Revenge

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  When I was (I think) in first grade, there were these fifth graders at my parochial school who liked to pick on me.  They weren’t horrible, but they would sometimes just grab on to my arms, which I didn’t like.  One time they were holding my arms on the playground, and I could feel the frustration welling up inside of me, wanting to break free of their grasp, but not having the physical strength to wrest myself away from them, so I did what I could: I bit one of their arms.  They let go, and I was free; at least until a teacher found out and I had to go to the principal’s office, and eventually write an apology letter to them.
    Revenge is a primal urge that we all can have.  We experience some sort of injustice, no matter how big or small, and we want to make it right on our own terms.  The sense that something is not right and should be addressed, which leads to the emotion we call anger, is a sign that we recognize good and evil.  If we didn’t want wrong things to be righted, that would not be a good sign of the state of our soul.
    The problem is that our view of what is truly just is not always accurate, since it is limited by our restricted view of reality (as compared to God’s omniscient view of reality), and our passions for justice often goes beyond what is truly just.  When we respond to someone who has done us wrong, we tend to give them a little more than they gave us, just to make sure that they know not to mess with us again.  It’s like kids in the back of a car, where one looks at the other in a funny way, so then the other pokes the first with a finger, and then the first hits the other with a hand, and it just keeps escalating (until mom or dad says, “If I have to pull this car over…” and metes out their best justice to get them both to stop). 
    Which is why St. Peter and our Lord both instruct us this weekend not to give into revenge.  St. Peter tells us not to render evil for evil, but a blessing instead.  And Christ tells us that the true life of God to which He calls us does not suffice not to kill someone, but to stop that anger in the heart, which is where all action begins.  Murder, which the commandment forbids, is the end result of seeking to administer justice on our own terms, which often, as I said, goes beyond true justice.

St. Paul the Apostle

    St. Paul, quoting Leviticus and Deuteronomy, reminds us that vengeance belongs to the Lord.  So our desire to exact punishment on those who have done us wrong is also a form of pride, a desire to supplant God and put ourselves in His place.  St. James takes up a similar theme in his epistle when he writes, “There is one…judge who is able to save or to destroy.  Who then are you to judge your neighbor?”  When we try to take revenge, we are trying to take the place of God, falling to the temptation that the enemy gave to Eve in the garden, when he enticed her to evil by suggesting that eating the fruit would make her like God.
    But if we truly wish to be like God, then we should seek to reconcile whenever possible.  Yes, God is the judge of the world, and He will judge justly.  But He is also merciful, because in Him justice and mercy have embraced.  He is patient with us sinners, giving us so many opportunities to turn away from our sins and repent, so that we can have union with Him.  That is why our Lord not only teaches us that we should seek to root out anger in our hearts so that we don’t turn to revenge, but also encourages us to make sure that we reconcile before we offer our sacrifice to God in the Mass.  How can we be in communion with others through Holy Communion if we are at the same time seeking their downfall? 
    Instead, God wants us to bear others faults patiently, as he bears ours.  This doesn’t mean that we can’t correct and call others to right behavior, but no matter what, not to carry a grudge if others have done us wrong and have not repented.  A great way to accomplish this is through the Sacrament of Penance, which we often call confession.  Through the sacrament, we are not only reconciled with God, but we are also reconciled with the the community, both of whom the priest represents.  We turn to our brother and ask his mercy for our offenses, and then God invites us to be merciful with others, just as He has been merciful with us.  And having been reconciled with God and with the community, our gift is then acceptable to God, because it is truly offered in communion with Him and with the rest of the Church. 
    A good examination of conscience today will ask ourselves: against whom do I seek revenge?  What harm have others done to me that I have not forgiven?  What anger do I bear in my heart towards my neighbor?  What might they bear against me?  If I truly wish to be like God, then I should offer opportunities to show mercy, just as we have been shown mercy by our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Giving Up

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When we think about giving up stuff as Catholics, probably our mind first turns to Lent.  That’s the season when we specifically give up particular foods or practices in our life.  If we were to think about it even more, we might think about religious sisters and brothers, nuns and monks, priests and bishops who give up certain things through their vows (for consecrated men and women) and promises (for priests and bishops). 
    And Jesus talks about giving stuff up in the Gospel today.  He says, “‘Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,’” and “‘Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’”  He says this to His apostles, and so it can be easy to think that lay people don’t have to give up any of that stuff.  That’s for those people who take vows and promises.
    This is not to say that the life of a consecrated man or woman, or a priest or bishop is nothing but denial.  Our first reading may be the first example of inviting the priest, er, prophet over for dinner.  But getting back to giving up stuff, it’s truly for everyone, not just me, Bishop Boyea, or the sisters.  The call to follow Christ and to abandon certain things is for all who call themselves disciples, not just those who have made a special commitment through vows or promises.  Now, it’s true that not everyone vows or promises to abstain from marital relations (otherwise we’d never have any children); or to obey a superior (though some husbands may argue that, for all intents and purposes, they have a vow of obedience to their wife, with very harsh penalties for disobedience!); or to live simply (like priests and bishops) or not have their own bank account or grasp on to personal possessions (like sisters, nuns, brothers, and monks).  But when we were baptized, we all committed to, or our parents committed us to, give up certain ways of life and certain practices which are inconsistent with being a follower of Jesus.
    That’s why St. Paul can say that we died with Christ in baptism.  Yes, His Death was given to us, so that we could have life, but we also died to anything which is contrary to Him.  And by dying to anything contrary to Him, we live by all the things which are united to Him: life, joy, peace.  Death, which comes from sin, no longer has power over us who are baptized, unless we invite death and sin back into our lives through our individual choices.
    There are two ways that I would invite us to think about living for Christ and dying to that which is opposed to Him this weekend.  The first is thinking about our relationship with Christ in a consumerist mentality.  Almost everything we do today is touched by the reality we have in our economic life, where I get what I want or I go somewhere else.  I am the judge of what is best, and I get what I want, when I want it, how I want it.  That’s not horrible when we’re talking about a restaurant, or a clothes store.  But when it comes to our faith, that approach is an approach of death and the antithesis of what it means to follow Christ.
    We do not follow Christ on our own terms.  We do not get to decide exactly where I want God’s grace, when I receive it, or how I receive it.  That consumerist mentality makes us the master and Christ our lackey.  Or, to use another analogy, the Church is not a country club to which we can belong, where, if we don’t get the service we want, we end our membership and go elsewhere.  Christ offers us eternal life, but He offers it to us in His way, because He is the way.  And if we do not like how Christ offers us life, we cannot find it anywhere else.  When we seek to make Christ and His Church change to our fleeting whims and fancies, we are trying to find our life, but will lose it.  But when we lose our life to conform it to the way Christ shows us, then we actually find eternal life. 
    [Especially here at St. Pius X, we know that there will be changes in the near future and the coming months.  It is fine and natural to mourn a Mass time that we loved and a parish that we loved that has declined in population.  But if we allow that pain to say uncharitable things, to pout like toddlers, and to abandon our practice of the faith altogether, then our desire for what we want has actually become an obstacle to Christ and the grace He desires to give us, especially the grace that comes from suffering with Him patiently.]
    The second way to think about living for Christ and dying to that which is opposed to him is how we view Sunday.  Growing up, there was, for me, two parts of the week: weekdays, and weekends.  But for a follower of Christ, each week usually has two parts: Sunday and every other day.  Sunday is the day that belongs to the Lord, that we assemble to worship God at Mass, that we spend time with family and friends, or doing works of charity, and that we rest.  Our day of rest as followers of Christ is Sunday.  God wants us to rest in Him, to give Him fitting worship, and to build up the relationships of love among ourselves, especially on His day.  But too often it’s just another day of the week, another day of work, another day of sports. 
    Don’t get me wrong, some have to work on Sunday, either because of their field of work, or because of a shortage of workers.  But, to the best of our ability, do we accomplish our chores on the other days of the week?  Do we take time to get off our phones and spend time not with the FaceTime app, but with face time with our family and friends in person?  I am convinced that if we treated Sunday as the Lord’s day, if we died to this secular idea that it’s just another day for work, and rose to the idea that it’s time that we get to eat together as family and friends and share how life is going, many of our problems would go away.  There will always be work to do; there will always be chores that need finishing.  Let Sunday be a day that your worship God at Mass, and relax with each other and with God. 
    When we were baptized, we died with Christ.  The rest of our life is following-up on that dying to everything which is not of Christ, so that we can live for Him.  All of us are called to give up something for Christ.  Will we find eternal life by giving up the works of death?

No Karma for Catholics

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time/Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]. Over the past few years people of all and no faiths have started to buy into this idea of karma.  Whether what is shared is actually the Hindu view of karma or not, I’m not sure, but the basic statement is that if someone does good, then good things will happen to that person.  More often than not, it’s invoked when someone does something bad to a person, and that person hopes something bad will happen back to the other. 

Prophet Jeremiah

   Catholics do not believe in karma.  Nor should we espouse it so blithely.  In our/the Ordinary Form first reading, we hear the prophet Jeremiah talk about his former friends trying to trap him and cause his problems.  Jeremiah does call out to God for retribution, and has confidence that God will take care of things.  But bad things did happen to Jeremiah.  He was thrown into a partly-dry well, and no one listened to him.  What had Jeremiah done to deserve such horrible treatment?  What horrendous things must he have committed in order for “karma” to treat him so poorly?  Jeremiah spoke God’s word.  He did nothing wrong (beyond the daily small sins of any person).  The word God sent Jeremiah to preach was not a popular word, because it was the word of judgement on a people who had rejected God.  But if karma is true, then Jeremiah should have experienced nothing but good things, since he was doing good.  But that’s not what happened.
    Or take St. Paul.  In Romans, chapter 8, [the pericope we heard today], St. Paul says that the sufferings of this time are as nothing compared to the glory that is to be revealed.  St. Paul had done some bad stuff (he had persecuted Christians and consented to the martyrdom of St. Stephen).  But by the time he’s writing this epistle, he’s been doing God’s work for a while, preaching the Gospel, working miracles, and encouraging young communities to follow the Lord.  According to karma, everything should be enjoyable; there shouldn’t be sufferings.  But, of course, there were.  In fact, St. Paul continues that all creation is groaning as it awaits for the fullness of redemption in Christ. 
    Christ, of course, is the nail in the coffin when it comes to the idea of karma.  Christ was sinless.  He did no wrong.  And yet He suffered immense pain and agony.  So, hopefully we can put to rest this idea of karma, and that good things happen to those who do good, while bad things happen to those who do bad.  Those who follow God’s will often have to suffer, and sometimes there is no immediate justice for those who do wrong.  There are many who lie, cheat, sleep around, and have no real practice of religion, and they seem to get richer and richer, not have any problems, and continue to thrive while those who try their best to follow God’s law of freedom have to struggle daily to make ends meet, and have problems with sometimes even the basic realities of life.
    So what do we do?  We stay faithful, even when it’s hard.  We follow the law of the Gospel and the teachings of the Church, even when they seem unpopular, and even when we are persecuted, because, as our Lord says in the Gospel according to St. Matthew [that we heard today], God cares even for the sparrows, and we are worth much more than many sparrows. 
    When Christ invites us to live a certain way or to follow Him somewhere, our best response is to follow His lead and do what He says.  It may sometimes seem counterintuitive, like when Christ asked Peter to put out into the deep waters to make a catch of fish, even though Peter had been fishing the entire night before and had caught nothing.  But when we respond with the obedience of faith, Christ can do things beyond our imagining.  The miracle where St. Peter caught all those fish was not about the fish: it was about God not being outdone when we follow Him.  Sometimes it happens immediately, like with St. Peter.  Sometimes it takes longer.  Sometimes we may not even see the results on this side of eternity.  But God rewards faithfulness, and especially when it is tough.
    And it’s tough for Catholics now, and probably will get tougher in the future.  Last week the LA Dodgers honored a group of anti-Catholic cross-dressers who openly mock the beautiful lives and work of religious sisters.  Those who remain faithful to the Church’s teaching that homosexual acts are gravely sinful and contrary to God’s plan for human sexuality are called bigots and homophobes.  Our own Michigan Supreme Court wants to make a rule that says that a person is to be identified by whatever terminology that person decides, regardless of reality, and our governor openly brags about how easy it is to murder innocent children in the womb and says that people should move to Michigan because of that ease of access to infanticide.  These aren’t so much political issues as they are moral.  We now find ourselves in a culture that is more pagan than the height of the Roman Empire. 
    God calls us to be Jeremiahs, those who speak His word, no matter what those who called themselves friends do to us, no matter what privileges and popularity society grabs from us, no matter what names and epithets others give to us.  We do this, not because of karma, not because bad people will get bad things in their lifetime, but because God’s word is life and truth, and living according to the truth brings happiness, while living according to lies, no matter how popular, brings sorrow.  God gives us the Eucharist to strengthen us so that we have the courage and energy to remain faithful to Him. 
    That is why it is so important to go to Mass each Sunday and holyday: without the Eucharist, the devil can more easily persuade us with his lies to dive into the culture of death.  The Eucharist is our lembas bread (Elvish bread from Lord of the Rings which sustained those who ate it much longer than it looked like it could) which fills our soul to press on, no matter how hard the journey. 

    Whether we like it or not, bad things do not always happen to bad people; good things do not always happen to good people.  Sometimes staying faithful to God means losing friends, power, and prestige.  But, we cannot imagine the good things that God has in store for us if we remain faithful to Him: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Holy Communion

Solemnity of Corpus Christi

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.].  This weekend in our Diocese of Lansing we begin our Eucharistic Revival, leading up to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis in July 2024.  Why do a Eucharistic Revival?  Because, statistically speaking, Catholics in the US do not have Catholic faith about the Eucharist.  A recent study put faith in the Eucharist as the actual Body and Blood of Christ at around 33% of active Catholics.  Fewer and fewer Catholics go to Mass, which is where we most frequently encounter Christ in the Eucharist.  And there are fewer and fewer Catholics period, as the steady stream over the 2010s of Catholics leaving the faith became a rushing waterfall after 2020 and COVID. 
    We all have a share in the sources for these depressing facts.  We priests have not always preached about the Eucharist, and what a beautiful and sacred treasure we have.  Some priests have not reminded the faithful of the Church’s teachings and disciplines concerning the Eucharist, and some have celebrated Mass in an irreverent way and admitted to Mass things which have no place there.  Some bishops, too, have not always demonstrated respect for the Eucharist in making sure that their priests celebrate according to the way the Church wants Mass celebrated, or admitting to Holy Communion those who, according to our own post-Vatican II Code of Canon Law, should be refused Holy Communion because of the public way they live and the public policies they openly support which are contrary to the Catholic faith. 
    But it’s not just clergy.  How do you approach the Eucharist each week?  Do you make it a priority, or something you get to if it doesn’t conflict with your other activities or schedule?  Do you prepare for Mass by reading the readings ahead of time, fasting for at least an hour before receiving the Eucharist, and showing by your posture at Mass and especially as you approach the sanctuary that you are receiving the King of Heaven?
    So we all have a hand in a lack of due devotion and demonstration of just how sacred the Eucharist is, without pointing out any individuals.  And I certainly cannot solve issues which have arisen in the Church over the past sixty years in one homily.  But I do want to focus, as we celebrate Corpus Christi, on a phrase we use for the Eucharist: Holy Communion.
    Holy Communion as a phrase slides easily off our tongue.  We probably say it without really giving it a thought as to its meaning.  Holy is probably obvious enough, but still worth saying: belonging to God or associated with God.  God is utter holiness, which is why in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah and the Book of Revelation, the angels cry out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts.”  Communion comes from two Latin words, cum and unio, which, when put together, means union with.  When we are in communion with another, we are united to that person.  So Holy Communion is our union with God, who is the source of all holiness. 

    When we come for Holy Communion, union with God is both the pre-requisite as well as the result of receiving (in a state of grace) the Eucharist.  In order to receive the grace of the Eucharist which brings us closer to God, we cannot be aware of any grave or mortal sin.  Such a state of sinfulness makes reception of Holy Communion an act of sacrilege.  That may sound harsh, but Bishop Vincke uses this analogy:
 

Imagine a woman whose husband goes to strip clubs and repeatedly sleeps with many other women, and she knows about it.  The husband comes home and wants to have dinner with his wife, acting as if nothing was wrong.  He is indifferent to the many ways he has hurt and wounded her.  […] Let’s take this a step further.  The cheating husband now wants to be intimate with his wife.  Again, he shows no remorse for the ways he has hurt her.  At the very least, shouldn’t the husband first apologize to his wife?  […] In a similar way, Holy Communion is a sacred banquet in which Jesus becomes intimate with us.  He desires to be one with us in Holy Communion, much like a married couple becomes one flesh.  Jesus has a heart.  […] When we commit mortal sin or “cheat” on God, we must first apologize and beg for his forgiveness.  We know he will grant it in the saving sacrament of confession.  And then, once our broken relationship has been healed, we can return to the intimate banquet of the Eucharist.

Not discerning whether or not we should receive the Eucharist based upon our actions is like being the cheating husband.  Only when we have confessed our sin in the Sacrament of Penance can we one more return to the intimacy and union that God desires with us.
    But Communion is not only with God.  It is also with the rest of the Church.  The Catholic Church has taught many things which are required beliefs and ways we live our life in order to call ourselves good Catholics.  Some are present in the creed.  Others are present in papal pronouncements or documents of ecumenical councils.  Others are so basic that they are presented in the Catechism, but often taken for granted.  When we come forward for Holy Communion, we are saying that we agree with all those things that are part of the Catholic faith, revealed for our salvation.  We may not always understand it fully (like our belief in the Trinity), but if we reject that belief, or the call to live our life a particular way (like the prohibition against abortion or support for abortion), then we are not truly in union with the Church, and our act of receiving Holy Communion becomes a lie at the most sacred time of any person’s day.  St. Justin Martyr, whom we just celebrated on 1 June, wrote around AD 155: “And this food is called among us Eucharistia, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins.”  It’s not just that a person is baptized, but that they also believe what the Church teaches is true. 
    This applies to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.  No matter whether a person is Catholic or a baptized non-Catholic, if they do not believe the major teachings of the faith, then they should not present themselves for, and should not be given, the Eucharist.  If we are not united in major teachings, then we cannot claim to have the graces of communion with God and the Church that the Eucharist desires to impart. 
    Again, I can’t cover everything about the Eucharist in this one homily, though I will try have more homilies on the Eucharist throughout the Eucharistic Revival.  To be clear, this has nothing to do with being a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or anything else.  Our teaching on the Eucharist is not aligned to a political party or persona.  Our practice around the Eucharist is based upon what the Church believes and how the Church lives, which is based in Christ.  Since the Eucharist truly is the Body and Blood of Christ, and not just a symbol, how we treat the Eucharist is how we treat Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Unity & Diversity

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.].  Throughout the history of the Church, as people have tried to explain the Most Holy Trinity, whom we celebrate today, more often than not they have fallen into some kind of heresy.  Some have advocated that our one God appeared in three forms, which is the heresy of modalism.  Or others have advocated that God the Father, our one God, created the Son and the Holy Spirit, but made them like Himself, which is the heresy of Arianism.  The best route has always been sticking with what God has revealed through Sacred Scripture (that God is one, and yet God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are somehow one God), and using the terms given to us by the early Church, especially the term Trinity, by which we confess that God is one, but is also Three Divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

    When we talk about God, who is infinite and cannot fully be explained or understood by us who are finite, we see a unity of substance (one God), but a diversity of Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).  We also know from Genesis that man and woman are created in the image and likeness of God.  So in humanity we are meant to see a reflection of God, who is unity and diversity.  The more we see this, the more that God’s image and likeness shine forth.  The less we see this, the more muddled our understanding of God is.  And like the early Trinitarian heresies, we can tend to overemphasize one aspect or another.
    God desires our oneness or unity to be based in Him.  God wants all human beings to believe rightly about who God is and who we are.  God desires that we confess one faith that properly professes right belief and advocates right action.  God desires that we be united in the truth and in the love which we call charity (the love of God).  From the beginning, God has sent us out to make disciples of all nations, and bring them into the unity of the Church, rightly believing in, living by, and worshipping the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  We desire all people to become Catholic, not by force or compulsion, but by the free assent of the mind which recognizes the truth and the freedom that comes from living according to God’s plan.  And until that happens, our work of spreading the Gospel is not done.  Until all people not only believe the Catholic faith with their mind and heart but also live in such a way that reflects what they believe, we can grow in our manifestation of the oneness of God.
    At the same time, oneness in faith does not mean that we are all automatons who look the same, who all have the same vocation and avocations, and who give up our individual identity to a corporate identity.  Yes, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, and yet the Father is not the Son, the Father is not the Holy Spirit, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit.  They are different divine Persons, united in the one Godhead, or consubstantial. 
    That is why the Church, from the beginning, has welcomed people of all nations, not just Jews, to follow our Trinitarian God.  Indeed, on the day of Pentecost, there were Jews of many nations gathered in Jerusalem, who heard the Gospel proclaimed in their own language.  Very early on even Gentiles, non-Jews were baptized.  People of different skin color, of both genders, slaves and free, rich and poor, and any other grouping you can think of were invited to change their beliefs and the way they lived their lives to the way that God teaches us through His Word and His Church. 
    This diversity is also a reflection of God, who is not one Person, but three.  Each participates in the one work of salvation, but each does so with the identity of the Person, so that we can say that the Son suffered death, but we cannot say that of the Father.  We can say that the Holy Spirit was spirated or breathed-forth, but we cannot say that of the Son. 
    In our own day, we tend to emphasize one or the other quality of God, unity or diversity.  But an overemphasis in our reflection of these attributes of God leads to a disfigurement and poor reflection of who God is, just as the early heresies which emphasized either the unity of God or the diversity of God in one way or another did not lead to the true faith, but marred our understanding of who God is.
    The temptation to overemphasize unity can often be seen in the Mass.  The Mass is supposed to have a certain unity to it, a way that all people can relate to what is going on within that one rite.  But there are 23 different rites or churches who celebrate Mass in a particular way, including the Latin Rite (ours), the Chaldean Rite (from Iraq), the Syro-Malabar Rite (from India), the Coptic Rite (from Egypt), the Maronite Rite (from Lebanon), and the Byzantine Rite (from modern-day Turkey), just to name a few.  We also have diversity in our vocations and the roles those vocations have.  The vocation to consecrated life (religious brothers and sisters, monks and nuns, hermits, and consecrated virgins) show in a most excellent way the priority of the heavenly life following Christ who was poor, chaste, and obedient.  The priesthood continues the sacramental life of the Church, especially the Eucharist and Penance, in a way that no other vocation does.  And married life creates new life through a sacrament which reflects the life of the Trinity in a way that consecrated life and ordained life cannot.  The diversity of rituals and vocations are just two examples of how our differences can be beautiful and express the life of God in a way that only one does not.
    At the same time, there is a temptation to overemphasize diversity, which weakens the unity of the Church and does not reflect God.  We did not allow diverse teachings about who God is, because some of those teachings are wrong.  We do not allow diversity when it comes to recognizing that life is sacred and a gift from God, from conception to natural death.  The diversity of belief that women should be allowed to be priests or that marriage between two persons of the same sex is not based in God, and is not welcomed into the Catholic Church, because it is not as God has revealed reality to us.  For diversity to be a benefit, there has to be some commonality that binds everyone together, not a free-for-all and scattering based on wrong understanding of who God is or how God has called us to live. 
    Just as with the false understandings of the Trinity, so with the human person and the Church today: either unity or diversity is emphasized over and against the others.  Some, in order to advocate unity, would suggest that all Catholics should do exactly the same thing in exactly the same way.  Others, in order to advocate diversity, would suggest that it doesn’t matter what you believe or how you live.  In reality, our Triune God shows us that both unity and diversity are realities of who God is, and that if we wish to live as those created in His image and likeness, we, too, need the unity and diversity of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

The Holy Spirit Wants...

Solemnity of Pentecost

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]. When it comes to the different Persons of the Blessed Trinity, the Holy Spirit is the one with whom most Catholics are probably least familiar.  We learn much about the Father through the Old Testament and from Jesus, who is the revelation of the Father.  Christ, while revealing the Father, also helps us to know Him better through the Gospels.  But then He ascends into heaven, and leaves us the Holy Spirit, who works in the Church.
    For our part, we are probably used to invoking the Holy Spirit when we have an instinct to do something or not do something.  And certainly, the Holy Spirit guides our actions, whether sought out or avoided.  But sometimes it’s also simply our instincts pushing us towards or away from something.  And do you ever notice that every group seems to claim the support of the Holy Spirit?  Both those who advocate teachings contrary to the faith, like women’s ordination, as well as those who hold to the faith revealed to us by Christ will argue from the authority of the Holy Spirit that their course of action is what God wants.  
    Some see in the Gospel according to John, as John and Peter run to the empty tomb at the instigation of Mary Magdalene, a distinction between the hierarchical nature of the Church (represented by Peter, our first pope) and the charismatic nature of the Church (represented by John, the one loved by the Lord).  John (charism) arrives at the tomb first, but waits for Peter (hierarchy) to go in.  Throughout the history of the Church, these two groups have oscillated back and forth for more influence.  The Second Vatican Council, in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium, states, “The Church, which the Spirit guides in the way of all truth and which He unifies in communion and in works of ministry, He both equips and directs with hierarchical and charismatic gifts.”  In other words, both the hierarchical and the charismatic are gifts of the Holy Spirit, all given for the salvation of souls.
    I mention this because the Holy Spirit is often invoked by some for pushing the Church to new realities, while others invoke the Holy Spirit as the one who brings order to chaos.  In reality, both are right: the Holy Spirit pushes us beyond our comfort zone, but also orders and unifies all of creation.  We see this in the Upper Room scene at Pentecost.  On the one hand, the Holy Spirit took those who probably knew only Aramaic, Hebrew, and possibly common Greek, to those who proclaimed the Gospel so that everyone present, from many different parts of the Roman Empire, could understand the proclamation of the Gospel in their own tongues.  The Holy Spirit pushed the disciples out of the comfort of the Upper Room, and eventually to lands as far as India to the east, down to North Africa and Egypt, over to Rome, and lands in-between.  It helped the Apostles discern that non-Jews could become members of the nascent Church without becoming Jewish and being circumcised.  
    On the other hand, the message that the disciples proclaimed was the one Gospel of Jesus Christ, the one message of salvation.  As the disciples traveled far and wide, the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church expanded its influence, and began to rid the world of the worship of demons in the pagan religions.  The Holy Spirit united all those who wanted to follow the Lord to be united in faith and morals, as discerned by the Apostles and their successors.  
    Even before that, the Holy Spirit is the one who spoke through the prophets, who were often a bit…eccentric.  The prophets were often the outcasts of society, because they called society from its rejection of God back to fidelity.  The Holy Spirit inspired King David to dance with abandon before the Ark of the Covenant as it was brought into Jerusalem, which dancing David’s wife Michal mocked because it made David look too much like the common people.
    But the Holy Spirit also took the primordial chaos and ordered it into light and darkness, land and sea, different forms of animals, and was given to our first parents to give them the breath of life.  The Holy Spirit guided sacred authors to compose literary works to communicate God’s saving will, and guided the bishops to choose which works were, in fact inspired by the Holy Spirit, and which were simply the works of man that also told stories that involved God.  
    In our own lives, too, the Holy Spirit often pushes us beyond our comfort zone.  He fills us to continue the proclamation of salvation through Christ.  He sometimes puts us in situations we never expected, sometimes even dangerous situations.  But, as our Advocate, He pleads our cause and gives us words to respond to our attackers, as He did for St. Stephen.  
    But as He pushes us to new realities, He does so with the continuity of what has come before.  The Holy Spirit deepens our understanding of what God desires for His people, but without contradicting what came before.  For example: the Holy Spirit has revealed that the Church is meant to be led by the Pope, the Vicar of Christ and successor of St. Peter.  That is a truth that can never be rejected, without rejecting what the Holy Spirit has revealed.  At the same time, the Holy Spirit can guide the Pope to understand how to exercise that power in new ways.  The Holy Spirit has revealed that marriage is between one man and one woman for life.  That can never change.  But the Holy Spirit can give us new guidance on how to share that truth with those who have gone through a divorce, or those who struggle with same-sex attraction.  
    [Joshua and Halley: the Holy Spirit has led you here to this day when you will receive the fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit through the Sacrament of Confirmation.  You have come by different paths, but have come to this union of faith in what the Holy Spirit has revealed through the Church and her sacred teaching office.  The Holy Spirit will give you new ways to proclaim that one faith, and to witness to the life of Christ from this point on, and into the future, especially as you prepare for Holy Matrimony.  Be open to the Holy Spirit pushing you to spread the faith, but also stay faithful to that faith as revealed to us by God through His Church, which is still one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.]
    If we feel that the Holy Spirit is only keeping us in our “safe spaces,” then we are probably missing out on one aspect of the work of the Holy Spirit.  If we feel that the Holy Spirit is going against what has been taught infallibly before, then it’s not the Holy Spirit to whom we are listening.  Each of us will have different ways that the Holy Spirit operates in us.  No matter what, may we be open to the Holy Spirit, who with the Father and the Son is God, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Prayer's Jackpot

Fifth Sunday after Easter

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I hate to admit it, but I have, from time to time, asked God to win the lottery.  It wasn’t simply to get rich for myself, but because I would give money to the Church, probably help out some friends, and maybe set up trusts to support different charities even after I’m dead and gone.  In my ask, I always reminded God of how generous I would be, especially to the Church, as a way of helping Him to know that He could trust me with the responsibility of winning tens of millions of dollars.
    As our Lord talks about prayer and having confidence in what we ask of God, we may find it strange that I haven’t won the lottery yet (or maybe you have prayed the same thing and have not won the lottery, either).  “‘If you ask the Father anything in my name, He will give it to you,’” the Savior said in today’s Gospel.  And yet I can tell you that my request to God to win MegaMillions has not been answered.  So what gives?
    Of course, deep down we know that God will only give us what is good for us.  Elsewhere, Christ says, “‘What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish?  Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?’”  God does not give us something that will bite us or hurt us, even if we think the thing for which we’re asking is good.
    Further, our Lord presumes that, as disciples, we are following the pattern He set for us, and being obedient to the will of the Father.  If we truly want to be obedient to God the Father, as Christ showed us, then when we ask the Father, we do so knowing that sometimes our wills are not fully conformed to His, and we might not need to receive that which He is giving us.  Sometimes that will mean we don’t receive something that we want.  Sometimes that will mean that we receive something that we don’t really want.  Remember that Christ asked in the Garden of Gethsemane that the cup of suffering might pass by Him if there was another way to save the world.  But, He ended that prayer with, “‘But not my will, but yours be done.’”  The Father had answered the prayer of our Lord over and over again, working miracles among the people.  This was made evident especially at the resurrection of Lazarus.  But God the Father’s will was also that His Son would die on the Cross to save us from sin, a will which God the Son fully embraced, with all its pain and suffering.
    Or think of St. Paul.  He talks about a thorn in his flesh, which he asked God to remove three times.  But God told the Apostle that this weakness was a way to manifest that the power came from God, not from Paul.  And that thorn was not taken away.  St. Paul had to endure it, as far as we know, for the rest of his life.  Somehow, that weakness was part of Paul’s salvation and the proclamation of the Gospel.
    Part of receiving also connects to our confidence and trust in God.  When we pray for something good, and we do our best to conform our wills to that of the Father, we still need to trust that God can do what we ask Him to do.  Christ in His hometown did not work many miracles because of their lack of faith.  Do we trust the words of our Savior that we heard today, that God will give us what we ask if we ask in the name of Christ His Son?  Or is our faith fickle that like of our Lord’s hometown neighbors?
    I can testify to times when I prayed in the name of the Lord, and what I sought in prayer was given to me.  I’m not saying this to say that I’m a saint or have special powers.  I am a sinner, trying to be holy, but not always succeeding, and any power comes from God, not from me.  I am simply an earthen vessel, trying not to get in the way of the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes these, what I consider, miracles, have been about serious issues, like a person’s health.  Other times they have been for the finding of more trivial things, like stolen golf clubs or a stolen moped.  In one case, I can remember praying for a couple I know, and my prayers seemed to have no effect.  I prayed with them again, and the effect they were seeking came to be.  Again, this is not to attribute anything to me as if I’m special; I’m not.  God wants to answer our prayers, according to His will, whether the request be for something we feel is very worthy, or even for things that don’t mean as much.

    And sometimes the answer is no.  It wouldn’t be a Fr. Anthony homily without some reference to country music, and what comes to my mind is the Garth Brooks song, “Unanswered Prayers,” in which he sings about a girl he knew in high school whom he prayed he would marry, but his prayers went unanswered.  Years later he met his wife, and they met this old flame, and he was glad that God didn’t answer those prayers.  Or Brad Paisley has a song called, “No,” where he talks about different prayers he said, but “sometimes the answer is no.”  Sometimes we think our will is aligned with God’s, but it’s not, and it’s not for our good, so God can answer our prayers with the opposite answer we desire.  It’s not that God doesn’t care or doesn’t love us, but that He answers our prayer with a response that is better for us.
    It is easy to hear how God answers prayers and think, “yeah, but that’s for other people.”  Don’t just hear, but live the word, be a doer of the word, and trust in God’s answers to your prayers.  Go to God with any need or desire you have.  Submit it to the will of God, and then trust that the answer you receive, either yes or no, will be good for your own salvation and the salvation of those you know and love.  God’s answers are a jackpot worth even more that a MegaMillions prize, because they bring us closer into the life of the Blessed Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Better than Christmas

Fourth Sunday after Easter
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I will beg your forbearance, as I address my homily primarily to the First Communicants, though I pray it will edify all present.
    My dear boys and girls receiving our Lord in the Eucharist for the first time: when I was your age, the celebration of Christmas was one of the highlights of the year, as I imagine it is for you.  Yes, we went to Mass to celebrate the real reason for Christmas (and the reason it’s even called Christmas: Christ’s-Mass), but honestly, I was more excited for what presents would be under the tree on Christmas morning.  Part of the joy was the wrapping around the presents, because it took some time to realize just what I had received.  And my parents didn’t let us pick out the presents (probably both to avoid the chaos of three kids all grabbing for gifts, as well as to get pictures of what we opened), but my dad would pick one out at a time and give it to us so that we could unwrap it and see what we received.  Some of the gifts would be less exciting than others (I was not often a fan of the clothes that we inevitably got as gifts), but I would usually have a gift or two that really excited me and which I treasured for the near future.

    Today is not Christmas, but today you are all receiving the most precious gift of all: the gift of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist.  You are all dressed so nicely, to show how important this special day is.  And I imagine you are maybe as excited as you might be for Christmas, because of this treasure that our Lord is giving to you today.  And yes, just like at Christmas, there will be pictures, too, at least with me after the Mass, but probably with your family as well.
    Our Lord gives you this gift because of how much He loves you, and how close He wants to be with you.  In this Mass, you get to come close to Christ because we participate in His crucifixion, which is what the Mass presents for us once more, though without the pain and the blood.  But even though you have come close to Christ at each Mass, today He comes closer to you than anyone else will ever be to you, as you receive Him into yourselves through this Most Blessed Sacrament He gives us. 
    Having met with you, I know that you know that this is not ordinary bread.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, and the ministry of me, a priest who gets to act in the Person of Christ, God Himself changes bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.  And in doing so He connects us back to the sacrifice that opened heaven for us.  Whenever we receive the Eucharist, we receive a little bit of heaven inside of us.
    And we need that bit of heaven, because it prepares us for that place that we all want to go many years from now when we die.  Our Lord tells us that the way to get to heaven is narrow, and not many people take it.  But He also says that if we eat His flesh and drink His blood, we have eternal life within us that helps us make the decisions that lead us on that narrow road to heaven.  Receiving the Eucharist takes away our venial or small sins, and gives us strength to follow Christ.
    Following Christ is sometimes hard, because we all have temptations to do things that Christ doesn’t want us to do.  Christ knows those temptations won’t really make us happy.  Maybe sometimes your siblings aren’t nice to you, so you are tempted to be mean right back to them, or even hit them or say things that hurt their feelings.  Sometimes your parents ask you to clean your room or don’t touch something that can be dangerous, and we don’t want to follow their instructions.  Receiving the Eucharist will help you to be kind to your siblings and be obedient to your parents.  As you grow, the temptations will change; adults have other temptations of their own.  But if you receive the Eucharist each week, you will have everything you need to say no to any temptation that comes your way, no matter how old you are or what those temptations are.

    Today we also celebrate the Blessed Virgin Mary, because we honor her in a special way in the month of May.  Mary is a model for us because, unlike Christ, she is not God.  She is like us in every way, though she never, ever sinned in her life.  She always said “yes” to God.  And so we also ask her to help us say “yes” to God.  And like your own mothers, she loves you very much and will help you to follow her Son, Jesus, and say “yes” to Him.  If you ever need someone to talk to when you’re sad, or someone to share really good news with when you’re happy, you can always turn to Mary, and she will help cheer you up or celebrate with you.
    St. James in our epistle said today that every good and perfect gift comes from above from the Father of lights.  He’s talking about God giving us every good thing that we need.  And today He does give you the best present ever: His Only-Begotten Son, Jesus, in the Eucharist.  Christ Himself also gave us Mary, His mother, to be our own spiritual mother.  Those are two amazing gifts, and you didn’t even have to unwrap them!  And you don’t even have to wait until Christmas to receive them.  From this point on, every time you come to Mass, as long as you don’t have a big sin, you can receive this perfect gift of the Eucharist.  And the gift of our Blessed Mother, Mary, is a gift that you can always have, even on the days when you can’t come to Mass. 
    Just like at Christmas, when we receive gifts, we say thank you to the people who gave them to us, today (and every time your receive the Eucharist) I invite you, after you receive Holy Communion, to kneel down and silently say thank you to God for giving you these amazing gifts.  Say thank you in your own words in your heart to God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

No Golden Age

Fifth Sunday of Easter
    We often tend to think of the early Church as perfect, where everything went as the apostles wanted it to go, where it was easy to follow Christ, and there were no struggles.  Today’s first reading should let us know that it was not as easy as we may have imagined.  Yes, the Apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit, and many Jews were joining the Church by becoming baptized.  Even Greeks were seeking baptism and following Christ as His disciples in His new Church.  But the Greek-speaking Jews (St. Luke uses the word Hellenists) started to complain that their widows didn’t seem to get the same care as the Hebrew widows.  It also sounds like the Apostles had their hands full, and perhaps had too many responsibilities, which made their service less than it could have been.
    So, they created a new set of ministers in the Church, deacons, who would receive the Holy Spirit, and would take over the mission of service at table from the Apostles, so that the Apostles could focus on prayer and preaching the Gospel.  They chose seven men, including St. Stephen, to fill this new office in the Church.  We know the rest of the story: Stephen also starts preaching, and ends us getting stoned to death.  More and more persecutions start, and St. James the Greater, the brother of St. John, is martyred.  Antagonism becomes more and more heated between the members of the early Church and the Jewish leaders, who thought that Jesus was a heretic and led people away from God.  So maybe it wasn’t quite as easy and perfect as we so often imagine.
    Why mention this?  Because we ourselves experience difficult times in the Church, but it helps to know that it’s never been easy for the Church.  There are always new challenges and new opportunities for the Church.  There are always periods of growth, and periods of decline, whether from internal or external forces.  Even as we may be convinced that we are not in a golden age of the Church, there truly has never been a golden age: each epoch of history had its own joys and struggles to which the Church had to adjust.

    And while God desires all to be saved, and we know the ordinary path to salvation runs through baptism and daily living the life to which Christ calls us, God has also allowed periods of decline, not only in one parish, or one diocese, but sometimes every across countries.  The example that comes to my mind most often is North Africa.  North Africa, because of its connection to Rome, had been a vibrant area of the Catholic Faith.  Some of the greatest saints and theological writers had come from there, including St. Athanasius, St. Anthony, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Cyprian, and St. Augustine of Hippo.  There were struggles, as many of those saints had to deal with heresies that would spring up from time to time, but the faith was strong.  But then, the barbarians from Europe swept across much of North Africa from the west, and the newly formed Islamic religion came from the east shortly thereafter, and Catholicism was more or less snuffed out entirely in the matter of a hundred years or so.  Why did God allow this?  I couldn’t tell you.  But allow it He did.  Did it mean He loved North Africa any less than the rest of the world?  Certainly not.  But those few who remained had to adjust to a new way of living their faith in the midst of fewer structures and more regular persecution.
    How does the Church survive such struggles?  We stay faithful to Christ and following Him, we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us, and we live up to our call to be “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own,” as St. Peter said in our second reading.  We ask the Holy Spirit to guide us, and follow the Apostles, as the Church did in our first reading.  We do not give in to the temptation to let our hearts be troubled, but have faith in God–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–knowing that God’s ways are sometimes mysterious, but are always for our good.
    In our own diminishment as a parish, we can easily fall to the temptation to despair, to not trust in God’s plan.  But, as we prepare to meet this Wednesday, I would invite you to do what the Church has always done during difficult times: pray and trust in the Holy Spirit.  That’s why I invited you last week to pray the novena to the Holy Spirit, asking for His guidance for our parish, whatever the will of God may be.  And, as I also said last week, I don’t know exactly what that will might be; we will discern it together on Wednesday, given the facts that we have, and using the reason that God gave to us to help us to follow His will. 
    But the key is that, whatever you decide to recommend to Bishop Boyea after this Wednesday’s meeting, God calls us to remain faithful to Him and continue to not only say that we are Catholic, but show it by our actions, both in this parish and in the wider community.  People are still hungry to know the love of the Father, and Jesus reveals that to us, and He calls us to reveal Him to others.  No matter how the realities of the structural church change and call for adjustments, if we follow the Holy Spirit and live as disciples of Christ, we can have the confidence that we will one day see the Father, and be enveloped by His love in the kingdom of heaven.  There is not golden age of the Church.  There is simply the streets of gold upon which we hope to walk in heaven, as a result of our fidelity to Christ through all the days of our life on earth.  That is our ultimate goal, and the Holy Spirit will help us to get there.

Just a Soul? False!

Third Sunday after Easter

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  People can utilize social media well, and social media can lead to bad things or positions.  For example, someone I know recently posted a video of Rainn Wilson (Dwight from “The Office”) about how spirituality is so important because it is reality.  Ok, not so bad.  But then he goes on to say that we are not human beings have a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings have a human experience.  He goes on to say, “Who I am and what I am is not by body…”.  He continues on to talk about being connected to a higher reality, and the benefits of being connected to the divine.  To be clear, there are many benefits of being connected to God, especially for one’s overall health.  But that part in the middle stuck out like a sore thumb.
    Because it’s a heresy.  It’s just a rehashing of Manichaeism, which taught that the body was bad, or lesser than the spirit.  This was a pernicious heresy, to which St. Augustine of Hippo ascribed before he was baptized, and which swept Europe during the end of the first millennium, which gave rise to the preaching of the Dominicans fighting this old heresy with a new name (Albigensianism). 
    What is the drive that leads to such a push?  Well, probably one of two things.  On the one hand, we see so many natural evils that are no one’s personal choices, and so we might ascribe evil to the material of nature itself as a simplistic way to deal with why these natural evils happen without anyone willing them.
    On the other hand, when we sin, we can either accept responsibility for our actions and repent, or we can blame our actions on something else, and seek to avoid responsibility and punishment.  And we’ve been blaming someone else since the beginning.  “The woman you put here with me…”; “The serpent tricked me…”.  So if we can ascribe most of our evil actions to the body, and say that they don’t have an impact on the soul, then most of us are probably not only getting by when it comes to following God, but doing very well, and probably on the straight road to heaven.  If all you had to worry about was spiritual sins (judging others in your mind, not believing the right things, wishing others harm, but never following through with your actions), most of us are probably saints right now. 
    But, of course, we are not simply spirits.  We are a cohesive unity of spirit and body.  What we do to one, affects the other.  If we choose to sin in the body, it has effects on the soul.  And even when we sin at the level of our souls, there are effects on the body. 

    That unity is part of what we celebrate at Easter, and our belief in the union of body and soul is based upon the fact that Christ rose from the dead, not just in the spirit, as we will do at our death until the general resurrection at the end of time, but also in the body.  As He said in the Gospel today, “A little while, and you shall not see me, and a little while again and you will see me.”  He died, that is to say, His soul left His body, but then they were reunited and He returned to His disciples so that they could see Him again.  In some of the accounts of the Resurrection, the disciples think their Lord is a ghost, but He asks for food so that He could eat, and assured them that He was not a ghost.  Indeed, He asks Thomas to feel the wounds in His hands and side, not only as the proof that He is the same person, but that His body is there. 
    And because we are that union of soul and body, as confirmed to us by the Risen Lord, St. Peter can encourage us to refrain from our carnal desires.  Yes, sometimes what the soul wants and what the body wants are not the same thing.  But they are still in the battle for eternal life together, and what one does affects what happens to the other.  And this is not just with our desires to be fruitful and multiply, but also how we submit to legitimate authority, the example we give to believers and non-believers alike, so that they can see that the life to which Christ calls us is, in fact, possible, and helps us find true joy and freedom.
    Because the soul and body are one, even after we die, and our soul leaves our body, they will be reunited one day.  Hopefully we will receive a body for glory in the resurrection as we go to heaven, or perhaps have to be purified in Purgatory.  But, even the damned will receive back their body, or damnation and suffering, as they remain in Hell for all eternity.  Dante, describing those in the various circles of Hell, talks about the punishment that the bodies receive, from the punishments due to giving in to carnal desires, to the Beast, chomping on Judas and Brutus in the coldest, lowest level of Hell.  This is also why sometimes the martyrs are depicted with the wounds of their suffering, not because they suffer in heaven, but because what they allowed to happen to their bodies, rather than deny Christ, now becomes the sign of their victory, like St. Denis holding his head, St. Lucy holding her eyes, or St. Bartholomew holding his flayed skin.  

    That is also why our salvation is accomplished with physical things.  We don’t simply sit and think to ourselves: “I desire to be a child of God in the Son of God.  Now I am.”  No, we have water poured over our heads as the priest invokes the Blessed Trinity over us.  We do not simply sit in our rooms and think: “I am really sorry, and I’ll never do that again.”  The priest says, “I absolve you” with his audible voice.  We don’t only ask the Lord to fill us with Himself, but He gives Himself to us under the appearance of bread and wine, but that which is truly His Body and Blood, which we receive into us, so that He is closer to us than any other human could ever be.  God uses physical stuff with which our body interacts to create changes in the soul.  What happens to the one, affects the other. 
    So, if anyone ever suggests that we are simply spiritual beings, or souls trapped in a body, or that the material world is evil, which the spiritual world is good, you can counter with a direct quote from Dwight: “False!  Body; Blessing; Beatific Vision.”  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.