Striving to be a Saint

Solemnity of All Saints
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  I think that when it comes to the saints, we have such an elevated view of them that we can forget they were real people, and some of them had not so pleasant pasts.  How often do we read or hear stories about the saints that make us think they never did anything wrong?  Certainly, the Blessed Mother never sinned.  And there have been some saints who did live pristine lives.  But the saints were people just like me and you, with their own small sins and foibles.  

    Think of St. Augustine, a favorite saint in this parish because of the long history of the Augustinians.  His past was anything but perfect.  He tried seemingly every philosophy and heresy he could.  He stole a pear simply for the pleasure of taking something that didn’t belong to him.  And he was a bit promiscuous and had a child out of wedlock.  Now, he’s not a saint because he did those things, but because he accepted the grace of God and turned his life around.  But still, he wasn’t perfect.  Or we could look at a more recent saint like Pope St. John Paul II.  Certainly he was a holy pontiff, and brought the light of the Gospel to many people by focusing on the new evangelization.  He had a deep devotion to the Blessed Mother, and a grueling pace of work and prayer.  Still, without knowing just how much he knew, a rot existed in the Church during his papacy due to sinful priests, bishops, and cardinals, and, in hindsight, these problems didn’t always get dealt with in the best way.  But still, even at his funeral, the crowds made signs and shouted “Santo subito!” Or “make him a saint immediately!”
    Being a saint does not mean necessarily that a person is sinless.  But it means that they continue to seek to do better to live a life of heroic virtue, or are willing to give their lives for Christ.  To use the cliché phrase, saints are sinners who keep trying.  And while we don’t want to lower the bar for what makes a person a saint, certainly we also want to recognize that holiness is possible, even if it comes after years of starts and stops.  The key is that we never stop trying to say yes to God and no to sin.
    The Church’s teaching on mortal sin is clear.  If we commit a grave sin, with knowledge and freedom in our choice, then we cut ourselves off from sanctifying grace, the grace that makes us saints and allows us to go to heaven.  Through Holy Baptism, God gives us all that we need so that we never commit a mortal sin.  And there are some saints who lived in such a way.  St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s confessor told her that he believed she never committed a mortal sin.  But what concerns me as a confessor is not so much if a person struggles with sin, even mortal sin, but rather if that person doesn’t seem to be struggling at all.  I’m not the judge, so I guess it doesn’t matter what I think, but while I affirm wholeheartedly what the Catholic Church teaches– that if a person dies in a state of mortal sin, we have no reason to believe that person could go to heaven–I also think that a person who struggles with sin, even mortal sin, could be a saint, that is, could go to heaven, even if a long time in Purgatory would be necessary, as long as that person was fighting for holiness.  
    Certainly, I do not mean to encourage anyone here to commit mortal sin.  Stay away from mortal sin as much as you can!  But, I think it can be easy to give into despair, and forget that God can make saints out of people who struggle, but who engage the struggle and do their best to respond to God’s grace and stay in a state of grace as much as possible.  So many young people today get exposed to sexual temptations, in person or through screens, which can create bad habits and even addictions.  But simply because a person has a bad habit, or even an addiction, does not mean that heaven is closed off.  Again, strive to remain in a state of grace, and make sure you go to confession as soon as possible if you fall into mortal sin, because we have very little hope if a person dies in a state of mortal sin.  But hope remains as long as the person strives to receive God’s grace and change.
    As we hear the Beatitudes enumerated for us in the Gospel, the list of what makes one truly blessed and prepared for heaven, it is easy even for a person who doesn’t sin mortally to struggle with one or more of the Beatitudes.  Perhaps we find it difficult to entrust ourselves to God in spiritual poverty, or stay satisfied with not being recognized or well-known.  Or maybe we struggle to stand up when others are oppressed, or to forgive one who has harmed us, or even to keep our minds pure and work for peace.  Or maybe we find it difficult to suffer insults for God or even have others calumniate us though we have done nothing wrong.  To be a saint means that we do our best to grow in whatever Beatitude or Beatitudes that do not come easily to us.  The one hundred forty-four thousand–a symbolic number which combines the twelve tribes of Israel times twelve thousand, which stands for a great multitude–certainly includes those who did not always live as our Lord taught, at least not perfectly.  But while they may not have lived as a disciple perfectly, they still strove for perfection, made possible by the grace of God, and allowed God’s grace to pick them up, even time after time, to choose God and reject sin.
    [My dear candidates for full communion: today you profess with us that you wish to be saints.  You have come to realize the fullness of truth in the Catholic Church, and want access to all the graces God wants to give you so that you can access His holiness.  God gave you a foundation in other ecclesial communities, and now He welcomes you into the one Church Christ founded.  Christ’s Church exists to make saints: to help us to be like God according to His terms.  Avoid sin as much as possible.  But even if you fall, even if it’s a serious fall or numerous falls, keep striving for holiness and returning to God for His mercy to give you a fresh start.]
    May all of us recognize that the saints were not perfect people (except the sinless, ever-virgin Mary).  But they were perfected people, who allowed the grace of God to strengthen them when they stood, and heal them when they fell.  May we recognize that holiness is possible for each one of us, and we can all accept the gift of eternal life in heaven, as long as we commit ourselves to doing our best, each day, to reject sin and open ourselves to the grace of God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

For Such a Time as This

Feast of Christ the King

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  “‘Who knows–perhaps it was for a time like this that you became queen?’”  Mordecai speaks these words to his cousin and adopted daughter Hadassah, who also went by the name Esther.  But God also speaks these words to us today: perhaps it was for a time like this that you became a king or queen.
    For while we celebrate Christ as our King today, on this day that we also celebrate the thirty-seventh anniversary of the foundation of the Flint Latin Mass Community, we also remember that, through Holy Baptism, we also have been given a royal dignity inasmuch as the Holy Spirit has united us to Christ, the one true King.  While this royal dignity does not find expression in the prayer at the anointing with Chrism in the older rite of Baptism, the new Order of Baptism clearly states: “[Christ] now anoints you with the Chrism of salvation, so that you may remain members of Christ, Priest, Prophet and King, unto eternal life.”  This teaching comes from, among others, Pope St. Leo the Great, who wrote:
 

In baptism the sign of the cross makes kings of all who are reborn in Christ…So,…any Christian who has the gifts of rational and of spiritual understanding knows he is a member of a kingly race…For what could be more royal than a soul which by subjecting itself to God becomes ruler of its own body?

We are all kings and queens in Christ the King, given a royal dignity and ruling, in accord with God’s will, our bodies, rather than being slaves to our passions and to the fallen powers of the enemy.

    But do we demonstrate our royal dignity?  In each generation, God raises us up to participate in saving His people, just as He raised up Queen Esther to save the Jews from the wicked Haman, the Persian prime minister of Ahasuerus.  God allows us to cooperate with Him in extending salvation to the world, not because we have conquered sin and death on our own, but because we share in Christ’s rule that saved all creation for all time by His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension.  
    The Preface of today’s Mass describes how that kingdom is supposed to look: “aetérnum et universále regnum…regnum veritátis et vitae; regnum sanctitátis et grátiae; regnum iustítiae, amóris et pacis.”;  “an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life; a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.”  All those who participate in Christ’s kingdom demonstrate those attributes, whether fully, because they are in heaven, or to the best of their ability, because they still struggle on earth to fully accept that kingdom.
    So we can ask ourselves today about each of those adjectives of the Kingdom of Christ.  First: eternal and universal.  Does my life point to eternity?  Or am I only concerned with the things of earth, each of which will fade away at some point.  Do I truly believe that Christ’s kingship should embrace all people, regardless of race, gender, political party, sexual orientation, etc., or do I cut people off from salvation, or sharing the Gospel with them because they are not like me or do not fit into the cookie cutter of what I feel it means to be Catholic?
    Second: truth and life.  Do I share in the kingdom of the truth, or do I lie?  Does my yes mean yes and my no mean no, or do I purposefully deceive others by uttering falsehoods because telling the truth would make me uncomfortable?  Do I speak the truth with charity, or do I try to assault people with the truth and cause them further harm?  Do I promote life in all its stages, from natural conception to natural death?  Does my support of life not only concern infants in the womb and elderly in hospitals and nursing homes, but also the dignified way we treat the poor, the mentally handicapped, those who suffer from mental illness, and those who entered the country illegally?  We don’t have to pretend like a mental illness is healthy, or support open borders, but do we treat all people with the respect we want to receive?
    Third: holiness and grace.  Do I seek to live a life dedicated to God and fit for the temple?  Do I try to avoid behaviors and actions that stem from the darkness and choose behaviors and actions that spread the light?  Do I recognize that I cannot earn my salvation, but that God freely grants salvation to those who desire it?  When I am unaware of mortal sin and in a state of grace, do I try to stay there?  Or if I fall into mortal sin, do I strive to return to a state of grace as soon as I practically can?
    Lastly: justice, love, and peace.  Do I give others their due, or do I hold back what others deserve because of fear or greed?  Do I cheat my employers or employees from what they deserve from me as a member of the company?  Do I truly will the good of the other first?  Do I demonstrate the attributes of love that the Apostle enumerates in 1 Corinthians 13: patience, kindness, humility, etc.?  Or am I narcissistic, first concerned with my own desires and rights, seeking to dominate the other and insisting on what I think I’m owed?  Am I apathetic and simply lack proper concern for those around me, beginning with my family, but extending into the different orders of love?  Could God call me a peacemaker?  Or do my words and actions cause chaos and pain in my home, in my office, among my friends?  Do I protect others from violence and harm as I am able, or do I shrink in cowardice when God calls me to stand up against evil?  
    God has called us to have a royal dignity in a time such as this, in 2026 in Michigan in the United States of America.  God has called us to promote, “The kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ,” to quote the Hallelujah Chorus.  The kingdom which is eternal and universal, a kingdom of truth, life, holiness, grace, justice, love, and peace.  May we live up to our royal dignity, given to us in Holy Baptism, and thus participate in the kingdom won by the Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ.  Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Underdogs

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    There’s something about underdogs.  People love to see them succeed.  I’ll find myself watching a sports game between two teams that I really don’t care about, and I’m often drawn to the team that is ranked lower, especially if it’s a close game.  People generally like to see the little guy succeed, even against all odds.  And I’d like to think that it has to do with something God put into our hearts.

    Now, to be fair, sometimes people want to see the underdog succeed because they really want to see someone else fall.  There were a lot of Spartan fans cheering on unranked Appalachian State in 2007 when they blocked the game-winning field goal attempt by #5 ranked U of M in one of the biggest upsets in college football history.  Or, basically any time anybody plays Ohio State, you know Wolverines will be rooting for the other guy, who, in recent history, have generally been the underdog.
    But there can be more virtuous motives behind seeing the little guy succeed, and it connects us to God.  Think about David and Goliath.  David should have lost, and yet, God chose David and rewarded his courage and confidence in God’s ability to give David victory over the giant who cursed God.  In our first reading, we hear about the underdogs and little guys even before David: aliens (foreigners; not extra-terrestrials or the Swedish hard rock band); widows; orphans; the poor.  God tells the Israelites in the Book of Exodus that He has a special love for those groups of people.  And note that God points out that He loves them because Israel once was in those groups, or was like those groups.  The Israelites were foreigners among the Egyptians and the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites and made them slaves.  The Israelites were often poor, relying on God for their basic needs, and hoping others wouldn’t take advantage of them.  Widows and orphans had no one to rely on, as in that time there was no social security or welfare, so if you had no family to earn money for you or to farm for you, all you could do was beg.
    The call to love our neighbor, part of the great law that Jesus highlights in the Gospel today, was a call to be like God: to care for those who could not care for themselves.  And it was the consequence of the first part of the great law, love of God, because when one loves God, one therefore also loves those whom God loves.  St. John in a New Testament epistle reminds us that we cannot love the God we don’t see if we don’t love the brother we do see.  The two are really inseparable.

    But how easy it is to forget that we once relied on others as others now rely on us!  It’s like the movie “Trading Places,” where the fortunes of the rich man, Louis Winthorpe III (played by Dan Aykroyd), and a street beggar, Billy Ray Valentine (played by Eddie Murphy) are switched through the conniving machinations and wagers of Randolph and Mortimer Duke.  When Billy Ray is poor, he condemns Winthorpe for the way he treats the poor.  But when Billy Ray suddenly becomes rich and encounters Winthorpe as a poor beggar, he suddenly forgets how he wanted the poor to be treated and treats Winthorpe the way Winthope treated him when they were in each other’s shoes.  
    And so the Church regularly puts before us reminders about God’s love for the underdog, which should also stir our hearts.  The Church reminds us that in order to love God, we also have to be mindful of the opportunities we have to love those whom God loves.  Since the readings talk about aliens, we can look at the immigration debate.  Catholics can sometimes find themselves split.  Some prefer to focus on the legitimate right of countries to regulate immigration, and the responsibility of immigrants to follow the laws of their new country and seek to integrate themselves to their new homelands.  Others prefer to focus on what we heard today: that we cannot “molest or oppress an alien.”  In fact, both are true, and both deserve our focus.  Open borders include a host of problems that afflict every-day people–drugs; human trafficking; terrorism–even while some legitimately are trying to make a better life for themselves.  So while we seek justice and public safety, which are very important goods, we also don’t want to forget that God has a special love for those who are fleeing oppression and hardship in their native lands.  In the midst of legitimately enforcing immigration laws, we still have a responsibility to treat illegal immigrants as human beings, not like animals or sub-humans.  I think most Catholics can actually agree on those principles if we really stop and dialogue, though how those principles are instantiated certainly become more difficult to flesh out.
    But God wants us to remember our poverty, not so much economic, as spiritual.  God calls on us to rely on Him, because everything good we have came from the hand of God.  In some way, we are all aliens, widows, orphans, and poor, because we started with nothing other than what God allows us to have.  God loves us, and so, if we want to love God, He calls us to love those whom He loves, as well.  May our love for God find its expression not only in coming to Church and worshipping Him, as is right and just, but also in our love for our neighbors, especially the underdogs.

Armed with the Sword of the Spirit

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I was once speaking with a traditional Catholic years ago, who said, “I don’t read the Scriptures.  That’s what Protestants do.”  And I remember thinking how sad it was that this person thought that reading the Bible was a Protestant thing.  I tried to encourage him to read the Scriptures, but to no avail.
    Hopefully, that is not the position of anyone here.  St. Paul today speaks about the Scriptures as the “sword of the Spirit.”  St. Jerome, in a homily on the Book of Isaiah, famously wrote, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”  But do we heed St. Jerome?  Are we armed with this important weapon of our faith?

    Christ Himself uses the Scriptures to take away the power of the temptations in the desert.  When tempted to turn rocks into bread, Christ quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 which reads, “it is not by bread alone that people live, but by all that comes forth from the mouth of God.”  When tempted to throw Himself down from the temple, because Satan said, quoting Psalm 91, that the angels would protect Him, Christ responds with another Scripture, again from the Book of Deuteronomy, this time 6:16 which reads, “You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.”  And the last temptation of Christ, where the enemy says that he will give Christ all the kingdoms of the world if he worships Satan, Christ forcefully quotes Deuteronomy 6:13, which reads, “The Lord, your God, shall you fear; him shall you serve.”  Even when the devil takes Scripture out of context, Christ uses Scripture to defeat the temptation.
    Certainly, as we saw from that example, one can take Scripture out of context.  Which is why we should have a decent understanding of not just a few verses, but a good grasp of the whole, as well.  Often times, Protestants and Evangelicals will take a verse of Scripture out of context, so it is good to review together the entire chapter to make sure that the phrase is not part of a larger whole which gives a different meaning.  After all, there is part of a verse in the Psalms that reads, “‘There is no God.’”  However, the first part of that verse which gives it context is, “The fool says in his heart,” which changes the whole meaning of that verse.
    Knowing Scripture also helps us defend our faith, whether in public or in private.  Recently, a decently well-known politician said that the Scriptures don’t deal with abortion, and certainly don’t condemn it directly.  His opponent, a Catholic, easily rebutted that claim by pointing out the fifth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” which especially means killing an innocent human being.  Or, I recently mentioned to an evangelical that I had just gone to confession, so if I died, I had a strong sense that I would eventually make it to heaven.  He responded, “I don’t think that’s how it works,” and went on to explain that he simply confesses his sins to God; he doesn’t feel the need to go to a priest, because only God can forgive sins.  I responded that that was an interesting principle, and certainly God can forgive sins directly, but if God didn’t intend for us to go to confession, why did Jesus give the Apostles the authority to forgive sins?  He asked where that was in the Bible, and I responded, John chapter 20 (I couldn’t remember the verses), where Jesus says, “‘Receive the holy Spirit.  Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.’”  I also pointed out that Jesus said something very similar in Matthew 16 where He gave the keys of the kingdom to St. Peter.  He wisely said he wanted to review the chapters I had mentioned, and I hope to continue that conversation with him some day.
    Now, to be fair, I’m fairly well-trained in Scripture.  I went to school for 8 years before ordination, and we dealt with a lot of Scripture.  And I pray with the Scriptures on a daily basis, and have gone through reading the Old Testament one year and the New Testament the next year over a course of many years.  But I know that sometimes it can seem difficult to understand certain passages, and that’s where having a Catechism of the Catholic Church, to keep with you when you read the Scriptures, can help you make sense of difficult passages.  There’s a cross reference in the back of the Catechism that can help you know how the Church interprets a particular passage.  As St. Peter says in the first chapter of his second epistle, “there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation, for no prophecy ever came through human will; but rather human beings moved by the holy Spirit spoke under the influence of God.”  The official teaching office of the Church, which we call the Magisterium, guides us infallibly on how to interpret the Scriptures, because the Scriptures are a product of the Church, not the Church is a product of the Scriptures.  If we rely only on our understanding, we will splinter into thousands of groups, like the Protestants have, because there are different senses of Scriptures, even within the same book.
    All of this is to say: read the Bible!  We offer Bible studies here, and we recently had the Catholic Biblical School of Michigan here to advertise the classes they offer online and in-person at Holy Redeemer in Burton.  Whether it’s an intro course to help you feel basically familiar with the Scriptures, or maybe a deeper dive into particular books, knowing the Scriptures will help you know Christ better.  Do not neglect to carry your sword with you into spiritual battle!  Stay armed with the Word of God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

God and Politics

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    We’re in that time in our country where all the ads on television, radio, Facebook, etc., seem to be about politics.  Generally, those who love politics get really excited about this time of year, studying polls and updates on the races.  I think everyone else tends to put-up with all the commercials and mailings.  Our country seems particularly polarized, and for a while now we have failed to teach people how to dialogue respectfully and logically about candidates and policies, so we tend to just shout our positions at each other without truly engaging the people seeking office and the policies they support.  Rather than a healthy discussion over a meal or a drink, we tend to act more like monkeys at the zoo, throwing dung at each other.
    So in the midst of the political activity, today the Church, which doesn’t assign the readings based on the democratic system in the United States, puts before us a first reading and a Gospel that remind us about government.  In the first reading, we hear about Cyrus, God’s anointed, whom God chose for the sake of His People.  What’s interesting is that Cyrus was the Persian king, a pagan.  And yet, the word for anointed is mashiach, or messiah.  Cyrus is not the messiah; that is Christ.  And yet, Cyrus is God’s anointed who, though he doesn’t know God, will help return the Chosen People to the Holy Land so that they can witness that there is one God.
    And in the Gospel, the Pharisees try to trap Jesus with a puzzle concerning another pagan foreign leader, Caesar, and whether they need to pay taxes to the pagan Roman government.  The Pharisees likely thought that if Jesus said to pay taxes, the people would reject Him (after all, who wants to be encouraged to pay taxes to an occupying force that teaches a false religion).  But, if Jesus said not to pay taxes, they could report Him to the Romans and they would take care of Him.  Easy peasy.  But instead, Jesus turns the question on its head, and avoids both the scylla and the charybdis that the Pharisees put before Him.
    All of this should remind us that the question of who has governmental power and authority does not concern God all that much, because as Jesus said to Pilate on Good Friday, Pilate would have no power unless God had allowed Pilate to use it.  God can use a pagan government like the Persians to accomplish good for His People.  He can use a pagan government like the Romans and the pax Romana that came from their military domination of Europe and the Near East to create the perfect time for Jesus, the true Messiah, to be born and grow up in the Holy Land.  
    Everything, in the end, finds itself subject to God and what He directs or allows through His will.  “Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more,” St. Paul reminds us, and God can use the sinfulness of rulers and governments even to accomplish holiness in His People.  The invitation to give God what belongs to Him really reminds us that, while we have civic responsibilities that we should exercise responsibly, our first duty is to God, who has given us everything and against whom no power on earth can ever compete.
    For that reason, I no longer tend to get worked up about politics.  I can’t honestly say I was always that way, and when I was younger I loved politics and reading the polls and trying to understand positions and policies and how to argue for the best ones.  But after the delayed election results in 2020, I found that I obsessed about politics and it stole my peace.  When I stopped trying to think that who the president or the governor was would greatly change my life, I found that I was happier.
    To be clear, I do not mean to communicate that elections don’t matter.  Elections do matter, and we ought to form our conscience well and vote accordingly.  We ought to do our best to support candidates and policies that protect and promote human dignity and the common good.  A great many people in the world, including 1.4 billion people in China, probably wish they could vote for their government officials freely.  We ought not to take our political process for granted.  
    But, no matter who gets elected, and no matter how good or how evil the policies they enact are, God is King, and no one can challenge His power or unseat Him from His Throne.  Yes, it’s nice when the City of Man resembles the City of God, but even when governments oppress us, our key is to be faithful to God and give God His due, no matter what Caesar says.  The Church certainly rejoiced when Constantine legalized the practice of Christianity, but She didn’t shrink for the three hundred years earlier that Roman emperors sought to stop the spread of the Gospel.  
    Yes, do vote this November with a conscience informed by the Catholic faith.  Do not worry if your candidate got elected or didn’t, or if the candidates or the policies they support are contrary to the Catholic faith, like abortion, euthanasia, gender dysphoria, same sex marriage, or socialism.  “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” and God will sort out everything else in the end when His victory comes to fruition.

You Gotta Have Faith

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  What came first: the chicken or the egg?  As a young student this question was posed, but I never really thought it too complicated.  If the egg came first, who would sit on it to incubate it so that the chick could hatch?  But, philosophers much wiser than me have debated this general question for centuries.
    In our Gospel, another question gets posed that could, if we’re not careful, trip us up.  That question is: what comes first: faith or miracles?  Perhaps we don’t consider this much of a question, as all the miracles seem to follow from faith.  And yet, our Lord says today that unless the people see signs and wonders (another way of saying miracles), they will not believe.  So what comes first: faith or miracles?
    Throughout the Scriptures, it seems mostly evident that faith comes first.  Christ does not do many miracles in Capernaum because of their lack of faith.  And miracles without faith are more like magic tricks, and God doesn’t do magic tricks.  So faith comes first.  And yet, the miracles themselves also beget faith.  Our Lord raises the son of the widow of Nain, without any sense that she believed in Him.  The woman with a hemorrhage has some small faith so that she touches our Lord’s clothes, but then, after she receives healing, our Lord turns and tells her that her faith has saved her, not only healed her.  So many people, after encountering the Savior, are certainly moved to a deeper faith after they receive a miracle.  So there we see a back and forth when it comes to the relationship with faith and miracles.  Faith leads to miracles, which lead to more faith, which leads to more miracles.  It’s like the chicken and the egg: chickens lead to eggs, which lead to more chickens, which lead to more eggs.
    So how is our faith?  Do we have confidence in what God has revealed?  Do we trust that God can still work miracles in our life and in the lives of others?  Do we have to see signs and wonders before we believe?
    The eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews begins with faith.  The sacred author writes, “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”  Hope assures us that what we have not yet received we will, and faith is the object of that hope, the thing unseen which we believe we will receive.  The author lists examples of faith-filled men: Abel; Enoch; Noah; Abraham.  In the Canon the Church refers to Abraham as “Patriárchae nostri Abrahae,” or “Abraham, our father in faith.”  And the Epistle to the Hebrews reminds the hearers and readers that Abraham, while still called Abram, left the familiarity of his home to go to a land he had never seen, with all his family and possessions, called by a God he didn’t know all too well.  Doubt could have taken hold of him, questioning if his mind was playing tricks on him, how he would survive and care for his flocks outside of what we now call the Fertile Crescent, and whether the people living there would welcome him or attack him.  But he didn’t allow those questions to stop him.  He left modern-day Iraq, or Chaldea, behind.

    So, too, Abraham demonstrated great faith when it came to Isaac, his beloved son and the son of the promise God had made.  Hebrews 11:17 reads, “By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer his only son, of whom it was said, ‘Through Isaac descendants shall bear your name.’”  While child sacrifice was all too common in the near East, especially to the pagan god Moloch, Abraham had two seemingly contradictory things from which he had to choose: was Isaac the son of the promise that Abraham’s descendants would be more numerous than the stars?  Or was God asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on the top of Mount Moriah?  Walking up Mount Moriah, one can only imagine the pain and questioning in Abraham’s heart, but he followed God’s command anyway, trusting that “God was able to raise even from the dead,” and, of course, God stopped Abraham’s hand before Isaac could be killed.  
    Faith is risky business, because we sometimes don’t see the results of our faith on this side of eternity, and sometimes what God asks us to do seems to defy logic.  It’s like Indiana Jones in “The Last Crusade,” who has to step out into what looks like a great chasm, taking an almost literal “leap of faith.”  Or it’s like Frodo in The Fellowship of the Ring, recalling the words of his uncle, Bilbo Baggins, saying, “‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.  You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might go.’”  Faith led St. Frances Xavier Cabrini to leave behind Italy and help form the faith in the US by founding schools and teaching.  The same could be said for St. John Neumann and Bl. Francis Xavier Seelos, who came from Europe to help the Church in the new United States of America, or Bishop Benedict Flaget, a Sulpician priest who became one of the first bishops of the US, but who came to the US from France originally to spread the Gospel in the then-frontier lands of Indiana and Kentucky.

Bishop Benedict Flaget

      

So how is your faith?  Are you willing to leap out and trust when God truly calls you to something?  Can you trust your loving Father to care for you, no matter where He leads you?  Will you have enough faith for God to do great things for you?  
    Faith comes first.  But God strengthens our faith by signs of His love, be they miracles or simply little “God moments.”  And those signs of His love lead to more faith, which leads to more trust, and on and on.  May all of our names be written in the Book of Life, with Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, as those who had faith in God and received His gift of salvation. 

The Most Important Invitation

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    As we’re in the midst of our October Counts, when parishes across the Diocese of Lansing count the number of people who attend Mass each weekend, it may seem self-serving to preach on the importance of going to Mass.  For the past few years, St. Matthew has been seen the largest per capita growth of any parish in the Diocese of Lansing since 2019, or pre-Covid.  But, while I love to see us grow, the importance lies not so much in our numbers, but in making God a priority.
    Even those who do not have a degree in nuclear engineering can understand the meaning of the parable heard today: God’s call to the banquet, to His Kingdom supersedes everything else.  We hear about some people ignoring the invitation to the banquet; others make excuses because of farm work or other business.  In a similar passage in Luke, chapter 14, three excuses are given: examination of a newly-bought field; evaluation of newly-purchased oxen; a new bride.  Indeed, Deuteronomy 24:5 stated that a newly married man could not even be called up into service in the military for the first year.  His excuse took precedence over the defense of the nation.  Deuteronomy 20:5 also talks about how a person could receive an exemption for a new house that was not dedicated, or a vineyard that hadn’t had a first harvest.  So these excuses not to come would have been understandable to the Jews to whom Christ preached.
    But the banquet has such import that event these excuses do not negate the importance of showing up to the banquet.  When the invited guests demure, the master makes sure that the banquet will be filled with people, even if they were not the original invitees.  And at the end of the parable, we hear about the importance of showing up to the banquet in proper clothing.
    But each week, the Lord sets before us a banquet, His wedding feast to His Bride, the Church.  He gives us His very self on which to feast, the fruit of the sacrifice He made for His Bride when He gave up His life willingly and lovingly on Calvary, which the Holy Spirit makes present for us in an unbloody manner at each Mass.  And not just Calvary, but also the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus all become present for us on this altar.  And if we are in a state of grace, and have kept the communion fast of no food or drink except water and medicine for one hour before receiving Holy Communion, then we even get to receive Jesus into our very selves, to strengthen us to live as His disciples.

    St. John Vianney, the holy priest of Ars, France, told us that if we truly understood the Mass, we would die from joy.  All the angels and saints are here with us in this Mass, though we cannot see them unless God gives us a special grace, worshipping God in the banquet which anticipates heaven here on earth.  
    Does merely going to Mass make you a good Catholic, a saint?  No.  Our call as Catholics, as disciples, has to break out beyond these walls in the way we talk, the way we act, the way we think, the way we vote, the way we rest, as a witness to what happens within these walls.  But you cannot be a good Catholic and skip Mass, skip the banquet, because you feel you have more important things to do.  Notice I used the word skip, because sometimes people are ill and cannot make it, or are caring for the ill and cannot make it, or sometimes people are homebound and cannot make it.  They would if they could, but they can’t.  That’s a big difference from prioritizing something else over the Mass, whether it be sleep, sports, or simply one’s own will.
    And frankly, what has more importance than Jesus’ very presence before us?  The choice of virtue means choosing the highest good at each moment.  Sports can be good; sleep can be good; your own desires can be good.  But when we put those lesser goods over the greatest good of worshipping God, we disorder goods, which is one of the ways St. Augustine talks about sin.
    Mass anticipates heaven.  So if we ignore the Mass for some lesser good, we ignore heaven, and make the choice to reject God in a serious way.  Skipping Mass, if we know it’s wrong, and freely choose to skip Mass anyway, is a mortal sin.  It tells God that we don’t want to be in heaven, and God will respect that choice.  He won’t force us to be with Him if we don’t want to.  
    The other part of this Gospel is the evangelical push: the push to invite others to the banquet.  People can reject God and His invitation.  And yes, we should still work on them as best we can to invite them back, because God always welcomes us back if we repent.  But as the Master’s servants, we, too, should be going out to invite others to Mass.  When was the last time you invited a non-Catholic to Mass?  I know it can seem intimidating if you aren’t Catholic and go to Mass, but if you’re inviting them, then you should also join with them to show them the ropes.  Help them understand the different parts of the Mass, and why we sit when we take instruction, stand when we pray, and kneel in adoration.  Help them understand why we believe that what looks like bread is actually the Body of Christ, and why only those who fully believe and live their life in conformity with Christ’s teachings can receive it.  Help them understand the beauty of singing the Scriptures in our antiphons during the procession of the ministers and the procession of Holy Communion, chants which hopefully stay with us and help us to familiarize ourselves with Sacred Scriptures, especially the psalms.  
    It’s not about the numbers.  It’s about bringing people into a fuller relationship with God by helping them attend the wedding banquet of the Son of God, the anticipation of heaven on earth.  “Many are invited.”  Few choose to attend.  Don’t let lesser good keep you from the banquet, lest your find yourself cast outside.  Blessed are those called to the Supper of the Lamb.

Rebuilding the Church

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time/19th Sunday after Pentecost
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]  Yesterday marked the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi, one of the most recognized saints.  Our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV declared a holy year for Franciscans to celebrate their holy founder’s passing to eternal life.  While we still celebrate the twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time/nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, I wanted to take a break from focusing on our readings, and focus on St. Francis.

St. Francis of Assisi embracing a leper

    St. Francis, like St. Dominic, founded a mendicant, or begging order.  Just as we members of the Dominican Family refer to St. Dominic as our holy father Dominic, so we also refer to St. Francis as our holy father Francis.  Hopefully it won’t be too confusing when I refer to St. Francis of Assisi as our holy father Francis.  The Italians, for their part, refer to him as Il Poverello, or the little poor one. 
    Our holy father Francis was radical in both senses: he returned to the roots (from the Latin radice), but he also was a bit out there.  I remember a homily in college seminary where the priest said that if we went into the public square and stripped naked, as our holy father Francis did to demonstrate his rejection of his father’s money and inheritance, it wouldn’t be a man in a white cassock coming for us, but men in white jackets to put us into a padded room.  
    At the heart of our holy father Francis’s vocation was a call he heard to rebuild the Church.  At first, Il Poverello started to collect materials to re-construct the little church of San Damiano, which was collapsing due to age and neglect.  But he came to realize that his order, the Franciscans, was to rebuild the Catholic Church by his witness of evangelical poverty, chastity, and obedience; especially poverty.  Our holy father Francis wanted to live like Christ, who relied on God the Father and others for His basic needs; live a life totally given over to the mission of the Father by giving up the good gift of romantic relationships; do only and all that the Father willed in proclaiming the Kingdom of God is at hand.  
    Our beloved Church, though perfect in heaven, on earth is always falling apart due to age and neglect.  God constantly calls each generation to rebuild His Church.  How can holy father Francis help us do this?  Need we strip naked and give away all our money to beg from others as we proclaim the kingdom?  No.  Need we jump into rose bushes every time we feel a sexual temptation coming on (as the story goes, Francis jumped into the roses to get his mind off the temptation, and from that time on they bloomed without thorns)?  No.  Need we take a vow of obedience to a religious leader and go wherever he or she tells us?  No.  
    But when we live as owners of our possessions rather than our possessions owning us, we are living, each in our own way and according to our own vocation, the evangelical counsel of poverty and building up the Church of God.  God has called many of you to engage in the cares of the world, in commerce, and to build up the earthly world by our good stewardship of it, advancing appropriately technology and unlocking the secrets that earth has to help us better understand our Creator.  But all too easily we make life about money, or possessions, or some other thing, rather than living life for God.  
    When we recognize that human sexuality is a precious gift from God that God calls us to use very specifically, each according to our vocation, we are living the evangelical counsel of chastity and building up the Church of God.  God has called many of you to be spouses and parents.  Some of you have heard God’s will time and time again (and sometimes many times after that) to be fruitful and multiply, which not only increases the size of our human family, but increases the number of disciples of Christ.  But the key is not simply having as many babies as physically possible–a number which varies for each woman and a number to be discerned through prayer and study by husbands and wives–but to see how God wants you to engage in the marital act as a way of expressing the love of God, rather than simply seeking after the pleasure that comes with it.  And for those who are not married, to utilize that desire for fatherhood or motherhood either temporarily or permanently in a non-physical way: caring for others and showing others brotherly and sisterly love, or even fatherly and motherly love without the biological connection.

    Lastly, when we obey legitimate authority, always subject to what we know God commands us, and when we seek out the will of God and strive to do that above all else, each according to our vocation, then we are living the evangelical counsel of obedience and are rebuilding the Church of God.  Too often and too easily we live life with the theme song of Hell: “I Did It My Way” (with no offense intended towards Frank Sinatra, God rest his soul).  Now more than ever, society tells us to focus only on ourselves and what we want.  We are like the sea gulls from “Finding Nemo,” always saying “Mine, Mine.”  When it comes to Burger King, have it your way.  But when it comes to holiness, we find it through submitting our will to God the Father’s will, sometimes made known to us strongly and miraculously, often times made known through prayerful reflection and study.  And not just doing the will of God begrudgingly, but lovingly saying “Thy will be done,” with our lips and our lives.
    God calls us, as He called our holy father Francis, to rebuild His Church.  The way we do so will not follow exactly Il Poverello, but will follow the same principles: poverty; chastity; obedience.  St. Francis of Assisi wrote, “Praised be you, my Lord, through our sister bodily Death, from whom no living man can escape.  Woe to those who die in mortal sin.  Blessed are those who will find your most holy will, for the second death shall do them no harm.”  If we, according to each of our vocations, live a poor, chaste, and obedient life, the second death shall do us no harm, and we shall praise God for eternity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

One Faith and One God

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

G.K. Chesterton

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Gilbert Keith Chesterton wrote in his great work, Orthodoxy: 
 

I am the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before….I freely confess all the idiotic ambitions of the end of the nineteenth century. I did, like all other solemn little boys, try to be in advance of the age. Like them I tried to be some ten minutes in advance of the truth. And I found that I was eighteen hundred years behind it….I have kept my truths: but I have discovered, not that they were not truths, but simply that they were not mine. When I fancied that I stood alone I was really in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all Christendom. It may be, Heaven forgive me, that I did try to be original; but I only succeeded in inventing all by myself an inferior copy of the existing traditions of civilized religion. The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.

Here Chesterton was, trying to be on the cutting edge of criticizing his own time, and found out that the new thing he was advocating was quite old, as old as the Church, because it was the Church.
    St. Paul talks about one faith, one God, one baptism.  And they are all connected.  We live in a cosmopolitan world.  Not only can you find those who practice monotheism almost everywhere, you can also find polytheists, those who believe in many gods, and even atheists, those who believe in no God.  And yet, all of them claim that their system is true, as they should, or else they should leave whatever system they have for believing.  However, there is one true faith because there is one true God.
    The key for us is discovering what this one faith is.  And no, I don’t mean to question Catholicism.  If I didn’t think Catholicism was true I could do a lot of other things than give up a family, good money, and my independence.  But do we believe that Catholicism is the truth?  Not exhaustive of it, because we are finite and our Lord, who calls Himself the Truth (along with the Way and the Life), is infinite, but at least as much truth as God has revealed exists in Christ and the one Church that He founded, which subsists in the Catholic Church.
    It would seem easier just to pretend like every form of Christianity is as true as the other, or that every religion is as true as the other.  It would seem to lead to less fighting.  But if there is truth, than it’s important to know it.  To put this outside the realm of theology, we really want to know if gravity exists, and if the natural world operates by cause and effect.  We don’t let off so easily those who deny gravity, or who deny that the natural world seems to operate by cause and effect.  Imagine the physical harm that could come from thinking that the Illuminati invented gravity to scare us from using our innate ability to fly.  And yet, we can write off someone who does not know the truth, a truth that does not only allow us to interact in this world, but a truth that could affect how we spend eternity!
    Now, a few important considerations.  First, just because someone gets part of the truth wrong does not mean they have the entire truth wrong.  I can know that cause and effect govern the natural order, but decide that the cause of an illness is bad humors that I have to release from the body through bloodletting.  I’m right about cause and effect; not so much about the bloodletting.  When it comes to our fellow man, just because they lack some of the truth does not mean they lack all of the truth.  Yes, God only founded 2 religions, Judaism and Catholicism (though we could rightly speak of Catholicism as the divinely-ordered fulfillment of Judaism).  But it doesn’t mean that other religions don’t have any truth.  Islam teaches that there is only one God; they’re right.  Buddhists talk about the importance of not letting our physical desires control us; that’s wise.  Still, our goal is to fill in the blanks for them, and help them see what they don’t have quite right.
    The same is true for our fellow Christians: they have a fair amount of things right; especially the Orthodox.  But if they’re not subject to the one leader Christ appointed for His Church; or they cut out books of the Bible; or they don’t recognize the sacramental system that Christ established, they are missing out.  And we should help them come to see the fullness of the truth.  If you think gravity exists, but only if you jump off a tall building, you have a strong start, but need to understand gravity better to know it exists everywhere, not just at tall buildings.
    Second, while it is imperative that we share the truth, it is equally imperative that we share it with love.  Yelling at Muslims in Dearborn that Mohammed is a false prophet probably won’t win them over.  But engaging in loving, respectful dialogue about how God could not contradict Himself might be a step in the right direction.  Or showing a Buddhist that God created the world good and does not want us to totally disassociate ourselves from it.  Or helping a non-Catholic Christian to see that the teachings of the Catholic Church are most faithful to what God has revealed in the Scriptures by talking about how you read the Scripture over a cup of coffee or bourbon can go a long way.
    There is only one true faith, because God is one.  Other religions and other Christian denominations have parts of the truth, and we should recognize those as finding their source in God, as all truth finds its source in God who is Truth Himself.  But if we commit ourselves to the truth, and commit to sharing with others in love, then we, like G.K. Chesterton, will find that the truth is not a political party or a vogue critique of the modern age, but a Person, who desires to love us and be loved by us, and help us to grow into the people He made us to be.  And that Person is Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Non-Fad Thinking

Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    As I grow older (and hopefully wiser), it’s interesting to note the different fads that have popped up over my four decades of life.  Numerous people bought Beanie Babies, certain that they could pay for their children’s college education with those little stuffed animals.  Kids had fidget spinners not that long ago, which allowed them to play with a little spinner during different activities.  Religiously, we had the fad a decade or two ago of wearing wrist bands that had the abbreviation: WWJD or What Would Jesus Do.
    You don’t really see those bracelets too much anymore, but hopefully that doesn’t mean that people have stopped thinking about what Jesus would do in particular circumstances.  The Word of God that we heard today challenges us to go a step earlier, and not only consider how God would act, but also how God thinks.
    Isaiah prophesies today that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and God’s ways are not our ways.  And in the Gospel, Jesus takes basic labor laws (that you get paid the same rate as everyone else in the same job multiplied by the hours you work) and puts them on their head.  No doubt in current society, Jesus would have been sued for unjust labor practices.
    But it should cause us to think: how do I see the world?  Do I think of things the way God does?  If not, how can I?  Let’s consider those questions that the Holy Spirit has put on my heart, and hopefully puts on yours.
    First, how do I see the world?  There are numerous options.  I could see the world through a selfish lens, make an anti-Copernican revolution, and insist that the world has to revolve around me.  Or I might see things merely from an economic point of view, of how it makes me more money or benefits my job.  Or I might view the world as a constant struggle of power between races, genders, or socio-economic classes.  
    Or do I choose first and foremost to recognize that God has created the world in goodness, and has made me its steward, not to tyrannize, but to care for it?  Do I consider that I am a beloved son or daughter in the son of God, whom God has created out of love, and recognize that every other person I encounter is also created by God out of love?  Do I view things not in competition with each other, but as opportunities to grow closer to God?  Do I, to paraphrase St. Paul, use the world without becoming engrossed in it or obsessed by it?

    Because God sees the world not in competition with Him (which would be silly, because nothing can compete with God), but as different aspects of His creative will that exist to cooperate with Him.  J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in his less-popular work of fantasy The Silmarillion, that the highest power created the world to be music.  By analogy, God created us to make music together.  Each of us is like a musical instrument of God that He intends to direct as a beautiful symphony.  Each has value, but cannot exist unto itself and play the entire symphony by ourselves.  Only when we cooperate with God and each other does the symphony come together.
    To apply the Gospel to this analogy, some people have larger parts in the symphony, some people have smaller parts.  But if the symphony is salvation, then each person still has a part to play and can be included, no matter how many measures a particular instrument is featured.   We do not lose out of salvation because God includes another person for a shorter period of time.  As long as we cooperate in this magnum opus, then we need not worry about how much the other has.  God desires salvation for all.  We shouldn’t worry about whether another person had an easier path to salvation.  We should simply rejoice that they had the chance to participate in the salvation God won for them.
    If I’m not sure if I’m thinking with the mind of God, then how do I try to think with that mind?  How do I live in such a way that God’s thoughts become my thoughts, and His ways become my ways?  To start with, we need time in silence.  Silence helps us know the mind of God, especially when we apply the Scriptures and the teachings of the Church as the food that we’re chewing on in silence.  The Benedictine tradition of lectio divina, or divine reading, helps us to read the Scriptures or a Church document, and then sit in silence with it and chew on it, like a cow chews on cud, slowly grinding it down.  And then, with the thoughts that come, put them against the Word of God.  How do they stack up?  Do they contradict what God has revealed authoritatively?  If so, I’m probably not thinking with the mind of God.  Do my thoughts advance my own salvation and the salvation of others?  If so, I’m probably on a good path of thinking and acting like God.
    [My dear parents, in bringing your child for baptism, you are promising to help Maximiliano think with the mind of God and act like God as he grows and matures.  You promise to pray with him, to read Scripture with him, to help him to learn to love and serve our neighbor as Christ commanded us, because in serving them we really serve Christ.  But you are not alone.  This entire faith community, as well as the godparents you have chosen, also promise that we will assist you in helping form your child in the faith.  We are never done growing in our love of God and understanding of the truth.  So we all continue to grow and help Maximiliano grow in becoming the saint God calls him to be through Holy Baptism, just as we strive to be the saints God has called us to be through our baptism.]
    Thinking with the mind of God and acting like God is not a fad. It will not come and go like Beanie Babies, fidget spinners, or bracelets.  Each day, strive to think as God thinks and to act as God acts.  To the extent you do, you will be repaid handsomely for your labors.