The Prayers of the Righteous

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  General George Patton found himself in Lorraine, France, in December, 1944.  The weather was rotten.  He wrote to his wife, Beatrice: “There is about four inches of liquid mud over everything and it rains all the time, but not steadily.”  So Patton called up the Chaplain of the Third Army, Fr. James H. O’Neill, and had him compose a prayer for good weather, that Patton ordered be said  by every soldier in the Third Army.  By 14 December, all 250,000 copies of the prayer had been received.  on 23 December the weather broke, and Patton was again able to move his army, and ended up rescuing the 101st Airborne from their encircled siege during the Battle of the Bulge (though, they never have admitted that they needed rescuing).  Fr. James O’Neill was awarded the Bronze Star by General Patton for his prayer.
    St. Peter said that “the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears turned to their prayer.”  If you were an allied army in December 1944, you would certainly say that God heard your prayers, and, because the cause was just, the prayer was answered as General Patton wanted.  Or think about the successor of St. Peter, Pope St. Pius V, who invited Europe to pray the Rosary for the Christian Fleet at Lepanto, and, despite odds against them, they won.  Certainly, we still attribute that victory to prayer, as we celebrate on the day of victory Our Lady, Queen of Victory.  
    There’s also a football story about Lou Holtz and the coach of Boston College during one of their matches.  The coach of Boston College was speaking to Lou before the game, and said, “Well, Lou, I guess we know that, since we’re both Catholic schools, God doesn’t care who wins.”  Lou quipped back, “But His mother does.”  And how about those times when a person prayers for victory, and the team loses.  I remember being at Ford Field, at the time I was Parochial Vicar for St. Thomas Aquinas in East Lansing.  I had traveled with Lansing Catholic’s football team for a rematch against Powers Catholic of epic proportions.  There was a lot of praying on both sides that game.  I was “working the beads” every second for a Lansing Catholic victory.  But yet, at the time to my dismay, Powers Catholic won.  
    While that may seem small, think about the prayers that ascended to God for the Catholic knights fighting to hold on to Jerusalem as the Muslims fought as hard to take it back.  Was keeping Jerusalem safe for Catholics and the true faith not a righteous cause?  Can it simply be attributed to a lack of holiness on the part of those praying?
    Certainly the prayers of the righteous have more effect.  But, perhaps that is because their wills are more in-tune with God’s will, and they know how to pray that God’s will be done.  Think about the missionaries who have asked God for miracles for the conversion of others, and have received miracles.  Or when St. Dominic prayed for bread when his house of young friars had run out of bread, and God miraculously provided bread for them so that they could preach with strength and vigor.  While I was praying hard for Lansing Catholic, I certainly knew, in my mind, that God’s will might be that Lansing Catholic lose, and my first concern was that no one would get seriously injured (and those prayers were answered).  Still, I was hoping that Mary’s intercession would have an effect on us getting the win for which we looked.
    But it’s not quite as simple as: if your prayers get answered, you and/or your cause was righteous; if not, then not.  We seek always to have the mind of God, but we do not always have it.  God’s ways are mysterious because they occur according to His plan and His timing, not ours.  If a sinner calls upon God, and the answer to those prayers are in accord with God’s will, those prayers may get answered exactly as the sinner wants.  If a saint calls upon God, and the answer to those prayers are not in accord with God’s will, those prayers will be answered in a way that a bystander might think was a sign of divine displeasure.      So how should we pray?  Do we stop praying for the small things, like football victories, or nice weather for an outdoor wedding reception?  Do we only pray if we are in a state of grace?  Do we treat the answer we get as a sign of God’s pleasure of displeasure with us?  The secret lies in the prayer our Savior taught us to pray: Thy will be done.  We pray that whatever occurs be that which gives God greatest glory and gives us the greatest holiness, whether it seems like a yes or a no to us.  We pray with great fervor and persistence, as our Lord encourages us in the Gospels, but we leave it up to Him to see if the positive answer to our prayers would help advance His Kingdom more.
    And that also means that we pray for good things, not bad.  Praying in accord with God’s will cannot include harm coming to another.  There was a short-lived custom in Spain in the first millennium (short-lived because it was condemned by local councils) to pray for the death of one’s enemies.  You would pay the priest to offer a requiem Mass for someone who was alive, and hope God would get the hint.  To be clear: that’s not a good way to pray.  While there are examples from the scriptures and the lives of the saints of curses being laid upon other (think of St. Peter condemning Ananias and Sapphira for holding back from what they were supposed to give God), those are rare, and are from those who are especially in tune with the mind of God.  Unless we are at that point, our prayer should be for good, as the Lord commands us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  
    And, in the end, prayer is an act of trust.  We entrust our petitions to a loving Father, who would never give us a stone if we asked for an egg, and know that whatever He gives us is an act of love and for our benefit, in some way.  So whether we are a chaplain of the Third Army, or a young child praying for a particular present for a birthday, may we seek to be righteous, to know God’s will, and then entrust ourselves and our prayers to the one who loves us and gives us every good gift that we need: God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

New Life Not Rules

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time–Third Scrutiny Readings
    Go to Mass on Sundays and holydays; don’t eat meat on Fridays; serve the poor; love your enemies; save sex for marriage and don’t live together before you’re married; contribute to your parish; pray daily.  Catholicism is often broken down to these and many other rules.  And when Catholicism is presented as simply one set of rules (and fairly strict!) over others, it doesn’t sound that good.  But these rules are meant to be the response to a new life, rather than a reason for joining a new club.
    Yes, clubs have rules, but people make rules for themselves based upon their goals.  I remember a classmate of mine from high school whose goal was to become valedictorian.  She spent much of her time studying and making sure that she understood the concepts that the teachers taught.  She didn’t shy away from tougher honors classes, but I can only imagine the hours she spent going over lectures and assignments (and this, in addition to playing various sports).  But, her years of study, probably when others were doing things that seemed more enjoyable, paid off when she had the grades to be the valedictorian for the Lansing Catholic graduating class of 2002.
    Your goal, Mia, is not simply another tassel around your graduation gown.  Your goal is the new life that Christ offers.  And that is really what Catholicism is about.  If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we are not always who we want to be.  We desire the eternal, even while going through life in very limited bodies.  There is a desire for God in our hearts, but we don’t always choose God.  We need help.  And God gave us that help in Christ, who not only teaches us, but can fill us with the power to accomplish what we want: union with God.  

    Catholicism isn’t about rules (though we have a lot of them).  Catholicism is about dying and rising; dying to our old, fallen self, and rising to our new glorified self.  That is most evident in baptism, where the Death and Resurrection of Christ are given to us so that we can be changed in a way we couldn’t on our own.  The death of Lazarus, which we heard today in the very long Gospel account, anticipated Christ’s own dying and rising, except that Lazarus would die again, but Christ would never die again, because it no longer had power over Him.  
    Catholicism is about being connected to the source of the power that allows us to reach beyond our limitedness, and begin to reach into infinity as we grow in our relationship with God who is infinite.  God desires us to have new life, not just be dried bones in graves.  And He makes it happen in us through the sacraments and through the grace that comes each day from them.
    And that new life comes from doing our best to live like Jesus.  When we live our merely human life, we care most importantly for ourselves.  We go throughout life seeking pleasure and avoiding pain wherever we think we can find delight and hide from discomfort.  The merely earthly life is very self-centered, very solipsistic.  And while it may lead to more money than one can imagine, or more things that one can count, or more power to exercise over others, it does not, as so many have shown us throughout history, lead to true and lasting happiness.  Ironically, the one who cares for others, who dies to his or her own desire to be most important, ends us rising to a happier form of life where doing God’s will is most important, others follow in importance, and only then are my desires considered.  The happiest people are those who live the new life where service to others comes before pampering the self.  
    And over the centuries, Mia, the Church has created rules and practices that help us die to self and rise for God.  Ever since Pentecost when the Church was born, we have come to know more and more deeply what actions are in accord with how Christ showed us to be happy, and what actions are antithetical to living a truly happy life in Christ.  And the more we live the life of Christ here on earth, the more it will seem like the place we want to be at the end of our life when our actions will shows whether or not we want to be in heaven, which is where God created us to be.  We do those practices and we follow those rules not because we can earn God’s love; we can’t.  We go to Mass, we serve the poor, we fast and abstain, we do all those things that I mentioned and more as our response to the love of God that has been poured into our hearts.  So happy are we that we have access to new life, that we can escape the bonds of death in Christ, that we don’t just tell Christ we love Him; we show Him by what we say and by what we do.
    Mia, you are not signing up to join a new club that your friends are in.  You are not simply applying new rules to your life as a form of self-control.  You are one week away from dying to everything that is old and fallen in you, and rising to all that is young and glorified in Christ.  God doesn’t just want to give you rules, He wants to give you new life.  Hear the voice of Jesus as He invites you out of the tombs of death of your old way of life.  Let Jesus unbind the sinful bands around you.  Come to the waters of baptism next week, not for a new set of rules, but for a new life that is only possible in Christ. 

Duc In Altum

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  “Duc in altum!  These words ring out for us today, and they invite us to remember the past with gratitude, to live the present with enthusiasm and to look forward to the future with confidence: ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever.’”  Pope St. John Paul II penned these words in his Apostolic Letter, Novo millennio ineunte at the close of the Great Jubilee Year 2000.  While he wrote these words for a particular time, now almost a quarter of a century ago, they still ring true today.  And every time I read or hear this Gospel–especially in this Mass where the Latin words that the saintly pontiff used are proclaimed in the same Latin, the mother tongue of the Church in Rome–I draw back to this document which closed an exciting and reinvigorating time in the Church’s history
    Over the past school years, I have assisted the Michigan State Police with training in a tank for those who show interest in joining the MSP and preparing them for what they might experience for water safety.  Most people would call where we do this a pool, but in the State Police a pool is where you have fun, and we were not about having fun during this training, so we swam in a tank.  I’m a decent swimmer, but it has pushed me as the other staff challenged me to push a brick at the bottom of the tank from one side to another; to open my eyes under water while I’m swimming; to tread water for fifteen or more minutes while passing a 10-pound brick hand over hand to the other people treading water in a circle; to allow another to rescue me as a simulated being a drowning victim, and entrusting my life into their training.  It gave me some trepidation at times, but I’m still here, and no one has ever drowned in this training.  
    I mention that because putting out into the deep (which is what duc in altum means) when it comes to our faith came seem as challenging as tank training was for me.  It pushes us beyond our comfort zone; it makes us develop new skills; it sometimes even tires us.  But just as it was in the year 2000, as it also was in the year 1500, as it also was in the year 1000, as it was on the birth of the Church at Pentecost, so today our mission is to welcome Christ into our boat, and put out into deep waters in order to make a miraculous catch.
    Note that previous failure does not suffice for an excuse against putting out into the deep.  St. Peter, who was Pope St. John Paul II’s 263rd predecessor, had tried fishing all night, but without any luck.  But he didn’t have the Lord with him, which was the reason for his abysmal performance at his life’s trade.  So with us: when we try to share the Gospel without Christ, we will find little, if any, success.  It might seem an oxymoron to share the Gospel without Christ, since the Gospel is the good news of our Lord’s saving life, death, and resurrection.  But do we bring our missionary activity to Christ first in prayer, before we talk to others about Him?  Is our life based in daily prayer that draws us closer to the Lord, and undergirds all of our evangelical action?  Even with the best arguments and the best intellectual exchanges, conversion is only possible by the power of grace.  Do we commend someone to God’s grace after we have shared the Gospel with them?  Without Christ, we catch nothing.  With Christ, we can’t even bring in all that He desires for us.
    This Gospel also encourages us to keep in my our own sinfulness.  Whenever we see the Lord do a great work, it should remind us to say, with that timeless hymn, “O Lord, I am not worthy.”  The power of Christ is most made manifest when we acknowledge our own weakness, the same now as when God told St. Paul, “My power is made manifest in weakness.”  Or, to paraphrase the Apostle to the Gentiles elsewhere, we are simply earthen vessels that God uses, so that the power may truly be known to come from God and not from us.  When we are able to let “Jesus take the wheel,” as the great Carrie Underwood sings, we can go and do things that we could never do if we relegate the Lord to the spot of a co-pilot.  To quote a bumper sticker I saw once, “If Jesus is your co-pilot, you’re in the wrong seat.”  Yes, we have to work with God, but let God use you to accomplish his work; don’t try to use God to approve your own plans and work.
    Lastly, our Lord encourages Peter after he admitted his unworthiness to be with the Lord, “Be not afraid.”  Fear of spreading the Gospel because we don’t think we know our Scripture well enough, or because we can’t easily spout off all or any of St. Thomas Aquinas’s erudite arguments from the Summa Theologiae, or because we don’t follow Christ perfectly ourselves does not come from God.  Yes, we should engage in Bible studies; yes, we should study the Angelic Doctor and other Church fathers and scholars, as our gifts allow; yes, we are sinners who do not always live up to the message we preach.  But God doesn’t ask us to have the entire Bible memorized, or any theological work, or to live perfectly before we evangelize.  He encourages us to be not afraid, and allow Him to work through us.  If we don’t know something, we can look it up afterwards and follow up on another’s questions.  And there is a real power in sharing with another person that you want to live as Christ commands, but you don’t always do it (which is probably where that other person will be in his or her life as a disciple anyway).  But don’t let fear keep you on the shore; don’t let past failures keep you from the greatness that God wants to accomplish with your cooperation.  
    As we prepare to enter this next Jubilee Year, 2025, which has as its theme Pilgrims of Hope, may we listen to the call of Pope St. John Paul II and not be afraid to put out into the deep, sharing the hope we have because of our faith in the Lord Jesus, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen. 

What Humility Is and Isn't

Third Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  St. Peter today advises us to be humble.  A simple exhortation.  A difficult execution, for a variety of reasons, including a lack of understanding of in what humility consists, as well as a deeply-ingrained American habit of self-sufficiency.  Difficult also because humility goes hand-in-hand with the Incarnation, and so the devil tries to keep us from humility at all costs.
    First, what humility is not: humility is not ignoring gifts or talents that we have, or pretending that gifts or talents are not good.  That is false humility, and it is actually pride, because we become the judges of what is good or a gift, rather than receiving gifts with open hands from our loving Father.  I think in an effort to avoid pride, it can be so easy to say, and mean, when someone gives us a compliment, “Oh, I’m not that good,” or “it really isn’t that much.”  Someone has recognized something good in you, which reflects back to the goodness of God who made us.  There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that gift, especially if we acknowledge God who gave us that gift.  Christ Himself said, “‘Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.’” 
    At the same time we cannot claim that our gifts are entirely up to us.  Bragging or making sure that others know about our gifts, whether they want to know or not, goes against the virtue of humility.  There’s nothing wrong with using our gifts and talents, and if someone compliments us on them, we can certainly thank the other person for their kind words, while acknowledging that God is the source of every good gift, but we go beyond what we should when we want to make sure that others know exactly what we’re good at, or talk about our achievements and successes without others desiring to know what they might be. 
    But humility comes from humus, meaning ground or dirt, and understands that God is God and we are not.  Not that God would ever say this, but when I think about the rude awakening to the fact that we are not God, the phrase that comes to mind comes with my mother’s voice: “I brought you into this world, I can take you out.”  Again, not God’s voice there, but there exists a reality that God does not need us for anything, and the world existed just fine without us.  The fact that God chose to have us in the world is due only to His love and providence, which is pure gift.  We could not earn a spot in the world.  Each Lent we especially focus on this, as we hear in Latin, “Remember, O man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  Humility recognizes, as hard as the temptation wants to exert itself again and again, that we are not God or master of our own destiny or the universe.  Adam and Eve precisely failed on this point, as they wanted to be like God on their own terms, not His, and disobeyed His command to not eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
    Which brings up another way of living a humble life: recognizing our need for a savior.  Intellectually, we probably all agree that we need to be saved.  But do we act like it?  Or do we act like we save ourselves?  I think this is a particularly dangerous temptation for Catholics.  We have so many things that we do, so many prayers and pious acts and sacrifices that we take upon ourselves.  And those are good, and can help us to accept God’s grace and love.  But those prayers and pious acts and sacrifices don’t save us.  God saves us. 
    Humility can also be tough when we live a pretty good life.  We start to approach life as if we have it all figured out.  But if that’s the case, then why would we need God?  If we don’t need saving, then we don’t need a Savior.  And if we don’t need a Savior, then why did Jesus bother dying on the cross?  Or course, even if we are not the worst sinners, we need a savior.  And not just for years past, but at each moment of our life. 
    This doesn’t mean that we make up sins in our confession.  We may well avoid all mortal sins; praise God!  And maybe we’re not even that cognizant of many venial sins.  But certainly there are ways that we can grow in our relationship with God.  The saints are great examples of this.  As they grow in holiness, it’s not that they make up sins, or make sins out of things that are not.  But the recognize even smaller affronts to God that maybe they never noticed before.  They are sensitive to the little ways in which they draw back from divine guidance or control, and seek absolution for those things.  The saints, though from an outside view sin very infrequently, if at all, know deeply, in the very marrow of their bones, that they need a savior each moment of their lives.  And they know that any success that they have in following God and living any virtue is due only to God’s gracious love and life being poured into their hearts. 
    The humble man or woman lets God come after him or her like a shepherd seeks after a sheep or like the woman searching after her lost coin.  A person living humility knows that he or she is lost without God, and begs that he or she might stay with the fold, but if not, be found as soon as possible. 
    If you think you’re doing well with humility, I would encourage you to pray the Litany of Humility.  Does any of it bristle you?  If so, it might be a part of your life that needs deeper conversion.  I know that I am still very much working on humility.  I like self-dependency.  I get uncomfortable when others compliment me.  But praised be God who has given me gifts, and who lets me see the ways in which I still need to grow in allowing His grace to transform me to be a better disciples.  To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Filling Up What is Lacking

Tenth Week in Ordinary Time-First Scrutiny Readings
    Mia, your preparation for baptism, which will happen at the end of this month, is so important that the Church has us take a break from the usual progression of readings and has us focus on thirsting for God, thirsting for Christ, especially as we heard about in the first reading and the Gospel.

    In the first reading, the people thirst for water because they have not yet arrived at the Promised Land.  And even though they complain and say that slavery seemed better, God gives the people water after Moses strikes a rock.  In the Gospel, the Samaritan woman thirsts for water because the town ostracizes her, and she has to draw water at the hottest time of the day, when no one else in their right mind would have drawn water.  But Jesus shows her that she truly wants something more than physical water.  She desires God.
    In both the first reading and the Gospel, the Chosen People and the Samaritan woman want someone to take care of them.  They want someone to provide them with water, but they don’t see how that can happen.  They don’t trust that God will care for them.
    In your life, you have come to acknowledge that your life lacks something.  Like so many times in life, it is an encounter with another who helps us to recognize what we are missing in our life.  And through your continued friendship with the Pietras family, you explored what might be lacking in your life.  You attended Mass with them, and eventually worked up the courage to acknowledge that you needed God, just like the Israelites did in the first reading; just like the Samaritan woman did in the Gospel.  
    But while you were thirsting for God like a deer that longs for streams of water, as Psalm 42 says, another thirst also existed.  When we have these readings we often focus on the person who will undergo the scrutiny, the time of prayer and acknowledgment of sin, and the thirst of that person.  But God also has been thirsting for you.  He has desired that you come to Him and discover the soul-saving relationship that He wants with you.  He wants you to become His child, not just because you are human and are made in His image and likeness, but by Holy Baptism, which configures you to Christ and makes you a child of God by grace, so that Christ can truly become your brother by adoption, and you can become a joint-heir to heaven and eternal life with Christ.
    That thirst of God comes from Jesus’ very lips as He was dying on the cross when He said, “‘I thirst.’”  St. Theresa of Calcutta, whom we often refer to as Mother Theresa, connected deeply with those words and wanted to satiate the thirst of Christ for souls by serving the poorest of the poor.  But it was also present in the first reading.  God wanted the Chosen People to trust in Him, to trust that He would provide for their every need.  God didn’t want the Israelites to doubt His love, or to think that their foreign masters cared for them more than He, their God and husband, did.  All they had to do was ask, and God would satisfy their every necessity.  
    It was also present in the Gospel, as Jesus drew out from the woman her desire for a savior, her desire for the Messiah.  The Samaritan woman had tried to plaster over that desire with physical desires, with liturgical arguments, and even with multiple marriages.  But none of them satisfied.  And Christ could cut through all of that to name her true desire, for God, and let her know that He could provide for what she needed.  
    Today, the Lord invites you to trust in Him, and allow Him to satisfy your every necessity.  Trusting is not always easy.  And the ancient enemy wants you to think that you have to take care of yourself.  He tempted our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the same way, and got them to doubt God’s care for them when He told them they could not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Adam and Eve doubted that God would give them what they needed, so they disobeyed Him, and they lost everything: they lost the innocence that was theirs so that they had to cover up their nakedness; they lost the ease of the garden providing for their every need so they had to toil for the food they would eat; they lost the painlessness of giving birth so that new children could only come through suffering; and they lost paradise, as God cast them out from the Garden of Eden.  That all happened because they did not trust God to provide for them.
    Today, over these next three weeks in particular, and for your entire life as a Catholic, God will invite you to trust Him.  Yes, we can cry out to God in our need, but He invites us to trust that He will provide for us.  Satan will try to get us to doubt God, but do not give in to those temptations.  Whatever ways you have doubted God before, trust in all the more now.  Thirst for His love; satiate His thirst for your love by trusting Him.  You are being led to the waters of new life, which when you drink from them you will never thirst again.  May your preparation for Holy Baptism strengthen your trust in God and in His will for the rest of your life!

Showing What We Believe

Solemnity of Corpus Christi
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  Recently, pilgrims from across the US started a walking pilgrimage from the four corners of our country: the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota; New Haven, Connecticut; Brownsville, Texas; and San Francisco, California.  The idea is that all of the pilgrimages will leave in time for the Blessed Sacrament to arrive in Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congress in July.

Eucharistic Procession at St. Pius X, Flint

    Why would Catholics walk all that way for a piece of bread?  The answer is simple: it’s not a piece of bread.  It is the Lord.  It’s not just a reminder of the Lord.  The Lord doesn’t simply come in and dwell inside the bread.  By the power of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of an ordained priest acting in the Person of Christ the Head (in persona Christi capitis), bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ.  And walking across the country with Christ makes a lot of sense, because the Lord always walks with us on our pilgrimage of life, and at times [like tonight] when we have a chance to walk with our Eucharistic Lord, we take advantage of the opportunity to be with Him.
    But it’s not just about walking with Him.  Our attitude around the Blessed Sacrament, whether walking on the road or even here in the church, says a lot to people about what we truly believe.  I remember hearing a story about a Catholic interacting with a Muslim man.  The Muslim asked the Catholic if he really believed that the bread becomes the Body of the Lord.  The Catholic said, “Of course I do!”  The Muslim man said, “Then why don’t your actions show it?  If Allah [the Arab word for God] were to be in the flesh in front of me, it would change the way I acted in His presence.” 
    Or I recently read in a Matthew Kelly book on the Eucharist a story that Fr. Mike Schmitz told about his days in college.  Fr. Mike related how, during his time in college, he wasn’t as strong in his faith.  He went to Mass, but many things didn’t click.  It was vogue at that time for parishioners to make the unleavened bread which was used for Mass.  When the eucharistic bread is made that way (even according to Church law), it tends to be crumbly.  And crumbs would inevitably fall around the altar.  After Mass, another young college student would gather the crumbs up and reverently consume them.  And college-student Mike Schmitz eventually asked him why.  The student told this story.
    When Communism first started in China, there was a great persecution of the Church.  The government soldiers went to a Catholic Church and beat up the priest, and then locked him in his house, and forced him to watch as they desecrated and destroyed the church at which he served.  They eventually threw out the tabernacle, and and it burst open, consecrated hosts spilling all over the ground.  But the guards wouldn’t let the priest out to tend to the Lord scattered on the ground.  At night, the priest looked out and saw a little Chinese girl slowly approach the place where the consecrated hosts were.  There were still no permissions at this point to receive the Eucharist in the hand, so she crept up to a host, and picked it up the ground on her tongue, reverently receiving it.  Then she scurried back to the darkness, never being noticed by the guards.  She did this night after night, until there was one consecrated host left.   She reverently received the Lord one last time, so that there was no more Eucharist on the ground.  But as she returned this time, she slipped and made a little noise.  The guards noticed her and shot and killed her.  That, the student related, is why he gathered the crumbs, because each crumb was still the Lord.
    How do we approach the Lord?  Would an outside recognize what we believe, Who we believe the Eucharist is by the way we act in church, by the way we receive the Lord, by the way we act outside of church, having just received the Eucharist?  I have been thinking about this a lot over the past few years, and it changed me.  Before, when transferring hosts between two ciboria, the containers that hold the consecrated hosts, I would pour them one into another.  But I was convicted that the way I transferred the hosts was more like pouring out a bag of chips into a serving bowl, not the way I would handle my Lord.  I don’t say that to condemn or criticize other priests; simply to say that I want people to know what I believe by how I act.
    I recently added the chalice veil and burse to our set-up before Mass.  And we have been using for some months the hand patens when I distribute Holy Communion at Sunday Masses.  I know that sometimes it takes a little more time, and sometimes the placement of the paten is a little awkward, but I hope it demonstrates that this is not like standing in line to pick up a snack or even an expensive bottle of bourbon.  During Communion, the Lord of Heaven and Earth is present for us in a unique way, and so we treat everything surrounding it differently to remind ourselves of this great miracle that takes place on millions of altars around the world each day.  We elevate our language and we elevate what we use to communicate just how precious the gift of the Eucharist is.
    As we come forward for Holy Communion today, if we have fasted for at least an hour, if we have gone to confession if we have previously committed a mortal sin, and if our lives conform to the major teachings of the Church in terms of moral theology, I would invite us to think about how we receive?  Am I doing so reverently?  I do not change my behavior to be seen and admired by others, but I change my behavior to reflect the Other who gave His life for me, our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Receiving the Holy Spirit

Sunday after the Ascension
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  St. Peter lays out some challenging admonitions for us in our epistle today: “be serious and sober for prayers…let your love for one another be intense…be hospitable without complaining…[use your gifts] to serve one another.”  Those are all things to which I hope we aspire.  But maybe we feel like we simply have to muscle through to get these things done.  And perhaps, as we try to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps, we get frustrated because in day to day life exhibiting these behaviors doesn’t always come easily, and maybe we even fail on a regular basis. 
    But God does not want us to muscle through or to try to lift ourselves up by our bootstraps.  God gives us a gift that will give us what we need to live as St. Peter exhorted.  That gift is the Holy Spirit.  He is the one who makes living as a disciple of Christ possible as the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth, and gives us the power to live that truth daily.
    I know that sometimes as Catholics who love the traditional Latin Mass we can get nervous about the Holy Spirit.  Maybe we see charismatic Catholics whose outward appearance seems more like Pentecostals than Catholics in their devotions and even in their liturgies.  Or people equate the way Vatican II was implemented (which was often a hot mess) with the Holy Spirit who called Pope St. John XXIII to convoke the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.  So perhaps we are a bit skittish when it comes to this Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.
    But we do not believe in a Binity, only two Divine Persons of the Godhead.  We profess our faith each week in the Trinity, which includes the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life.  And without Him, we miss something of the full expression of our life in Christ.  Christ promised us the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to help us to know the truth who is Christ, and to live that truth, even in the face of persecution and suffering.  And these nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost are precisely the days when our Lord asked the Apostles and the Blessed Mother to pray for that gift of the Holy Spirit, who would give them a new power from on high to evangelize and transform the world.

    So how often do we call upon the Holy Spirit?  When, if ever, do we ask the Holy Spirit to fill us?  Is it only in these nine days as we pray our Holy Spirit novena?  Or is it more frequently?  A local priest is known to invoke the Holy Spirit every time he loses his train of thought or is having difficulty expressing himself as he says, “Come, Holy Spirit.”  Though I still need to grow in my comfort and relationship with the Holy Spirit, I will ask for His guidance in the hiring process, or when I need to make a big decision. 
    But the Holy Spirit is not just for new hires or major changes.  I need to, and I encourage you to, make the Holy Spirit more of a daily part of my life.  The Holy Spirit is not just the closer you bring in towards the end of the ninth inning to help you win the game.  The Holy Spirit should be the starter, the reliever, and the closer, all rolled up in one.  And the more we condition ourselves to be attentive to His voice in our daily lives, the more even our small choices will be guided by the Holy Spirit so that we cooperate with God in the big and the small matters.  This is the way the saints lived.
    One of the primary ways the Holy Spirit guides us is through the conscience.  Again, most people act as if the conscience is some subjective voice which tells me what do to without any connection to anything else.  Basically, we can use the word conscience to justify simply following our feelings.  But the Holy Spirit, as our conscience, tells us how the moral law applies in various situations.  He does not make us a moral law unto ourselves, determining right from wrong, though many would like that to be the case, which is exactly what Adam and Eve wanted.  They wanted to determine right from wrong, rather than let God guide them.
    As a parent, and especially today as we honor mothers, the Holy Spirit helps you to know how to raise your children.  I do not envy you parents in trying to raise your children today.  On the one hand, kids are so often over-exposed to social media, to extreme violence, to lust, and to unkindness from others.  Yes, I got teased when I was a young boy, but I could get away from it when I went home.  Today, kids will mercilessly make fun of each other on social media, and you never seem to be able to find a place that is not connected to it.  I was first exposed to pornography in a magazine when I was in high school.  Today, due to phones and the internet readily available in most places, many kids see images they should never see in fifth or sixth grade and devices their parents give them (because every other kid has one), and it can affect their future relationships and their interactions with the opposite sex.  When I was growing up, we knew that boys and girls were different, even if some girls liked rough sports and GI Joes, and some boys didn’t appreciate those things as much.  Now, our national leaders can’t even say what makes a woman and woman, and kids are told that gender dysphoria is not only not an illness that needs therapy, but should be celebrated and protected. 
    On the other hand, you can’t just live in a bubble (at least most can’t).  Eventually, children will go out into a rough and morally dangerous world, and parents are tasked with preparing them to choose virtue even when vice seems more attractive and readily available.  Part of the vocation of a mother or father is to help their children be attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit to know what behaviors will lead them away from God the Father, and which behaviors will lead them toward God the Father.  A mother or a father’s vocation is to help their children be able to interact with people who are different from them and love others who do not live as God invites us, but to be able to reject the behaviors of those who reject God’s laws and teachings.  That is only possible if parents are calling upon the Holy Spirit daily to help them know when to push towards freedom and when to pull back to safety.  The Holy Spirit can guide you to know how best to discipline with charity, and not simply out of anger or a lack of patience. 
    So not just in these nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost, but each day, may we all call upon the Holy Spirit to help us hear the voice of God in our hearts, which is really His voice, and to follow it, so that we can go where Christ has led and has brought our human nature with Him, the right hand of God the Father, who with Christ His Son and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from them both, lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Living the Paschal Mystery

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]  Sometimes we use words in the Church that are very important, but whose meaning is not always clear.  For example, in December we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  But many Catholics think that it refers to the Annunciation, when Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Mother, while it really refers to our Blessed Mother’s conception without original sin.  Another phrase that is especially important today is Paschal Mystery. 

The place from which Jesus ascended in Jerusalem

    The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the Paschal Mystery as, “Christ’s work of redemption accomplished primarily by his Passion, death, Resurrection, and glorious Ascension.”  Today, as we celebrate the Ascension of our Lord, we celebrate the closing out of the Paschal Mystery.  Paschal means related to the Passover, and Mystery, in this sense, means the great work of God that is invisible, but which was manifested in visible ways (the suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord).  Christ’s Passover saved us from death and brought us from slavery in sin to freedom in the heaven, just as the Jewish Passover saved them from the angel of death wiping out the first born in Egypt by the blood of the unblemished lamb, and inaugurated their flight from Egypt, that place of slavery, into the Promised Land.
    But while the Jewish Passover happened some 3,450 years ago, and the fulfillment of that Passover in Christ happened some 2,000 years ago, God does not relegate the Paschal Mystery to the past.  No, we celebrate it each time we come to Mass, and especially each Sunday, the Lord’s Day, as we enter into the moments of our redemption in a mystical way, and participate, as it were, in our own redemption because we join ourselves to Christ’s Passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension at each Mass.  We do not simply remember what Christ did for us; God through visible signs, allows us to join in what Christ did for us so that we can share the fruits of that Paschal Mystery, which is resurrection and glorification. 
    But as disciples of Christ, God calls us to live that Paschal Mystery each day of our life, and not just in the church building.  Each day we have the opportunity of living out in ourselves what Christ did once for all some 2,000 years ago.  This is what St. Paul means when he says in the first chapter of Colossians: “in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church.”  So how do we live each day in the Paschal Mystery?  How do we participate in Christ’s Passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension?
    We participate in the Passion and death of the Lord in our daily lives through the sufferings that come to us.  We don’t have to seek out suffering.  It readily makes itself available to us.  Suffering, by itself, is a lack.  But suffering united to Christ’s becomes redemptive by participating in His Paschal Mystery.  We all have various sufferings each day.  Maybe we hate our job; maybe our family drives us up a wall; maybe our sports team lost; maybe gas is more expensive than we would like it to be; maybe we lack trust in our political leadership.  However we experience it, we suffer daily.  But when we unite it to Christ, when we suffer in obedience to the will of the Father and seek not to do our own will, but “the will of the one who sent me,” we participate in redemption, both of ourselves and of the whole world.  This is what the sisters meant when they would say, “Offer it up.”  Now, I know we can use that phrase to basically mean, “stop whining,” but in its truest sense, that phrase reminds us to live out the Paschal Mystery, to suffer (the passion) and die (the crucifixion) to what we want and offer that pain to the Father, who receives it as an offering of love. 
    We participate in the Resurrection when we see God change our suffering that we have offered to Him into new life.  This is when we offer up that bad driver and find that our heart actually grows in love and mercy for whoever he or she may be.  This is when someone at work commends us and maybe even gives us a raise when we think they don’t notice the work we do.  This is when the child who has brought you to the brink of insanity and tested your patience to its last limit runs up to you, smiles, and gives you a hug saying, “I love you, mommy.”  When we offer our sufferings to the Father through Christ the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit, God transforms them into something which gives new life, just as the Father transforms ordinary bread and wine into the Body and Blood of His Son through the power of the Holy Spirit when we offer them to Him. 
    Our participation in the Ascension is something finds its fulfillment when the end of our earthly ministry is over, just as it did the same for Christ at the end of His earthly ministry.  Christ’s Ascension is His glorification, because the Father raises Christ up into glory at His right hand.  For us, the fullness of the ascension happens when we have done everything we can to offer our lives to the Father, when He has given us new life through those sufferings united to Him, and when He welcomes us into glory in heaven.  Christ led the way for us, but He wants us to follow Him–in His suffering and death; in His resurrection; and lastly, in His Ascension.  God does not keep glory for Himself, but shares it with us, according to our nature.  What a joy to allow God to raise us up to the fullness of who we are meant to be, a reality which can only be completed in heaven. 
    But that’s our hope, a hope based in following Christ, not just in His teaching (but certainly those), but also in His Paschal Mystery.  May we rejoice in this Paschal Mystery each time we assemble for Mass, and especially on the Lord’s Day, but may we also live out that Paschal Mystery every day of our lives, suffering and dying with God, allowing God to raise us to new life, and waiting for God the Father to glorify us with His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.  Amen.  

"What is truth?"

Fourth Sunday after Easter

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  We might say that we live in the age of Pontius Pilate.  What do I mean by that?  Pontius Pilate, while trying our Lord in the Praetorium, skeptically asked Christ, “What is truth?”  Pope Benedict XVI warned us of the effects of relativism, of the assertion that there is no such thing as objective truth.  But our times have continued down the path of relativism, despite its inherent contradictions.
    We use phrases like, “live your truth.”  We have media outlets of all kinds, conservative and liberal, who twist the truth to promote their agendas.  We have fact checkers, which would seem to be a good thing, except they, too, consider facts from a particular perspective, and their results do not always ring true.  Those who have great power or great prestige often say one thing, but then do not live up to what they say, or live in a way contradictory to it.  We even have leaders of the Church who openly posit teachings which the Church has taught is wrong and contrary to what our Lord revealed.  In the midst of all this, is it any wonder that people doubt if there is truth, or find themselves asking the same question as the governor of Judea: what is truth?
    Our Lord today tells us that He will send us the Spirit of truth, who will lead us into all truth.  The Savior doesn’t modify the truth, or say that He will help us to know our truth.  The Holy Spirit will teach us the truth.  Truth, by definition, is one, like God.  It does not admit of variations, even though people may have different perceptions of it.  There was a picture floating around Facebook a while back, and I suppose, in the best light, it was trying to help us look at things from another perspective.  It showed a number on the sidewalk in chalk, and two people arguing about whether it was the number 6 or the number 9.  But, as one commenter pointed out, someone put the number on the sidewalk, and intended it to be a 6 or a 9.  So even with perspective, there is still an objective truth, a reality to which the image refers. 
    And truth cannot change based upon the time in which one lives.  Our understanding can certainly grow and develop, but the truth is eternal, again, like God.  It’s not as if the world was flat at one time, until we started to learn more about the earth and the solar system, and then it became spherical.  It was always spherical; we just thought, from our base of knowledge, that it was flat.  Or, to use an item of faith, it’s not as if God was a monad until the New Testament, and then He became a Trinity.  God was always a Trinity of Persons, but we didn’t fully understand that until our Lord revealed it to us. 
    To live a successful life, we have to acknowledge the truth.  Otherwise, truth will exert itself in painful ways, no matter how much we try to ignore it.  I do not have to believe in gravity, but if I try to ignore it while walking off the roof of a building, gravity will impress upon me that it exists whether I want it to or not.  And, depending on the size of the building, my desire that gravity not exist may prove fatal.  I may want to walk through walls, but if I try, I will end up getting a serious headache and body ache. 
    The same is true with the truth about how God made the world when it comes to religion.  Just because we do not want something to be true, does not make it less true.  A person who does not believe in God will come face to face with that false opinion when he or she stands before God in judgement.  A person may convince him or herself that saying God’s name in vain doesn’t really matter, but at some point he or she will recognize the truth of the pain that the violation of that commandment brings.  Yes, our ability to know that truth, whether our ignorance was vincible or invincible, conquerable or unconquerable, will affect God’s judgement of us.  But the reality will impress itself upon us, and perhaps cause us a longer time in Purgatory, or perhaps even mean our eternal damnation.
    On a much happier note, we have children today who are making their first Holy Communion.  They are receiving our Lord in the Eucharist for the first time.  They have come to recognize that what looks like bread and wine is not bread and wine, but has become, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of the priest, the Body and Blood of Christ.  You, my dear children, fulfill today the words of Psalm 8: “on the lips of children and of babes / you have found praise to foil your enemy, / to silence the foe and the rebel.”  Though there is still a lot of truth you need to learn, you have come to understand the truth that our Eucharistic Lord gives Himself to us at each Mass so that we can eat His flesh and have life within us, even though it looks like ordinary bread. 
    And the way that you receive, kneeling and on your tongue, helps to demonstrate the truth that you have come to learn.  If it were only a matter of eating regular food, we would pull up a table and chairs and have you eat like normal.  But because Christ gives Himself to us, we kneel down in adoration, and allow Him to nourish us, like a baby bird receives its nourishment from its parent in its mouth.  In some ways, children, you are wiser than some adults, and know a truth that they have rejected.  Hold on to that truth.  Never doubt what Christ has taught us through the Scriptures and through the Church, that if we wish to have eternal life within us, we need to eat His flesh, which is the Eucharist.
    And for all of us, pray that the Holy Spirit will guide us all into the fullness of truth.  Not just the opinions that we like or that seem easy for us; not just the soundbites that support our pre-conceived notions; but the truth, the reality of how God has made the world.  There is real truth, because God exists who can ground the truth in Himself.  Our goal, aided by the light of the Holy Spirit, is to acknowledge the truth and live according to it, the truth that grounds itself in our Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Staying Connected

Fifth Sunday of Easter

    As a child, we had one telephone in the kitchen, and a cordless telephone in my parents’ room.  The kitchen phone hung on the wall, and had the super-long cord, which was great because you could take it into the living room, but then you also, every so often, had to dangle it from the second story railing so that it could untangle.  This will come as a shock to some of the younger people here, but when people called you, you didn’t know who was calling until they identified themselves.  And if you were on the phone, no one else could call you, unless you had a second line (which we didn’t). 
    Back then, the best way to connect with people, of any age, was to actually see them, whether at school, or at the mall, or by going over to their house.  You would meet up and talk with each other, in person, and learn what was going on in their life.  As a kid, you might play together outside, or explore woods around the house, or just eat a snack together.  You might even spend the night, like times at grandpa and grandma’s house, which usually meant amazing food and maybe even a fishing trip or watching grandpa work on something in the shed.
    With the assistance of today’s technology, we can, as we say, connect with each other in ways we couldn’t before.  We can send pictures of ourselves (appropriately) to others, or maybe post a picture of what we’re eating for dinner.  We can send someone a quick text to check in, unless it’s very serious, and then we might actually call someone (but, again, only if it’s serious).  If it’s really sentimental you might FaceTime, or maybe even do a Zoom meeting to see what the other person is doing.
    And yet, with all that technology, with all our capabilities to “stay in touch” with each other, young people are more disconnected today than before, with many who are very active on social media saying that they feel lonely, though they have the opportunity to see what others are doing 24/7.  So as much as we think we’re connected to everyone, perhaps we’re not as connected as we think.
    Jesus tells us today in the Gospel that if we want to have life, we have to be connected to Him.  This doesn’t mean that Jesus is our Facebook friend (a person we just keep in a list of contacts that reminds us of his birthdays and shows us pictures of Him); or that we ‘gram with Jesus (take pictures of holy stuff and stuff we think he would like); or that we follow His short sayings on X (formerly known as Twitter).  In order to be connected to Him we have to develop a real relationship with Him, which means spending time with Him and getting to know Him personally, not just through a platform.  There are no shortcuts to having a relationship with Jesus, and it doesn’t come through social media.  We cannot substitute time anything else for time with Jesus.
    Of course, this means that we have to make sure and create time for Jesus, because our lives are filled with so many things.  We have responsibilities at home and responsibilities at work.  We wake up, get ready for school or work, get to school or work, spend the day learning or working, come home to do homework or make dinner, maybe clean up a little or spend time with family, and then we go to bed.  So the days are full.  But if we value something, or in this case, someone, we make time.  All of those activities are important, but Jesus is even more important than those.  So can we carve out some time for prayer, for speaking and listening to Jesus, in each day? 
    It may mean getting up 10 to 15 minutes earlier, so that we can read over the Scripture for the day or pray a rosary or chaplet of Divine Mercy.  I have a friend who has had a fifty-minute commute to work for the past few years.  He developed a new routine of praying a Rosary or Chaplet of Divine Mercy while driving, and then listening to the readings for the day in a podcast. 
    It may mean giving up some time on the television or on a game or show on a tablet to do some devotional reading or learn about a saint.  Or it can mean trying to pray together as a family for some minutes before the kids go to bed.  This can be as simple as asking each child to say one thing for which they are thankful, or seeing if they have something or someone they want to pray for.  Or maybe reading a Bible story together as a family.  But making sure that there is time for Jesus in our daily family life.
    Lastly, St. John reminds us in the second reading that staying connected with Jesus also means filling His commandments.  Whether it’s going to Mass every Sunday and Holyday, or being honest, or keeping God’s Name holy, or not missing the precious gift of human sexuality, or praying for those who do us wrong, or any of the other commandments that Christ, whether through Scripture or through the Church, has given us, if we wish to remain in Christ, to stay with Him, we follow His will, rather than just our own.  Both prayer and fidelity to what God has revealed to us connect us to Christ, and allow His life to flow through us. 
    Despite all of our technological advances in communication, we are often more disconnected than ever before, because the things we think connect us only do so in a fleeting way, and not in the deep ways that our human natures truly crave.  Make time for Christ; prioritize Him in your daily life.  If you do so, you will remain with Christ, not only on this earth, but in the new heavens and earth that will come.