A Surprise Every Time

Easter Sunday

The sections in brackets [] are for the Extraordinary Form Mass only.
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]. In Episode III of Star Wars (the sixth Star Wars movie made) there is a scene that takes place toward the end of the movie, a scene that I always wish would change.  Spoiler alert, for those who haven’t seen it yet.  Emperor Palpatine, the Sith Lord, is lying at the edge of a window that has been shattered, and Jedi Master Mace Windu is about to kill him.  Young Jedi Anakin Skywalker is looking on, having alerted Master Windu that the emperor was the Sith Lord the Jedi had been searching for during the past two movies.  Emperor Palpatine pleads with Anakin to save him, so that the Sith can help Anakin save his wife, Padmé.   Right before Master Windu is about to dispatch the Sith Lord, Anakin intervenes, and Emperor Palpatine is able to disarm and then kill Master Windu.  It’s at this point that Anakin pledges his allegiance to Emperor Palpatine, and becomes Darth Vader.

Palpatine killing Mace Windu

    No matter how many times I have seen that movie, I always want Anakin to simply allow Mace Windu to kill Emperor Palpatine, and stop all the horrors that Darth Vader would cause from that point on.  It’s not a surprise when the scene plays out as it always does, but I’m always in suspense in case somehow, against all odds and all reason, good triumphs in that moment.  Most other movies that I have seen before I am resigned to watch what I know will happen, but with this movie, for some reason, I’m always a little shocked that it follows as it does.
    When it comes to the Resurrection, it’s a movie we’ve seen before.  We know Christ rises from the dead.  We know, when we hear the Gospel that the tomb will be empty.  But what is our response?  Is it a blasé acceptance of facts, or does it hit us fresh each time?  Are we pleasantly surprised that good actually triumphed over evil, and that sin and death were conquered?

An image of the Resurrection from where it happened

    Those first disciples were certainly surprised.  The Evangelists makes clear that no one expected Jesus to rise from the dead (though the Blessed Mother may be an exception to that general rule).  But when they realized it was true, it changed the way they lived their lives.  It gave them hope in the midst of doubt, light in times of darkness, and courage when their enemies pressed all around them. 
    The first disciples lived with the new yeast, leavening their entire lives.  They lived in sincerity and truth, knowing that if the worst that the world could throw at God couldn’t conquer Him, then nothing could.  And if they were with Him, then they couldn’t be conquered, either.  They lived as those utterly convinced that if God was for them, who could be against them?  Especially in the first centuries of the Church, but even continuing into the bloodiest century for Christians ever–the twentieth century, which produced more martyrs than every other century combined–Christians were under regular attack, and not simply with words, or shutting down social media accounts, but pouring oil on them, attaching them to posts, and lighting them on fire to provide lamps through the streets of Rome; crucifying them in mockery of their Lord; sending wild and starving beasts after them in circuses around the Roman world; or, if they were a Roman citizen, executing the more humane sentence of beheading. 
    They gathered in secret in those first few centuries, in various centuries since, and this still continues today in certain places in the Middle East, in China, and in parts of Africa.  They didn’t mind that Mass might not be at a time they wanted, or as often as they wanted, but were happy to be able to gather and be strengthened by God’s Word and the Body and Blood of Christ.  
    So, do we live differently because of the Resurrection?  Are we casting out the old yeast malice and wickedness?  Does coming to this altar of God restore the joy of our youth?  Does it affect the way that we treat each other on the road, in our families, at our job?  Do we want to share the joy of our relationship with Christ, or are we happy to keep it to ourselves?  St. Mark describes the disciples as “utterly amazed.”  You can imagine the thoughts running through Peter and John’s head when they found the empty tomb and the burial cloths off to the side.  When people see the difference that the Resurrection makes in our life, are they utterly amazed?  What thoughts run through other people’s minds as they see us living in the light of the Resurrection?  Do they even see a difference?
    This story, this real-life story of the Resurrection, does not have to be humdrum.  It can feel new every time we watch it, like that scene from Star Wars is to me.  If it doesn’t strike us that way, pray to God to make it new in your life.  Spend time in front of the Blessed Sacrament and ask the Lord to remind you how powerful the Resurrection is, to stir into faith the realization that Christ has conquered sin and death, and if sin and death cannot find victory over Christ, then nothing can gain the victory over us if we’re connected to Christ.  Today makes everything different.  Make sure that others know the difference of the Resurrection by witnessing you!  [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Sprit.  Amen.]

Because of Love

 Good Friday of the Passion of the Lord

    About a month ago a Trooper I know well and his wife had their first child, a baby boy.  In the first few weeks I would check in with him about how things were going and how much sleep he and they were getting.  Those of you who have had babies know that, especially in the first few weeks, sleep is a bit of a luxury.  Their child was very used to sleeping during the day, but being awake at night.  Still, even with this lack of sleep, it was really touching to see how much this Trooper and his wife loves their son.
    The Trooper was talking to me one day about how he even loves changing his son’s diaper, because it’s his son.  This Trooper has nieces and nephews already, and he doesn’t really change their diapers, and has no desire to do so.  But, he said (and I’ve made this rated G since we’re at Mass), he is happy to wipe his son’s poop away because of how much he loves his son.  
    When we think about Good Friday, and what Jesus did for us, we often immediately go to the suffering, and how necessary it was that Christ should suffer and die.  Our first reading today from Isaiah lays out how the suffering servant of the Lord, Jesus, would take our sins upon himself and suffer chastisements for us to make us whole.  
    We often immediately focus on Jesus paying the price for our sins.  The wages of sin is death, St. Paul says, and so we recognize how Jesus took upon Himself that penalty that He did not earn (because He had never sinned) so that all of us sinners could have eternal life.  Sometimes this can make us have an image of God that is not accurate, as if God is some masochist who enjoys making others, especially His own Son, suffer.  We heard the agony of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking for another way, if it is possible, to save us, and it might make us wonder why God didn’t choose another means of salvation.
    But, I would like to suggest to you that we look upon Good Friday through the eyes of this Trooper and his (so far) only son.  Cleaning the feces from a baby’s butt is not an enjoyable task.  It stinks, it’s messy, and it often doesn’t happen easily because the baby is squirming around, or sometimes is not even done relieving himself when you remove the diaper.  But because it is his son, this Trooper finds delight in doing what he normally shuns and avoids.  
    So with us, God the Father, because of the Incarnation and by virtue of our baptism in which we were united to Christ, looks on us and sees His Son.  And what would otherwise be unbearable (as horrific as crucifixion is) becomes bearable because He is our Father.  And because Jesus and the Father are one, what the Father loves so does the Son (as well as the Holy Spirit).  So the Lord looks upon us with so great a love that nothing will stop Him from securing our salvation, and the possibility that we can be united with Him forever in Heaven, rather than being forever separated from Him in Hell.  
    There is no length that our God would not go to in order to save us.  He even descended to the gates of hell to rescue the just who were imprisoned there under Satan’s cruel guard.  His love for us cannot be imagined, and even the love of our earthly parents or even the love of our spouse falls short when compared to God’s love for us.  
    That love is what makes today happen.  Not some bloodlust.  Not some warped desire to make one person suffer for another person’s ease.  Simply love.  The love that created the universe; the love that holds everything in being; the love that knit us together in our mother’s womb.  That love will go to the greatest extreme possible to ensure the we, God’s beloved, are safe and wiped clean from the filth of sin with which we soiled ourselves.
    And it is to that love that we are invited to respond.  Yes, we are commanded to be obedient to God, just as we are commanded to be obedient to our parents, especially as young children.  Sometimes the delight that we should have in God is not present in our hearts because of sin or because of our lack of gratitude.  But that obedience is meant to stir back up in us the reciprocation of love for God that He first showered on us.  That is part of how the Lord wants us to be like children.  Children, especially babies, delight in their parents.  There is nothing quite like the smile of a baby being held in the arms of his mother and/or father.  The child, even before it can verbalize its love, senses the love from its parents and wants to return it.  So we, the children of God, should want to return, to the best of our ability, that love that God has for us, the love that even made going to the Cross worth it so that we could be reunited with God.
    Today, as you come forward to venerate the Cross, look upon it as the expression of how much God loves you and values your union with Him.  See the pain and the suffering, yes, but see the love of our Heavenly Father and Jesus our Brother which took that suffering and death as simply another way that He could show much how much we are worth to Him, and how much He loves us. 

The Ones the Lord Chooses

Mass of the Lord’s Supper
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  This is one of the weightier days for me as a priest.  I started this morning at the Chrism Mass, concelebrating with Bishop Boyea and my brother priests serving across the Diocese of Lansing.  Not only were the holy oils and Sacred Chrism blessed and consecrated, but we renewed the promises we made at our ordination.  It is a time of great joy, as we see each other again and catch up, and then celebrate the Mass together.  It’s a great way to celebrate the Institution of the ministerial priesthood, which took place on that first Holy Thursday.

    Then, as tonight starts, it is a very moving celebration, as I will wash the feet of twelve parishioners, this year from both St. Pius X and St. Matthew parishes.  What seems like a simple ritual has great import for me as a priest.  It is a reminder to me that my role as your pastor is to serve not to be served, and to give my life as a ransom for you.  Washing feet was awkward then because of the nature of how dirty feet were (given only sandals being worn, and likely some dung being mixed in with the dirt).  Now it’s the awkwardness of taking off shoes and socks.  But it is a treasured moment in my life. 
    Then, at the end of tonight, we will walk in solemn procession to the altar of repose and keep watch with our Lord, putting ourselves in Gethsemane.  The Lord was preparing for His Passion in Gethsemane.  At our altar of repose, I often think of the crosses I have borne in my ministry as pastor, some carried better than others.  I offer through Christ to the Eternal Father in the power of the Holy Spirit all that weighs upon me and all that weighs upon you as we seek to know and follow the will of God in our lives, no matter how joyful or painful it may be from day to day. 
    Returning to the washing of the feet, I couldn’t help but think of the Apostles, and what our Lord was doing for them, mixed bag as they were.  I think we have a tendency to think of them more like statues than anything else, religious icons of peace and serenity.  But the Gospels paint them as anything but.  Matthew, the tax collector and our patron here, was probably not easily accepted into the apostolic college, and perhaps treated with a bit of contempt among his fellow Apostles.  James and John were full of zeal, and John seems to have had a special bond with the Lord, perhaps because he was the only Apostle who was unmarried, like Jesus.  Andrew in the Gospels is a helper, as he is the one who brings the boy with the five loaves and the two fish to Christ.  Philip and Nathanael are pretty pragmatic, as Nathanael wonders if anything good can come from Nazareth and doesn’t believe until the Lord knows that Nathanael had been sitting under a tree, and Philip wonders how Christ could feed five thousand, given how many days’ wages it would have cost to secure food.  In the Last Supper discourse, Philip will also ask Christ to show them the Father, and that will be enough for them, to which the Lord responds that He who sees Him sees the Father.  We know little about the Simon, other than Simon belonged to the party of the Zealots, and James the Lesser was a cousin of the Lord.  Jude asks at the Last Supper why the Lord will reveal Himself to them only and not to the world, so perhaps he was hoping for a conquering king as a Messiah.  
    And then we come to Peter.  Peter was likely an extrovert, as he had to say something before he understood what he was thinking.  He has moments of greatness (think of his two great lines: “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God” and “To whom shall we go?  You have the words of everlasting life”); he has moments where you want to face palm (probably not a good thing if Christ says to you, “Get behind me, Satan”).  He at first refuses to have the Lord wash his feet, but then asks for an entire bath instead.  He swears he will not deny Christ, only to do so some hours later. 
    And, of course, Judas.  Christ washes his feet, but then Judas leaves in order to betray Christ.  Dante puts Judas in the lowest level of Hell because of his betrayal of God, even going so far as to betray the Prince of Peace with a kiss of peace.  He later regrets his betrayal, but despairs and takes his own life in shame.
    These were the ones Christ came to serve.  They were as different, unique, and diverse as we are.  They were not perfect; some far from it.  And yet Christ chose them.  He chose them to be His first priests, to hand on the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, which are not mind-teasers to be solved, but realities expressed in symbol that run far deeper than their physical representation.  He did so knowing that one would betray Him, and one would deny Him.  He did so knowing that all would scatter from the garden at His arrest, and only one would be at the foot of the cross with Him at His moment of greatest need.
    And that should give us hope.  Because Christ chose us, too.  He chose us knowing that we would sometimes fail, that we would sometimes deny that we know the Lord, and that we would sometimes abandon Him when the going got tough.  He knew that at times we, like Judas, would betray Him.  He chose us with our differences, our idiosyncrasies, our unique ways of seeing the world. 
    And, as long as we have repented for those times of betrayal, denial, and abandonment through the Sacrament of Penance, He invites us to eat of His Body, to be strengthened so that next time we might not betray, deny, and abandon.  Just as He instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, the mystery of His Passion and Death presented for us under the appearance of bread and wine, but truly His Body and Blood, so He gives us Himself tonight so that we can stand with Him through His Passion, made present for us in these sacred liturgies of the Triduum. 
    The great sign of Christ’s service for us is how He gives Himself to us each time the Holy Mass is celebrated.  He serves us by nourishing us, strengthening us, sacrificing Himself for us so that we can have life within us.  As the hymn sings, “What wondrous love is this!” 
    So tonight, as you approach the altar to receive the Lord on your tongue, think not on your differences from each other; think not on the great things you have said of our Lord, or the horrible ways you have denied even knowing Him; think not on how you have helped the Lord to be known, or hidden His truth out of fear.  Think only of His love for you, a love that was obedient even to the point of death, death on the cross.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Christ's Rights

 Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion/Palm Sunday in Lent

The sections listed in brackets [] are for the Extraordinary Form only
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.].  In the United States we concentrate a lot on rights.  We talk about our rights as something to be guarded at all costs.  And some of them are very important.  Certainly at the top of the list is the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  But we also raise to the highest level lesser rights, things that are man-made laws.  Again, they may be important for a well-ordered society in some cases.  But we sometimes treat them as if they’re a sacred cow.
    Juxtaposed to this focus with rights is Christ in our readings.  All things belong to Christ.  He is King of kings and Lord of lords.  He created all things and sustains all things in being.  As He enters into Jerusalem, He enters into His City.  He is Son of David, entering into the City of David.  And the crowd feels it.  They sense that there is something more to Him than simply being an itinerant rabbi from Nazareth.  They wave their palms and lay their cloaks down, not unlike when David brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem.  

    The Lord has the right of calling on His attendants, the angels, to wait on Him in His city.  He has the right to cast out all those who oppose Him, as He Himself referenced in a parable earlier in His ministry.  And He does cast out the money changers.  But He does not set-up His own government.  He does not expel the Romans, and call down fire from the heavens to burn them up, and James and John suggested He do when the Samaritans would not welcome Him because He and His Apostles journeyed to Jerusalem.  
    Christ has the right to confound the religious leaders of His day, who are intent on getting rid of the One they fail to acknowledge as the Messiah.  He does not give in to their traps, though He sees them, but He doesn’t demand that they profess Him as the Messiah in front of the crowds, who have some sense that Jesus could be the one for whom they have been waiting.  
    In sum, the Lord did not deem equality with God something to be grasped.  Rather, He emptied Himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men.  He even “humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  Christ seems to give up every right that is His.  He could insist on so much, but insisted on nothing other than doing His Father’s will, no matter the cost.  His thought was not on right, but on responsibility.  
    As disciples who are supposed to pattern our life on Christ, is that the way that we live?  Do we cling to what we believe is ours, our rights, or do we humble ourselves in obedience to the Father’s will?  Are we and our desires the most important things in life, or is the Father?    Our Lord reminds us that whoever exalts himself and his desires will be humbled.  Whoever humbles himself will be exalted.  
    As we enter into this holiest of weeks, the Lord invites us to pattern our life on His, not on grasping on to our rights, but emptying ourselves in service to the Father’s will.  If we humble ourselves like Christ, then we will be exalted with Christ by the Father.  If we die with Christ, we will rise with Him in glory, [where He lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.  Amen].

Lunatic, Liar, or Lord

Passion Sunday
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  
 

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [that is, Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’  That is the one thing we must not say.  A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse….You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come up with any patronising [sic] nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He did not intend to."

These words come from the great Anglican writer, C.S. Lewis in his work Mere Christianity.  And though Lewis never swam the Tiber, he certainly was a man faith in Christ.  

C.S. Lewis

                    Our Gospel and Epistle today lay out how our Lord is different, not just in His style of preaching or even His content, but categorically different than everyone who came before, or anyone who would come after Him.  As Lewis writes, we cannot simply refer to Him as one of a great line of human teachers.  To do so is to ignore the witness of the Gospels and the other New Testament revealed texts.
    The author of the “Letter to the Hebrews” starts by contrasting the sacrificial system of the Temple in Jerusalem, and the sacrifice of Christ in the Heavenly Jerusalem, the temple built without hands.  The Aaronic priests would offer sacrifices throughout the year of many types: atonement, peace offerings, grain offerings, thanksgiving sacrifices, votive sacrifices (those connected to vows made), etc.  Goats, sheep, bulls, lambs, grain, wine, oil: all these things would be offered according to what God revealed through Moses and the sacrificial system expressed in the Books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  And these did bring about ritual purity: the cleansing of the flesh.
    But our Lord offered Himself not with a dumb animal’s blood, but with His own Precious Blood, the blood of a truly unblemished lamb.  And His sacrifice, made once for all, did not only cleanse the flesh, but cleansed the conscience, the soul.  All sacrifices were meant to bring a person into right relationship with God.  They were vicarious ways of saying that the person offering was giving up his life to offer it to God.  Christ’s sacrifice was not vicarious, though, in the sense that He offered something else.  He offered Himself, and in Him all who would be united to Him.  And it wasn’t only to temporarily bring us into right relationship with God, but to change us to be like Christ, adopted sons and daughters in the Son of God, which opened for us eternal union with God in heaven, the ultimate goal of right relationship with God.  
    In the Gospel, too, our Lord distinguishes Himself from all others who came before Him in Judaism.  And the Jews notice it.  They ask if Christ is greater than Abraham and the prophets.  And through the back and forth, the Lord affirms that He is greater, leading up to the climactic phrase of this passage, “Before Abraham came to be, I AM.”  This hearkens us back to the great Theophany to Moses on Mt. Sinai, when God reveals His Name to Moses, “I AM WHO AM.”  And the Jews recognize this, because they immediately pick up stones to stone the Lord to death, the penalty for blasphemy.  Christ claims not simply to be a great rabbi who authentically interprets the Law and the Prophets, but the one about whom the Law and the Prophets referred, the source of their power and authority.  
    What does this have to do with us?  Well, while we’re all here, so we must acknowledge in some sense that Christ is different than any other religious leader, it is very easy in our mind and practices to treat Him simply like another guru.  It is easy to think simply of laws that we need to follow and prayers we need to say, without recognizing the adoration that we owe to the Lord and that we are not simply listening to another faith teacher, but dealing with the Lord who made all the universe.  
    It is also very easy to pick and choose the religious leaders and minds to whom we want to listen.  We like this cardinal versus that one; this author more than another; give one blogger more credence than a different blogger.  And faith always come through someone else, so others participate in fostering our faith.  But we can so often get caught up in lower-level rules and practices, without having any real reference to Christ and what He specifically teaches.  Especially as Americans, we have recently tended to read religious leaders and what they promote through a political lens.  Do we go back to what Christ reveals, He who is God, and evaluate religious leaders and authors by those standards, rather than the ones with which we are more familiar and likely more comfortable, that is, how does this match up with my view of life and my political outlook?  In other words, to what do I give more weight: the Gospels or my favorite blog?
    Jesus is not just another religious leader.  He’s not only qualitatively different, but categorically different because He is the one who shares Divine Revelation as well as the source and content of Divine Revelation Himself.  May we be most concerned with the One who simply reveals Himself as “I AM”: God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Offered and Offering

 Fourth Sunday in Lent

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves in Tabgha in the Holy Land, which was itself founded around AD 350, there is an ancient mosaic dating from around the year 480 in front of the altar where there are two fish and four loaves.  Now, if you were listening carefully to the Gospel, you would know that the multiplication of the loaves and fish involved “five barley loaves.”  So what’s with this ancient mosaic?  Did they simply run out of space?  Was the ancient artist ignorant of the account?  
    In reality, the ancient artist not only knew his Bible, but also knew his theology.  There are four loaves in the mosaic because the fifth loaf is the one on the altar, being consecrated into the Body of Christ.  St. John the Evangelist had this connection between the multiplication of the loaves and the Eucharist as the rest of John chapter 6 goes on to contain the preaching of our Lord about how He is the Bread of Life, and that we need to eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have life.  
    The Eucharist is the new covenant that our Lord established between Him and us so that we could have salvation and be in right relationship with God.  This is made clear in the words of institution over the chalice: “Take this, all of you, and drink from it.  For this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the New and Eternal Covenant: the mystery of faith: which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.”  God promises to be our God, and we promise to be His People, in this Sacrament of Sacraments, which itself points to Good Friday, as Christ shed His Blood on the Cross.
    St. Paul takes up this idea of covenants in the epistle as he sees an allegorical interpretation of Genesis and the stories of Isaac and Ishmael.  Ishmael, as the son of the slave Hagar, represents the old covenant, the Law, while Isaac, the son of the free-woman, Sarah, is the new covenant of the Lord.  
    Does St. Paul mean that God has abandoned the Jews and the covenant He made with them?  No.  The Apostle, after spending chapters explaining how the law does not save, writes in his Epistle to the Romans: “I ask then, has God rejected his people?  Of course not!  […] For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.”  Even though the law does not save, God does not reject His People, His Chosen Ones.  
    But God has fulfilled what the Old Covenant was meant to prepare for: salvation through Christ.   And that salvation is made present for us in the Eucharist each time we come to Mass.  Christ offered Himself once for all on the cross, but wanted us to have access to the power of the sacrifice, just as the Jews had opportunity to connect themselves to their sacrificial offerings that were made in the Temple.  When a Jew would offer sacrifice, certain parts of the animal offerings were for God, to be burned up on the altar, while others were reserved for the priest, and still others were given back to the people.  So when Christ offered Himself in sacrifice to the Father, the priest (that is I) receives a portion from the bread and wine you have offered, and you also receive a portion of your sacrifice that God gives back to you.  But unlike the old covenant where the sacrifice remains the same, the bread and wine that we offer to God through my hands is transformed by God into the Body and Blood of Christ so that you and I receive better than what we offered.  
    But it is not simply bread and wine that we offer to God.  The boy gave five loaves and two fish to Christ in the Gospel, which was all that he had.  We, too, are called to offer all that we have to God in this Mass, and unite it to the bread on the corporal and the wine in the chalice.  Sacrosanctum concilium, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council teaches, “But in order that the liturgy may be able to produce its full effects, it is necessary that the faithful come to it with proper dispositions, that their minds should be attuned to their voices, and that they should cooperate with divine grace lest they receive it in vain.”  Lumen gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of the Second Vatican Council expands on this idea of the laity’s participation in Mass when it states:
 

[Christ] also gives them a sharing in His priestly function of offering spiritual worship for the glory of God and the salvation of men.  […] For all their works, prayers and apostolic endeavors, their ordinary married and family life, their daily occupations, their physical and mental relaxation, if carried out in the Spirit, and even the hardships of life, if patiently borne–all these become “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ Christ”.  Together with the offering of the Lord’s body, they are most fittingly offered in the celebration of the Eucharist.

Even in this pre-conciliar form for the celebration of the Mass, you are called to bring to the Apostles, and their assistants, the presbyters (i.e., me) what you have so that it maybe offered to God for the salvation of you and of all.  Any reading of the best minds of the Liturgical Movement before the Council also bears witness to this.  
    So what are you bringing to this Mass?  What are you offering with me, in addition to the bread and the wine?  As I am saying the Canon silently, are you offering to God what has happened since the last time you came to Mass?  Are you giving God the joys your family brings you, and/or the frustrations you experience when they push your buttons?  Are you offering the “atta-boy” or “atta-girl” that your boss gave you for accomplishing a task excellently, and/or the lack of drive and fulfillment in the job which pays the bills but does not utilize your gifts and talents?  Are you praying silently to God thanking Him for the game that you won, and/or giving him your broken heart that was torn when your young love dumped you?  
    These parts of life, and many more that I did not mention, are all part of the sacrifice that God desires.  These ups and downs are meant to be spiritually united to the oblation that I offer, which is itself united to the one, acceptable, perfect offering of Christ on the Cross, re-presented for us in an unbloody way on this altar.  As we continue our pilgrimage this Lent, as we walk with our Lord toward Good Friday, may the joys and sorrows of our life be fitting gifts to God, so that may not only share in the Death, but also the Resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Sin-Conversion-Forgiveness

 Fourth Sunday of Lent

    Right now we’re in the midst of the NCAA basketball tournament, often called March Madness.  The hard work of 68 teams throughout the regular season is put to the test, as they compete against the best teams in the nation, not just in their conferences.  In the end, one team will hold up the trophy, the physical sign that they are the best in the country.  It would certainly be easier if a team didn’t have to win the six games of the tournament to be crowned champion, but that trophy would mean a lot less, because it would not have come through hard work, good execution, and sometimes a little bit of luck.
    Just as there is a progression through March Madness, so there is a progression that we hear in the Gospel today about forgiveness as we heard the all-too-familiar parable of the Prodigal Son.  The main point of the parable is the mercy of the father, which Jesus uses to teach us about the mercy of our Heavenly Father.  But we also see how this whole process of sin, conversion, and forgiveness takes place, until the celebration in the father’s house at the son’s return.  
    Of course, the first part of this story is sin.  The son demands what is “his,” which isn’t really his yet.  He doesn’t want to depend on the father for what he needs.  When we sin, we don’t rely on our heavenly Father.  We take what we feel is ours, and we spend it on “dissipation.”  We think that we can make it on our own without God’s help.  In fact, when we separate ourselves from God, we notice how little we have, and how much like a famine it is.  If we don’t recognize how bad things are, we go from bad to worse, until we are surrounded by the mud of sin upon sin, and even hungry for the scraps that the pigs are eating, which is bad enough from our point of view, but even worse from the point of view of a Jew, to whom pigs are ritually unclean animals.
    The next part of the process in conversion is sometimes the hardest part: we recognize how bad things are.  Alcoholics Anonymous will talk about the necessity of hitting bottom before one can truly find sobriety.  The same is true with sin.  We can only truly seek conversion if we realize that we need help, and that we cannot take care of ourselves.  In the parable, Jesus refers to it as the son “coming to his senses.”  With so many sins, we tell ourselves it’s not so bad, it’s not really doing a lot of harm, and so we continue on.  Of course, when we do that, we keep ourselves away from the Father’s house.  We don’t find the way home, and we don’t really move much to get there.
    But if we do recognize the evil of our sins and the horrible effects they have on us, then we start back towards the Father.  Both the recognition of sin, and then the movement back to the Father are only possible because of God’s grace, to which we start to open ourselves.  Nothing that we can do that is good happens without God first making it possible.  As we open ourselves to being sorry for our sins, and leaving them behind, we start back to the Father’s house.  
    Part of this is being open and honest about our sins: that we chose them.  As a society, we are good at making excuses.  We’re never guilty for anything; it was always someone’s else’s fault.  Maybe it was our upbringing, or some external factor, or really anything, as long as we don’t have to take responsibility.  We don’t even know how to take responsibility in our apologies: “If I hurt you, then I’m sorry.”  A true contrition acknowledges that we have sinned, that we have done wrong, and that we have disobeyed and offended our heavenly Father.  In order to truly have the conversion that will heal us, we need to acknowledge our own role in sinning.  
    But, having come to our senses, recognized how bad things are, and started back to the Father to apologize for our sins, our loving Father runs out to meet us.  God doesn’t dangle forgiveness at the end of a line for us to try and catch, like the tricks we play with dogs and their toys as we hide it behind our backs, or keep swinging it back and forth, just out of the grasp of their mouths.  God runs to us to embrace us in love.  In the days of Jesus, no man would have run, not only because it showed a lack of dignity, but also because it was physically hard to do in sandals and a tunic.  And yet, that is what God does for us.  He cannot contain Himself and His love for us.  He cannot wait even the few extra minutes it will take for us to get to Him.  He runs to us.  

    And as He embraces us, He makes us His sons and daughters, though we are not deserving of that title.  We wasted our filial dignity, and spent it away.  But God gives it back to us, and then celebrates for and with us.  And he spares no expense.  He puts a robe around us, which is his love and our protection from the outside elements; a ring on our finger, which symbolizes our authority in the house of our Father again; and sandals on our feet to keep the dirt of sin from attaching itself to us.  
    The celebration is worth it.  But there are no shortcuts to forgiveness.  We cannot find the celebration at coming back to the Father’s house if we stay in the mire and the mud of our sins.  We cannot receive the robe, ring, sandals, and fattened calf if we do not acknowledge that we had earlier squandered our inheritance of eternal life and offended our Father, whose only desire for us is that we stay in His house and enjoy what He has set before us.  If we do wander away, though, the good news is that the love of the Father will welcome us back when we have repented and started back to Him.  If we don’t have the good sense of staying in the Father’s house, let’s at least have the good sense to come back after we’ve been away.

Which Kingdom?

 Third Sunday in Lent
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  At the end of the day, there are only two kingdoms: the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of the devil.  The Kingdom of God has and will win.  The kingdom of the devil has and will lose.  The question for us is: to which kingdom do we wish to belong?
    The easy answer is, of course, the kingdom of God.  We’re here, after all, so we must put some faith in God and want to be with him.  But we often find ourselves as divided, as some of us wants God, and some of us wants the devil.  We would likely never say it that way with our lips, but our actions tell a different story.  Every time we sin, especially, but not limited to, mortal sin, we choose the kingdom of the devil.  Every time we respond to God’s grace, we choose the kingdom of God.  
    Our Lenten pilgrimage is meant to help purify us to choose God more frequently than we choose the devil.  By denying ourselves certain things, or maybe doing extra things, we are trying to train ourselves to choose God.  As our Lord says elsewhere, we cannot serve two masters.  We will either love one and hate the other, or hate one and love the other.  
    St. Paul outlines ways that the people of the Church in Ephesus chose the devil: by saying obscene or silly or suggestive things, or participating in immorality, impurity, and greed, which the Apostle calls idolatry.  And certainly, when we do those things, we give our attention to something other than God.  Instead, we are told to be thankful.  Thanksgiving might seem to fit as an antidote to greed, but what does it have to do with immorality and impurity?  I suggest that we give thanks to God for the gift of our sexuality, but also for knowing how to use it properly.
    Our sexual passions often become false gods.  They so often want to demand total obedience.  But they are a hunger which is never satisfied.  They keep wanting more.  They’re like the old commercials for Lays Potato chips: bet you can’t have just one.  It’s not enough to see one impure image; once one is seen the desire for another, or something more enticing, grows.  The passions that arise from physical expressions of affection, too, seem to want to keep ramping up and escalating.  But God has revealed ways that humans can express physical affection, but without becoming slaves of them.  He tells us that certain expressions of love are only fit within the confines of marriage, where man and woman can give themselves fully to the other, open to life, as an expression of love between a husband and wife.  If those three requirements are not met, then a couple would be falling into the immorality which St. Paul says can exclude us from the kingdom of God.  Even and husband and a wife could need to abstain from physical intimacy if those three requirements for holy sexual activity are not present, so that they do not use each other simply for pleasure.
    In my work as a chaplain for the Michigan State Police, I too often see where people have let their passions, both sexual and other passions, run free, and how much it ruins their lives.  God does not desire ruin for us.  He desires the fulfillment of our human nature, which God reveals to us.  Yes, it sometimes means saying no to our desires, but that no is a sign that we are free.  If we only can say yes to something, then we are a slave.  If we have the ability to say no, then we are governing ourselves.  The devil, on the other hand, desires our ruin.  He never paints it that way, but he encourages us to give in to our desires every time they pop up.  But in doing so we enslave ourselves to the prince of lies.

St. Irenaeus

    Christ, by His Passion, Death, and Resurrection, has tied up the strong man.  As St. Irenaeus says:
 

For when Satan is bound, man is set free;…the Word bound [Satan] securely….And justly indeed is [Satan] led captive, who had led men unjustly into bondage; while man, who had been led captive in times past, was rescued from the grasp of his possessor, according to the tender mercy of God the Father, who had compassion on His own handiwork, and gave to it salvation, restoring it by means of the Word–that is, by Christ.

This time of Lent is the perfect time to re-welcome the kingdom of God in our lives, and ask Christ to bind up the enemy, so that we might no longer be in slavery to him.  
    So the question for us is: to which kingdom do we want to belong?  To the kingdom of the devil, which often brings immediate pleasure but later suffering and death?  Or to the kingdom of God, which does have us deny ourselves at times in the present, but which leads to the eternal joy of heaven, where we see God face-to-face: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Being Transfigured

  [The parts in Italics were used only at the Extraordinary Form Mass]

Second Sunday of/in Lent
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]. When I talk about going on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I talk about how visiting the Holy Land makes it so that you never read the Gospel the same way, because you see in your mind the places where these things happened.  This is certainly true for the Transfiguration.  I remember the first time I went to the Holy Land, as a seminarian.  We stayed with the Franciscan friars at the top of Mt. Tabor.  To get up there, there are shuttles you have to take for large groups; the big travel busses can’t handle the snake-back roads.  While waiting for the shuttle, I decided I was going to climb up the mountain, and hopefully save some time.  So, with my Birkenstock sandals on, on a warm, May day, I started walking up the side of Mt. Tabor.  It was not as easy as I thought, with all the thorns and bushes.  Sometimes the stones were a little loose, and I lost my footing.  But I made it to the top, quite sweaty and hot, probably a little dehydrated, but proud at my accomplishment.

    I had another experience at Mt. Tabor, as I went inside the church.  There is a beautiful mosaic of the transfiguration in the apse of the church, and as I was praying, the sun shone just perfectly so that it hit the image of Jesus, and illumined Him.  I remember thinking that this must have been something like the apostles saw when our Lord was transfigured.  Combining those two days, it’s even more amazing when Christ was transfigured, as He and the apostles would also have likely been hot and sweaty, and yet Christ’s clothes became as white as light.
    That’s all well and good to understand some very realistic background, but what, we may ask, does the Transfiguration have to do with us?  How does the Transfiguration change my life?  Well, as with so many aspects of our Lord’s life, what He showed us is what He desires to happen to us.  We are supposed to be transfigured as well.  We are supposed to go from earthly dirty, sweaty, and tired, to clean, bright, and glorified.
    That process started for us in baptism.  At our baptism, the voice of the Father may not have been heard, but He said that we are His beloved.  We became configured to Christ for the first time (but hopefully, not the last!).  And from that moment on, we were destined for glory, the glory that Christ shone forth as a foretaste at the Transfiguration.  We call this divinization, or deification.
    God wants us to be like Him.  We cannot be the same nature of God (as we are limited and He is infinite), but He wants us to be transformed so that we are images of Him.  This is the whole idea of the Christian life.  From baptism until death, we are called to become more and more like Christ, the new Adam, and less and less like the first Adam.  St. Paul will talk about this using the terms “old man” and “new man.”  
    How does this happen?  Some of it happens through the sacraments.  I already mentioned baptism, but the Sacrament of Penance helps us be more like God through having our fallen actions (sins) washed away by the Blood of Christ.  Confirmation empowers us to act like Christ in public.  The Eucharist is meant to transform us from the inside out, so that as we receive Christ in the Eucharist, we become more like Him in what we do because we have Him inside us.    Marriage helps us to live for the other, as Christ did for His Bride, the Church.  Holy Orders allows one to act in the name and person of Christ the Head.  Anointing of the Sick strengthens us in illness to trust in God, even in difficult circumstances.  So when we receive the sacraments, it’s not meant to be coming up to receive some thing, like a prize for the just, but is meant to be a way of receiving God so that we can become more like God.  Which is why those in mortal sin have to go to confession first, because, among other reasons, you cannot become like God if you have separated yourself from Him.  Each time we receive sacramental grace, God wants us to utilize that grace to act more like Him in daily life.  
    Also, askesis, asceticism, is meant to help us be more like God.  We say no to things that we don’t need to rely more on the One whom we really need: God.  Especially in Lent, it can be easy to see penitential practices we do as something that we’re required to do, but only extrinsic practices.  Instead, in the Catholic spiritual tradition, our penitential practices are the practical ways that we say no to our fallen nature, and yes to Christ’s divine nature.  Do we see our Lenten penances that way?  Did we choose penances that will help us transform into the people God wants us to be, people more like Himself?  Or is it just “I gave up chocolate or beer for Lent because I would like to lose weight, but I’m going to go right back to it, and maybe even more, once Easter comes.”  It is so easy to pick a penance, and not get to the deeper reality of that penance, or what the penance is supposed to do.  
    Daily prayer is also a great means of divinization or deification.  Our Lord was always in contact with His heavenly Father, and would take specific time away from His preaching and miracles to be alone in prayer.  Is prayer just something that we check off to get it done for the day?  Or do we see it as our privileged time of speaking to and listening to the Father, so that He can change us to be more like Christ?      [Lastly, St. Paul in today’s epistle talks about how even the gift of our sexuality is meant to be transfigured by Christ.  Specifically, he talks about how to find a spouse in a Christian manner, not a pagan manner.  The Christian seeks someone whom they can help go to heaven, not just someone who looks good and satisfies bodily desires and lust.  In Christian marriage, personal happiness is not the goal; the holiness and happiness of the other is the goal.  Again, this is different from a pagan or secular point of view, which views the other as a means to the end of personal pleasure.  The way that we utilize our God-given gift of sexuality changes because of our relationship with Christ, whether we are single, married, in consecrated life, or ordained.  God wants to divinize all of us, not just parts of us.]
    Life is tiring, sweaty, and sometimes a hot mess.  We may always feel like we’re climbing, but never reaching the top of the mountain.  But if we allow God’s grace to be active in us; if we are open to the sacramental graces that we receive on such a regular basis; if we do penances that help us die to our old, fallen self; if we take time to really speak our heart to God and listen for what His heart says to us, then we will arrive at the top of the mountain, and find that God has transfigured us as well, to be a reflection of the glory of His Son, [who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is Lord, for ever and ever.  Amen.] 

Fighting Temptations and Healing Wounds

 First Sunday of/in Lent
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]. Last week I did my taxes, and because I started to work partially in the City of Flint last calendar year (when I became pastor at St. Matthew), I have file taxes for Flint.  But, because I only worked part of the day in Flint last year, I had to see how many days I worked, and then how many of those days I worked in the City of Flint, to see how much of my wages Flint could tax.  As I looked through the year, week-by-week, I saw some of the highlights of the year, and also some of the lowlights.  My calendar connected me to memories, some of which were delightful, some of which were not so delightful.
    Many of those painful memories from last year were due to my own sinfulness and wounds that I have developed throughout my life, and the reactions that can sometimes happen when those wounds become irritated by the everyday happenings of life.  Some of my own wounds are the fear of abandonment, the desire to be wanted, and the desire to be successful.  You may have the same, or maybe very different, wounds and sins.  But we all have them.

Mount of Temptations in Israel

    As our Lord entered into His time of temptation in the desert, He took upon Himself, not His wounds or sins, because He didn’t have any, but He did take our wounds, sins, and temptations.   The three that He underwent might be categorized as temptations related to physical appetites, amazing feats, and power.  But Christ enters the desert to do battle with the devil, but also show us how to battle the devil with using the same tactics our Lord used.  
    Just as Jesus was in the desert for 40 days, so our 40 day Lenten pilgrimage allows us to grow closer to God and work on our sins and wounds.  As St. Paul says, now is the acceptable time for entering into this battle with our fallen self and with the devil, because now is the time of salvation.  Each day that we put off dealing with our wounds and sins is another day that the infection grows deeper, and becomes more painful when we want to debride the wound.
    So what does Christ show us?  First, He shows us that fighting wounds, temptations, and sins should be rooted in who we are.  Satan begins his temptations with: “If you are the Son of God.”  The enemy seeks to call into question who we are.  In order to fight our wounds, we need to recognize that we are the beloved children of God in the one Son of God, Jesus Christ.  When we operate out of that identity, we are less likely to seek our identity in lesser goods.  How easy it is for us to root our identity in who seems to want us, or what we have accomplished.  But those things are fleeting.  Friends can fall away; our achievements, especially if they are not rooted in God, can come crumbling down.  But God is the sure foundation upon Whom we can build our house and base our worth.  
    Secondly, Christ shows us that we should go to Scripture to fight against attacks of the devil.  Yes, Satan does quote Scripture in the passage we heard today, but Christ uses Scripture to show how Satan’s quotations of the Word of God is off.  Sometimes we are afraid of the Scriptures, and sometimes they are not readily clear or intelligible, or their meaning needs some unpacking by the Church’s magisterium, or teaching office.  But the Word of God is always a good place to go to fight off temptations, and you can reference the passages in the Catechism if you have questions about the deeper meaning.  Our psalm/gradual and tract from today, talks about how God will protect His servants.  That is what God does for us.  Our guardian angels want to fight off the temptations with us, and attack any of the fallen spirits that seek to do us harm.  Not even a lion or a dragon could stand a chance if we stay close to the Lord and trust in His power to keep us safe.  
    To resist sin and temptation, and to have our wounds healed, we need only ask God, and He will come to our aid.  God wants us to be holy and whole.  He knows how easy it is for us to operate out of false identities, not rooted in Christ, which then lead us to give in to temptation and fall into sin.  He knows beforehand what we often only find out after the fact: that giving in to temptation, sinning, and letting our wounds rule us is self-destructive and does not bring us happiness, even if it sometimes brings us passing pleasure.  
    Take advantage of this season of Lent.  Make this the acceptable time to be healed of sin and wounds through the Sacrament of Penance.  Ask God to help you to see where and why you hurt, and where and why you so easily fall into particular sins.  Those sins and wounds do not define you.  You are the beloved child of the Father, who with the Son and Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.