"As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD"

Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

I think that people generally like to be the best or the biggest.  We like the ability to quantify groups, teams, positions to see if we are the biggest or doing the best.  For example: we rejoice that MSU Men’s Basketball has made it to the NCAA tournament for 15 consecutive years under the leadership of Tom Izzo.  Politicians, especially in this election year, rely on polls to see how many people agree with their position, and if they need to tweak or change their position to become more popular.  I can even fall into this trap at times.  When others ask me how many parishioners we have, I am proud to announce to them that we are the largest parish in the Diocese of Lansing, with 3500 families plus the students who live on campus.  Numbers are great, and we can want to pin our futures and actions on those numbers.

But the truly successful in Scripture do not do that.  In fact, they tend to throw any quantifiable data out the door and just trust in God.  Take Joshua from our first reading: at the end of the campaigns of the Chosen People in the Holy Land, Joshua sets before the Chosen People the choice to be faithful to God or to the pagan gods whom they had just put behind them.  Joshua knows the fickle character of the people.  He had seen how they rejoiced when they fled the slavery of Egypt, but how they also wanted to go back when things got tough.  So Joshua gives them the choice of following the God who had brought them safely from the land of Egypt and had settled them in the Promised Land, or serving their pagan gods, who were no gods at all.  “As for me and my household,” Joshua says, “we will serve the LORD.”  Joshua decides that a future with God is where he will make his claim, no matter what the others choose to do.  He is not concerned about how many join with him.

Jesus also seems to be oblivious to numbers.  He had just told the Jews that unless they eat His flesh and drink His blood they will not have life in them.  And the Jews are pretty much all disgusted and walk away.  The teaching on the Eucharist is too much for them.  But Jesus does not run after them, shouting, “Wait!  Lemme explain this a little more!  I was talking sacramentally!!”  Even with his chosen band, the Twelve Apostles, He simply says, “‘Do you also want to leave?’”  He doesn’t change his teaching because of low polling results because His teaching is Truth, with a capital T.  Jesus has come to reveal the Father and the Father’s love and truth.  If people accept it, that would be great!  But if they don’t, Jesus still is faithful to the message God the Father gave Him to proclaim.

It is tough not to care about the results.  It is tough to be concerned primarily with the Truth.  But, if we are to be like Jesus, then that is our call.  Our hopes, our futures, cannot be attached to any numbers.  We cannot choose Jesus simply because a lot of other people have.  We must be personally convicted that Jesus is Lord, and that He founded only one Church that faithfully passes on His message in its entirety, or else the teachings of Jesus will be too hard for us and we, like the Jews, will leave.  

Even today, Jesus still teaches difficult things with which our current culture is very uncomfortable.  Many people today will say, “What do you mean I have to go to Church every Sunday and Holyday?!?  I can worship God wherever I want!”; “I have to get married in a church building if I’m Catholic?  But it’s so beautiful on the beach!”; “Marriage is only between one man and one woman for life?  How insensitive to those who have same-sex attractions!”; “A male-only priesthood?  Don’t you know Augusta just opened up to women members?  Get with the times!”; “the Church needs to stay out of my bedroom!”  Of course, there are so many more.  And yet, the teaching of Jesus through His Church remains firm, and is not based upon public perception.

It takes a lot of faith and trust to care not about public opinion but about truth.  It puts us under the order (subordinate) of another.  This is what St. Paul tells us in the second reading: “Brothers and sisters,” that is, men and women, “be subordinate to each other out of reverence for Christ.”  Not only are we to pin our hopes and futures on Jesus, but we are to live out His life of service towards each other.  We are voluntarily to be subordinate to each other, just as Christ was subordinate to God the Father, and the Church is subordinate to Jesus Christ.  

When we hear this reading, we may think that this was just a chauvinist writing.  But St. Paul calls both men and women to subordinate themselves to the other, especially in marriage, which witnesses the relationship of Jesus with the Church.  Of course, the husbands many smile when they hear the line, “Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord,” and the women may bristle.  But St. Paul also outlines how the husbands are to subordinate themselves to their wives, by telling them to love their wives as Christ does the Church.  There was nothing that Jesus would not give for His Bride, the Church.  He lowered Himself for her by taking on our human nature; He was constantly at her service; and, in the greatest act of subordination, He gave up His very life and descended to the depths of Hell so that she could live and not have to die.  That is certainly subordination on the part of the man.  

Every day we have the choice: do we follow the teaching that is most popular?  Do we join the ecclesial community that has the biggest following?  Or do we receive the Scriptures, “not [as] a human word, but, as it truly is, the word of God,” as St. Paul says?  Whether it’s the teaching on the Eucharist, or marriage, or sexual morality, or whatever, Jesus, even today through His Church, teaches us the Truth that the Father has given Him.  And Jesus asks us, “‘Do you also want to leave?’”  May our answer be the same as St. Peter: “‘Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.’”

Do You Smell Good?

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            A couple of weeks ago I went out to lunch with a guy named Joe.  Joe graduated from Lansing Catholic this past May, and was getting ready to move down to Ave Maria College in Florida, where he will play football, and he wanted to catch-up a little before he left.  While Joe and I were eating lunch, the waitress, a 45-50 year old women came over and said, “I just have to say, one of you smells really good.”  There we were, left with the option of a woman liking the smell of either a young priest (dressed in clerics, mind you), or an 18-year-old. 

            A few days later, playing volleyball with some friends on a Thursday evening, my teammate tells me as he’s about to serve, “Father, you smell really good!  What type of cologne do you wear?” 

            We each have our own smells.  Some are highlighted (or hidden) by deodorants and/or cologne or perfume.  But our “scent,” if you will, helps to communicate who we are.  St. Paul, in our second reading, tells us to “be imitators of God…as Christ loved us and handed himself over…as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.”  So if we are to be like Jesus, we must smell like Jesus, not in the sense of our musk, but in the way we live.

            When a person is baptized and later confirmed, Sacred Chrism is put on his or her head.  The Chrism is a mixture of olive oil and a special perfume.  Parents of baptized babies notice the smell of the Chrism.  Those who are confirmed certainly notice the smell, especially since most of those who are confirmed around here are in adolescence and are very concerned with how they smell.  But Sacred Chrism smells for a reason.  It reminds us that we are to have a special smell, the aroma of Christ, the odor of holiness.

            How do we smell differently?  How do we have the odor of holiness?  There are a lot of ways, but based upon our first reading and our Gospel, I want to suggest one very practical way: the way we treat Sundays.

Sunday is a Christian’s day, because it is the day that Jesus rose from the dead.  That’s why we set it aside every week for worship.  It is the new Sabbath, fulfilling the rest that God commanded we take in the Ten Commandments.  It is a day to be given over to the worship of God, charitable works, family and friends, and relaxation.  And it used to set us Catholics apart, just as Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, set Jews apart.  But we have fallen away from the sacredness of the Lord’s Day.

Why do we need the Lord’s Day?  Frankly, we need the rest.  I’m sure I could ask any one of you how the past week went, and you would have myriad events that took place that, whether simply required or even recreational, drained your batteries.  We need rest, just like Elijah, working for God, needed rest.  In fact, he was running away from King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, who were going to kill him, because he had demonstrated the power of the true God, and put to death the false-prophets of Baal.  But, Sunday is not just about sleeping all day.  Even Elijah is told to take bread, because He will need it for the journey to the mountain of God.

Sunday is also about worship, and for us as Catholics, that worship means the Mass.  We are not fulfilling the Sabbath Commandment if we just sleep all day and vaguely think about God.  We need to come to Mass because it is only in the Mass that the Bread of Angels, the Eucharist, is given to us.  We come to Mass because it is there, in a special way, that we are taught by God through His Word, read to us to strengthen us to live out our baptismal call to holiness.  Jesus promises us that, if we are not conscious of grave sin, which makes us unworthy to receive His Body and Blood, than we will live forever, because the bread that He gives is his “flesh for the life of the world.”  The Eucharist is precisely what we need to have strength to do those million things that naturally arise in life between Monday and Saturday, from work, from family, from sports, etc. 

Now, there are lots of people, even Catholics, who do not go to Mass on Sunday, who do not receive the Eucharist, and we may think that they’re doing just fine.  But “just fine” is only a shadow of the “great” that God wants for them, if they would only come to Mass to worship and receive, in a state of grace, the Eucharist.  Without the Body and Blood of Christ that we receive at Mass, we are only a shadow of who we can truly be in Christ.

For the rest of the day, as a way of having the aroma of Christ, let’s say no to almost everything else.  That will be hard, without a doubt.  And some of us have to work, especially in emergency response jobs or the service industry like in restaurants or gas stations.  But, many of us can say no to anything which is not truly relaxing and God-focused.  Many of us can say no to sports practices and menial work which can be done on other days.  If we pledge to each other that we will say no to lesser things, which allows us to say yes to God, family & friends, assisting the poor, and relaxation for one day per week, then our families will be able to worship God and find strength in the Eucharist, and will be able to enjoy each other’s company and strengthen their familial bonds, and we’ll have the strength and energy we need to do the work that lies ahead of us from Monday through Saturday: at work, at school, on the field, in the gym, and around the house.  And in this one way, we will have the aroma of Christ, the odor of holiness, so that we will smell good, not for a waitress or a friend, but for God.

Being Intimate

75^th Anniversary of the Diocese of Lansing

            When I was at Lansing Catholic High School as a student from 1998-2002, our principal was famous for one phrase: “Don’t dig yourself a hole.”  While many of us in the class heard it so often that we started to make light of it, as  high school students are wont to do, looking back, it was great advice which serves a person well in academics, sports, and extra-curriculars of any kind.    In essence, what our principal was saying was that starting out is very important in anything we do to being successful in the long run.

            As we begin our Year of Prayer as a Diocese, our Gospel starts us out strong, because we begin with the prayer of Jesus, the one who prays perfectly.  In our Gospel passage, we are allowed to enter into the private, intimate exchange between the Father and Son, just as the apostles were at the Last Supper, when this prayer was originally prayed. 

            Our Year of Prayer, as a Diocese, is precisely about entering into that intimate relationship between the Father and the Son, a love so strong that it breathes forth the Holy Spirit.  And we can only do so because we have been consecrated by Christ in Baptism.  We have been consecrated into the truth.  And because of that consecration we can take part in the pouring forth of love between Father and Son and Holy Spirit, which forms the foundation of any true love that exists in the entire universe.  How blest we are to be able to listen to the words of Love Incarnate to His Father!  Without God’s permission, we could never presume, as creatures, to be worthy of hearing that dialogue.  But God welcomes us, through Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to not only observe the dialogue, but to become part of it in Christ. 

            In this Mass, we celebrate the dialogue in ritual ways.  God speaks to us grace and peace, and we respond.  God speaks His Word, and we say, “Thanks be to God.”  Jesus ultimate gift of love to the Father, His very self on the cross, is re-presented for us on this altar of sacrifice in the Eucharist.  And this act of love is so great that we are invited to respond after the Words of Institution and I remind us that this is the Mystery of Faith. 

            Celebrating Mass, this celebration, is the best thing that I will ever do in my life.  Joining in the celebration with me is the best thing you will ever do in your life.  Nothing can top it, except heaven, of which this Mass is an anticipation.  In the reality of God, there is no more intimate union with God then what happens right here, because we are involved in the total gift of the Son, in whom we are members through Baptism, to the Father.

            But we are not given this great gift so that we can keep it to ourselves.  Jesus does not consecrate us and allows us to share in the most powerful, intimate love ever just to keep it to ourselves.  We then are called to be in union with Jesus, all of us together, through His teachings, given to us in Scripture and in the teachings of the Church.  And we are also called to share it with others, so that the world will believe that God sent Jesus, and that God loves us even as He loves Jesus.  And when we share that love with others, in union of action and belief with who Jesus is and what He teaches us through the Scriptures and His Body, the Church, then others want that.  They hunger for it.  They want that love, because they were created for that love.

            Each week, in the Mass, we enter into the most powerful, most intimate love ever: the love of the Trinity Who is Love itself.  Each week, if we receive the Body and Blood worthily, we are given grace to then share that love with others.  During this Year of Prayer, draw deeper into the love of God by growing deeper in love with the Mass, and with daily prayer which continues that love each day.  And then share that love with others, so that all may be joined to Christ in His Church, and experience the Love that God has for us.