The Root, the Shoot, and the Fruit

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

            One of my favorite classes at Sacred Heart Major Seminary was Theology of the Trinity. 

Bishop John Quinn,
Bishop of Winona, MN

Besides being a great subject to study (you can never go wrong learning more about God), I also enjoyed the class because of the professor, Bishop John Quinn, who was at the time an auxiliary bishop of Detroit, and is now Bishop of the Diocese of Winona, Minnesota.  He taught well, but also became a mentor to me, and a kind of friend, with whom I still keep in touch today with an occasional letter or email.  In that class we learned about the different images that were used to describe the Trinity: The Sun (s-u-n) Itself (God the Father), the Light of the Sun (Jesus), and the Warmth of the Sun’s Rays (God the Holy Spirit); the Root (God the Father), the Shoot (Jesus), and the Fruit (God the Holy Spirit); and many others.  But what was key to describing the Most Holy Trinity was the understanding that God was not simply a monad, but a Communion of Persons.

            Our belief in One God, yet Three Persons, distinguishes us from the other two major monotheistic religious of the world: Judaism and Islam.  They both hold, with us, that God is One, based upon the words of Deuteronomy: “Shema Yisrael: Adonai Elohim, Adonai Echad”: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is One.”  And yet, throughout the Gospels, Jesus makes clear that He and the Father are One, not just in some metaphorical sense, but in the core of their Being, shown when Jesus forgives sins, something which only God could do.  That is why the Sanhedrin condemns Jesus for blasphemy, for claiming to be God.  And in today’s Gospel, Jesus affirms the role of the Holy Spirit, who is God, as continuing His work.

            But while we can talk until the end of time about the Trinity, seeking to understand more fully who God really is, we experience the Trinity in our everyday lives.  For, if God is a Communion of Persons, and we are created in the image and likeness of God, then we too are called to be a communion of persons.  And we know this from the beginning.  We know, as the Book of Genesis states, that it is not good for the man to be alone.  It is not good for us to lack communion.  We have, built within ourselves, a desire to know another and to be known by another, and to pour ourselves out for another, just as God is known in His fullness by the Trinity of Persons, and shares that knowledge with each Divine Person, and each Divine Person pours out all of who He is to each other.

            First and foremost, our desire for communion leads us to desire God.  St. Augustine rightly said in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  Each person, even the most hardened atheist, has a desire for communion with that Communion of Persons in the Trinity.  We want to be connected to the infinite.  And whether we are single, ordained, consecrated men and women, or married, there is an aspect of our desire for communion that can only be filled by God.  And when we try to fill that with someone else, even a best friend or a spouse, we are perpetually frustrated, because they are finite, and we desire communion with the infinite.

            But we do also desire communion with each other.  For many here, that life of communion is fulfilled in a special way through marriage, which is itself a symbol, something which points to another, of the communion of the Trinity: each spouse pours their life out to the other, which is always open to new life, just as the Father and Son pour themselves out to each other, in a love which is so strong that it spirates, or breathes forth, the Holy Spirit.  That is why Jesus, and therefore the Church, teaches that divorce cannot be a possibility, because marriage is called to make visible the invisible total union of God, which will never be divided or broken up.  My dear married couples, you are the way that we witness what the love of the Trinity is meant to look like.  What an exalted vocation!!  For those who promise celibacy or take a vow of chastity or virginity, that spousal union is lived out with God, which then allows us to share that infinite love of God with you, whom we are called to serve. 

Sts. Gregory (l) and Basil (r)

            But all of us, no matter what our vocation, are also blessed with the communion of friendship.  In that platonic union, we are also able to pour ourselves out to another, such that sometimes friends become like another self.  What a great blessing to be able to have a person who accepts us as we are, but also calls us to the heights of holiness and virtue, with whom we can be open and honest.  Two of Christianity’s greatest friends, Sts. Basil and Gregory Nazianzen, lived this out, though they had their very rough patches.  St. Gregory wrote on the anniversary of the death of St. Basil, “We seemed to be two bodies with a single spirit.  Though we cannot believe those who claim that ‘everything is contained in everything,’ yet you must believe that in our case each of us was in the other and with the other.”  We can each experience something akin to that in our trusted friends.

            What we celebrate today, the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, is not some far-removed doctrine which has nothing to do with our life.  It is a defining part of who we are as Christians, and it is built into the very nature of our being.  May the Eucharist, though which we have communion with Jesus, and therefore communion with the entire Trinity, draw us each day deeper into the communion which is the basis for all others: the Communion of Divine Persons in the Most Holy Trinity.

An Optimistic Nation

Ascension of the Lord

            When it comes to the feelings of parishioners, there are very few, if any across-the-board statistics that apply to every individual.  It is dangerous to make assumptions for people, especially in a homily, because it might not be true, and you can lose that person’s attention for the rest of the homily.  But, I feel very safe in saying that every person here wants to go to heaven.  Good.  No one got up and left.  No one is offended to be in a group of people that want to enter paradise.

            What we celebrate today is the fact that it’s possible.  Yes, Jesus opened the pearly gates when He rose from the dead, but Jesus today takes His seat at the right hand of the Father, and what gives us hope is that, if we are members of His Body, then we, too, will be there some day.  While it’s a bit dated, a 2005 poll by ABC News stated that 89% of Americans believe in heaven, and of those who believe in heaven, 85% of them think they will be going there.  We certainly cannot be condemned as a pessimistic nation. 

            But it’s much easier to take the position of the disciples that we heard about in the first reading.  It’s much easier to gawk up in the sky and think, “Wow!!  That was really cool!!” and just remain there.  It took an angel to get the disciples to go back to the Upper Room and pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit which would empower them to do what Jesus commanded: “‘be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’”  While I may not be a perfect angel, allow me to communicate a similar message: pray for the gift of the Spirit!!

            Because the only way to go where Jesus has gone before, is to pattern our life on His.  Yes, we all want to get to heaven, but do we know how to get there?  The way is quite simple: Jesus.  Jesus didn’t say, “‘I am the way,’” to give bumper sticker manufacturers a job.  He said it because it was true: the only way to heaven, to the Father, is through Jesus.  If we truly want to go to heaven, then we must pattern our lives on His.  What does that look like?  Jesus tells us in our Gospel: suffering, death, and resurrection; and preaching of repentance.

            If we want to go to heaven, then our life is meant to be full of sufferings, deaths, and resurrections.  These are the times where we say, “It’s not about me,” and we do something that we know we should want to do, and then we actually find we enjoy it.  Imagine that: doing what we should do often comes with a feeling of accomplishment.  Huh.  Fr. Michal Judge probably had some trepidation about going into the Twin Towers on 9/11.  But, as the building collapsed, I’m quite sure he didn’t think, “I wish I would have concentrated more on myself.”  And standing before the judgment seat of God, I’m very sure he didn’t think that.  Or the volunteers who give of their time and talent to bring food to the hungry, while it may be painful sometimes, I’m quite sure they don’t regret living out the corporal work of mercy to feed the hungry.  We have to die to thinking of ourselves as the most important, which is painful, and then rise to new life where it is God, Others, Me.  After all, Jesus called His disciples to be His witnesses, which, in Greek, could also be translated His martyrs.

            If we want to go to heaven, then our life is meant to be a witness to repentance.  Now, in our culture, we don’t like to use the word repentance, because if you are repenting, it means you did something wrong, and no one does anything wrong in our culture.  But, the life of Jesus was a life of preaching repentance.  Jesus didn’t say, “You’re great, just keep up the good work!”  He said, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel!”  When we preach repentance, we preach to ourselves, to remind ourselves that we need to be formed constantly into disciples, and at the same time we preach to others that same message.  We don’t preach, “You’re doing pretty well,” because that’s not the message of Jesus.  Jesus didn’t preach mediocrity; He preached perfection, the fulfillment of who we are as human persons created in the image and likeness of God.  We preach new life, not old life with a few alterations.  But new life makes demands, and that’s where we get squeamish.  Who are we to make demands?  We, of ourselves, can demand nothing.  But Jesus demands that we model our life on His in totality, not just for one hour on Sundays.  And, out of love for others, and wanting to see ourselves and them in heaven, we, by the grace of God, change our lives, and ask others to do the same.  Mercy is only sweet when someone has done something wrong.  Mercy means nothing if there is nothing wrong.  So if we wish to receive mercy and be merciful, we have to acknowledge the evil that we do, and then do our best to begin a new life, and call others to the same.

            But none of this is possible without prayer.  Just as the disciples prayed for nine days in the Upper Room (the first novena), so we should be praying, not just for nine days, but every day, for the gift of the Holy Spirit who gives us courage to suffer, die, and rise, who forms us according to the mind of God, who gives us the words to use when we preach Christ and not ourselves.  Take these days until Pentecost and pray for an increase of the Spirit.  If you are open, God will not disappoint.  And then, by the grace of God, living a life after the pattern of Jesus, you will have firm hope, not just a flimsy wish, that in Christ, you can be seated at the right hand of the Father.  

Continued Presence

Sixth Sunday of Easter

"I have been, and always will be, your friend."
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

            It’s interesting the effects that friends have in our lives.  They can open us up to new experiences, which we can then make our own.  For example, when I was in elementary school, my best friend got me interested in Star Trek.  And once I had been exposed to it, I couldn’t get enough.  I loved the Original Series, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine.  I’ve seen all the movies.  One memorable scene is from “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”  Be warned, this is a spoiler alert.  Towards the end of the movie, in order to get clear of an impending explosion, Spock has to enter a radioactive room to get the warp drive working again.  But before he does so, he merges his mind with “Bones” McCoy, the ship’s doctor, which becomes important in the next movie, “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.” 

            While there is no merging of minds, Jesus, in the Gospel we heard today, promises to send an Advocate who “‘will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.’”  This promise, made during the Last Supper, is fulfilled at Pentecost.  But because of the greatness of this gift, the Church, two weeks earlier, starts focusing on the Person of the Holy Spirit.

            The Holy Spirit is the continued presence of Jesus, after He ascends into heaven, which we, in this diocese, will celebrate next Sunday.  He is the continuation of Jesus’ work on earth among the disciples.  He instructs, leads, and protects the Church.  The Spirit ensures that the apostles and their successors will continue to preach Jesus’ words, and not their own.  The Holy Spirit as Advocate, the one who speaks for another, is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to St. Peter, that the gates of the netherworld would not prevail over the Church, so that she would never teach as part of the faith nor as part of Christian living what was contrary to the will of God.  Sure, there have been individuals who have been grade A sinners in Church leadership, but, by the grace of God, they never taught anything major, probably because they were so concerned with their own, sinful lives.

            We need a guide to help us understand Jesus’ words.  The Word of God needs unpacking.  One of the great error of Protestantism is that the Scriptures are clear, and that any person can understand them simply by opening up and reading.  Reading Scripture is a beautiful and necessary thing, but we need a guide.  Because sometimes Jesus is literal, like when He says, “This is my body.”  Other times he uses figurative language, like when He says, “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.”  We need the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the guidance that was promised through the Church, to understand what God is making known through His word.  Otherwise, we end up straying from Jesus and just creating our own thing, which sometimes can be very weird.  Origen, a late second-, early third-century Catholic scholar, went to a weird place when he interpreted Jesus’ words to cut off the part of you that causes you to sin (he struggled with sexual sins, to give you some idea).  This was a theologian who knew Scripture, but he veered away from the right understanding of it, which causes some irreversible damage.

            We see the early Church dealing with understanding properly the Word of God in our first reading.  The big controversy, even at first among the apostles of Jesus, the ones He had ordained to govern His Church, was whether or not Gentiles has to become Jewish first to become Christians.  Did Gentiles have to be circumcised?  Did they need to wear Jewish clothing?  Did they need to keep the dietary law?  The very men who had walked with Jesus for 3 years and listened to all He said in public and private were not sure.  But, gathering together, in prayer and discussion, they decided that Gentiles did not have to become Jewish, but did have to follow some basic rules with their roots in Judaism.  And they make it clear that they needed guidance: “‘It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities.’”  This was the basis for the 21 Ecumenical Councils that would follow later: the bishops convene in prayer and discussion to be open to the Holy Spirit to continue Jesus’ work in the world.

            So how open are we to the Holy Spirit’s work in the Church today, which includes both the hierarchy and the lay faithful.  We say the Prayer to the Holy Spirit each Sunday, but do we mean it?  Do we really want the Holy Spirit to be active in our lives?  Are we like wet clay that can be formed by the Holy Spirit, or are we hardened so that our lives are not open to formation by the Divine Potter?  If we are open to the Spirit, then the Gospel will spread like wildfire, as it did in the early Church, to whoever is open to the need for a Savior.  If we are not open to the Holy Spirit, then we become obstacles to God’s truth and God’s love in the world.  May we truly mean what we say as we make our Prayer to the Holy Spirit: “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.  Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.”

Do You Love Me?

Third Sunday of Easter

            When I was a freshman at Lansing Catholic in 1998, I had the great opportunity to be cast in our production of “Fiddler on the Roof.”  To this day it remains one of my favorite musicals. The part that I was assigned, I kid you not, was the Rabbi. One of my favorite songs in that musical (and there are so many great and memorable ones) is “Do You Love Me?”

            That is, of course, the very question that Jesus asked St. Peter in today’s Gospel: “Do you love me?”  And Jesus didn’t just ask it once; He asked it three times to make up for the threefold denial that St. Peter made when Jesus was being held by the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin.  Three times St. Peter says, “‘Yes Lord, you know that I love you.’”  And then Jesus explains what love means.

Jesus said to him…“Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”  He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God.  And when he had said this, he said to him, “Follow me.”

What must have been going through St. Peter’s mind when Jesus said this to him?

            Love, as Jesus explains to St. Peter, means binding yourself to another.  Peter binds himself to Jesus, to follow him, and even to be dressed by another and led where he does not want to go.  This was fulfilled when St. Peter was bound to the cross, upside down, and crucified, dying out of love for Jesus and following Him even through a similar form of death.

            We see how love binds in so many ways: it binds a man to a woman for life in marriage.  Because they love each other, they commit to an exclusive love for each other, a bond so strong that only death can break it.  We see how love binds in the example of parents who easily put thousands of miles on their vehicles driving Johnny and Alice to and from sports, band, plays, and other activities, even when the parent doesn’t feel like driving.

            Love binds the beloved to the lover.  And we, whether single, ordained, consecrated, or married, were all bound to another when we were baptized.  At that moment, God claimed us as one of His own in a bond which is so strong, it even survives death.  At baptism, we became the Lord’s beloved.

            But, even though love binds, that bond can be strong or it can be weak, based upon the response of the beloved to the lover.  The closer we stay with Christ, the stronger that bond is.  The more we wander away from Him, the weaker the bond is, though it is never broken.  If we wish to grow in love with God, then we must follow Him.

           

A painting of the Crucifixion of St. Peter in
the Church of Domine, Quo Vadis
outside of Rome

Each day Jesus renews His love with us.  Each day He asks us to renew our love with Him.  He asks us, “Do you love me? Will you follow me?”  Because love is free, it is never forced, but is an invitation.  Even St. Peter faltered a little.  As the story goes, when St. Peter knew that Nero was coming after him to arrest him and put him to death, St. Peter, at the advice of the Church in Rome, started to get out of Dodge.  And as he was walking on the Appian Way, he saw Jesus walking towards Rome.  This, naturally, startled St. Peter, who asked the Lord, “Domine, quo vadis?  Lord, where are you going?”  Jesus responded, “I am going to be crucified a second time.”  St. Peter than realized that he was not following Jesus, but was doing his own thing, and so returned to Rome and was crucified upside down.  We, too, falter at times, and would rather walk away from Jesus and not follow Him, but would rather do our own thing. 

            But love means being bound to the other, and in our love for God, it means following Him.  Sometimes that means that another leads us where we do not want to go.  Sometimes it means a change of heart and a change of mind so that the rule is not “my will be done,” by “thy will be done.”  It means making Him the top priority in our life, and forming our life around Him, not asking Him to form His life around us.  Sometimes it even means death.  But the beauty of love is that the beloved knows that the lover is worth it.  And in the case of our Divine Lover, God, we also know that His love is stronger than death, and He will never leave us.

            Jesus says to us in the words of the Song of Songs, “Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one, and come!  For see, the winter is past…Arise my beloved, my beautiful one, and come!”  He asks us, “Do you love me?  Will you follow me?  Will you strengthen the bond that was created when I claimed you as my own and saved you from sin and death in the waters of baptism?”  What will our response be to the love of God, a love so strong that He gave up His only Son to death so that we could live?  Do we love Him?

New Life

Easter Sunday

           

New life.  The phrase has become so common that we often forget the power of those two, short words.  But those words have power, because everything changed from that point in time for all eternity, both all time that had come before, and all time that would follow after.  People had dreamed about life that would never end, but it was always something that could not be seen, could not be experienced.  Now, new life was not just a theory or a pious idea, but a reality that we saw in Jesus.  He was the same Jesus, but He was different.  He still bore the marks of His crucifixion, but His body was not the same type of body as before; it was filled with the glory of God.

            New life.  What an effect it had on those first disciples: Mary Magdalene, the first to see the risen Christ; Peter and John who ran to the tomb in today’s Gospel; the Blessed Virgin Mary, who received back the Son that she had watched die on the cross.  What a shock it was for them first to find the empty tomb, and then to see Jesus appear in their midst, though the doors were locked. 

            New life.  It gave Peter the courage, after the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, to proclaim to the Jews who were gathered for Passover that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, the fulfillment of the prophecies of Moses and all the other prophets.  It gave Peter the courage to preach that Jesus is “‘the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead…[and] that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.’”  It gave countless numbers of people the courage to be put to death rather than deny Jesus as their Savior.

            New life.  It caused the first believers, most of who were Jewish, to not only observe the Sabbath, the Saturday rest, but also to observe the 8^th day, the first day of the week, when Jesus rose from the dead, and gather together each Sunday to remind themselves of what seemed to good to be true, but was true; to hear the prophecies that referred to Jesus; and to fulfill the commandment of the Lord made at the Last Supper and celebrate the Eucharist in His memory.  It caused the first believers, especially Gentiles, non-Jews, to change the entire way they lived their lives.  No longer would they worship idols or the emperor; no longer would they participate in the sexual immorality of their neighbors; no longer would they base their life on pleasure and worldly wisdom, but on the Word of God, both through what was in Scriptures and the Teachings of the Apostles, as what ruled their lives.  They did as St. Paul wrote to the Colossians, and as we heard in our second reading today: “seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.”  They put on a heavenly mindset, even while living their earthly pilgrimage.

            Brothers and sisters, the power of the resurrection, the power of new life is not only in the past.  It is a power still as potent today as it was in the first century when Peter and John ran to the tomb.  It is still as potent as in the third century when Sts. Perpetua and Felicity died in the arena rather than deny Christ.  It is still as potent as in  the thirteenth century when St. Francis divested himself of all that his earthly father had given him in order to follow in poverty his Heavenly Father. It is still as potent as in the nineteenth century when St. Marianne Cope dedicated her life to serving those in Molokai who had Hansen’s disease.  It is still as potent as in the twentieth century when St. Maximilian Kolbe put himself in the place of another prisoner at Auschwitz.  You can grab on to that power, and you can have new life.  You can be transformed, first on the inside, and then, after the resurrection of body at the end of time, on the outside.

            If you know Jesus, then everything is different.  Sure, we may look the same as we did before, but the way we live our lives will testify to the fact that we have new life in Jesus.  It changes the way we treat each other.  It changes the way we make decisions.  It changes the way we spend our time.  We base our lives not on our own ideas, but on the logic of God found in the Scriptures and in the Teachings of the Apostles and their successors.  We gather together each Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and to remind ourselves of the power that new life can have in our lives.

            “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad.”  Jesus said to his disciples how He came to set this world on fire, and how He wishes it were already burning.  New life, and the power it has, can set this world afire with God’s love.  I invite you today, paraphrasing the words of St. Paul: Arise, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you new life.

Mount Moriah

Celebration of the Passion of the Lord

Around 2,000 years before Christ, Abraham placed wood upon his the shoulders of the son of the promise, his beloved son, Isaac, and started up the mountain.  Isaac quickly realized that, while they had the wood, and they had the knife to kill the sacrifice, they had no lamb to place upon the altar.  Isaac, “like a lamb led to the slaughter,” did not know what was happening, and so asked his father where the offering was.  “‘My son,’ Abraham answered, ‘God will provide the sheep for the burnt offering.’  Then the two walked on together.”  When they reach the top of the mountain, Abraham, an old man at this point, binds his son to the wood.  Isaac must have willingly let himself be bound, because Abraham was more than 100 years old.  And then Abraham took out his knife, ready to sacrifice the son of the promise: the promise that God would make of Abraham through Isaac father of many nations.  But, as we know, an angel of the Lord stayed Abraham’s hand, and did not allow him to sacrifice his own beloved son, but provided a ram in place of Isaac.  Abraham was rewarded for his faith in God, even to the point of letting his son die, and truly became the Father of Many Nations.  Isaac, who was as good as dead, was given new life as he was unbound from the wood.

Fast-forward about 1,000 years, and a temple is built, according to tradition, over the spot where Abraham had been willing to sacrifice Isaac.  It was there, at the place of an example of faith in God such that it put Abraham in right relationship with God, or justified him as St. Paul says, that the sacrifices of the Mosaic covenant would be offered, to remind God of the faithfulness of the Father of the Israelites.  Just outside of that place, almost 1,000 years later, another Son, a beloved Son, would be fastened to wood once more, and offered up by His Father as a sacrifice.

Isaac had asked where the animal was to sacrifice, perhaps his voice starting to crack as he began to realize what could lie ahead of him.  Jesus cried out, “Eli, eli, lema sabachtani?  My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” as the full weight of sin and the punishment that it deserves came crashing upon Him.

But where was the voice of the angel?  Where was the heavenly messenger telling the Father to stay His hand and not touch a hair on the boy’s head, and to replace the sacrifice of a Son with the sacrifice of a ram?  As the Roman soldier raised his arm, ready to hammer the nail into the exhausted flesh of Jesus, which had been scourged to a bloody mess and weakened on the Via Dolorosa, the sorrowful way, no angel stopped that hand, and the only sound was the pounding of the hammer.

Abraham proved his love for God by being willing to sacrifice his own beloved son.  God proved his love for Abraham and his posterity, not just by generation but by faith, not only by being willing to sacrifice His Only Beloved Son, but also allowing it to happen to save us from our sins.  All of the sins that came before that dark Friday, and all of the sins that would follow after it, were washed away as the crimson blood flowed from the mangled body of Jesus. 

What are our sacrifices since last Easter?  What are we willing to sacrifice in the year to come?  In the past year I have buried a father of a family who left behind a wife and 5 kids, as well as my own uncle; I have had friends discover they had cancer; today I bring my frustrations, my joys, my sins, all of who I am.  Many of you have lost loved ones, have found out family or friends are sick and suffering; some of you have lost jobs, or have children who have wandered away from the Church; you have your own frustrations, your joys, your sins, and all that makes you who you are.  Today, bring them here to our own Mount Moriah, and offer sacrifice to God; not the sacrifice of your progeny, but sacrifice of your life united to Jesus on the cross.  Offer to God not only the evil you want to get rid of, but even the things you want to hold on to with your whole heart.  Bring them to the wood which is prepared for this altar. 

Jesus says to us, from just outside Mount Moriah, “‘I thirst.’”  He thirsts for you, He thirsts for me.  Not just part of you or part of me, but all of you and all of me.  Have the faith of Abraham.  Be willing to offer your all to God.  “Take courage and be stouthearted, all you who hope in the Lord.”

"Poder es servir, porque Dios es Amor"

Mass of the Lord’s Supper

“Poder es servir, porque Dios es amor.”  “Power is serving, because God is love.”  These are the words of the hymn, “Pan de Vida,” a hymn that many of us have likely sung at some point in our lives because of its popularity.  Power is serving, because God is love.

Often times we have a backwards view of power.  We consider power to be the ability to rule over others, to make others do things, to make changes.  But this is not the reality of power.  Like so many things in our lives, Jesus reminds us that the reality is backwards from the way we see it.  It is the poor in spirit who are blessed, the meek who inherit the earth, the pure of heart who see God, the peacemakers who are the children of God.  The last is the first.  The Master is the Servant.  This is not just another view from a wise sage.  It is the way the world really works.  Granted, on this side of eternity it doesn’t seem to go that way.  The blessed ones seem to be the rich, the greedy inherit the earth, those who have darkness and filth in their hearts seem to have “divine” moments of ecstasy, the warmongers who are favored.  The last is the loser.  The Master rules.  But what is more real?  Heaven, which is eternal, or earth, which even now is passing away?  Who is more real?  The Creator, who brought all things into existence out of nothing, or the creature, who without the Creator doesn’t even exist?

Power is serving, because God is love.  One of the major events that we celebrate tonight is the institution of the priesthood.  Jesus, unfettered by social construct (as we see so many times in the Gospels), utterly free in the choices He made, chose twelve uneducated men to follow Him more closely than all others, even than His Immaculate Mother.  He chose one of them, Peter, to lead the others, to speak for the others.  Jesus gave to Peter, and then, after His resurrection, to the others, power to bind things on earth that would be bound in heaven, and to loose things on earth that would be loosed in heaven.  Jesus gave them the authority to teach in His Name, such that, as Jesus said, “He who hears you, hears me.”  Jesus gave them power.  But this power was not to rule over, but to serve under.

At the heart of priestly service is the ministry of the Sacraments, especially another Sacrament that was instituted tonight, the Sacrament of Sacraments, the Eucharist.  At the heart of the power that priests receive is the ability to act in Jesus’ Name and to feed His sheep with the “bread from heaven, having all sweetness within it.”  Along with the other Sacraments, priests are to convey God’s grace, His presence, His love, to the People that God has made His own by the new and eternal covenant, the shedding of the blood of the truly unblemished Lamb. 

Jesus also gave His apostles, his first priests, the power to continue His teaching.  This, too, is a power which is serving, as Jesus knew that questions would remain about what Jesus would actually do and say given new circumstances and situations.  Did Jesus really mean “eat my flesh and drink my blood” literally?  Was Jesus serious when he said that sins don’t begin with our actions, but with the desires of our hearts?  Jesus knew that people would struggle with this, and would even disagree, and that there would need to be a way of sorting out the true from the false, the divine wisdom from the wisdom of the world, and so He gave His apostles authority to teach authoritatively, from the Author, what He Himself would teach.

Jesus called his apostles, his first priests, to wash each other’s feet, to serve them, by communicating God’s grace, God’s word, and God’s love.  But there has been, throughout the millennia, a confusion about the power.  Some have neglected the words of the Letter to the Hebrews which says that no one takes the honor of the priesthood upon himself, and have instead demanded that, as a matter of equality, they be given the right to be priests so that they can have more power.  But the Church does not have that power, but can only do what Jesus did.  Some priests have forgotten throughout the history of the Church that the power of the priesthood is not a power to rule over and control, but a power to serve.

In my own priesthood, I have tried to use the power the Christ has entrusted to me to serve you by being available to celebrate the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation, as well as by preaching the truth.  But I also admit that there have been times when I have fallen into the view of power which simply seeks to rule, and when I have not been truly a servant to you because my own sinfulness has gotten in the way.  For these times when I forgot that “power is serving because God is love,” I sincerely apologize and ask your forgiveness. 

Tonight, as we walk to St. Thomas in Eucharistic procession, we will be a powerful group.  Our numbers will not be simply a band of twelve moving to the Garden of Gethsemane, but will be much larger, moving with our Lord to the Garden of Adoration.  May our procession witness to the power of Christ over our own lives, and provide the power of service to others to know the God who is Love, and draw them in to a deeper relationship with Him.  “Power is serving because God is love.”

The Path

Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

            There has been much talk recently about the humility of Pope Francis.  Some of the people I know have been a bit offended, taking the emphasis on Pope Francis’ humility as a comment on an alleged lack of humility by Benedict XVI, our Pope Emeritus.  Personally, I don’t see it as an attack on Pope Emeritus Benedict, who was himself very humble (and I can say that as a personal witness of his humility when I met him in Rome).  Others have rightly seen the humility of Francis as a means of evangelization.  There is something about Pope Francis which preaches the Gospel even in the way he acts, which is very reminiscent of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic.

            I have preached on humility before, but this time I want to focus on humility as the acceptance of wherever God leads us.  True humility means accepting the path that God has chosen for us, even when that path runs through suffering and death.  St. Paul talks about the humility of Jesus, “taking the form of a slave…and found human in appearance,…becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  Jesus, as we heard in our Gospel, was open to accepting the Father’s will.

            He accepted the Father’s will when he entered in triumph in His city, Jerusalem, to the shouts of joy from the crowd.  He accepted the Father’s will when it meant being betrayed by one friend, denied by another, and abandoned by most of his other friends.  He accepted the Father’s will when he was led to the cross to die a most horrible death, hanging naked in utter shame before a crowd who mostly mocked him, next to two criminals.

            It is hard to accept suffering.  It is hard to accept dying to ourselves and our wills.  But it is true humility when we know that God the Father is in charge, and we are not, and when we go where He leads us.  It is hard to embrace the cross as the means of our salvation.  But all Jesus’ life, and this entire week of liturgy, points to Friday, which itself points to Sunday.  Today’s celebration begins with joy and shouts of “Hosanna,” but quickly changes to the somber recalling of the passion.  The Last Supper, which we will celebrate on Thursday, is the liturgical anticipation of the sacrifice of the true Lamb of God on Calvary, and the way that Jesus institutes among His apostles so that all of his disciples, ordained and lay alike, can connect to the power of Jesus’ kenosis, his emptying of Himself entirely.

            Each time I celebrate Mass, I kiss the altar.  The cross is the altar where Jesus was sacrificed, and so the altar is the cross, which I kiss.  As I walk up these steps in the sanctuary, I am walking towards Golgotha, to kiss the cross on which Jesus is sacrificed.  I bring my own sufferings, my own trials which the Lord has given to me.  I bring your sufferings, your trials which the Lord has given you, the ones that I am aware of, and the ones I have not even begun to imagine, but which the Lord has placed on my shoulders just as He placed the cross on Jesus’ shoulders.  And I kiss that altar, that cross, because my offering of myself, my offering of you, will become the means of my glory and yours, as the Father takes our pain and suffering and death, and gives back to us new life in the Eucharist.  As I kiss that altar I kiss the demands on my time, my failures, my weaknesses, my sins.  As I kiss that altar I kiss the economic struggles, the children who are away from the Church, the sick and the suffering, the troubled marriages, the hurt, the loss of family through death, and the sins that you bring to Mass and which I carry for you. 

            But just as it was only through Jesus’ cross that the resurrection was possible, so for me it is only through being sacrificed on that altar in the bread and the wine that I rise to new life, and so for you it is only through being sacrificed on that altar in the bread and the wine that you rise to new life.  Do not run from the crosses in your life; embrace them, kiss them!  Because it is through those crosses, born with love, united to Jesus, that new life is possible.  Humbly accept the path God has chosen for you, even when it leads to Golgotha, even when it means “becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross,” because God will greatly exalt you, and bring you to new life in Jesus Christ our Lord, “to the glory of God the Father.”  Amen.

From Death to Life

Fifth Sunday of Lent-Third Scrutiny

            For the past two weeks we have heard from the Gospel according to John at this Mass.  We step aside from the usual hearing from the Gospel according to Luke to meditate and reflect upon what St. John calls the main signs of Jesus’ ministry.  We do this to assist our Elect to prepare for baptism, confirmation, and the reception of Holy Communion for the first time, as we accompany them through the Scrutinies.

            These three signs that we hear about all have to do with life, and are fitting for the Elect who are preparing for new life in baptism.  Two weeks ago we heard about the Samaritan woman at the well, and how Jesus was going to give her living water.  As we all know, we can’t live without water.  Last week we heard of the man born blind and how Jesus is the light of the world.  Light is an important part of life.  Without sunlight, the plants don’t produce, which means we, and the animals we eat, don’t survive.  Today, we don’t deal with an image or a metaphor for life, but with life itself in the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

            The first important aspect is that faith is involved.  The Samaritan woman comes to believe in Jesus, and so she is given the life-giving water in her soul which will never run dry.  The man born blind has faith, and Jesus opens His eyes.  Martha has faith that Jesus will raise Lazarus.  In none of these cases is the faith complete, as if one knows it all.  In fact, if one truly knows it all, faith, the knowledge of things unseen, is not necessary.  But faith makes new life possible.

            It is faith, at least in its seminal form, which led you, Elect of God, to ask questions about the Catholic Church.  It is faith which led you to continue searching and opening the Word of God to see if this Jesus should be followed.  It is faith which you will profess before you are baptized.  This will not be the end of the journey, but only the beginning of new life in Christ, just as for those of us who were baptized as infants, when our parents and godparents professed faith for us so that we could receive the precious gift of new life in Christ, that moment of baptism was not the end of our pilgrimage, but the beginning.  And likewise confirmation is not the end of our development of faith, but another important step in the pilgrimage, not the destination.

            God’s love is shown for us in giving us new life.  God promises through the prophet Ezekiel that the way we know that God is God is by receiving new life from Him.  Jesus fulfills that prophecy in our Gospel passage from today.

            But new life is meant to be new, not old.  You don’t pour new wine into old wineskins.  Lazarus had been dead for four days.  His decomposing body was rank with the odor of death.  It looked like a body, in some regards, but was not (we use the word corpse for a body that is no longer animated by a soul).  That is how it is with us before we come to Christ.  Yes, we are made in the image and likeness of God, we have human dignity because we are rational and have an immortal soul, but we do not have new life in us.  That comes through baptism, at least ordinarily.  Before baptism, we are plagued by original sin which puts us at enmity with God.  That is why we pray for you, dear Elect, that, because you have already been chosen—elected—for baptism, the power of Satan may have no sway over you.  After baptism, original sin is washed away—death is washed away—and you are filled with new life.

            But our outsides need to match our insides.  There needs to be a certain consonance, a certainly harmony between the new life we have in our souls, and the way we act with our bodies.  Beauty comes from when the image matches the idea, and if we truly want to be beautiful, then we should try with all our might to make sure that the way we live matches what we believe.  That goes for all of us, not just you Elect.  How many times did Jesus decry the lack of consonance in the Pharisees: “‘You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth.’”  The same could be said when what we have inside does not match what we do on the outside.  The temptations are great to keep our faith to ourselves and not let it impact the way we live our lives.  That is where scandal arises, when what we profess with our lips does not match the other actions of our life; when we have new life in us, but we still act like a rotting corpse; when we are members of the Body of Christ, but we act no differently than those who do not know Jesus.

            Dear Elect of God, we pray for you, that as you draw nearer to the life-giving waters of baptism, to the Light of Christ, to new life in Jesus, that you will grow in faith and be kept safe from the Evil One so that you are prepared to put to death the old man, and put on Christ, the new Man.  And we thank you, because your consonance of life between what you believe and how you live reminds us who were baptized before to live up to that call ourselves, so that more and more will be drawn to new life in Christ that not only changes our souls, but changes how we live each day.