Team Work

Solemnity of the Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Pius X Church

One of the fun parts of being a parish priest is the different events to which I get to go: football, basketball, and soccer games, just to name a few.  This past Wednesday I had the opportunity to watch our 7th and 8th grade girls basketball team play basketball.  We didn’t get the result we wanted (that is to say, we lost), but it was great watching our girls play.  They work well as a team, passing the ball, shooting when they have the shot, and getting back to play defense.  Each of them has to work together; none of them can do it all by herself.  Jaelynn relies on a trusts her teammates like Layla to pass to, Ari can support Emily and set a pick, and Mimi, Lauren, Sierra, and Emma have to support each other in the plays they run and in the constant back and forth of basketball.     

I also have attended some of the Powers boys soccer games this season.  I played soccer for 9 years when I was younger, and it’s fun to be involved with it again.  Soccer is definitely a sport, like basketball, where each person has to contribute in a particular way; no one person can do it all by himself.  If a defender like Trevor or Connor decides on his own to try to play offense and score a goal, it can lead to big trouble; if mid-fielders like Mason or Dominic don't adjust to the flow of the game, pushing up when the team is on offense, and falling back when the team is on defense, the team is likely to lose; even if the forwards, whose primary job is to provide offense and score goals, like Drew or Brian or Blase, don’t occasionally look up to see if someone else has a better shot, the team may not score as many goals as they could have.

Today we celebrate the Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Pius X Church.  On 23 September 1956, this building, a grouping of bricks and mortar, was dedicated to God as a place to worship Him.  This place was set aside as a pre-eminent place to call on God, and where God promised that He would always be present, especially in the Sacrament of the Eucharist in the Tabernacle.  Experiencing God here is different than praying in our rooms, or in nature, because this place is set-aside from the rest of the world to be a special place where we can encounter God and worship Him in spirit and truth.  Here God’s covenant with us in the Precious Blood of Jesus is re-presented, made present to us again, in a way that happens no where else.  That’s why Catholics are generally required to get married in a church building.  As they make their covenant with God and each other, they are in the presence of the covenant God has made with us.

This church building, too, is a sign to us of what we are called to be as members of the Body of Christ.  Each brick plays its own important role; each piece of the window does its part to let the light of the sun in; each piece of liturgical furniture works together to allow God to become present through His People assembled as one, through His Word proclaimed, through the Priest acting in the Person of Christ the Head, and especially in the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Eucharist.  So, too, we each have our role in the church.  We each contribute to making up the parish of St. Pius X.  As your pastor, my primary role is to provide you with God’s grace, especially through the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance, and to oversee the work of the parish.  Some of you help in proclaiming God’s Word; some of you are Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion and help bring Jesus in the Eucharist to those who are here and those who are not able to join us at Mass; some of you work on staff; others volunteer in a variety of ways and in different organizations; some of you are already so busy with taking care of your family that your role is joining us for Mass, helping to provide for the parish by your stewardship of money, and helping to spread the Gospel in your daily lives through word and deed.

Like our girls basketball team or the Powers soccer team, we have to work together.  We cannot do everything ourselves.  We work together to achieve our goals as a parish.  Imagine if the roof decided it didn’t like providing cover from the direct sun, the rain, and the snow.  If it doesn’t perform it’s important, though perhaps not glamorous, duty, we’d be sunburned or wet.  Imagine if the doors wanted to be closer to the tabernacle, so they moved into the sanctuary.  We’d have no way to welcome parishioners and visitors in, nor ways to keep vandals and thieves out.  If our girls basketball team members decided that they each wanted to score every basket, or only wanted to play defense, we wouldn’t win a game.  If the Powers soccer team decided they weren’t going to play their positions and support each other, we’d be last in the Saginaw Valley League.  Today as we celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Pius X Church, we are invited to work together in our diverse and unified roles to help build up the Body of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Birth Order

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Various studies have shown that there is a general trend about the personality of a child based upon their birth order.  Of course, I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule, but, speaking for myself, I have found most of the attributes to be true.  Parents.com says the following (and it’s on the internet so it must be true!): “As the leader of the pack, firstborns often tend to be: reliable; conscientious; structured; cautious; controlling; achievers.  Firstborns bask in their parents’ presence, which may explain why they sometimes act like mini-adults.  Firstborns are diligent and want to be the best at everything they do.”  As a firstborn, I would say most of those are true, though I would use the word administrative rather than controlling.  I think firstborns, but also others, certainly want to be the best at everything we do.  We, as with others, can tend to be perfectionists.  

The challenge for any perfectionist, whether firstborn or not, is that when we mess up, we can take it very personally.  Perfectionists are certainly tough on others, but are, more often than not, tough on themselves.  And so, in our spiritual lives, when we sin, as all people do (even the firstborn, perfect child), it can be hard to accept the Lord’s mercy.  Pope Francis once said that the Lord is sometimes more willing to forgive us than we are ourselves, and that can certainly be true.  We fall, like the Israelites in the first reading, and we can feel like God should start over with someone else.  In those moments, we need to trust in the Lord, and remember that He does want to have mercy on us.  He does not want to destroy us.  In the first reading, God was seeing how Moses would respond to God’s justice (for turning away from God the Israelites did deserve death), and God was pleased that Moses was becoming more like God and asking for mercy for the Chosen People.  We, too, should be like Moses when it comes to others and even to ourselves.  We should not beat ourselves up, but acknowledge our sin (pretending we didn’t sin does not solve anything), and then ask God for his mercy in the Sacrament of Penance.

The other challenge with firstborns and other, as we heard in our Gospel today, is to hold others’ faults over their heads.  The firstborn, and others, strive to please God, and work hard to stay on the straight and narrow.  But without a sense of God’s mercy, that desire for perfection can become hardhearted and lead to looking down on others who don’t succeed.  It can, as in the Gospel, lead to disdain when others are merciful to them.  We don’t want Jesus to go after the lost sheep; we don’t want Him to find the lost coin; and we certainly don’t want Him to throw a feast for those who wasted their spiritual inheritance on the fleeting pleasures of life.  We want justice.  Being merciful will only show others that it’s ok to do all those bad things; they need to be held accountable!

God, instead, invites us to be like Him, and show mercy to others.  Certainly, God cannot be fooled by fake contrition.  If we are not truly sorry, God will not forgive us.  When God gives His mercy, it is meant to lead to a change of heart, a conversion.  The Prodigal Son truly was going to change, and that change was made possible by the father’s love.  Even the worst people can change, and our mercy to them can help them experience God the Father’s love.

Who knows if the birth order/personality traits correlation is right.  But this week the Lord invites us to know ourselves, and see how ready we are to be like Him, to be merciful to those we meet.  Knowing ourselves is not always easy.  It is often easier to concentrate on someone else’s faults than our own, because we don’t have to deal with the pain and sorrow when we’re not focusing on our own failings.  As St. Basil the Great says, “In truth, to know oneself seems to be the hardest of all things.  Not only our eye, which observes external objects, does not use the sense of sight upon itself, but even our mind, which contemplates intently another’s sin, is slow in the recognition of its own defects.”  

But knowledge of our own failings is not for the sake of beating ourselves up.  Rather, it is meant to push us towards God, the all-merciful, who gives us the grace to change our lives.  No matter what our birth order, the Lord invites us to receive His mercy so that we can be more like Him, we can be divinized.  And, if we strive with all our hearts to accept God’s transforming and divinizing grace, then at the end of our life, we can hope for God the Father to run out to meet us, clothe us in the white garment of the saints, and welcome us into the great celebration of the wedding feast of the Lamb of God.

To Restore All Things In Christ

Solemnity of Pope St. Pius X

“For who can fail to see that society is at the present time, more than in any past age, suffering from a terrible and deep-rooted malady, which, developing every day and eating into its inmost being, is dragging it to destruction?”  This was not a quote from a political commercial.  This is a quote from our patron, Pope St. Pius X’s first Enclycical, E supremi, published on 4 October 1903.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.  We might likely say the same thing about our own times, how, more than in any past age, we are suffering from a sickness in our society, which seems to be dragging us down to destruction.  Widespread poverty, the breakdown of family life, terrorism at a global level: all these things seem like a sickness that weighs at our soul; at least, it weighs heavily on my soul!

So what do we do?  What medicine can we provide for this “malady,” this sickness?  I believe our patron, whose solemn feast we celebrate today, gives us a clue.  His papal motto was Instaurare omnia in Christo, or To restore or renew all things in Christ.  The only way we can cure this illness is to renew all things in Christ.  We cannot do it without Him.  If we try, we are certain to fail.  

But how do we renew all things in Christ?  Pope St. Pius X helps us here, too.  Much of Pope St. Pius X’s pontificate was spent promoting the liturgy, the Mass.  In fact, the motto of the Liturgical Institute where I studied was also Instaurare omnia in Christo.  Our participation in Calvary, the very way we were saved, renews us.  The Second Vatican Council called the Eucharist, given to us in the Mass, as the source of the Christian life.  It is the font from which we draw our strength to live as Christians.  If we wish to be renewed, then we have to be connected to God.  And what better way to be connected, than by receiving worthily the Body and Blood of our Lord?  We are like wells of God’s love.  If we are not connected to the spring to feed the well, then we will dry up, and no one’s thirst will be quenched.  But if we are connected, especially through the Mass, to Jesus, the wellspring of salvation, then others will find Christ through us, and they will also be renewed.  Pope St. Pius X understood the importance of receiving strength from the Eucharist, and so allowed children to make their first Holy Communion at age 7 (it had previously been 12).  He is fittingly called the Pope of the Blessed Sacrament.  

How else do we renew all things in Christ?  Our Gospel gives us another clue: we love Jesus.  Now, that may sound easy.  I mean, very few people say that they don’t love Jesus.  But do we see it in their actions?  Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?”, and after Peter says He does, Jesus gives him a mission (“Feed my lambs,” “Tend my sheep,” “Feed my sheep.”).  Love, true love, is always shown in what we do.  Love cannot remain only a feeling or an emotion.  If it’s true love, then we act on it, as St. Peter would do as the first pope, the first predecessor of Pope St. Pius X.

It also means acknowledging that we’re wrong.  Was it a coincidence that St. Peter was asked three times if he loved Jesus?  I don’t think so.  Peter, who had said he didn’t even know Jesus three times, was given a chance to say he was sorry, and make up for his denial.  We have a chance, through the Sacrament of Penance to admit that we’re wrong, and that we need God’s forgiveness, just like St. Peter needed it.  I would love to offer, and to need to offer, more times for this beautiful sacrament!  Not because I want you all to be sinners.  You are already, just like I am!  But because of the need to add more time because we recognize that we are sinners, and in need of God’s mercy.  I try to go to confession every two to four weeks because, as some of you are all too well aware, I sin.  There is nothing wrong in admitting we’re wrong.  In fact, it helps to renew us.  The real danger is when we think we’re fine, because then we are most certainly not.  If you want other times for the Sacrament of Penance, please let me know, and I will be happy to add them.

To renew all things in Christ is not complicated.  You do not have to be pope to do it.  The basic building blocks are regular confession and going to Mass every Sunday and holyday.  For my part, I promise to pray for you, and, to paraphrase St. Paul, to share with you not only the gospel of God, but my very self as well, so dearly beloved have you become to me.  But I cannot renew all things in Christ by myself.  In fact, I can do very little of it.  But if you join with me, then we can transform this world, and Christ, the Divine Physician, can cure it of this “terrible and deep-rooted malady which…is dragging it to destruction.”  Pope St. Pius X, help us, by your intercession, to be renewed by the sacramental life of the Church, and then to renew the world with your love which we receive, especially in the most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.  

Pyromaniacs for Faith

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Guys seem to have a universal reputation for being pyromaniacs, that is, obsessed with fire.  It may not apply to all men, and it may apply to some women, but generally the guys I know love lighting fires.  There is a special thrill that comes from getting some newspaper, small twigs, and a couple of logs to make a large fire, giving off heat and light.  Sometimes guys have to settle with the fire they create lighting a grill.  But generally, guys love fire.

I doubt that Jesus was obsessed with anything, other than doing His Father’s will.  Yet, maybe he really liked fire, too, as we heard Him say today, “‘I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!’”  But, as we all know, Jesus wasn’t talking about a bonfire.  He was talking about the heat and the light that come from the passion for God and His truth and love.

Sometimes we get a taste for this with other people in our lives.  We are approaching the beginning of school, which generally makes the students (and often the teachers) a little sad.  Yet, it can also be a time of great joy and excitement, especially when friends haven’t seen each much or at all during the summer.  Teachers know all too well about the chaos that ensues when two friends who haven’t really seen each other all summer get in the same room for the first time.  It is definitely fire-like!

Jesus wants that sort of intensity in our relationship with Him.  Now, as with fires, just because there are big flames does not mean the fire is super hot.  Some of the hottest fires I have made have been fires that no longer flame as much, but are white-hot coals.  Our relationship with Jesus doesn’t need to have lots of exciting moments to be strong.  Sometimes a strong relationship is one that doesn’t have lots of flames, but is more white-hot coals.  Still, when new fuel gets added to those white-hot coals, it can certainly create those exciting new signs of activity.

So how do we have a fire-like relationship with Jesus?  How do we quench Jesus’ thirst for the world to be on fire with His love and truth?  One way is prayer.  A few years back as a Diocese we prayed the prayer to the Holy Spirit.  The beginning of that prayer is: “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of your love.”  How often do we pray to the Holy Spirit, using those words or others, asking Him to stoke the coals, or maybe add more fuel to the fire before it goes out?  How often do we ask God to make the fire of faith alive in us?

Another way to keep that fire of God’s love hot is to suffer.  We hear about that in our first and second readings today.  Jeremiah suffers for speaking God’s Word.  He’s even thrown into a cistern and starts to sink into the mud.  Now, we might not think of that as a way to help our relationship with God.  But think about your friends: are your best friends the one who are only with you in the good times?  Or are your best friends the ones who are with you no matter what, who are willing to be with you with life has got you down, and when others, or maybe even the world, seems to be against you?  The author to the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us to not grow weary or lose heart, because suffering perfects our relationship with God.  It is not a sign that God hates us; it is not necessarily a sign that we have done something wrong (though sometimes our sufferings come from our own sins).  But it is always a way that God is inviting us to trust Him more, and to remind us that, no matter how bad things get, He never abandons us, just as He never abandoned Jesus even as Jesus endured the cross.

In order to strengthen our relationship with God, we can also look to Mary, whose Assumption, body and soul, into heaven we celebrate tomorrow.  Mary always leads us to Jesus, and she shows us how to be a good disciple.  She shows us how to ponder God’s Word in our hearts, how to suffer with faith, and how to rejoice in the triumphs that God gives us.  How long has it been since you prayed a rosary?  Sometimes we think we don’t have time, but even just a decade is a good place to start.  I often pray the rosary as I’m driving from one place to another.  Or, if we pray the rosary regularly, are there other ways that we can strengthen our relationship with Jesus through Mary?  

Imagine if all of us, guys and gals, were as obsessed with our relationship with Jesus as guys tend to be with fire.  Imagine if we worked as hard to get our relationship with Jesus going as we did trying to get newspaper, twigs, and logs to burn.  If that were the case, the world would be a warmer and brighter place, not with climate change and light pollution, but with the warmth and light of God’s love.

Patience

19th Sunday of Year C–Installation of Fr. Anthony Strouse as Pastor of St. Pius X, Flint

by Most Rev. Earl Boyea, Bishop of Lansing

        What if you pulled into a McDonalds or Wendys drive through and ordered your burgers and fries and were told, “OK, if you will pull over there, we promise you we will get your food to you at some point”?  What if you turned on your computer to play a game or to retrieve your e-mail and a message came up saying, “Go out for a walk; your computer will be ready eventually”?  What if it was approaching December 25^th and you were told by your teacher or your employer, “I promise you a vacation for the holidays but you will have to wait to find out when it will be”?  Most of us, in any of these circumstances, would easily lose our patience.  I know that when my phone takes longer to process something than I think it should, I get very impatient and start waving my hands, “come on, come on”!  We do not know how to wait; we are not very good at delayed gratification.  Yet everything that is really good in our lives is something that we must wait for, we must prepare for. This is especially true of God’s promises to us.

Abraham, our Father in faith, is the one who best shows us how we are to wait for God’s promises.  His story is related in our second reading today from the Letter to the Hebrews.  Abraham was told by God to leave his own country, where he had grown up, where his family lived, and go to a strange country which God said he would give him.  Abraham had to wait a long time for that country to be his—in fact, it did not happen until his descendants, the Israelites, took the land hundreds of years after his death.  We are told in the Letter to the Hebrews today that in the meantime, Abraham lived “in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs of the same promise” as they waited for God to fulfill that promise. 

Abraham was also promised many descendants and yet for most of his life he did not even have a son.  It was only late in life that he and his wife had a son, whom they named Isaac.  Yet through all this time Abraham trusted that God would be faithful to his promises—that is what we call faith.

Jesus promises us in the Gospel today that if we keep our eyes open and keep watching for his return in glory, then he, Jesus, will save us when he comes back.  Well, we have been waiting for 2000 years for Christ’s return.  But have we waited as Abraham waited?  My guess is that most of us need a quick answer from God.  We really are unable to keep going for the long haul on just a promise.

Two things are needed by us if we are to live a life of a Christian in our world today.  First of all, we need patience—we need to be able to wait for what is truly good without needing an answer right now.  Secondly, we need faith.  Only faith that God will be true to his promises will allow us to be patient and wait.

Patience means that when we are on the football team, we work hard day in and day out knowing that in the end all the work will pay off—maybe it will pay off in victories on the field, or maybe it will pay off later in our life.  Maybe we won’t win that many games, but maybe the friendships we developed, our discipline and stick-to-it-ness will help us be better adults and more responsible parents.  We may not even realize the pay off until we look back on our lives.  

Patience means that when our marriage seems to be falling apart, we make a new investment in it, taking the time to try to renew our relationship, realizing how much work went into it the first time, but believing and hoping that something positive and good can result.  

Very few of us, unfortunately, are willing to make this long-term effort.  We want to see results now.  Patience means that we raise our children and given them our time and attention, knowing full well, that we ourselves may not be the beneficiaries of all that effort.  

During my time of doing seminary work, I put a lot of time and energy into preparing young men for the priesthood—yet I didn’t expect them to bring about some great reform in the Church.  Rather, I hoped that they would train the next generation of priests who would begin to bring about that reform.  I am willing to play my little part in that long-range process.  Parents do the same thing with their kinds—for they are preparing parents for the next generation.

Why would any of us be patient?  We would any of us be willing to put off our satisfaction until sometime later?  It is only because we believe that in the end God will balance all this out—that we shall be rewarded in the end—and that reward, life with God, is worth waiting for, worth all our efforts.  Of course, we hold to this only due to the gift of faith.

My sisters and brothers, I promise you heaven—I promise you a life you cannot imagine—I promise you a love deeper and richer than anything you could dream about—but this will remain a promise until it is fulfilled—in the meantime, keep the faith, be patient, and keep your eyes on the look-out for Jesus.

God bless you all.

Seeing with the Eyes of our Souls

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The home that I grew up in was in the country, north of Williamston.  We had a two-story log cabin that my parents had someone build, with 5 acres of land.  Some of the land was developed, some was undeveloped and allowed to go wild.  My parents didn’t like the idea of video games, and, believe it or not, very few people had cell phones at that time (right now some of you who are kids are wondering how that is even possible and how we survived).  So my sisters and I were forced to use our imaginations, and we often played outside (I think that was partially because mom wanted time to herself in the house).  We imagined being super heroes, riding our bikes in our driveway as our super hero cars, or sometimes pretended that we were living in the wild, making forts and shelters from some of the trees that naturally grew in the undeveloped parts of the property.  Our imagination allowed us to see things that were not there.

Faith is not imagination.  Faith is not making something up that will never happen.  I am not Captain America (well, maybe I’m Captain America before he was strong).  I don’t have a super hero car (though I do love my Chevy Malibu).  But faith does allow us to see things that are not there.  

We hear about faith in all three readings, but especially in our first and second readings.  The sacred author of the Book of Wisdom talks about how the Jews had faith that God would deliver them from their bondage in Egypt, and would even the score against Israel’s oppressors.  And the sacred author of the Letter to the Hebrews speaks especially about the faith that Abraham, our father in faith, had when he left Ur for Palestine, when he trusted that Sarah would conceive Isaac, and when God asked Abraham to offer up that same son, Isaac, though God had promised descendants through Isaac.  Abraham had faith and saw a future for himself with God, though it was not the one he originally had planned for, or even seemed contrary to the future that God had promised.

Faith allows us to see, not only with the eyes in our head, but also with the eyes of our soul.  Faith invites us to change a part of our life that we think we need, trusting that God will supply for whatever we think we will lack.  Faith allows us to know things that are not apparent to our senses.  In some older holy cards that depict the Mass, it shows the priest, elevating the host and the chalice, with the angels and saints coming down from heaven in adoration.  That is not simply a pious image; that happens at every Mass, as we participate in a halfway point between heaven and earth.  Faith in God led the Sisters of Loretto in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to ask God to send the someone to complete their chapel, which lacked a staircase to the choir loft.  Sadly, there was little room for a regular staircase, and they had very little money.  After praying a novena to St. Joseph for nine days, a man came who promised to build the staircase for the sisters, but they had to give him total privacy.  He locked himself inside for three months, and only had primitive tools.  He disappeared as soon as the staircase was finished, without accolades or payment.  Experts still don’t know how it was done.  The sisters knew it was St. Joseph himself who had built it for them.

Faith leads us to do what we think is impossible, because we are not the main agents of the impossible, but God is.  We are so often limited by our vision, that we fail to see things with the vision of God.  After all, the Jews were looking for an earthly king like King David to be their Messiah.  God sent them Jesus, who was not whom the Jews expected, but freed them in a more powerful way than an earthly ruler ever could have–He saved them from sin and death.

What do we think is impossible?  What are those things that our eyes in our head tell us can never happen?  Jesus tells us in the Gospel not to grow complacent.  He reminds us that He will return, but it will be on His time.  If we lose our vision with the eyes of our souls, and only live with the eyes in our head, then we will forget about the Master who will return and will reward or punish us according to our service.  But, if we keep watch with the eyes of our souls, trusting that God can accomplish what is impossible–even the salvation and restoration of this fallen world–then God will reward us, making Himself our servant.  

We don’t simply have to imagine a world that is better than the one we have now: a world without violence, without hatred, without racism, without drugs, without war, without greed, without the fallen realities that continue to plague us.  God can make that world a reality.  Do we have faith to see how God wants to use us to help make the world that the eyes of the soul see the world that the eyes in our head see?

"You fool"

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

There are many endearing names that we would probably like to hear from God: my beloved; my son or my daughter; my child; my good and faithful servant.  Today we hear a not-so-endearing name that God calls the man in the parable: “You fool.”  

Those are not the words we want to hear from God.  So, why does the man in the parable hear those words?  Was it because the man was a successful farmer?  Was it because he was trying to increase his buildings?  Does God hate people with lots of stuff?

If we look through salvation history, we see people who are successful, who build great buildings, who have lots of stuff, that God loves.  Just a couple will suffice as examples: Abraham was a very successful man and had lots of possessions; King Solomon built a beautiful temple to God.  God didn’t have problems with them for that.  So why was God so peeved in the parable that Jesus told?

The man in the parable is concerned only with one thing: putting his trust in his things and his success.  He has made his possessions and his success his god, worshipping it by applying all his energy to it.  He must not have read Ecclesiastes, our first reading, where the author (by tradition King Solomon), inspired by God, reminds the people that all that we work for in life is left to others, and we should not make it the aim of our entire life.

Sometimes as Catholics and Christians we can have an uneasy approach to money.  Maybe we think that God and the Church says that having money is bad, that being successful is bad.  That’s not what God and the Church says at all.  How many church buildings have been built by the generosity of the People of God?  How many ministries are funded by the donations of people who have done very well for themselves in business?  And Jesus and His Apostles had a money bag, and would often rely on the generosity of their followers, like Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.

There is nothing inherently wrong with being rich and/or successful in a worldly point of view.  It is not necessarily a sin to have lots of money or nice things.  But, we have to ask ourselves if our money, our success, or our possessions have become a god to us.  What is our approach to our things?  

It is easy to have things become gods to us.  We work to get them, we put in a lot of energy around them.  Someone has a nice house in a nice neighborhood, so we have to move there and build a nice house, too.  There’s a new iPhone coming out, and even though our phone works fine, and we just got a new one, we need to have the latest gadget in technology.  Or we do all the work in the world to reach that high point of our career, and everything else goes to the back burner.  If we live that way, then God may well say to us, “You fool!”

Because what will happen after you die to all that money that you spent so long attaining?  You don’t get to take it with you.  It will go to someone else: your family, friends, the government.  What will happen that super nice house that you spent all your energy in building and improving?  It will be sold to someone else.  What will happen to your job into which you worked so hard to be promoted?  Someone else will get it, and may even do a better job than you.  When we spend all our time and energy on those passing things, we neglect the things that are eternal, and will survive us after we die: love, faith, in general we might say our soul.

What does last is the love that we give to God and that we give to others.  Sometimes that love is expressed through financial donations, but it is more often expressed in time and energy.  When we spend our time and energy on loving God and others, we work on a success that continues with us in the next life.  When we work on our relationship with God, on forgiving others, and spending time with friends and family, we are not creating false gods, but focusing on what the true God has asked us to do which will make us truly happy not only in this life, but especially in the next.  

Money, success, worldly possessions are not bad in themselves.  But they can often take on a life of their own, and become gods to us.  If we ever wonder if a possession has become a god, then think of what you would do if you had to give it up today.  We may be sad, no matter what, but would we think about how much time we wasted to get that thing now that it’s gone?  If we ever think that we have wasted time when something is taken away from us, then we are probably right; we probably have wasted time on things which are not essential.  Today God, the true God, invites us to take stock of how we spend our time and energy.  Are they on passing things?  Or do we spend our time and energy on that which will remain with us as we approach the judgment seat of God?

Our Catholic Life of Prayer

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Question for you this afternoon/morning: if you’re married, when was the last time you spoke to your spouse?  If you have kids who live with you at home, when was the last time you spoke to them?  If you’re in high school or college, when was the last time you texted your friends?  Now, when was the last time you prayed to God?

If you are married and you haven’t spoken to your spouse today, then I might be seeing you later this week in my office for marriage counseling.  If you have kids who live at home and you haven’t spoken to them yet today, you’re probably not going to win a parent of the year award.  If you are in high school or college and you haven’t texted someone yet, you probably have been asleep until about 20 minutes ago.  But when it comes to talking to God, when it comes to prayer, we tend to be ok with letting that go much longer.

Sometimes we can treat prayer as pretty complicated.  We feel like it has to meet all these different criteria, and so, because it requires too much, we don’t do it.  But prayer is not necessary complicated.  Look at our first reading from the Book of Genesis.  Abraham speaks with God, after God reveals His plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their grave sins.  Abraham is simply walking with God, and starts bargaining.  Abraham simply talks to God.

Part of prayer is simply talking to God.  The other part of prayer is listening to God.  We tend to be good at the first, but not so good at the other.  But the Lord invites us to listen to Him as well as to speak to Him.  For our daily prayer, there is no special language needed, either.  Simply talk to God; say what’s on your mind and heart.  And then have some time of silence to listen for His voice, even if it’s in our hearts.  Talk to God like you would talk to a spouse, a family member, or a friend.

At the same time, when it comes to our formal prayer, we do have specialized ways of speaking to God.  In our Gospel today, Jesus teaches us the Our Father.  Today we heard St. Luke’s version.  We say the version that St. Matthew reported, but at its heart, it’s the same prayer.  Sometimes, especially when we are at a loss for words, formal prayers are nice because we don’t have to spend the time thinking of what we want to say.  We can enter into the words that Jesus or the Church gave us, and pray the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Memorare, or the Glory Be.  

We are also in the midst of the Church’s great prayer: the Mass.  We began our prayer with the sign of the cross, and we will end it with the dismissal after the blessing with the sign of the cross.  Now, as the official prayer of the Church, we have a different way of addressing God.  How often do you say, “bestow in abundance” or “these most sacred mysteries” or even “grant, we pray”?  Probably never.  And yet, in this formal prayer of the Church, we elevate our language to remind us that we are not simply in a brick and mortar building.  We are not in an earthly place when we celebrate Mass (at least not the way we are when we go to the mall, or a bank, or a restaurant).  When we are at Mass, we are in a foretaste of heaven, the halfway point between heaven and earth.  And so, just as we are invited to lift up our hearts, so we also lift up our language and grammar to reflect the greatness, the solemnity, of the event we are entering: the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ.  

Some people like formal; some like informal.  Some people like memorized words; others like extemporaneous.  There is a place for both in the Catholic life.  If our only prayer is formal prayer and the Mass, then we are missing out on the more emotional parts of our faith that come from our daily devotions and times of speaking to God in our own words.  If our only prayer is our daily devotions and speaking to God in our own words, then we’re missing out on the font that is supposed to give our devotions life (the Mass), and we can easily forget that God, while our loving Father, is also our King, and we are not His equal.  Both are necessary for a healthy and balanced Catholic life.

God is both our Father and our King.  He wants to hear what is going on in our life on a daily basis.  At the same time, He is not our puppet, and we are still called to have wonder and awe in His presence.  The best way for this to happen is to pray.  Pray daily with all the things that are on your heart and mind.  Use the devotions of the Church like the Rosary, Praise and Worship music, and prayers to favorite saints.  At the same time, also join in more formal prayer.  Come to Mass each Sunday and holyday.  In these last weeks of summer vacation, come to daily Mass if you’re able.  Worship God our Lord, who created the universe and holds us in being.  Unite with the bread and the wine on the altar your cares, concerns, joys, and blessings.  And then say, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.  But only say the word and my soul shall be healed” in humility, knowing that God does not owe us anything.  Enter into communication with God.  Share your love with Him, and be surrounded by His love for you.  

Humble and Kind

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

As I think I mentioned in a bulletin article, my favorite music is country music.  This past Thursday I had a chance to go to the Tim McGraw concert in Lansing at Common Ground with Fr. Brian Lenz, one of the newest priests of the Diocese of Lansing.  One of his recent big hits is “Humble and Kind.”  Some of the lyrics are: “Go to church ‘cause your momma says to” [one of my favorites], “always stay humble and kind.//  Hold the door, say please, say thank you/ Don’t steal, don’t cheat, and don’t lie/…Always stay humble and kind…When the dreams you’re dreamin’ come to you/ When the work you put in is realized/ Let yourself feel the pride but/ Always stay humble and kind.//  Don’t expect a free ride from no one/ Don’t hold a grudge or a chip and here’s why/ Bitterness keeps you from flyin’/ Always stay humble and kind.”

It strikes me as a sign of the times that an artist has to sing about holding the door, saying please and thank you, not stealing, cheating, or lying, and the rest.  These were things many of us, if not all of us, learned as children.  Somewhere, though, it stopped being taught, or maybe was just ignored.  And many of the problems we have in the world today could be solved by following these simple pieces of advice.

In our first reading today, Moses tells the people that the Law that God has given them is not overly complicated.  In fact, it is already in the hearts of the people.  They don’t have to go to extreme lengths to get the Law.  God has shared it with His People as a way that they can be fully alive in Him.

The scholar of the law in today’s Gospel tried to trick Jesus by asking him how to get to heaven.  The scholar must have figured this young man (Jesus was likely only 32 or 33 at this point, a fine age to be, I might add) wouldn’t know what to say.  But Jesus asks him about the Law that was supposed to be written in his heart.  The scholar replies with the second half of the Shema, the great profession of faith of Israel: “Hear O Israel: the Lord is God; the Lord is one.  Therefore you shall love the Lord, your God…” and we hear the rest of it today.  The scholar then also quotes the Book of Leviticus, as he says that we need to love our neighbor as ourselves.  But then Luke adds that the scholar was not humble, but wanted to show off his mental skills, so he asks Jesus, “‘And who is my neighbor?’”  

When we hear the story of the Good Samaritan (which is a parable, not an actual occurrence), we get the point quite quickly.  Of course the person is supposed to help the dying man on the road.  Of course you would help a dying man get to a place where he could be healed.  Though, I wonder how many of us would offer to pay a man’s hospital bills if he was taken to a hospital.  I’m not sure I would.

When we hear this, it does seem like common sense (which is not that common these days).  But how often do we do these things?  We have lots of reasons not to help people these days: times are tough; I have my own problems; everyone has a cell phone and can call for help themselves; there are some dangerous people out there who pose as people in distress to try to hurt others.  The list goes on an on.  Even I struggle to live this out.  About a month ago, I was on my way to Adrian from Lansing, and there was a bad accident on southbound 127 around Mason.  As a priest, I can often gain access to a scene to see if anyone needs a priest or a person to pray with them, whether the victim or the first responders.  But that day I was tired, and while I slowed down, and the thought entered my mind, especially since I was, at the time, a Fire Department Chaplain, I drove by.  All the rest of the way to Adrian I knew I should have stopped.  Odds are that they would have said everything was taken care of.  Odds are that they would have said they didn’t need me.  But I will never know, because I never stopped.

Certainly we need to know the dangers of a situation, and sometimes we are not equipped to actually help the situation.  But when we are, do we stop?  Do we help a neighbor in need?  It doesn’t have to be on the road.  Maybe it’s an elderly neighbor who could use a ride to church, or could simply use a visit.  Maybe it’s a family that could use help with their lawn.  Whatever it is, Jesus today invites us to live by the law that is in our hearts.  

Tim McGraw isn’t Jesus; Tim’s words do not save.  But the lyrics I quoted are examples that are based in the Word of God, and will help us to live as disciples.  “Hold the door, say please, say thank you/ Don’t steal, don’t cheat, and don’t lie/…Always stay humble and kind…”

True Freedom in Jesus

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Last week, as I prepared to leave my last parish, St. Joseph, I found it providential that God put as the readings Elisha leaving his home to follow Elijah as a prophet, and Jesus saying that, in ministry, birds of the air have nests and foxes have dens, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.  This week I find it providential that, as I settle in to my new home here in Flint, our Gospel focuses on sending missionaries to preach the Gospel and extend Jesus’ peace into the homes that the disciples visit.

So today I come before you as a missionary; not in the sense that we often think of: a member of a religious community who travels around the world to teach pagans about Jesus.  Rather, I come as a missionary of the New Evangelization, to proclaim to you Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead, and to invite you, with me, to conform our lives more and more each day to Jesus, who will truly make us happy.  I come today to say, “Peace to this household.”  This peace is not merely the cessation of arguments and violence, but the wholeness that only God can bring.

And I come to you today on Independence Day weekend.  I don’t know if this is a normal size crowd for Mass (if it’s like every other parish I’ve been at, I’m sure there are a good amount of people who are vacationing for the long, holiday weekend).  But as we celebrate Independence Day as a nation, as a Church we look at Jesus’ instructions on independence.  He talks about it today in the readings in His instructions to the disciples: “Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals.”  Now, the word Independence is not there, obviously.  But Jesus is telling His disciples not to rely on worldly things, but to trust in Him and in the mission He is giving them.

I certainly also know that in my life.  When I was a young man (maybe the word younger is more appropriate), my dream was to be married, have a few kids, a few dogs, be decently wealthy, and be a lawyer, and then maybe later a politician.  Am I married?  Nope.  Kids?  Nope.  Dogs?  Tried it, but could never make it work.  Wealthy?  Not in financial terms.  A lawyer or politician?  Nope.  I’m a priest.  And yet I am happy.  In fact, I can’t imagine myself happy as anything but a priest.  If I would have insisted on having things my way, on doing things independent of God, then I wouldn’t be here with you today, and I wouldn’t be embarking on a great, new adventure with in my priesthood.  

In our modern understanding, independence means doing whatever we want.  But in Jesus’ understanding, independence means not being tied down by things, dreams, or even people, who want to lead us away from God.  Being truly independent, being free, means being obedient to Jesus, and following His will.  It means not letting our passions control us, not being slaves to sin.  The one who is least free is the sinner, because God never enslaves us, but that’s all Satan wants to do.  Sin binds us to death, whereas life in Christ binds us to resurrection.  Sin shackles us to despair, whereas Jesus gives us hope.  

Freedom is not doing whatever want.  Freedom is not freedom from someone else.  Freedom is freedom for someone else: Jesus, and how He reveals Himself in our neighbors.  Peoples certainly have the right to direct how they are governed, and we celebrate the freedoms enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights, freedoms which come to us not because the government allows us certain permissions, but freedoms which come to us from God, and which no government can legitimately curtail.  We celebrate the freedom which is proper to every human person, no matter that person’s race, religion, sexual orientation, age, or gender.  But that freedom is meant to help us choose the good in life, not simply wherever our fancies and desires take us.

Jesus used His freedom to lay down His life for us.  And so St. Paul reminds us that we are never to boast, “except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  May we use our freedoms to preach the Gospel by word and deed, and use our freedom in being able to choose the good things that God has in store for us.