"MSU Shadows"

Fourth Sunday of Easter

            In the Diocese of Lansing, we are blessed with a number of institutions of higher education: I grew up learning the Spartan Fight Song from my parents, both proud alumni of MSU.  Others learn “Hail to the Victors,” or “Eastern Eagles,” from EMU, or “Charge On” from Hillsdale College.  And each has its own power to move hearts.  But, for my money, there is no more beautiful Alma Mater (if a non-alumnus can say this) than “MSU Shadows.”  Every time it’s played it evokes in me a feeling of home and connection, family and friends, and I can only imagine how those who graduated from MSU feel when it’s played.  It even surpasses, dare I say it, the Alma Mater of my alma mater, Sacred Heart Major Seminary, written by then-Fr. Earl Boyea, entitled “Cor ad Cor.”

            Even in our very transient culture, where people not only move city to city, but State to State, or even country to country for jobs and opportunity, there is something about the feeling of home that resonates in us all.  Home, not just a house, means stability, love, warmth, and family.  That is why violence done to a home with a wrecking ball, or even sadder, violence done in a home, wrenches us at our core.  Homes should be safe.

            Jesus today in the Gospel refers to Himself as the Good Shepherd.  He knows His sheep, and his sheep know Him.  He protects them, and even lays down His life for them.  He will not suffer wolves to enter the pasture where His sheep graze, but will do whatever it takes to give His flock life.  It is as if Jesus is setting up the green pastures, of which Psalm 23 speaks, as a home where all His sheep can feel at ease, safe, protected, and loved.

            The pasture that Jesus protects is His Church, His community of disciples.  This is our home.  This is where we are loved, nurtured, and protected.  It’s a large flock, but Jesus knows each of us by name, and we are called to grow in our knowledge and love of the Good Shepherd each day.  In order to be safe, though, we must stay close to Him.  There are too many wolves that would love to devour the sheep.

            Some of you are here for the last time today.  You’ll be taking final exams this week, and then graduate.  You have called East Lansing home, perhaps for four, or five, or six years.  You have made many friends, gone to many football and basketball games, laughed, cried, and made East Lansing your earthly home.  This building has become your spiritual home with its own unique memories.  But some of you are moving on to other cities, other States, other countries even.  You will try to establish a new earthly home where you can feel loved, appreciated, and secure.

            I can tell you that the best way to really establish a new earthly home, is by finding another “outlet,” if you will, of your spiritual home.  Because it’s not really this building that’s your home.  This building, as important as it is to have a sacred space set aside for the worship of God, could not exist, and you could still be home, because your home is the Catholic Church.  And wherever you move, find the nearest Catholic Church, and get acquainted with the community there.  It won’t be exactly the same, but the Good Shepherd is, no matter where you go, what type of music is played at Mass, who you know, or how big or small it is.  The Good Shepherd will be waiting for you, to welcome you home to the place where He is pleased to dwell. 

            The wolves of temptation will be circling, trying to convince you that you should worry about making tons of money first, or getting acquainted with other places, or just easing the stress of a new place by plopping down in front of the TV instead of going to Mass.  And Jesus the Good Shepherd, will do all that He can through your conscience to remind you that your home is with Him, not with the TV, or the money, or the stores.  He gives you safety and love, not the created goods.  The Good Shepherd has gone so far as to lay down His life for you to show you how much He wants you and loves you.  But He who did not ask you to create you, will not force His love on you without your permission.  If you, the sheep, wish to leave home and wander among the brambles, then He loves you enough to let you wander away.  But know this, He will be right behind you, ready to lead you back home to safety if you call on Him.

            All of us: graduating students, students who will return next year, professors, and all present here, we all know about the wolves.  We even know about the hired hands who will try to convince you that they’re pulling you away from the Church and from your faith for your own good because they love you.  But only Jesus never abandons you when danger comes, or when you’re all alone with no safety, no comfort, no peace.  Only the Good Shepherd stays with His sheep no matter what.  The hired hands run away.  The wolves will only stay as long as they can feed on you. 

            In a few months new freshmen will move in the dorms.  Soon-to-be sophomores and juniors and seniors will crowd the streets.  Students and alumni of all ages will gather at Spartan Stadium.  And at that first game, whether we win or lose (hopefully we win!), the band will play “MSU Shadows,” reminding all that they’re home.  But whether you’re in East Lansing or Ann Arbor, in Michigan or Montana, in the United States or Uzbekistan, stay with the Church, stay with the Good Shepherd, and no matter what hymns are sung, no matter what the building looks like, no matter who the priest is, you will be home.  

Recognizing Jesus

Third Sunday of Easter

            I remember that about a year and a half ago, when I was out of the State, I was walking around, minding my own business, when a person shouted, “Hey, Fr. Anthony!”  I turned and looked, saw the person who shouted, and, more or less, stared at them, trying to recognize who it was.  They came up to me, and they must have seen the gears in my head spinning, trying to figure out who they were, and so they introduced themselves…again.  It turns out it was a family I had known from an earlier parish assignment.  How embarrassed I was at not recognizing them, but they were out of the context with which I usually associated them!

            We hear about that same confusion today in the first reading and the Gospel.  In the first reading, St. Peter is explaining how Jesus is the Messiah for whom the Jews had been waiting.  But they didn’t recognize him, because their view of the Messiah was different from how Jesus presented Himself.  Jesus was out of the context that they were expecting.

            And in the Gospel today, Jesus has to convince the disciples that He’s not a ghost.  They were not expecting to see Jesus in His glorified body.  This is even more surprising when we consider that this passage happens right after Jesus reveals Himself to the disciples at Emmaus in the breaking of the bread.  And yet, the disciples were still not expecting Jesus.  He has to show them His wounds, and then eat something.  Jesus was out of the context that they were expecting.

            But Jesus explains clearly, as does St. Peter at Pentecost, that all of the teachings of Moses and the prophets and the psalms refer to Him and what the Messiah would have to undergo.  The Word of God, the Scriptures, bears witness to who the Word of God, Jesus, is.

            Two weeks ago, amid cries of “Hallelujah!” I challenged us to get to know Jesus better through Bible studies, the “Catholicism” DVD series, youth group, and many other ways.  Have we taken that Easter joy and run with it, or did we leave that joy at the doors of the Church?  St. Jerome, who translated the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, famously said that ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.  Based upon that formula, do we know Christ?  Do we know the Scriptures?  Knowledge of Scripture is usually associated with our Protestant brothers and sisters, but the Bible is our family story, a gift of Christ to His Church.  Does that mean we all need to get started on memorizing the whole book?  No.  But it does mean that we should be able to talk about our main stories of faith, how they relate to Jesus, and how they apply to our daily lives.  Some of that is provided here at Mass through the readings and the homily.  But to truly know Christ through the Scriptures, we cannot rely only on coming to Mass each Sunday. 

            Another opportunity is through adult catechesis and formation.  We have a full time staff member, Al Weilbacher, whose job it is to create and promote opportunities for adults to learn the faith in an adult way.  We’re not talking about sitting at a desk, being lectured by a teacher, but by opening the Word of God, studying the teachings of the Church, and seeing how they intertwine with your life.  It’s not enough to simply drop off the kids at the school each weekday, or drop off the kids at Religious Ed each week or attend the confirmation sessions, for the adults here.  For the kids, its not enough that you attend a Catholic school or attend religious ed. classes.  That’s only the beginning.  Adults and children alike can and need to continue to grow in the understanding of how Christ makes Himself present to us.  If you are an adult and interested or have ideas about how this best can happen, make sure you give Al a call or email him.  For students, contact Michael Renauer, our director of youth ministry.

            When we do continue the lifelong mission of recognizing Christ, we are not surprised to find Him in new places.  When we read the word of God regularly and learn about the teachings of the apostles through their successors, the bishops, we come to see how all of the things that belong to the Catholic faith are connected to and prepare us for seeing Christ in our daily lives, and being prepared to see Him at the end of our life.

            On the other hand, if we do not continue the lifelong mission of recognizing Christ, then when He does appear to us, we will miss Him and the graces He wants to give us to help us celebrate life more, and help us through the times of trial and pain and loss so that they do not overwhelm us. 

            When we study Scripture and the teachings of the Church, we get a better view of Jesus and who He really is.  It’s all too easy, and I know this from my own life, to think that Jesus is just a trumped-up version of me.  It’s much easier to think that Jesus is as strict, or as wishy-washy, or as tender, or as stoic as we are.  It’s much easier to pretend that Jesus has to fit us.  But, that’s the problem that St. Peter tried to address to the Jews: they were waiting for a military king who would expel the Romans and restore the Kingdom of David.  Instead, if they changed their views to fit with who Jesus is, as was promised in the Scriptures, they would see that Jesus was the Only-Begotten, Son of the Father, Suffering Servant, Friend of Sinners Messiah who had to suffer, die, and then rise from the dead to save us, not from a foreign power, but from the power of sin and death. 

After St. Peter’s speech, 2,000 more people came to recognize Jesus and believe that He truly was the Messiah, and they changed their lives to believe in the one about whom the Scriptures spoke and the apostles preached.  Will we, the people of this parish, this Diocese, and all who watch the Outreach Mass commit ourselves to studying the Scriptures and the teachings of the apostles and bishops, so that we can recognize Jesus Christ as He makes Himself known to us?

Go and Announce the Joy of the Lord!

The Resurrection of the Lord--Easter Sunday

            “Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”  If you’re wondering if you fell asleep during part of the Gospel and missed that part, don’t worry.  Those words of Jesus weren’t in today’s Gospel passage.  But, these words are Easter words which we need to hear today.

            Have you ever noticed that a child, when there’s really good news, can’t help but tell someone?  The child acts as if keeping that good news would cause that child to explode!  Maybe the child got a new puppy.  Maybe the child just received tons of chocolate for Easter, or the much-desired present for Christmas.  But that child has to tell someone!  We adults have learned more how to control our emotions, and so it doesn’t effect us as much, but if something great happens, even adults have a hard time holding it in.  Imagine if you would have won that half a billion lottery.  I’m sure you would have told someone.  I sure would!  Or maybe you got a promotion, or won a raffle, or got a new car.  We want to share.  It’s as if that joy inside of us would cause us to explode.  We just have to tell someone!

            Today we celebrate the greatest news ever: the tomb is empty!  Christ has risen!  Death has died!  Sin is vanquished!  Hallelujah!!  Fast forward 50 days from that first Easter to Pentecost, when the apostles received the fullness of the Spirit, and St. Peter cannot hold it in: “‘This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible...[and] everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.’”  The apostles and disciples are so excited on that day, that everyone assumes they’re drunk!  But the only wine which inebriated them that day was God’s Word and the fulfillment of His promises, what St. Thomas Aquinas calls the new wine of the spirit.

            And so today, faced with this great joy, we should be bursting at the seams!  The joy of knowing that Christ has won and death is no more should be inside us, ready to explode out of us.  Christ’s resurrection means that for those who pass through the cross and remain faithful and obedient to God, as was Jesus, there is a new life awaiting them with no sorrow, no tears, no pain, and a glorified body which is no longer bound by the limits of this earthly domain.  Disease has lost.  Hatred has lost.  Darkness has lost.  Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life, the light of the world, the embodiment of love, has won.  This is a greater joy than winning the lottery, or a new car, or a promotion.  But are we childlike enough to not hold this joy in? 

            Now, I’m a pretty stoic guy.  I’m not one to show a lot of emotion.  But sharing our joy in Christ does not only mean that we are always smiling.  There’s a lot on earth at this time that, if we think about it enough, would probably make us want to cry.  But there’s a confidence that we should have in knowing that anything which is not in Christ will pass away, and will receive it’s final destruction when Christ comes again to establish, once and for all, his total dominion.  This joy that we have means that when we see sorrow and suffering, we want to bring Christ; when we see another walking in darkness, we want to bring light; when we see another oppressed by the chains of hatred, we want to share with them the freedom of God who is Love. 

            I saw that joy on senior day for the MSU Men’s Basketball team.  Now, remember, we lost to Ohio State.  We didn’t play our best.  There was a lot to mourn.  But Austin Thorton let that joy explode out of him when, after being asked to share a few words, began with, “I’d first like to thank my personal Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”  That’s a man who knows the joy of the resurrection, a joy he wants everyone to experience, a joy which he could not keep to himself.  That’s the leaven that St. Paul calls us to be in society, a leaven of sincerity and truth which makes the whole lump of dough rise to Christ. 

            Of course, to share that joy, we have to have it ourselves.  And the only way we get that joy is by knowing Jesus personally.  Evangelicals often ask this question, but really it belongs to us Catholics: Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?  Do you know Him?  Do you love Him?  If not, what are you doing to change that?  By joining a Bible study, a faith sharing group, reading Matthew Kelly’s Rediscovering Catholicism, or watching the “Catholicism” DVD series, we can grow leaps and bounds in that joy that the apostles had.

            In first century Rome, Nero blamed the Christians for the fire of Rome which he started, and the mob went along with it.  St. Paul was beheaded with a sword.  St. Peter was crucified upside down.  Other Christians were doused in tar, attached to large poles, and set ablaze to light the evening streets.  Fast forward 1500 years, and some of the first Christians on our continent, the Jesuit missionaries, endured their fingernails being pulled out, their right hand being chopped off, having boiling water poured over them, and being scalped.  They didn’t endure this because they had some inner strength that we don’t have.  They endured it because of the joy of the resurrection, the joy of knowing Christ, and realizing that nothing was more important than fidelity to God and sharing that joy with others.

            As Deacon Mike mentioned here on Good Friday, Bishop Boyea recently released his first pastoral letter to our diocese, calling for all of us to share the Good News, the joy of Jesus by what we do, by what we say, by how we live our lives, by what we make important.  We come to Mass each week, not to get our Catholic calisthenics of standing, sitting, standing, and kneeling, but to return to Church to celebrate each Sunday as a little Easter; to remind ourselves in what we should have our joy; and to be strengthened by each other, by the Word of God, and especially by the Eucharist: the Body and Blood of the same Jesus who died to save us from sin and rose from the dead. 

            “Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Do we have the heart of a child so that we cannot wait to tell someone who doesn’t know the joy of the resurrection?  Because the tomb is empty!  Hallelujah!  Christ has risen!  Hallelujah!  Death has died!  Hallelujah!  Sin is vanquished!  Hallelujah!  Go and announce the Gospel, the joy of the Lord.  Hallelujah!!

Hammering in the Nails

Palm Sunday of Passion of the Lord

            We began Holy Week by hearing how Jesus entered triumphantly into His city, Jerusalem.  Shortly afterwards, we recalled in the Gospel how Jesus was then mocked, stripped, and crucified for our salvation.  What a stark contrast in a short amount of time.  What a short time it must have seemed for Jesus between the original Palm Sunday and Good Friday.

            How fickle the crown of God’s creation can be.  How easily swayed we are by excitement…and fear.  With the celebration of the Passover in the background, with tens of thousands of pilgrims coming to Jerusalem, the Jews welcomed Jesus.  With the pressure of the Chief Priests, the Scribes, and the Sadducees, the Jews condemned Jesus for blasphemy.  The King of Glory who entered His capital with shouts of “Hosanna” was made to reign upon the Cross with shouts of “Hail the King of the Jews” in mockery. 

            Because we have become so used to seeing Jesus on the cross in artistic renditions of the crucifix, we can easily become numb to its reality.  Death by crucifixion was a death of suffocation, the lungs filling with fluid, making it harder and harder to breathe.  The only way to get a breath was to use the hands and feet to push oneself up, which only increased the pain where the nails were.  It was a horrible, painful death, filled with shame and derision.

            In the face of such suffering, we can all too easily think that we would never have been part of the crowd crucifying Jesus.  We would not be so easily swayed.  We might even say with St. Peter, “‘Even though all should have their faith shaken, mine will not be.’”  But we would be wrong.  All of us—from Pope Benedict XVI to me and you—have all helped to hammer in those nails into Jesus’ hands and feet.  All of us stand guilty.

            If we lie to another, the hammer falls.  If we swear and curse and take the Lord’s name in vain, the hammer falls.  If we totally ignore the poor standing on the corner; if we make decisions based on prejudice and racism; if we fail to see Christ in those around us, the hammer falls.  If we think first of ourselves and never of others; if we skip Mass because we don’t make time for the Lord; if we react to our parents, children, or family members with anger rather than responding with love, the hammer falls.  If we ignore the Church’s teaching on human sexuality, marriage, and contraception because we feel we’re more enlightened; if we support organizations or ideologies that allow for an innocent child in the womb or an elderly or ill person to be put to death because they are inconvenient to our way of life; if we support the objectification of men and women through pornography, the hammer falls.

            All of us who can make a moral choice have been in that fickle mob that first hailed Jesus on His entry into Jerusalem, and then mocked him by hailing Him on the cross.  All of us have helped hammer in the nails into Jesus’ hands and feet.  All of us have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God.  We made Jesus cry out from that cross “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” as Jesus felt the weight of our sins. 

            Since we have forced Jesus to walk that dark pilgrimage to the crucifixion, let us not abandon Him this week.  Though we ran away with the apostles in the garden 2,000 years ago, let us accompany Jesus this year, this week, these days as the Church celebrates our salvation in Christ: to the upper room on Holy Thursday to celebrate the Last Supper; from the upper room to the Garden of Gethsemane to keep watch in prayer; from Gethsemane to Golgotha on Good Friday; and because death and sin do not have the final word, from Golgotha to the empty tomb for the Easter Vigil or the Easter Sunday Mass.  We began Holy Week today in joy.  Let us also end it in the joy of those who, having repented of their sins and confessed them to the Lord, have been washed clean in the blood of the Lamb.  “Come now, let us set things right, says the Lord: Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be red like crimson, they may become white as wool.”