

    In Christ’s first pilgrimage, the Holy Family did not, technically speaking, need to go to the Temple to find themselves close to God.  They had God with them at all times!  And yet, they still humbled themselves to obey the Law.  Yet, in that Law, God came into His temple in a new way, unlike even when He dwelt in the Temple of Solomon in His presence with the Ark of the Covenant.  By their humility, the Holy Family participated in the fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi that we heard in the first reading/epistle: “there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek.”  And in the fulfillment of this prophecy, another promise is fulfilled, that to Simeon, whom God promised would not taste death until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah, His Anointed One.  And from that fulfilled promise, Simeon also prophesies that Christ will be the rise and fall of many in Israel, and that a sword of sorrow would pierce Mary’s Immaculate Heart.  
    So how are we on pilgrimage to God?  Our life is meant to be a pilgrimage, not to Lansing, or Kentucky, or Rome, or Jerusalem, but to the heavenly Jerusalem, the Temple not made with hands.  Bethlehem to Jerusalem is a 5.5 mile walk.  You could easily get there and back in a day.  But Jerusalem was built on a hill, and so there were ups and downs.  This time of year in Jerusalem it is around 60 degrees, but there is also rain at this time of year.  So the Holy Family maybe dealt with sun or rain.  Likewise, in our life, which passes before God like a day, there will be ups and downs.  Some days trying to live as a disciple and love God and neighbor as He commanded will be easy; other days it will be difficult.  There will be sunny days where we are full of smiles while following the Lord and there will also be rain when we feel like God has absented Himself from our life, or like the cross He has allowed us to carry seems too heavy.  But you can’t get to the destination of a pilgrimage by stopping.  Sometimes little breaks may be necessary for rest, but the point of the pilgrimage is to keep moving.  
    And as we go towards the heavenly Jerusalem, we, too, should seek the purification of God.  Sin darkens our soul.  It makes us unworthy of temple worship, unworthy of being in God’s house because our actions have communicated that we don’t want to be with Him, and prefer our own ways to His.  It clouds our intellect so that we cannot understand what God wants us to do and how He wants us to love Him and others.  But God offers us purification through the Sacrament of Penance.  He washes us clean by His Precious Blood so that we can enter the Temple and bask in the warmth of His presence.  
    Pilgrimages are also based on hope.  We hope that we will arrive.  Nowadays, as we travel by car or bus or plane, or sometimes all three, our travel is less unsure.  But pilgrimages were historically a matter of walking, and you didn’t know where you might stop, or how safe the way was, or even if you would arrive.  So on our pilgrimage to heaven, we have to have hope.  We hope that God will protect us from anything that seeks to do us harm.  We hope that God will help us arrive at our final destination.  We go from what is seen, our starting point, to what is unseen, our destination.  In the end, until Christ returns in glory, only God knows who arrives safely, unless God grants the Church a knowledge that some have already arrived (our canonized saints).  But we hope that our loved ones are there, cheering us on, encouraging us not to give up, not to turn aside to other false gods or paths that lead away from God, and to persevere through the hills and valleys, the sun and the rain.  
    May this Jubilee Year inspire in us the hope that we will arrive in heaven someday, where Christ will welcome us all as parts of the Mystical Body of the Son redeemed in the Temple forty days after His Birth, the Light of Salvation for all peoples, Jesus Christ[, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God for ever and ever.  Amen].

Sanctifying our Families in the Temple

Feast of the Holy Family

The Holy Family in flight to Egypt

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  As we come to this Feast of the Holy Family, we once again have the opportunity to reflect on how we can grow as holy families, whether our family is an individual, a couple, or a couple with children.  The Church sets before us a unique family as a model, as the mother is sinless, the husband and wife are celibate, and the child is God, but they show us the way to be like them, though we are not sinless or God.
    And this year what struck me was the Gradual, from Psalms 26 and 83.  In the English it reads: “One thing I ask of the Lord, for this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life;” “Blessed are they who dwell in your house, O Lord, they shall praise you for ever and ever.”  As the Church has prayed, she has chosen to include these two verses from two psalms into the way we worship God and thank Him for the gift of the Holy Family.
    To be a holy family, our goal must be the house of the Lord.  The psalmist certainly thought about the Temple in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit inspired him to write this psalm.  And for a good Jew, to be close to God one had to go to the Temple, where His presence dwelt, especially in the holy of holies with the ark of the covenant.

    And so for us, no matter what our family looks like, we should strive to be close to God every day.  As a family that may include this temple, where God dwells in the tabernacle in a special way as our holy of holies.  But it also means being close to God throughout the day, even when we cannot make it here to this beautiful temple.  Because, as the Apostle reminds us, we are the temple of God since the Holy Spirit dwells within us through Baptism, Confirmation, and the other sacraments we have received.  
    This should give us comfort when we can’t make it to daily Mass, or even those times when we cannot come to Sunday or holyday Masses because we are sick, or we’re caring for a sick parent or child.  Even if we cannot physically be in a church, God is close to us, in fact, closer than we are to ourselves.  He walks with us each day, whether we go to work, or work at home with or without the kids, or enjoy the rest of retirement, or travel on vacation.  
    In fact, Solomon constructed the Temple to be like a new Garden of Eden.  There were pomegranates and leaves, animals, a bronze sea, lights from candles, and bread.  Genesis says that God accustomed Himself to walking with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening, and in the Temple one could have contact with God.  But since the veil of the Temple at the time of our Lord was rent, and the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost, we can find God, not only in a building, but also in our daily lives and in the silence of our hearts.
    But, the Temple also created a more stable meeting tent that the Jews traveled with in their Exodus, which God gave to Moses based upon heaven.  And so the Temple points us not only to the past in the Garden of Eden, but also to the future in the heavenly Jerusalem, the temple not made with hands.  And to be a holy family, we should keep our eyes and our attention on that heavenly temple, where we hope to worship God night and day with the angels and saints, singing “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts.”  Whether we are trying to keep our attention on heaven for ourselves, or trying to help our spouse keep his or her eyes on heaven, or trying to teach our children about how wonderful heaven will be and how we have to learn to make choices that get us closer to being there, to be a holy family means to keep our eyes on the prize and keep heaven in mind.  Our family Rosary, or going to Mass as a family, or learning and living out the virtues as a family all help us focus on being with God for ever in heaven, or at least that’s what they’re supposed to do.  It’s not just about the doing or the teaching, but about preparing our family, no matter its size, for the life that never ends, which we hope will be in heaven for us.  
    Keeping our eyes on heaven also means trusting in God, who supplies all of our needs in heaven.  And in that sense, it struck me that our Lord exhibited this in the three days that He was in the Temple area, as Mary and Joseph returned to look for Him.  Our Lord was twelve years old, and yet He survived in the Temple for those three days without parents to feed him.  I imagine he received some help from the teachers with whom He dialogued, but I know that Christ did not worry about what He was to eat or drink or wear, as He would later encourage us to not worry about such things in the Sermon on the Mount.  He was with His Father, and He knew His Father would take care of all things for Him.  So will God the Father do with us who are His adopted children through baptism: He provides, directly or indirectly, for what we need, and invites us to trust His will for our life, especially when it doesn’t match what we wanted to happen or what we thought should happen.  God may not will difficult times for us, but anything difficulties He allows help us to trust in Him and trust how He will take care of us even in the midst of our struggles.
    So, to be a holy family, focus on dwelling in the house of the Lord every day.  Maybe you can’t make it to Mass every day, but make time for God with daily prayer, especially silence, if you are able.  Sometimes it may be a simple sign of the cross as you care for your children, or a fervent prayer, “Jesus, help me!” when the chaos seems more than we can handle.  Or maybe its the less-than-five minutes to pray the Angelus each day at 6 a.m. and/or noon and/or 6 p.m.  Or maybe it’s a holy hour, especially during our Monday times of adoration.  But blessed are those who can dwell with the Lord each day, no matter where they are.  Those who seek to be with God will certainly be a holy family and will prepare themselves for the heavenly Jerusalem, where God–the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit–lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Made for More

Passion Sunday
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  This is the time of year that new assignments start coming out.  Just last Monday we received the notice of the movement of a number of pastors and parochial vicars to new assignments.  I was subsequently speaking with a brother priest and telling him how I received an email a couple of months ago from a parishioner at Immaculate Conception parish in Milan, Michigan (not to be confused with Milan, Italy) who asked me to apply for that parish because I am a young priest with lots of energy.  I joked with my classmate that I am not as young as I used to be.  And, besides that, I really feel that St. Matthew is the perfect fit for me (and I hope you feel that way, too, at least most of the time).  That’s not to say that we don’t have any challenges here and ways that we can continue to grow, not only in population but in our relationship with Christ.  But I really feel like I belong here, that we compliment each other well, and that we challenge each other to grow as a parish family.  As many of you live outside of the territorial boundaries of this parish, I know that you, too, feel like St. Matthew is a perfect place, and you witness to that by driving past other parishes that are geographically closer to you.

My installation as pastor of St. Matthew

    But while St. Matthew seems like the most perfect assignment I’ve had so far as a priest, and hopefully the most perfect parish for you, our epistle today is a good reminder that this is not all there is.  Christ is the High Priest, the Supreme Pontiff, of a greater and more perfect temple, not made with hands, in heaven.  As St. Paul says, we have here no lasting city.  We are made for heaven, and that is the temple into which we should all strive to enter.
    It is so easy to focus on what is here below.  Our church building can rightly be called beautiful as it reflects the truth of what this place proposes to be: a house of God, who is utterly transcendent and awesome.  The precious materials like marble and gold leaf offer to God the best of what we have for His glory.  The images of the saints throughout this church, like in our stained-glass windows, the medallions near the ceiling, and the statues (which are now covered) remind us that what we participate in is not just an earthly affair, but is the meeting point between heaven and earth, where saints and angels worship God together with us.  In this place we not only remember but participate in the offering of Christ in the Holy of Holies, no longer with the blood of a dumb animal, but with the precious blood of the Son of God, the blood which speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.  We join ourselves to the one Mediator between God and men, the God-Man Jesus Christ, who invites us into a covenant not carved on stone by the hand of God, but carved into our hearts; a covenant not marked by the cutting away of flesh in circumcision, but the cutting away of that which separates us from God, original sin; a covenant which brought not temporary purification, but opened up for us the possibility of eternal life in heaven if we keep our wedding garments clean in the Blood of the true Unblemished Lamb in which they were washed.
    But God reminds us today through the readings that His covenant surpasses anything that came before, and, in fact, fulfills them all.  Even that great covenant with Abraham, wherein God made Abraham and his descendants the People of God, looked forward to the covenant with Christ, as Christ Himself noted in the Gospel that Abraham looked forward to the day when God would take union with man and redeem man once and for all.  The Jews picked up stones to kill our Lord because they recognized that Christ was not claiming to be another prophet or religious leader like so many that had come before Him.  The Savior claimed that Abraham rejoiced in Him, which made Himself equal to God.  He also used in some way, that sacred name of God that God Himself revealed to Moses: I AM.  Christ is a prophet, but also greater than the prophets, and the God who inspired the prophets.
    For us, then, the Lord invites us not only to keep in mind His Divinity, but that, while we exercise good stewardship of this earth and all that lives in it, we also keep our minds fixed on what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father.  As good as this earth is, our time on it will end, either by death or by Christ’s return in glory at the parousia.  At the end of time, what is good will be perfected and what is bad will be cast away.  Even the sacraments will end in heaven, because we will no longer need material reality to mediate God’s presence.  We will be able to behold God face to face, no longer dimly, as in a mirror.  The indelible marks of the sacraments will still remain–baptism and confirmation, and for those in holy order, the mark of ordination–but no longer will we baptize, confirm, or ordain, because Christ will be all in all.
    So while we remain on this earth, we also do what so many advise against: keep our heads in the clouds.  Not in the sense that we are absent minded or distracted, but that our attention is ever-split between earth and heaven, keeping before us always the destination for which God created us.  As good as life can be here, something even greater awaits those who remain faithful to the covenant sealed in the Precious Blood of Christ our God.
    So yes, let’s continue to build up St. Matthew parish.  Let’s draw others to this beautiful House of God.  It truly feels like where I belong, and I hope you feel like it’s where you belong as well.  But, even so, may we also remember the tabernacle not built with hands, greater and more perfect than our tabernacle here, where Christ, our High Priest, eternally intercedes for us, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Interiorlizing the Rules

 Third Sunday of Lent
    There are many good jokes about those who study the liturgy, who are often called liturgists (of which I am one).  For example: what’s the difference between a vampire and a liturgist?  One is a blood-sucking, dark creature of the night, and the other turns into a bat.  Or what’s the difference between a terrorist and a liturgist?  You can negotiate with a terrorist.
    

What is it about those who love the liturgy that makes these jokes have just the right amount of a ring of truth?  Maybe at times you have felt that I have been immovable or inflexible when you thought I should be.  I think part of the reality is that those who have studied the liturgy understand the rules of the Mass, just like athletes and coaches understand the rules of the game.  If you find a really good athlete (one example that comes to my mind is Peyton Manning), you can see the art in how he or she competes in the sport.  When Peyton Manning was quarterback, it was poetry in motion watching him read the field, pass the ball, and avoid getting sacked.  Over his years of play, and with a good dose of God-given talent, Peyton went from simply thinking about the rules, to implementing the rules in a way that created beauty.  But imagine if Peyton didn’t understand rules on a false start, or an ineligible receiver.  Those games would have been ugly for the teams for which Peyton played.  The game would have been slow and clunky, and Peyton would not have won many, if any, games, and certainly not two Super bowls.  
    So for those who study the Mass and the Sacraments, they have made the rules a part of how they operate at Mass, such that it no longer looks like they are think about the rules, but are more naturally flowing, as is it’s a part of who they are while they’re at Mass.  For those who don’t understand or who have never been trained, it’s just a lot of dos and don’ts.  
    When we hear about Jesus cleansing the temple today (which in John’s Gospel happens towards the beginning, while the other Gospel accounts put it closer to Jesus’ Passion), we might wonder what Jesus’ problem was.  After all, people needed oxen, sheep, and doves for the temple.  They needed to exchange their foreign currency, often with the image of an emperor or king who considered himself a god, with money that did not have graven images and could be used in the temple.  In fact, the word profane comes the Latin words pro and fanum, meaning outside the temple.  To be profane was to be something that could only be used outside the temple, because it was not worthy of God.  
    But Jesus, who, as God, inspired David and Solomon to build the temple, and inspired the plans for the temple which was meant to represent heaven, knew the rules.  He knew how the temple was supposed to go, and what were “penalties.”  And so Jesus cleansed the temple to restore it to what it was meant for: the worship of God according to the pattern of heaven, rather than a marketplace.  
    So, too, for us, we are invited to give our best to God each time we come to Mass.  That can mean dressing a little better for Mass than we do for our weekdays.  It can mean trying to focus more than we usually do when someone is reading to us or speaking to us.  In whatever way we can, we want to give God our best, and enter into His plan and His rules for the Mass because it allows the beauty of the heavenly realm to begin to break-in to our earthly world.
    But it also applies to life in general, the extension of the Mass that we live out day-to-day.    When we hear the Ten Commandments, as we heard them this morning, we may just think of them as a long list of “Thou shalt not.”  But, in fact, while we are told not to do things, the rejection of sin and evil allows us to thrive and to live the life that truly makes us happy.  That may, at times, seem counterintuitive.  After all, it might seem nice to yell out a swear word or take God’s Name in vain when we hit our thumb with a hammer or stub our toe.  Or it might seem better not to have to worry about coming to Mass on Sunday, and just sleep in and do whatever tasks we left after watching sports on Saturday.  Or maybe we don’t want to be tied down to just one spouse; or we think it would make us happier just to take whatever we want, whenever we want, from whomever we want.  And certainly if my spouse asks me if this dish that’s called dinner tastes good, lying would be so much easier!
    But, in fact, that’s like saying that it would be easier to play football if your offensive line could line up however they wanted, and move whenever they wanted.  Or if Peyton could throw to whomever he wanted, rather than having only certain people who can be eligible receivers.  And those are just man-made rules for a man-made game.  The Ten Commandments are God’s rules for the world, which God created, and so He knows exactly how things are to be done to be beautiful and bring happiness.  
    Even the most simple, made-up game by children has rules that allow them to have fun, to find joy, and to allow the game to proceed as it’s intended by its creator.  So, too, with life: there are rules to allow us to participate well, and to win the imperishable crown that awaits those who win at life.  God gives us those rules because He loves us, and He knows how we will truly be happy.  Today let’s recommit ourselves to entering into the rules of life, not simply to do this or not do that, but to allow God’s grace, which truly makes us alive, to operate in us as easily as Peyton Manning plays football.

Not Yet

Fourth Sunday of Advent

I’m not quite ready.  This is the shortest Advent possible, and this year, it feels like it.  I don’t know about you, but it feels like we just started Advent, and tomorrow night/tonight we are at Christmas.  That’s not to say that the time has had good things.  On the contrary, I have had some great celebrations over the past week.  But I just feel like I’m not ready yet.  Now does not seem like the right time for Christmas.

God in our first reading tells King David through the prophet Nathan that it wasn’t, in fact, quite time yet for the temple.  David wanted to build a temple out of his love for God.  David lived in a pretty plush house for the times, and wanted God’s house to be even greater.  And at first, Nathan agrees.  But then, after God speaks to Nathan at night, Nathan tells David that it’s not time yet.  God has blessed David in many ways, and God will even make a dynasty for David that will last forever.  But God will have David’s son, Solomon, build the temple, not David.

A model of Solomon's Temple
in Jerusalem

We can’t really say that God wasn’t ready for David to build a temple.  But the promise God made to David, and even the building of the temple, was not just in the short term, with David’s immediate descendants and a temple building, but looked forward to the Gospel passage we heard today.

God fulfilled His promise to David through Jesus, who has a kingdom that will never end.  Whereas David died and rested with his ancestors, Jesus was raised from the dead after three days, and lives forever.  And since Mary is of the house of David, Jesus is the fulfillment of that Davidic prophecy.  Jesus rules over the house of Jacob for ever from His throne in heaven.  Perhaps that is why Handel’s Messiah is so popular even at Christmas.  The words from the Hallelujah chorus, at which people traditionally stand, is from the Book of Revelation, and says, “For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth” and “The Kingdom of this world/ Is become the kingdom of our Lord/ And of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever” and “King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.”  That promise that we associate with Jesus being born, is still fulfilled as Christ reigns in heaven for ever and ever as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  

But God also fulfills in our Gospel the promise to have a temple.  No, there is no building really spoken of in our Gospel.  It speaks about the Annunciation, when Jesus becomes flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary.  But the temple is the house of God, the place where God dwells, and the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary becomes the new temple, not made with hands, that houses God, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity.  And because the temple was the house of God, it had to be pure, immaculate, so God preserved, from the moment of her conception, the Blessed Virgin Mary from the stain of original sin, which we celebrate each year on 8 December.  When King Solomon built the temple and consecrated it, God overshadowed it and dwelt in it.  So, when Mary said “yes” to becoming the Mother of Jesus, and therefore the Mother of God, the Theotokos, God overshadowed her and Jesus began to dwell in her.  

But besides Mary being the temple, because she was the house of God, Jesus is also the eternal temple, which was destroyed in His crucifixion, but rebuilt in three days.  Jesus’ Body is the physical house of His Divinity, and so is the new temple forever, because Jesus’ humanity is never divorced from His Divinity; they are forever one flesh, the marriage of God and man.  

But we, too, are called to be the temple of God.  God consecrates us and begins to dwell within us in baptism.  Our bodies become the temple of the Holy Spirit, which the Church holds to even in our death, which is why the Church recommends a funeral and burial with a body whenever possible (even if the Church does allow cremation as long as one does not act in a way that rejects the resurrection of the body).  All throughout our lives we strive to make sure that the temple is clean, and a place where God feels at home.  We don’t do as well as the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was the perfect disciple, but when our temple needs cleaning and purifying, we ask God’s mercy in confession, so that it can be a place where the Holy Spirit feels at home again.  God always gives us the necessary grace to live as His temple, but we have to respond to that grace.

As we prepare tonight to celebrate the Nativity of our Lord, when the temple of the Lord in Jesus became visible in Bethlehem, may we also prepare our temples, even in this last day, to be the pure and holy temple of God.

Backwards and Forwards

Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Pius X Church

Today we have the great joy of celebrating the Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Pius X Catholic Church.  We have the chance to exclaim with the psalmist, “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord God of Hosts.”  This may seem odd that we would take a day to celebrate a building.  But as Catholics, we know that the material world has been redeemed in Christ and sanctified, and what is visible has become a way for the invisible to be communicated.  Bricks and mortar are no longer bricks and mortar, but are elements that remind us that each of us plays a role in building up the kingdom of God.

But how do Catholics view a church building?  While this sense has been lost by many, a church building is not about functionality.  Church buildings do not exist simply so that people can stay protected from the rain and snow, the heat and the cold.  Our church building is a temple for the True God, which points us back to the Temple that King Solomon built (we heard about that in our first reading today, and it was alluded to in the Gospel).  And that temple points us back to the Garden of Eden, the place of paradise where humanity and God could dwell in peace and harmony.  But it also looks forward to the heavenly Jerusalem, the temple not built by hands, eternal with God.

The temple was divided into different parts.  There were different courts, or areas where people could gather to pray.  Then there was the sanctuary, where the priests could go and offer sacrifices, some of which went to God, some of which went to the priest, and some of which were given back to the people.  Then there was the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctuary, where the High Priest could go, once a year on the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, and ask forgiveness for all the sins of the previous year.  

In our own church building, we have different areas.  We have the narthex, sometimes called the gathering space, where people are welcomed to the church each time they come to Mass.  This is the place where we can speak to each other and find out how each other has been since the last time we saw them.  Then we have the nave, the place where the pews and the choir are, the place where we have devotional candles set up.  This is the place of prayer, where our focus changes from talking to our neighbor to talking to God, the best friend of our soul, who rejoices with us in our joys, and comforts us in our sorrows.  Then there is our sanctuary, the raised area where the Word of God is proclaimed and the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross at Calvary is re-presented for us.  This is a place that is proper to the priest, but into which other commissioned extraordinary ministers of the Word and of Holy Communion, and servers are invited in during particular parts of the Mass to assist the priest.  And at the head of our sanctuary is the Tabernacle, the Seat of Mercy of God, which holds our reserve Blessed Sacrament.  Christ remains here with us, always interceding for forgiveness for our sins before God the Father.  

But our church also points back to the Garden of Eden.  No, this doesn’t mean we get to be naked in church; no one wants that!  But it is meant to be a place of peace and harmony with God.  In this building God speaks to us directly, as He spoke to Adam and Eve, helping us to know what His will is for us, both as a Church and as individuals.  God also feeds us, as He gave Adam and Eve every good food for their sustenance.  God gives us the Body and Blood of His Son, the bread of eternal life, which sustains our souls as we try to follow Jesus.  And in the center of this Garden of Eden is the tree of life, the Crucifix, from which we are able to receive eternal life because of the sacrifice of Jesus, the unblemished Lamb, whose Blood speaks more eloquently than that of Abel, the son of our first parents.  That is why the Crucifix plays such an important role in our faith and in our church: because it is the source of immortality for all who believe and unite their lives to it.

But our church also looks forward to heaven.  In fact, in the Mass, the veil that separates heaven and earth is pulled back, and we are able to anticipate here on earth the glory and peace of heaven.  As the Book of Revelation says, those who have been redeemed sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts” to God the Father and to the Lamb who was slain but lives.  We worship with all the angels and saints, of which our few statues, and in the future our icons, will remind us.  We see those here on earth who worship God, but we probably do not see the myriad, the thousands upon thousands of angels and saints who join with us in worshipping God.  In this church we also anticipate heaven we are also called to leave the fallen world behind, and so we are invited to “lift up our hearts” from the fallenness of our world to the perfection of heaven.  

That all sounds nice, but how does it affect us?  How does our understanding of the church building help us follow Jesus?  It changes the way we behave, the reason why we try to keep quiet in the nave, so that everyone can pray to God in the silence of our hearts; the reason why we don’t chew gum or drink coffee as if this were simply an auditorium.  But it also gives us a reason to return each week.  Who here doesn’t need a break from our fallen world?  Who here doesn’t want to have communion with God?  Who here doesn’t need time away from technology and the cacophony of sounds to have time with God in the silence?  I know I do!  And, as we have a chance to be refreshed by God, we can then better respond to our fallen world, and share the love and the truth that Jesus calls us to spread as He calls us His disciples.  

So while we celebrate a building today, we celebrate a place that prepares us for heaven, and allows us in our own time to taste a little of eternity.  And that is certainly good news for us, who need to hear God and be fed by Him.  And for that reason, we can all say, “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord God of Hosts.”

What Are You Doing?!?

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

            “What are you doing?!?”  Maybe some of you who are parents have had those words come out of your mouth, probably with more emotion than I just gave them.  More often than not an answer is not really necessary, as the sight of the child doing, well, what children do, often explains what exactly is going on.  Although, this phrase can also be used when we don’t understand what another person is doing.  I imagine the Wright Brothers had a lot of people ask them, “What are you doing?”

            We might have asked God that question when Jesus was presented in the temple, which is what we celebrate today on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord.  After all, Jesus is God.  He doesn’t have to be presented to God in the temple.  And He certainly doesn’t need to follow the Mosaic Law, because He is not a subject of the Law, He is the giver of the Law.  And this prescription of the Law was given to the Chosen People as a way of having them participate in the redemption of the Passover.  Just as God passed over the houses and the Israelites and did not kill their firstborn sons because of the blood of the Passover lamb, so each male child was to be offered to the Lord, but instead of the child dying, the animals would take its place, as a vicarious sacrifice.  But Jesus did not need redeeming.  He was sinless, and so was not under the reality that St. Paul talks about, that the wages of sin is death.  So what was God doing?

            Well, as often happens when it comes to God, in one action God was doing a lot of things.  First, He was returning to the Temple built in His honor.  The presence of God, represented by the Ark of the Covenant, had been absent from the Temple since the Babylonian Exile, when Jeremiah had taken it away and hidden it somewhere on his way to Egypt.  But, as often happens when you hide something, you don’t quite remember where you put it.  And so, after the Jews returned from Babylon, even though they built the temple, there was no Ark of the Covenant to be there.  There are many theories where it was: some say it’s located beneath the rubble of the Temple that Nebuchadnezzar ordered destroyed; some say it made its way down to Ethiopia, to the Queen of Sheba, and has been kept safe by Ethiopian Orthodox priests since the time of Jesus; if you believe Hollywood, Indiana Jones found it and now it’s locked in a warehouse in some government facility.  But it was not in the temple.  And so, as Jesus is presented in the temple, the prophecy of Malachi is fulfilled: “And suddenly there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek, And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.”

            Secondly, God was fulfilling the promise He had made to Simeon, that Simeon would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s anointed, or, in Hebrew, Meshiach (Messiah).  Simeon, who had waited on the Lord, was now so glad that God made good on His word, that he broke into a prayer which has echoed on the lips of clergy, religious, and lay faithful throughout the centuries:

            Lord, now you let your servant go in peace,

            Your word has been fulfilled.

            My own eyes have seen the salvation

            which you have prepared in the sight of every people,

            A light to reveal you to the nations

            And the glory of your people, Israel.

In this way each member of the Church is invited, each night before he or she goes to sleep, to recall how God has been faithful to His promises, and has made salvation know, not only to the Jews, the Chosen People, but also to the nations, the Gentiles, as the darkness of sin is destroyed by the Light of Christ.  What a great way to end our day, by learning this short prayer and saying it each night before we go to bed as we recall the promises God has fulfilled to us!

            Thirdly, God was continuing to humble Himself.  In St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he says, “Jesus did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at.  Rather, he humbled himself and took the form of a slave.”  Jesus, through He is the Lawgiver, submits to the law, setting before us a beautiful example of obedience.  Obedience is certainly not a popular virtue.  But Jesus shows us that obedience to God always is the recipe for freedom with others and ourselves.

            Even as God re-enters His Temple in the Person of Jesus, we also know that at the crucifixion the veil of the Temple is ripped in two by the power of God, and God establishes Christ as the Temple not made by hands but destroyed by human hands, but raised up and rebuilt by God.  And Christ makes living temples of those who are joined to Him in Baptism.  We become the place where God dwells.  We become the place where Jesus is presented as we receive His Body and Blood into our very body in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.  We become lights in the Light that is meant to scatter the darkness of sin and enlighten others to the joy, freedom, and peace of following Jesus and living according to His law of love.  Jesus is about to enter into your temple.  May the Light of the World find your heart a welcome home, and then give you the courage to share that light with others.

Happy Anniversary!!

Solemnity of the Dedication of St. John Church

           

1958 Original Church

Ordinarily, we would be celebrating the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord today and closing out the Christmas Season.  That is what our parishioners who today attended our St. Thomas Aquinas site celebrated.  But for us at St. John the Evangelist, this day is a special day of a different kind: an anniversary.  55 years ago today, this Church was dedicated to the glory of God under the patronage of St. John the Evangelist.  55 years ago today Bishop Joseph Albers, first bishop of Lansing, celebrated the Rite of the Dedication of a Church, initiating this place as a temple of the true God.  55 years ago today, prophecies were fulfilled: the oracle from the Book of Malachi, that “From the rising of the sun to its setting…Incense offerings are made to my name everywhere, and a pure offering”; the oracle from the Book of Isaiah that we heard this morning: “foreigners who join themselves to the Lord…To love the name of the Lord, to become his servants…Them I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer; Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples”.  In this place a pure offering is made.  In this place we, most of us Gentiles, that is, non-Jews, who have been joined to the Lord through Baptism so that we can love the Lord and be His servants, we have been brought to this mountain, represented in the raised sanctuary, and our sacrifices, joined to the one perfect sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, made present for us in sacramental signs in the Eucharist, are accepted by God.  This place is a house of prayer for all peoples.  Brothers and sisters, to quote David in Psalm 118: “This is the day the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it”!!!

            Now, we believe that God exists in all places.  He cannot be contained because of his immensity and transcendence.  And yet, we have this place, this building, which we have set aside for the worship of God and the edification, the building up, of His People.  Why?  For one, we also believe that God, whom the heavens and the earth cannot contain, chose to limit Himself and take flesh, born of the Virgin Mary.  God chose to be contained as the Divine Nature was united to Human Nature in Jesus.  As we say in the Creed, “by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.”  God chose to make a temple for Himself as He joined Himself to us in the Incarnation.  Secondly, we are people who operate by our senses.  Everything we know comes through our senses.  And so we build a place that becomes for us a physical reminder that God dwells among us.  We set aside a place where we can come and offer worship to God: to thank Him for His goodness; to ask for His blessing; to lift up in prayer our brothers and sisters. 

This building becomes a symbol, a sensible reality that points to an invisible reality.  This building is a special kind of symbol, a sacrament.  I don’t mean that we’re adding sacraments to the seven Sacraments instituted by Christ to confer grace.  But it is a sacrament in the sense that it is a physical reality that gives us the opportunity to receive grace, because as we enter the nave of the church and enter our pew, or go to light a candle at the Holy Family corner, or pass some time in prayer at the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, we can receive God’s life, what we call grace. 

This building also is a type of sacrament because it is meant to represent us.  We are the living stones that are being built up into the temple, as St. Peter reminds us in the second reading today.  God desires each of us to be part of his heavenly temple.  He is crafting each of us into an individual stone that will fit perfectly into the New Jerusalem in heaven.  Each of us has a different role to play in the building.  Christ Jesus is the cornerstone, with the twelve apostles making up the rest of the foundation of the heavenly temple.  And we build on that foundation, and add to the structure and beauty of the temple as we are chiseled so that we can fit into the place God has set aside for us.  But, unlike stones which are inanimate, we the living stones, can also form ourselves, and hopefully we cooperate with God in being formed into the right stone for the right place, rather than forming ourselves to our own standards, and risk being thrown out of the construction of the heavenly temple because we have made ourselves have no place in the temple of God.  But, if we let God cleanse our temple, our soul and body, as Jesus did in the Gospel, then we know we can have a place in the building up of the temple not made by human hands, but made by the hand of God.

Our prayers remind us, too, that we are the temple of God, and this building symbolizes what we are called to be.  The Prayer over the Offerings says, “Recalling the day when you were pleased to fill your house with glory and holiness, O Lord, we pray that you may make of us a sacrificial offering always acceptable to you.”  And our preface continues the theme: “For in this visible house that you have let us build and where you never cease to show favor to the family on pilgrimage to you in this place, you wonderfully manifest and accomplish the mystery of your communion with us.  Here you build up for yourself the temple that we are and cause your Church, spread throughout the world, to grow ever more and more as the Lord’s own Body, till she reaches her fullness in the vision of peace, the heavenly city of Jerusalem.”  May we truly be stones that are fit to be a part of the heavenly temple, to which God calls us through Baptism.  Because, as Bishop Albers said about the students (though it applies to all of us) as he dedicated this church on 12 January 1958, “The greatest possession they have today or ever will have in their entire lives is that of their Faith.  Should this be lost, everything will be lost.  And no matter what material success they may attain later on, before God their lives will be a failure.”

I wish to close with words of gratitude, again quoting Bishop Albers: “I wish to use this occasion to express my appreciation to everyone who has helped in the realization of this building whether through contributions, advice, planning, counseling or other ways.  I am especially grateful to the many thousand donors who have given of their means…I am confident that Almighty God will reward them with an increase of Faith and a greater love and devotion to Him and to souls, for their generosity in providing these means to care for the young men and women here at Michigan State University.”