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.

"You're So Vain"

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In Episode III of "Star Wars" (the sixth movie made), there is a scene where the Jedi Council informs Anakin that, at the request of Chancellor Palpatine, Anakin will become a member of the Jedi Council, though he will not be given the rank of Jedi Master.  Anakin bristles at not being given this honor.  He says, “How can you do this?  This is outrageous.  It’s unfair.  How can you be on the Council and not be a Master?”  He quickly asks forgiveness for his outburst, and the Jedi Council meeting continues.  Anakin had strength and power very few Jedi had, and was the youngest member of the Jedi Council, but because of his pride, he could not simply accept the great honor before him, but saw what he considered as a lack of respect and a slight against how advanced he was.
    Christ in the Gospel today warns against seeking after honor and prestige.  He puts it in very pragmatic terms, putting his words into the more palatable meal of allowing others to elevate one.  But, the danger of pride to think oneself the best is something Christ warns us we need to guard against, lest humiliation do the job of keeping our ego in check by showing us who is better than us.  As Qui-Gon Jinn says in Episode I of Star Wars (the fourth movie made), "There’s always a bigger fish.”
    The sin of pride, or perhaps more specifically vainglory, leads us to seek after fleeting realities, rather than focusing on our final end, which is God.  St. Thomas Aquinas teaches in question 132 of the Secunda secundae of the Summa Theologiae that seeking glory means seeking that whereby good is known.  And to know that one has done good is not a sin.  But seeking glory for good can be sinful in three ways: 1) “on the part of the thing for which one seeks glory: as when a man seeks glory for that which is unworthy of glory, for instance…something frail and perishable”; 2) “on the part of him from whom he seeks glory, for instance a man whose judgment is uncertain”; and 3) “on the part of the man himself who seeks glory, for that he does not refer the desire of his own glory to a due end, such as God’s honor, or the spiritual welfare of his neighbor”.  When does something worthy of praise, it is not wrong to want or accept recognition for that good thing.  But if we seek out praise for some minor good, or seek out praise from someone whose opinion doesn’t matter, or fail to recognize that the thing for which we are praised is for God or for our neighbor, then we have fallen into the sin of vainglory, which St. Thomas numbers among the capital vices.
    Vainglory arises when we miss the things that should drive us on to excellence, and focus too much on things that don’t, in the end, matter.  When I am intent on doing God’s will, I can accept praise from others because I know that the praise really redounds to God’s goodness.  My ego doesn’t need stroking because the good I do finds its end in God and in what God desires, namely, my salvation and the salvation of others.  But when I put fleeting things ahead of God and direct my energies to things not directed towards God, then I get unsettled when excellence is not recognized because the glory can be as fleeting as the end to which I direct myself, and then I am left with nothing, because I have not rooted myself in the eternal, God, but have rooted myself in the finite.
    The Angelic Doctor cites Pope St. Gregory the Great in saying that there are seven daughters, or vices directed to a capital vice, that demonstrate the activity of vainglory in our life.  St. Thomas Aquinas writes:
 

Now the end of vainglory is the manifestation of one’s own excellence…and to this end a man may tend in two ways….either by words and this is boasting [the first daughter], or by deeds, and then if they be true and call for astonishment, it is love of novelties [the second] which men are wont to wonder at most; but if they be false, it is hypocrisy [the third].  On another way a man strives to make known his excellence by showing that he is not inferior to another, and this in four ways.  First, as regards the intellect, and thus we have “obstinacy” [the fourth] by which a man is too much attached to his own opinion….Secondly, as regards the will, and then we have “discord,” [the fifth] whereby a man is unwilling to give up his own will, and agree with others.  Thirdly, as regards “speech,” and then we have “contention,” [the sixth] whereby a man quarrels noisily with another.  Fourthly as regards deeds, and this is “disobedience,” [the seventh] whereby a man refuses to carry out the command of his superiors.

To recap, the daughters of vainglory are: boasting, love of novelties, hypocrisy, obstinacy, discord, contention, and disobedience.  As we see any of these in our lives, we are guilty of acts that lead toward vainglory.
    We do not go wrong simply because we seek to be the best and do great things.  We don’t even go wrong when we want true goods to be appreciated.  But when we seek after lesser goods, or goods not directed toward God and salvation of ourselves and/or others, we can fall into the vice of vainglory and start seeking the highest place of honor, even when we don’t deserve it.  Rather, we should seek to excel because it gives helps others and gives glory to God, the giver of every good gift and source of all glory, which is due back, in the end, to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Survey Says

Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Imagine a round of “Family Feud” with a survey of 100 people who were asked, “What is the most difficult part of being Catholic?” there would likely be responses like, “sexual morality;” “having to go to church every Sunday and holyday;” “not eating meat on Friday;” “having to listen to bad homilies;” and the like.  And probably any member of the team who responded thus would hear the comment, “Good answer!”
    But for those who take their faith life seriously, in addition to what that survey says, our Lord’s teaching today on forgiveness, which is also the focus of the first reading and the responsorial psalm, should be near the top if not at the top.  Yes, denying our passions requires effort.  Making time to worship God cannot occur without some planning and dedication.  And yes, Catholic priests and deacons are not always known for the best preaching.  But forgiveness!  That’s one of the hardest teachings to implement.  
    Forgiveness strikes us as such a difficulty for two reasons: one, we don’t necessarily understand forgiveness; and two, we have a God-given desire for justice which concupiscence usually taints.  Both of those factors increase the difficulty of forgiving.
    As for the first reason, I think that sometimes we say forgiveness, but we don’t truly understand the meaning of the word.  When some people say forgiveness, they mean that we pretend like the injury, the wrong-doing, never happened.  But pretending that something didn’t happen does not accord with the truth.  This understanding of forgiveness is cheap, because if nothing bad happened, then there’s nothing good about a person forgiving something which didn’t happen.  Plus, we can’t erase or change the past, as Rafiki in “The Lion King” reminds us.

    The further consequence of this understanding of forgiveness also lends itself to enabling others.  The wife who pretends like her husband didn’t do anything, when in fact he put his hands on her, only encourages the husband to continue to use physical violence because no one stops him.  I can’t tell you the number of sad times when I have encountered as a chaplain a woman who obviously receives abuse from her husband but does not wish to press charges because she doesn’t think it’s loving, or thinks that she’s forgiven him, he didn’t mean to do it, and so she just needs to pretend like it didn’t happen.  That is not forgiveness; that’s enabling.  The same principle can be applied to alcoholics.  
    Forgiveness is an act of charity, of willing the good of the other.  And what makes it so laudable is that it acknowledges the offense that has happened, but chooses not to hold that offense against the other.  This may sound like enabling, but the difference is that forgiveness does or can include allowing a person to experience the consequences of his or her actions.  If you steal $20 from me, I can forgive you and not hold that theft against you.  But I may not ever leave you alone near any money of mine.  A Michigan State Police recruit who wants to be Catholic recently asked me how he can be expected to forgive sexual assault perpetrators, especially when they prey on children.  I mentioned to this recruit that forgiving doesn’t mean the person doesn’t go to jail or prison, or doesn’t face the consequences of his or her actions.  But it means we hope for that person’s conversion, change of heart and change of life, so that it never happens again.  And we rejoice if that conversion does happen.
    A beautiful example of rejoicing in the conversion of someone who has harmed us is the relationship in heaven of St. Stephen and St. Paul.  For the celebration of St. Stephen’s feast day (26 December), St. Fulgentius of Ruspe, a bishop, writes:
 

Now at last, Paul rejoices with Stephen, with Stephen he delights in the glory of Christ, with Stephen he exalts, with Stephen he reigns. Stephen went first, slain by the stones thrown by Paul, but Paul followed after, helped by the prayer of Stephen. This, surely, is the true life, my brothers, a life in which Paul feels no shame because of Stephen’s death, and Stephen delights in Paul’s companionship, for love fills them both with joy.
 
Forgiveness is an act of great charity, which wills the good of the other, no matter what the other has done, even in the heroic example of St. Stephen willing St. Paul’s conversion and holiness, though St. Paul, before his conversion, had helped put St. Stephen to death.
    Forgiveness seems difficult to us because we also desire justice, each person receiving his or her due.  And when a person has disrupted the social order and committed a crime, we want a person to suffer the punishment.  In some sense this is good, because we want a society that is ordered to virtue, and we want to make sure that virtue is encouraged and vice is punished, since not everyone lives according to virtue.  But all too often, we go beyond justice, and we also forget mercy, so that the punishment doesn’t fit the crime.  Forgiveness recognizes that my sense of justice may not be on the mark, and that God will deal out perfect justice, combined with perfect mercy, to the offender.  As the Gospel relates, we are all too ready to ask for mercy, but struggle to offer that same mercy ourselves.  Still, our Lord warns us here and elsewhere, that the measure of forgiveness that we give to others, is the measure of mercy we can expect to receive from Him.
    [Adam and Jamie, the Lord has shown great mercy to you.  While you were still sinners, Christ died for you, and offered the unmerited gift of baptism in another Christian community.  By doing so, He demonstrated His love for you.  But that love has led you to the fullness of the truth in the Catholic Church, so that you can receive even more love through the other sacraments, like Confirmation and the Eucharist which you will receive today.  You did not earn this gift, but God gives it to you freely so that you can live, as best as you can, as a disciple of Christ in full fidelity to what He has taught us through the Scriptures and the teachings of the Apostles.  You also, then, must be merciful and share that gift of salvation with those you meet, including the difficult way of life as a disciple to forgive those who offend us.]
    I would dare say that all of us struggle with forgiveness.  Whether “survey says” or not, forgiveness remains one of the hardest, or perhaps the hardest teaching of Christ for His disciples, for His Church.  May we, whom God has forgiven, forgive others ourselves, since God has paid the debt for our sins by the Passion and Death of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Senses of Scripture

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  An early Church Father from the end of the second and beginning of the third century is Origen.  When he was not yet seventeen, his father was arrested for being Catholic, and was sentenced to death.  Origen wanted to accompany his father, but his mother would not let him, and hid his clothes, so he couldn’t leave his house because of his nudity.  This is the first oddity about Origen.
    He studied the Scriptures deeply, and wrote commentaries on the Gospel of John, the Books of Genesis and Exodus, Psalms 1-25, the Book of Lamentations, Ezekiel and the Song of Songs, as well as other works on prayer.  He wrote the Hexapla, which was the first critical edition of the Old Testament, with the original Hebrew, four different Greek translations, and a Greek transliteration in different columns.  It was quite the monumental work.  While disputed by some, there is a common story that Origen read Matthew 19:12 a bit too literally.  In case that verse doesn’t immediately come to your mind, it’s where Christ says that if your eyes cause you to sin, pluck them out, for it is better to enter heaven without eyes than enter Gehenna with two eyes.  Origen’s eyes weren’t his problem, his libido was.  So he castrated himself.  He also “bishop-shopped” in order to get ordained.  So there were some issues with Origen.
    While some of his teachings (or teachings ascribed to him) were condemned after his death, he gave us the understanding of three different aspects of Biblical interpretation, a schema we still can use today: the literal sense (what does the Biblical account actually say and what happened?); the moral sense (how does this apply to my daily life?); and the spiritual sense (how does this point to Christ?).  And that is what I want to focus on in our Gospel.

    What literally happened (and yes, I’m using that word correctly), was that our Lord encountered a funeral procession in the city of Nain, saw that a boy, the only son of a widowed-mother, had died, and raised him from the dead.  I’ve been to Nain in the Holy Land and there’s a little chapel to commemorate the miracle.  I do find it interesting that we tend to forget that Christ raised other people from the dead other than Lazarus: the daughter of Jairus and the son of the widow of Nain.  
    As we look to the spiritual sense, we see especially in this miracle a foreshadowing of Christ’s own Resurrection.  He was the Blessed Mother’s only son.  By tradition, Mary was a widow when Christ died for our salvation (otherwise Joseph would have also been with Christ during His ministry and especially at the foot of the cross).  The raising of this boy anticipates the Resurrection of Christ in a very direct way.
    But does this story have anything to do with us?  Can we understand this story from a moral point of view and how it affects our daily lives?  I think Origen would say that any Scripture can have a moral sense, if we reflect enough.  And in thinking about this passage, the following occurred to me.
    Sometimes we have spiritually died.  Maybe that’s from mortal sin, which takes away from us sanctifying grace, or the grace that allows us to go to heaven.  We cut ourselves off from our relationship with God.  Our Mother, who gave us spiritual birth, Holy Mother Church, mourns us with all those who are close to her.  At that point, we can do nothing else for ourselves.
    But never fear: Christ is near.  Even while we cannot do anything for ourselves, Christ comes to us to call us from death to life.  He tells Holy Mother Church that she need not weep, because He has risen from the dead and destroyed death and sin.  He has the power to raise us to life again, and tells us to get up from our sin and walk away from them.  And, because of Christ’s power, we can rise up and once more praise God.  We are given new life.
    We probably more often think of the Sacrament of Penance–Confession–as a car wash.  But properly speaking, it’s more like a resurrection, a restoring to new life of someone who was dead, specially if we have committed any mortal, or deadly, sins.  We cannot take away sin ourselves.  Even the desire to ask for forgiveness is itself a gift from God and a way that He already is raising us to new life.  Our sin saddens the family of the Church, and causes them to weep for our loss.  But in Christ, all is not lost, and we can rise again.  That is why we might think of the Sacrament of Penance like a second baptism, a new rising to life for those who are dead, not because of original sin, but because of personal sins.  St. Jerome calls it is a second plank to which we grasp on, after the shipwreck of the loss of the state of grace.  
    So see in the desire for confession Christ coming near to you and starting to raise you to new life.  Holy Mother Church desires you to be fully alive, which, as St. Irenaeus says, is also the glory of God.  Christ comes to you and calls you to stand up and walk away from sin.  May the grace and mercy of God call you to new life and the wholeness that are the gifts of the Resurrection of Christ: who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Believing and Belonging

Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
    All too often, we can be tempted to fall into the temptation that all that really matters is, to use a phrase, me and Jesus.  Some of my favorite country artists have songs to this effect.  Josh Turner sings, “There ain’t nothing that can’t be done by me and God. / Ain’t nobody gonna come between me and God.”  And Brad Paisley sings, “Me and Jesus got our own thing goin’ / Me and Jesus got it all worked out. / Me and Jesus got our own thing goin’/ and we don’t need anybody to tell us what it’s all about.”  And certainly, we do need to have a personal relationship or connection with Jesus.  

    But on 21 September 2010, then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan told the sixth-annual Los Angeles Catholic Prayer Breakfast: 
 

Jesus did not ask, “Saul, why do you persecute my people?” or “Why do you persecute my church?”  Jesus asked, “Why do you persecute me?”…We are living in an era where people believe in Christ, but not in his Church.  They want the king, but not the kingdom; they want to believe without belonging; they want the faith, but not the faithful.  But for the committed Catholic, the answer to that is ‘no can do.’  Jesus and the Church are one.

In other words, we are in this together; it’s not just me and Jesus. 
    And we hear that message in our readings today.  We hear about the principle of solidarity, that we have a responsibility for each other.  Ezekiel the prophet is the “watchman for the house of Israel.”  His duty is to warn the wicked to repent, otherwise not only will they die for their sins, but he will be responsible.  If, however, the Ezekiel warns the wicked and they do not repent, they will die, but Ezekiel will save himself.
    St. Paul, too, reminds us that God commands us to love one another.  In fact, all the commandments about how we should act come down to the command to love our neighbor as ourselves.  And when we love our neighbor, we fulfill the law.
    Maybe solidarity, our share connection to each other, makes the most sense for married couples.  When you celebrated the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, you made a commitment that your life no longer only concerned you.  From that point on, your life intertwined with your spouse, first, and then your children.  Their happiness is yours; their suffering is yours; their salvation impacts your salvation.  
    But while St. Thomas Aquinas rightly teaches that our love has different levels (you have a higher responsibility to care for those closest to you than those who are not as close), we still are called to love our neighbor, even when our neighbor isn’t a spouse or family member, or even a friend.  Pope St. John Paul II wrote in his Encyclical, Sollicitudo rei socialis that solidarity is not a “feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far.  On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good.  That is to say the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.”  I am my brother’s keeper, in response to Cain’s famous question.  In a less powerful way, but still truly, when he succeeds, I succeed; when he fails, I fail.  I still have primary responsibility for myself and my family, but my actions towards others impact me, whether I notice the impact or not.
    This even extends to what we can call fraternal correction, which we hear about in the Gospel today.  Our Lord doesn’t pretend that all of his disciples will always get along.  He knows that, as we’re concerned for each other because we are each other’s keeper, we will sometimes need to correct each other in order to preserve unity in the truth in the Body of Christ, the Church.  
    The key to fraternal correction is charity.  One can give correction without truly seeking the good of the other.  In fact, giving correction can easily become a power trip of me vs. you masquerading as right vs. wrong.  But when we correct others, we need to do so with preparation in prayer first, and with charity throughout the process.  Still, because we are connected, we may need to correct others and let them know if they are falling short of living the Gospel.
    Fraternal correction becomes most difficult with family.  Sometimes it may take someone outside family to do the actual correction.  But even if we can’t correct because of a lack of charity or we have a good sense that the other will not listen to us, we should pray for that person.
    The key is that we are all connected to each other, especially Catholics with each other.  In the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, we who are many are united with Christ, and therefore with each other.  We call the Eucharist Holy Communion because we have union with Christ first and then each other.  But this is only true if we believe the fullness of what Christ has taught and live in accord with how Christ and His Mystical Body, the Church, teaches us.  That is why Catholics living contrary to the major teachings of the Church and non-Catholics cannot receive Holy Communion: they are not in union with us.  [Waylon, part of the great joy today in you receiving your first Holy Communion, is that you will have a new form of union with Christ, who loves you so much that He wants to be closer to you than any other person will be.  But, in order to keep that union with Christ, you will need to follow Him and make sure you keep returning to Mass each Sunday and holyday with your family.  Only when we seek to grow in friendship with Christ each week and when we live as He taught us can we truly say that we have union with Christ and receive all the graces that Christ wants to give us through this sacrament].
    Our individual relationship with Jesus is important.  But it’s not just me and Jesus (or, to be grammatically correct, Jesus and I).  If I am joined to Christ through Holy Baptism, then I am also joined to every other baptized person.  And if I am part of Christ, then I love and show concern for all those whom God loves, that is, everyone, to the extent that I am able.  If we want the king, we also have to take the kingdom; to believe, we must also belong; to have the faith, we also have to take the faithful.  Jesus and His Church are one.  

Wasting our Life for God

Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Bishop Mengeling, God rest his soul, was the consummate story teller.  And his life had many, interesting stories.  One in particular I remember is his vocation story.  Bishop Mengeling’s father, Carl H. Mengeling, was Lutheran, while his mother, Augusta, was Catholic.  Both were German immigrants to the United States.  Young Carl Mengeling (the one who became the bishop of Lansing) attended public schools, but still heard God calling him to be a priest.  But to go to seminary, he needed his dad’s permission.  In the 1940s in the Mengeling household, Carl was mostly business.  He loved his family, but didn’t often show affection.  For that reason, young Carl was concerned about telling his Lutheran father that he wanted to be a Catholic priest and go to seminary.  But, somehow, he related, he found his nerve and one day, on the front porch, young Carl told his father, Carl, that he wanted to go to seminary and become a priest.  His father said, “Why would you want to waste your life like that?”  Young Carl, guided by the Holy Spirit, found the courage to say, “You wasted your life when you married mother, because you loved her and wanted to spend your entire life with her.”  Bishop Mengeling said he had never talked to his father that way.  But, as you know because he became our bishop, Carl the elder gave his blessing, and Carl the younger went to seminary, became a priest, welcomed his father into full communion with the Catholic Church, and then became our bishop in 1996.
    Are you willing to waste your life for God?  Christ says today that if we wish to save our life, we have to lose it.  Following Christ takes a commitment, and sometimes we may have commitment issues.  Society definitely is changing, and people are marrying at a younger age, but until recently, and still to an extent, many adults didn’t want to make the commitment to marry.  They wanted to have the perfect job first; the perfect house first (where, all too often they sinfully cohabited with their significant other).  Or, they had concerns that if they committed to one person, they might miss out on someone better or more compatible.  Or, they just wanted to sow their wild oats and live unchaste lives before committing to one person.  No matter the reason, people had commitment issues.
    And this fear of commitment can easily translate into our relationship with God.  The world promises us so many things–power, money, pleasure, fame–and we chase after it like a mirage in the desert.  We may even come so close, only to experience those fleeting things poof away or cascade through our fingers.  
    Even if we gained everything the world offered, this life is fleeting, and so Christ warns us not to gain the world but lose our soul.  And, in reality, we cannot serve two masters.  We can either commit to the world or to Christ.  But even a person who gains the entire world and lives to the age of 100 has a short time of pleasure, power, fame, and riches compared to the eternity of suffering when one rejects Christ for fleeting goals.  
    But, if we love God–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–no sacrifice is too great.  Jeremiah, God’s suffering prophet, mentions how his love for God and speaking God’s word is like a fire in his heart which he cannot hold in.  He realizes that remaining faithful to God caused him suffering, but he couldn’t help but remain faithful because of his love for God.  Jeremiah experienced calumny, ostracizing, and even captivity in a muddy pit.  But God’s love enticed Jeremiah to stay faithful and proclaim God’s word, however unpopular that word proved to be.
    In the end, nothing else satisfies us other than God.  We return to the familiar quote from St. Augustine’s Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”  That’s true on this side of eternity, but even more so after our death where our hearts are perfectly and eternally fulfilled in the presence of God, or are eternally restless in Hell, separated from our final end.  As King David said about God today in our psalm, “for you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts / like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water.”  

Statue of St. Peter from the Holy Land

    So are we willing to commit ourselves to God?  Peter, at the moment of the Gospel today, did not think Jesus should go through with what Jesus already knew was the will of God: to suffer and to die.  There was something else that Peter thought was more important than God’s will.  Later, he would change his heart, and even find himself willing to suffer for God, dying as a martyr while suffering crucifixion upside-down.  Maybe God won’t ask that of us, but God does us ask to give Him everything, to offer, as St. Paul said, our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, which really means offering all of who we are–body, mind, soul–to God, trusting that He is worth the price, and that He will not let our gift be offered in vain.  
    While Bishop Mengeling was not perfect and we should certainly continue to pray for the repose of his soul, I would dare say that he wasted his life for God.  Certainly, Bishop Mengeling loved God, and so no price was too much to pay, even when it meant giving up his own family as a priest, and even when it meant giving up his life to serve the Diocese of Lansing as our bishop.  In whatever vocation God calls you, are you willing to waste your life to serve God?

Worshipping Outside the Temple

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Some homilies, or at least parts of them, stick in our mind.  Sometimes homilies greatly move us, and so we remember them.  Other times they greatly frustrate us, and so we remember them.  Sometimes we remember one part of a homily rather than the whole thing, and we might not even remember the point of the homily, though a part of it sticks out.
    Today’s Gospel exemplifies my point.  In major seminary we had a priest who preached on this Gospel passage and asked rhetorically: “What was Jesus’ problem?”  That phrase alone stands out as memorable.  He continued to preach that the nine other lepers had done exactly what our Lord told them to do: they went to the priests, at least we might presume this.  But the one, a Samaritan, returned to Christ to thank Him.  Christ had not asked them to come back and thank Him.  But He praises the faith of the Samaritan and questions why the other nine did not come back.  I honestly don’t remember where the homily went from there, nor the way that this priest resolved the issue.

    If we take seriously the Gospel, that question should bother us, even if maybe we ask it in a different way.  The nine whom our Lord healed did not disobey Him; in fact, they obeyed Him more directly.  To be fit for temple worship, one had to show oneself to the priests, to prove that the leprosy, whether what we call today Hansen’s disease or another skin ailment, had disappeared.  Christ was following the Law as given by Moses.
    The Samaritan did not follow the Law, nor would he have been expected to, as his people had broken away from Israel and worshipped false gods, which eventually led to their exile by the Assyrians and a syncretic new religion which mixed some of the Jewish practices with many of the pagan practices and beliefs.  Still, the Savior praises the Samaritan for returning and giving thanks.
    I would argue that Christ, in praising the Samaritan, affirmed His divinity, a divinity which the Samaritan seemed to recognize, while the other nine, ostensibly Jewish lepers, failed to recognize.  As I mentioned, leprosy made one unfit for worshipping in the Temple.  And the purpose of worshipping in the Temple was to give God His due.  The priests helped facilitate this, especially, but not only, for lepers, by bringing them back in.  But the lepers, all ten of them, didn’t need to go to the Temple to worship God; they had the opportunity to worship God by returning to the God-Man who had healed them.
    Now, there had been healings of leprosy in the Bible before Christ.  But only two.  The first happened when Moses pleaded for his sister, who contracted leprosy when she started to speak against Moses’ holiness and his marriage to a Cushite woman.  Miriam questioned why only Moses could speak for God.  So God afflicted her with leprosy.  Moses pleaded for her to receive healing, and God cured her after having her wait outside the camp for seven days (a kind of excommunication, as she was cast outside of God’s people until she learned the error of her ways).  The second healing happened when Elisha commanded Naaman, the commander of the army of Aram, to wash in the Jordan seven times.  After he had done this, Naaman received healing.  In both these instances, neither Moses nor Elisha did more than intercede for the lepers.  But in the Gospel we heard today, while our Lord told the lepers to show themselves to the priest, it was clear that He had healed them as they went on their way.  So our Lord did more than simply intercede: He cleansed them, a power which only belonged to God in the Old Testament.  
    So in order to return to worship God, the lepers didn’t need to be able to enter into the Temple precincts.  They simply needed to return to the one who had healed them: God-with-us, the Incarnate God and Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, Jesus Christ.  But the Jewish lepers didn’t realize this.  The Samaritan, who could not have gone beyond the Court of the Gentiles in the Temple, could not have encountered God in the holy place, which was open only to Jewish men, realizes he has encountered God in Jesus and returns to thank Him.  

    There was, of course, another Samaritan who had encountered the Incarnate God.  And while I don’t know where the seventeenth chapter of Luke, which we heard today, lines up in time with the fourth chapter of John, which is the passage about the Samaritan woman at the well, one can presume that the latter encounter was temporally the earlier encounter.  And perhaps the Samaritan man had even heard, from afar, about the woman who came to believe that Jesus was the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, and then realized that the same Christ had healed him, just as the same Christ had told the Samaritan woman how to worship: neither on that mountain in Shechem nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit and truth.  And so the Samaritan man starts to do what Christ told the Samaritan woman to do: to worship in spirit and truth, no longer only in the Temple, but wherever the God-Man was.
    Do we worship God in spirit and truth?  Do we glorify God, not only in this temple, but everywhere we encounter Christ?  Certainly, God dwells here in a particular way, and we need to come to Mass, not merely pray at home, in nature, or through a screen.  But having fulfilled our Sunday and holyday obligations, do we also worship God for the wonders He does in our daily lives, no matter how big or how small?  Any work of God gives us reason for worshipping God, even if it’s simply providing us with enough money to buy a good meal, or giving us a green light when we’re in a hurry, or sensing the presence of God and an answer to a question that we have asked God.  Yes, certainly come back to this temple to worship God, but do not neglect to worship and thank God right where you are at then.  Otherwise, you’ll be like the nine lepers who were chastised by Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Tu Es Petrus

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
    “Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum.  Habemus papam!  Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Robertum Franciscum, Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Prevost, qui sibi nomen imposuit Leonem decimum quartum.”  I still remember hearing those words on 8 May 2025, and the shock of realizing that an American-born man had been elected Supreme Pontiff.  I pealed the bells at St. Matthew for numerous minutes and could not contain my excitement.  And then later to learn that Fr. Prevost had baptized a child here at St. Matthew even added to that joy.  If you haven’t seen our font since last year, you should take a look at the commemorative plaque that tells visitors that Pope Leo XIV celebrated baptism here in 1999.

Statue of St. Peter in front of the Basilica of St. Peter 

    There’s something about Peter.  We heard about Christ choosing Peter as the leader of the apostles, the one upon whom Christ would build His Church.  And after Pentecost, St. Luke takes great care to show that Peter leads the apostolic college.  He speaks for all at Pentecost and calls the people gathered there to believe in Jesus and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.  As Peter and St. John the Apostle go to the temple, in the name of Christ Peter heals the man who was crippled, for which the Sanhedrin arrests Peter and John, who both say that they cannot help but proclaim Jesus as the Messiah, and the Sanhedrin tells them to stop, but Peter and John still share the Gospel.  St. Luke continues in Acts 5:15, “Thus they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them.”  We see similar things even today as strangers will hand their infants to the pope as he rides in the popemobile, just to have the successor of Peter bless their child.  
    Christ set up His Church with Twelve Apostles, the new princes of the new Israel, just as the twelve sons of Jacob were the leaders of the nation of Israel as they migrated to Egypt.  But among these twelve Apostles, Christ gave special authority to St. Peter.  Jesus says in today’s Gospel that Peter holds the keys to the kingdom of heaven of binding and loosing, an authority of authentic teaching and forgiveness that all the Apostles would eventually receive, but Peter first.  In Luke 22:32, after prophesying that Peter would fall away, Jesus tells him, “‘once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers.’”  And in John 21:15-18, after hearing Peter say that he loved Jesus three times (ostensibly to make up for Peter’s threefold denial), Jesus commands Peter to feed Jesus’ lambs, tend His sheep, and feed His sheep.  And even at the Resurrection, St. John the Apostle waits for Peter to enter the empty tomb, even though John ran faster and arrived there first.  
    As Catholics, part of our faith, what it means to be Catholic, is that the pope is the visible sign of unity, with special authority, for the entire Church.  Certainly many other Christians do not recognize this, but it does not make it less true.  Even bishops, successors of the apostles, need someone to help them know when they are right and wrong, and the pope does that.  Does that mean the pope is always holy?  Certainly not.  Our own history bears this out, sadly, time and again, where popes had illegitimate children or “made tombs more splendid than the houses of the living,” to attribute a “Lord of the Rings” quote from “The Return of the King” to the dark times of the papacy.
    But still, we believe Christ’s words, that “‘the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against” the Church: that the pope will never teach anything authoritatively contrary to the will of God.  And we look to Peter as a sure guide of faith, though he is a man, just like any man, but still endowed with the greatest authority on earth, because it also touches into heaven.  
    So while the exercise of papal authority, especially in matters of discipline, ebbs and flows, what can never change is that Peter and his successors are the visible head of the Church, the Vicar of Christ for all who profess faith in Christ.  He is the Bishop of Rome; Vicar of Jesus Christ; Successor of the Prince of the Apostles; Supreme Pontiff (which means High Priest or Supreme Bridge-Builder, hearkening back to the role of the pagan Roman priests);  Patriarch of the West; Primate (or head bishop of a Catholic country) of Italy; Metropolitan Archbishop  of the Roman Province; Sovereign of Vatican City State; Servant of the Servants of God.  This last title, added by Pope St. Gregory the Great, reminds the pope that his special authority is not for him, but for us, as a way of serving the Church and giving us a true guide of what to believe and how to live.  As with any authority in the Church, it serves a greater purpose, and only is what it should be when the office-holders view their authority in view of service.  

    Why is the pope so special?  Because Peter was special.  Why was Peter so special?  Because of personal holiness?  Because of a special earthly wisdom?  Next week we’ll hear Jesus refer to his first pope as “Satan,” as Peter advises Jesus not to suffer for us and our salvation.  So no, it had nothing to do with special holiness or earthly wisdom.  Peter is special because God makes him special, and gives him greater responsibility as a sure guide for all in the Church.  Is it exciting that an American-born man ascended to the Chair of St. Peter?  Certainly!  But no matter whence the pope comes, the pope reminds us that we are connected to Jesus through the apostles, and especially through the Blessed Apostle Peter, Prince of the Apostles and Vicar of Christ.  Pray for Pope Leo XIV that he can live up to the great authority which has been bestowed upon him by the cardinals of the Church, and that he can truly be our visible sign of unity among all who follow Christ in truth and charity.

The Spirit of the Law

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I will admit, as I’m driving down Court Street, and I see a car or a motorcycle fly past me driving 15 mph over the speed limit; or I see a car drive through the intersection not on a green light, a yellow light, or even an amber light (that intermediate time between yellow and red), but driving through a solid red light; or in construction zones, when a car blocks an open lane because they don’t understand how a zipper merge works; I want to be like the cops in the TV shows, throw a red bubble on the top of my car, pull them over, and write them a ticket for breaking the law.  I like the law, and I like it when people follow it.  If I have to, they should, too.
    But when it comes to The Law, not just man-made laws, but the Law given through Moses, how do we deal with it?  How do we consider the Law for others?  How do we consider the Law for ourselves?  More often than not, we have stricter standards for others than we have for ourselves, whether intended or not.  We tend to notice the splinter in our brother’s eye rather than the beam in our own.  
    And at face value, St. Paul seems pretty tough on the Law.  Today he refers to it as the ministry of condemnation.  He often writes how the Law does not save.  So we might think that we don’t have to follow the Law.  But, on the other hand, we tend to accept the Ten Commandments, the heart of the Law.  And if we don’t accept the Ten Commandments, we’re in trouble.  We need to follow the Ten Commandments.  But yet, the other six hundred odd points of the law, we tend not to follow.  And every time you eat bacon or a cheeseburger, you should thank God that we don’t have to follow the Law, as any meat from pig or any mixture of meat and milk was illegal.
    The other option finds its basis ostensively in the epistle, where Paul contrasts the law and the spirit of the law.  It can be easy to say that we need to follow the spirit of the law, not the law itself.  And there are numerous Gospel passages where our Lord seems to suggest that we go beyond what the clear text of the Law states.  But the difference is that whereas the spirit of the Law as presented by Christ tends to be stricter, whereas our idea of the spirit tends to be easier.  In Matthew’s Gospel, Christ teaches that the spirit of the Law not only forbids us having sex with someone who is not our spouse, but also means we cannot look at another person with lust in our hearts.  Whereas now many would say that the spirit of the law means that Christ would never want us to be unhappy or that Christ wants us to love, so however that happens is ok, no matter what the Law says about adultery or sexual relations in general.  
    So when people use the phrase “the spirit of the law,” often they’re taking on an anti-nomian mentality (the Greek word for law is nomos).  But the point the Apostle is making in the epistle is not that we get to eliminate all rules, but what the Law is supposed to do, and what Christ came to do.  
    The Law, St. Paul says elsewhere that God gave us the law as a tutor, as a way to teach us how to follow God.  It did have a certain glory because it came from God.  Indeed, as Moses received the law from God, Moses’ face began to shine, which freaked out the Israelites enough that they would make Moses cover his face with a veil in their presence, and then remove the veil when he returned to the presence of God.
    But the way of life that Christ taught us, the way to live like Him, in full obedience to the Father and in the most fulfilling form of life we can live, goes beyond the simple “Thou shalt not,” and gets to the deeper ways that we can live as beloved sons and daughters in the Son of God.  And this starts to transform us even more, and helps us shine like Christ shone at the Transfiguration.  We put halos around the heads of saints because there is a way in which holiness helps us to shine, like lights, in the midst of a world that includes a lot of darkness.
    Looking at the law, God forbade the people from murdering each other, or taking an innocent life.  That taught us a baseline minimum.  But Christ, the New Moses, says that true holiness comes from living at peace with others, and not letting grudges fester.  When we come to the point when we can love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, we experience a freedom that truly frees great.  It’s no longer walking around convincing ourselves not to kill that person who forever gets on our nerves, it’s not letting another affect us in such a way that we feel we need to exact justice, rather than letting the source of justice and mercy, deal with the person in the best way possible.

    Or, looking at the Gospel, the man thought he was fine because he knew God commanded to him to love God and his neighbor, but missed who his neighbor is.  And notice that the Samaritan hero of the parable doesn’t simply make sure the victim isn’t dead.  He takes the victim on his own beast of burden, takes him to an inn where he can be cared for, and even pays for the victim’s medical care.  Again, the spirit of the law of love of neighbor didn’t mean that you could ignore people you don’t like or because the person is a foreigner.  The law of love for neighbor means doing what you can, however much or little that might be, to help the other person know that it’s good that he exists.  Rather than the colloquial idea that the spirit of the law means the bar is lowered, the spirit of the law tends to mean that the bar is raised, but also helps transform a person more to live in accord with the will of God.  
    The Law is not bad.  Some of it has been done away with (like kosher laws and animal sacrifices).  But the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, is eternal.  Still, the Commandments provide us with a basic understanding of how to live as God wants.  The spirit goes deeper, to transform the entire person and transform and transfigure us to live like Christ.  May the Holy Spirit help us to understand not simply the basics of living as God desires, but truly transform us at our deepest levels to put on Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.