Eden, Heaven, and Sacrifice

Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Matthew Church
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  “I can worship God anywhere, I don’t need to go to church.”  We hear this phrase, sometimes from teens who don’t want to go to Mass, sometimes from adults who feel the same way.  And I think most, if not all, of us have had experiences of God outside the walls of this building, be it a beautiful sunset or a powerful storm, or maybe the calm and peace that come from time spent with a loved one.  

    And while when people enter this building for the first time, most tend to lose their breath for a bit, or look all around and say or whisper, “wow!”, why bother assembling in a place to worship God?  Why do we spend large amounts of money to build and maintain churches like this?  Why does the Catholic Church assign one of the greatest importances to celebrating the day a building was dedicated?
    It all has to do with what churches should do, and there are, I would argue, three primary goals for a church: remind us of Eden, point towards heaven, and celebrate a sacrifice.  The more a church does all three, the more we can truly call it a beautiful church.
    First, churches should point us to Eden.  In the Garden of Eden, God and man walked together as friends.  God was still God, and we were not, but there was a strong and close relationship between humanity and God.  The strain that came from work and the pain that came from childbirth didn’t exist, because they only came to be through sin.  The harmony that existed between God, humanity, and the rest of the created world was the only reality.  Man and woman didn’t lust after each other, even though they appreciated each other.  The break of that trifold relationship of God-man-nature only broke down when Adam and Eve tried to usurp the place of God and committed the original sin, a sin which they passed down to their descendants, even to us in the present day.  
    The ordering of the Church should remind us of the original order and harmony of the Garden of Eden.  We see hints of vegetation in our capitals on the columns, there are ordered other plants in the wallpaper in the sanctuary, like heads of grain and bunches of grapes, there are animals that are staying calm like the pelican image on the front of the high altar and fish in the wallpaper.  There is also a harmony that exists among the created items that make up this building, working together to provide a solid, intelligent structure.  In the church, we also have a harmony with each other and with God, which is why, at the beginning of Mass, we ask pardon from each other for any faults we have committed in the Confiteor.  When a church lacks any sense of the harmony of nature and the harmony that exists between God and humanity, it lacks a certain beauty.  Also, we don’t find this ordering anywhere else, because outside of this building, the effects of sin still run rampant between us and God, each other, and us and nature.  The order that exists here simply doesn’t exist outside in the same way.

St. Pier Giorgio Frassati

    Secondly, a church should point us towards heaven.  Why do we have so many images of the saints?  Why aren’t Catholic Churches just whitewashed walls?  Because heaven has numerous occupants.  It’s never been “me and Jesus” alone.  To be in union with the Lord means that we are also in union with those who are already united to Him in heaven.  That cloud of witnesses, from Abel to the Sts. Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis (to name two of our newest canonized saints), join with us in the in-breaking of heaven on earth.  Churches use precious materials because St. John describes heaven, in the Book of Revelation, as filled with precious materials.  Churches do not only look to the past and the Garden of Eden, but also look to the future and the place we want to end up, in heaven with God.  When we worship God at Mass, all the angels and saints join with us, and we with them, in a liturgy that echoes how heaven is described in the Bible.  As much as Shoeless Joe Jackson can ask Ray Kineslla in the classic movie “Field of Dreams” as he walks into the corn field from the baseball diamond Ray built, “Is this heaven?”, we know that heaven is not a place on earth.  But in the church, we get a glimpse of heaven breaking into earth in a way that happens no where else other than in churches.  
    Lastly, we celebrate a sacrifice.  Churches are not simply lecture halls where one can hear a rousing sermon (though I’m sure you’re moved by the current homily).  Churches are not concert halls where one simply hears music, being Gregorian chant or Christian rock.  Churches are places of sacrifice.  And how do we know this?  From the earliest days of the Church, church buildings contained an altar.  St. Ignatius of Antioch, who died around the year AD 107, who learned the faith from St. John the Apostle and whom St. Peter ordained a bishop, referred to a feature in the Christian celebration with the word thusiasterion, a Greek word that means altar, when talking about the Eucharist that the bishop celebrated.  Tertullian (who died in AD 240) and St. Cyprian (who died in AD 258) also speak about altars when describing the Eucharistic table.  
    But altars only exist for one reason: for sacrifice.  The first Christians understood the Eucharist as a sacrifice, but not as a new sacrifice, but the joining to the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ on the cross.  And Christ allowed us to join in that sacrifice through the ritual He Himself gave us at the Last Supper.  In the church building we fulfill the Lord’s command to do this ritual in memory of Him that unites us mystically to the offering of the Lord on the cross on Calvary.  No where else in nature does God randomly change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of His Beloved Son in an unbloody manner.  Only when we come to a church building do we have this opportunity to join ourselves to the sacrifice that saved us from sin and death and opened heaven for believers.  
    So no; you can’t worship God in the same way anywhere else other than a church building.  And that’s why, 107 years ago, our predecessors put aside large amounts of money to begin the building of this church building.  That’s why, through the decades that followed 1919, priests and people worked to beautify this sacred temple to help it reflect Eden, heaven, and the sacrifice of the Lamb.  May we continue the good work they began in Christ, and may this holy building continue to give us rest from our earthly labors and communion with God and each other as we seek to see the Lord Jesus Christ [who, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen].

Busting Myths

Feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]  Sometimes we hear things that sound good or make apparent sense, which, in the end, do not hold up.  I’m the sort of guy who generally fills up my gas tank when it’s half full, and I started doing this because, when I was young, someone (I can’t remember for sure who) told me that gas could freeze in the tank in the winter if there was room in the tank.  I recently mentioned that, and the other person challenged me on the factuality of that claim.  And it turns out, gas freezes somewhere between -40º and -200º Fahrenheit.  So it’s not going to freeze.  And even if the temperature at which gas freezes is higher, it would freeze whether they tank was half full or entirely full.  So, myth busted.  
    We might have heard another myth: that I can worship God just as well outside a church as I can inside a church.  People may say that they feel closer to God in nature.  Or they feel the comfort of God’s presence best in their home.  Or, in a post-COVID world, some will say that they prefer to attend Mass via livestream.  Certainly, God is present everywhere, indoors and outdoors.  Certainly our homes are places of comfort.  And, for a while, many people’s legitimate only access point to the Mass was through a computer screen.

    But as we celebrate the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran today, if those statements about worshiping God that I just mentioned are true, then why do we celebrate a church, albeit beautiful and awe-inspiring, in Rome?  And why even bother coming here?  If we can access God, who is omnipresent, anywhere, what’s the point in going to church on Sunday or any other day?
    The tricky thing about bad teachings is that something which is false tends to include something that is true.  If it had no truthful aspect, we would reject it outright.  But if it has some truth to it, we might choose to believe because we recognize some aspect of truth.  So yes, God is present everywhere.  Yes, people can easily experience God in nature.  Yes, God does sometimes give us comfort, and our homes can remind us of that comforting presence of God.  And yes, what churches broadcast through the livestream is the Mass, and for the sick or those who cannot drive to Mass, that is a better way to celebrate Sunday, the Lord’s Day, rather than just watching the NFL or playing Yahtzee.  
    But just because God is everywhere doesn’t mean He is equally present everywhere.  God can be experienced through a beautiful sunset, or a powerful storm.  But the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, brings God’s presence to us in a way that occurs no where else outside of a church.  I promise you that the Eucharist will not materialize before you in your hunting blind on Saturday.  Saints like St. Clare have had visions of the Eucharist (which is why she is the patron saint of television), but the unique presence of Christ in the Eucharist comes with a church building.  God makes Himself present to us in a special way and even wants us to receive the Body and Blood of Christ so that we can have God within us.  And receiving the Eucharist generally happens during Mass.  We may not always feel different from receiving the Eucharist, but we are different.  St. John Vianney said, “If we really understood the Mass we would die of joy.”  Extreme joy may not be your experience at Mass every week, every month, or even yearly.  But just because I don’t experience an emotional response doesn’t mean that the most beautiful union between God and man isn’t taking place.  
    Just because we feel comfortable in our house doesn’t mean that we are experiencing the consolation of God.  The comfort that God came to give was at a much deeper level than just physical comfort.  He came to heal our souls.  There are many ways in which we can be opposed to God and yet feel physically good.  Maybe it’s drinking too much, sleeping when we should go to Mass, or engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage.  Those things all feel physically good, and yet do not mean that God is with us our supporting us.  Also, the Lord reminded us that following Him may often include suffering of various kinds, which means that we are not made for comfort.
    Plus, while we all should have a personal relationship with the Lord, it’s not just me and Jesus.  Being baptized means that God joins us to the entire Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, and we are connected to each other.  That cannot be fully picked up simply by staying at home, even with other family members, because the Church is not just one family or even just one ethnic group or nationality.  To be Catholic means that we embrace all who want to follow Christ.
    Lastly, watching the Mass on the computer or on TV never means nor meant that we attended Mass.  One can watch the Mass as a lesser way of sanctifying the Lord’s Day, but to truly attend Mass one must be physically present.  My earlier words also apply: you cannot receive the Eucharist through livestream, and you cannot fully participate in the larger Mystical Body of Christ on your own through livestream.  If one is sick or homebound, then it helps us remember what we would want to attend if were were able.  But watching does not equal physical participation.
    We celebrate a church building today because it is a kind of sacrament.  It is a physical reality, instituted by Christ, which conveys invisible realities and causes graces that flow from the Paschal Mystery.  The physical building reminds us that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, each having a role to play to create the temple not made by hands in heaven, where all the elect are joined together, each fulfilling a role.  May we not accept the myths that we can worship God on our terms (often guided by our own laziness or preferences), but give ourselves to the worship that our Lord told us would be acceptable worship: worship in spirit and truth.  [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.] 

Unity and Diversity

Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  A buzzword these days is “diversity.”  And while people can associate the socio-political term with some level of mistrust, when it comes to diversity in the Catholic sense, we need not fear.  We don’t fear diversity, because it is also bound up with unity.  And this connection between diversity and unity bases itself in the Most Holy Trinity, who is both One God and Three Divine Persons.
    While not directly pointing to the Trinity, it intrigued me that St. Paul, in the epistle we heard today, kept going back to threes: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism,” and “Who is above all, and through all, and in all.”  Again, this is not to equate the word “Lord” with the Father, “faith” with the Son, and “baptism” with the Holy Spirit, nor any individual Person with being above, through, or in all.  But there is something providential as God inspired St. Paul to write in a way that points to the oneness and threeness of God.
    Beginning with God’s oneness, His unity, we even get a glimpse of this in the Gospel.  When asked about the greatest commandment, our Lord replies with the second half of the shema, one of the great credal expressions of Judaism: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is one.  Therefore you shall love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength.”  The unity of God forms the foundation of the commandment to love God.

   The diversity, if you will, of God, started to reveal itself most clearly in the Incarnation.  We can look to the Baptism of the Lord, when the voice of the Father spoke as St. John baptized our Lord, and the Holy Spirit hovered over our Lord in the form of a dove.  Time and time again, our Lord claims authority which only God could have, especially seen in the power of forgiving sins.  And in the Gospel of John, the people almost stone Christ, which makes him ask, “‘For which of these [good works] are you trying to stone me?’”  The people reply, “‘We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy.  You, a man, are making yourself God.’”  And at the great commission at the end of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, Christ commands that his disciples to baptize “‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’”  
    Certainly, this believe in our Triune God developed over the centuries after the Ascension and sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  Indeed, the word Trinitas, Trinity, was only first coined by Tertullian, who died in the year AD 200.  Creeds would follow from Nicea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon that would clarify how we understood our one God as well as the Trinity of Persons.  But the kernel of the truth of our belief in who God is was present from the beginning.
    So, when it comes to the Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ, we see both unity and diversity operating, just as unity and diversity are attributes of God.  There is one God, but the Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Holy Spirit, nor the Holy Spirit the Father.  There is one Church established by Christ, but that one Church has different expressions across the world with different gifts and charisms.  The temptation is to overemphasize unity or overemphasize diversity.  But that would be like excluding either the Three Persons in favor of one God, or excluding the oneness of God in favor of the Three Divine Persons.  But the truth is not expressed fully when one or the other is excluded.
    So for us, God calls us to profess, though one baptism, one faith in the one God.  To reflect the unity of God we hold fast to what God has truly revealed as necessary for salvation, including those statements codified by Ecumenical Councils and Popes, as well as the teaching the Magisterium.  To vary in professions of the divinity of the Son or the Holy Spirit tears away from the unity that God desires for His Church.
    On the other hand, there are diversities in practices of how we live that faith out that vary place by place.  St. Monica struggled with the fact that Romans fasted on Saturdays, while the Milanese did not.  St. Ambrose, then bishop of Milan, said that when he was in Rome he fasted on Saturdays, but when in Milan, he did not.  Liturgically, from the beginning, there rose up legitimate differences in how the followers of Christ, united in one Church, worshiped.  While most of the Roman world spoke Greek, and so Greek was likely used in many of the earliest liturgies, Latin was introduced not too long after Christianity ceased to be a persecuted religion.  Maronites, the Catholic Rite (R-I-T-E) based in Lebanon, still uses Aramaic, as it has from the beginning, the language our Lord spoke, in at least part of its liturgy.  And as the Gospel spread, the Mass came to be celebrated in various languages, though each language was often codified and does not always match the current way that same language is used (e.g., Slavonic versus Church Slavonic).
    But this variety of languages and rites resembles Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit gave the Apostles and disciples the ability to speak in different tongues so that those who had gathered in Jerusalem for the feast could understand the preaching of the Gospel.  Still, while the languages were many, the faith they professed was one.
    So, as Catholics, we can welcome diversity in a Catholic sense, because it is also connected to a unified mission and proclamation, mimicking the way that our one God is also Three Divine Persons.  In the Mystical Body of Christ, we need not all have the same task or vocation, any more than all our body parts need to be the same.  But those diverse body parts do need to work together for the proper functioning of the body, and so the diverse members of the Church need to utilize their gifts and talents in a unified way for the proclamation of the one Gospel in the one Church that our Lord founded.  May we, the diverse members of the Mystical Body of Christ, be held together for common purpose by our Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Cars and Jerusalem

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  While this is my eighth year living in Vehicle City, I will admit that I’m not a car guy.  That is to say, I don’t get cars and how they work.  I know how to use them, but if I were to pop the hood, I wouldn’t know how everything is supposed to work together.  I know there are things like spark plugs, carburetors, belts, fans, etc., but how they are all supposed work together is beyond me.  My grandfather, who worked tool and die at Fisher Body in Lansing for most of his adult life, probably would just shake his head at my ignorance, if he were alive today.
    But when we don’t understand how something is supposed to go together or function properly, we can easily miss when something is amiss.  We might have a sense that something is wrong (is my car supposed to sound like that?), but we couldn’t really tell you if something was really wrong, or what it might be.  

Church of Dominus Flevit

   That’s sort of what Christ bemoans in the Gospel today.  This is the time when the Lord weeps over Jerusalem because she does not realize the time of His visitation, the presence of the long-awaited Messiah, the Prince of Peace.  There is a beautiful church just outside the old city of Jerusalem called Dominus Flevit, Latin for the Lord Wept, that recalls this Gospel passage and could have been the place where the Lord wept over Jerusalem, because you can see much of the old city from this elevated point outside.  There is a chapel that has an iron grate, which stands between the viewer and the old city, and the grate has both a chalice with a host, as well as a cross seemingly overlaid over the landscape of modern Jerusalem.  
    Jerusalem had a particular destiny, as the king’s city, to welcome the Messiah when he came.  But because of the hardness of their hearts, most did not recognize the Lord as their long-awaited Messiah, and they missed the opportunity to welcome the Prince of Peace into His city.  So, because Jerusalem rejected peace, the Redeemer prophesied that war would come the city and stone would not be left upon stone, a prophecy that was fulfilled some forty years later when the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the ancient city, and took away many of the treasures that were there.
    We, too, are meant to recognize the Messiah when He comes.  Of course, we recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, as far as the macro scale goes.  We know we’re not waiting for His first advent, but His second advent, His return in glory.  But do we recognize His third advent, how he comes to us each day, month, and year?  Do we recognize what God is trying to do in our life?
    If we don’t, we might still arrive at the destination the Lord desires for us: heaven.  But it will be much harder than it has to be.  A blind man may reach his destination by wandering around and bumping into obstacles.  But it helps if he has a guide to make sure he doesn’t fall into holes, or lose his sense of direction and start walking towards a destination he doesn’t desire.  So, too, for our salvation: if we are not attentive to God, we might still make our way to Him.  But it will be much easier and less dangerous if we attend to how God communicates.  How does God communicate?
    First, we can look to the Scriptures.  St. Jerome famously said, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”  By reading the Bible, whether as a whole or in a guided Bible study or at least the more prosaic parts (I know the genealogies of the Old Testament can be tough to get through), we come to see how God works.  We see His special love for the poor, the widow, and the orphan.  We see how He often chooses those whom the world considers losers or worthless to accomplish His mighty deeds.  We see how He calls people to follow His will, and gently (and sometimes not-so-gently) reminds them to come back if they have wandered away.  
    Secondly, we can look to the Church.  The Church takes all the Scriptures and reads it in the light of Christ and salvation.  Our Holy Mother Church teaches us what we need to know about how to be saved, which is really just teaching us how to follow Christ.  She helps us to recognize, through saints and reflection on God’s revelation, how God is working, and how His voice sounds, as opposed to the voice of the world, which can often sound more enticing.
    Thirdly, we can look to prayer.  A daily habit of prayer doesn’t meant that life will go smoothly for us.  But it does mean that through the ups and downs of life, we can better see what God is doing because we’re asking Him on a regular basis, “What are you doing, Lord?”  In prayer we should take time to bring our joys and sorrows, our understanding and our questions to God.  But we should also make time to listen, silencing our minds as best we can to allow God to speak to us and enlighten us with His plan, which, as God said to the prophet Samuel, is not always what we would do.  
    When we come to know God’s will, we can have peace.  Not simply a peace that means we are not struggling, but a peace knowing how the struggle will work out, or at least that it will in some way work out in a way that God has directed for our salvation and the salvation of the world.  The saints show us this peace time and time again, even in the midst of violent persecutions, because they know that whatever God allows will somehow give us the opportunity to grow closer to Him, even to the point of shedding our blood, if necessary.
    Throughout life, we might not understand how everything fits together and works out.  It might seem as foreign to you as the inner workings of a car seems to me.  But if we are attentive to Christ’s presence in our life and in the world, we are more likely to understand, and cooperate with God’s will, rather than working to frustrate it or simply wandering around in the dark.  Lord, through your word in the Scriptures, through your Bride, the Church, and through our daily commitment to prayer, help us to know your will, to love your will, and to embrace your will.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

"Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?"

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.].  In today’s Responsorial Psalm/Tract, we hear the words of Psalm 22 (21), which are also echoed in Matthew and Mark’s account of the Passion.  Today I wanted to reflect on these words, words which sounded forth from the lips of Christ as He hung on the cross for our salvation.

The place of the Crucifixion

    The first words do not sound appropriate for our Lord to say.  How could the consubstantial, co-eternal Son of the Father say, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”  How could God abandon Himself?  Christ, as He hung on the cross, felt the full weight of sin in His human nature.  Sin does not simply reflect a choice we make contrary to what God wills.  Sin is, in some sense, a separation from God.  Even venial sins make a momentary choice where we do not choose God, who is holiness Himself, as we hear from the Books of Isaiah and Revelation: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of Hosts!”  So when we choose that which is contrary to holiness, even if it is but for a second, we choose against God and we alienate ourselves from Him.  Our Lord, though He had no sin Himself, took upon Himself the consequences for sin of all time and space, and so felt, in His human nature, the horrible absence of God, though, of course, He remained God through all of His Passion.
    But to put these words of the psalmist on his lips also demonstrated His total union with us in all things but sin.  He experienced what we experience when we know we have wandered away from God: that lack of true happiness, that darkness, that void in our hearts that come from choosing lesser goods over our ultimate good. 
    And there is a beauty and a strength for us that come from the knowledge that our God loved us so much that He would humble Himself to experience the pain of sin, though He knew not sin Himself.  We can never truly understand the depths of another’s pain, since each person’s pain is unique, just like each person is.  Yet, it does help when someone we know has been through a similar circumstance, and knows what it is to lose as we have lost.  God can give us that comfort because He has been there, and suffered what we suffer when we do not live up to our supernatural purpose. 
    In saying this one line, Christ included the entire psalm, just as we sometimes will include in our conversation entire lyrics with simply one line.  So Christ also includes the later words within this psalm, “I will proclaim your name to my brethren; / in the midst of the assembly I will praise you: / “You who fear the Lord, praise him; / all you descendants of Jacob, give glory to him; / revere him, all you descendants of Israel!”  In the midst of this pain and sense of abandonment, our Lord also directs His suffering as an offering of praise to God among His brothers and sisters.  Indeed, we use the word assembly, but the Hebrew word is qahal, which is translated into Greek as 𝜀𝜅𝜅𝜆𝜂𝜎𝜄𝛼, whence we get the English word “ecclesial,” meaning belonging to the church.  In the midst of the pain and suffering, Christ praises God the Father in the Church, and invites God’s People to worship Him.
    Pain and suffering do not end in themselves.  Even these are gifts that can be offered to God and lead to praise and worship.  How?  As verse 20 states, “But you, O Lord, be not far from me; / O my help, hasten to aid me.”  God, even in the darkest times of our life, even in the darkest times of human history, past, present, or future, does not abandon us, even when it feels like it.  God the Father was ever present with his Son, Jesus Christ; the Father was not far from the Son, nor is He far from us.  And God sends us help to persevere through our suffering.  When we suffer, united to Christ, our suffering becomes redemptive, whether for ourselves or for others.  Pain gives way to healing; death gives way to life.  And isn’t that precisely what this week is all about?
    So, in the midst of our suffering, may this psalm be on our lips, just as it was on our Lord’s.  May we not stop at the first verse, the feeling of abandonment by God, but continue throughout the entire psalm, proclaiming in the midst of the Church God’s goodness and His proximity to us even when things look darkest, and giving glory to God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Speaking of Segue

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In conversation, there are times where you really want to talk about something, but it’s not really part of the conversation at that time.  So you just wait for some word that bears some tangential connection to the point that you want to make, and then pounce and try to steer the discussion to the topic you desire.  Or, if the conversation is not going well, or going in the wrong direction, I will sometimes use the cheeky phrase, “Speaking of segue…”

    Last Tuesday I attended the episcopal consecration of Bishop Edward Lohse, the fifth bishop of Kalamazoo.  Archbishop Vigneron, the metropolitan of the Province of Michigan, gave the homily.  And he said something that I wanted to preach on here, but I didn’t know if it would fit with the readings.  The phrase was, “You are no poorer than Jerusalem at the beginning.”  So, when I came, as I prepared my homily, upon the words, “when Jesus drew near to Jerusalem,” I was so excited!
    So, speaking of Jerusalem, speaking of segue, I would like to draw us deeper into these words of Archbishop Vigneron.  He was speaking, of course, of God providing a shepherd to the Church in Kalamazoo, and how Christ pours out all necessary gifts for every local church, just as He sent the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and disciples gathered at Pentecost. 
    But the same applies to us, even without consecrating a new bishop today.  We are no poorer than Jerusalem at the beginning.  We have all the gifts that God gave to His nascent Church in that Upper Room fifty days after Easter.  We lack nothing of what it means to be a true church, an 𝜀𝜅𝜅𝜆𝜂𝜎𝜄𝛼, a people “called out” (𝜀𝜉 𝜅𝛼𝜆𝜀𝜊) of darkness into the light of Christ.
    What are the necessary aspects of being a Church?  First, it is that we are founded by Jesus Christ, and faithful to what He taught.  All other religions in the world are about man seeking out God.  Judaism, and its fulfillment in Christianity, is about God seeking us out.  We don’t make up teachings because we think they make sense to us.  We read and ponder the revelation of God, given to us through the Scriptures, and interpret it through the authentic teaching of the bishops in union with the pope.  We cannot contradict what Christ taught or what Christ did.  We do not refrain from ordaining women priests because we hate women.  Indeed, the holiest person ever is a woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary.  But Christ did not ordain her a priestess, nor anyone else.  It was only to the Apostles that He gave the sacred office.  We do not use rice and rice wine in Asia because we reject those staple food and drink of another culture.  We use bread and wine because that is what Christ Himself used.  We are not the masters of theology, but the servants of preserving it, even as we delve deeper and come to understand it more fully. 
    Even our Protestant brothers and sisters, who are united to us in baptism, while they can point to Christ, cannot claim that their ecclesial communities (things which look like churches but are not, strictly speaking, churches) were founded by Christ.  They were founded by Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, the Wesley brothers, etc.  It strikes me that so many of the communities founded on sola scriptura are now divided because at least some in their official governance bodies want to walk away from Scripture because it is no longer fashionable, or seems, to the modern person, discriminatory.  To be a church, we must be founded by Christ and be rooted in what He has revealed.
    To be a church, we need to have all seven sacraments, all the major vehicles of sanctifying grace, that God has given us to become saints.  We share baptism with most of the Protestant denominations (I say most, because some have messed with the necessary words that effect validity).  But we also have six other ways that God makes us holy: the Sacraments of Penance, Eucharist, Confirmation, Holy Matrimony, Holy Order, and Anointing of the Sick.  God  takes these ordinary elements (water, oil, bread & wine, voice, consent, the laying on of hands) and makes them a way that His life is given to us, in a way that sitting in nature, or watching a religious movie never could.  The sacraments, which not only remind us of Christ but actually cause His life to increase in us, help us to develop in our relationship with Him, and then share that relationship with the world. 
    To be a church, we finally need connected to the Apostles.  We are truly an apostolic church, because our bishops can trace themselves back to the college of bishops at Pentecost, with Peter as their head.  Our Lord founded His Church in a particular way, such that those who listened to His Apostles listened to Him.  We mention their names at every Mass (in this form) in the Roman Canon: Peter and Paul, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon and Jude (and Matthias gets mentioned later in the Canon).  And even every post-Conciliar Eucharistic prayer mentions the Apostles.  Those Apostles laid hands on their successors, giving them the Holy Spirit to continue their work and their connection to Christ. 

   At Pentecost, even in seminal form, all these things were present: right belief; seven sacraments; apostolic foundation.  And we retain all those elements.  And those elements allow us, clergy and lay faithful, to proclaim the Gospel, just as the Apostles and disciples did at Pentecost, leading to the conversion of many peoples.
    It seems like every one to two months, Amanda, our Director of Faith Formation, is telling me about another person who wants to become Catholic.  Some have never been baptized; some have been baptized in other ecclesial communities.  And we don’t just “make them Catholic” and never see them again.  They continue to participate in the life of this parish community.
    We are proud of our two young men, Joseph and Glen, who have heard the call to become priests and will continue to discern that call in seminary.  You strongly participate, whether at home with your families, or in our different formational groups and classes, in growing in your faith and deepening not just your knowledge of facts about the Lord, but your knowledge and love of Him, a real Person who lives.
    We don’t have money for fancy programs.  In many ways our parish, in both ways that the Mass is celebrated, is not culturally up-to-date or cutting edge.  We are certainly not the largest parish in Genesee County, not by a long shot.  But I would argue that we’re doing something right, because we do continue to bring people into relationship with Christ.  How?  Because we are no poorer than Jerusalem.  God has given us everything we need to proclaim His Gospel: fidelity to the teachings of Christ; the sacramental life of the Church; apostolic foundations and succession.  As long as we have that, we will continue to draw others to the truth and beauty that are part and parcel of our Catholic faith, founded by Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Humility, Gentleness, and Patience, Even When We Disagree

 Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  We are in the midst of the midterm elections.  And both in the partisan elections and in the ballot proposals, there are high stakes and heavy consequences for the outcomes.  Whether in the debates or in television ads, we see all kinds of name-calling and mud-slinging, accusing the opposition of being the worst kinds of people.  In the midst of this rancor, we hear from St. Paul today: “live…with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace.”  
    We may think that this admonition is easy to make for St. Paul, because he doesn’t have to deal with “those kind of people” in his letter.  But, in almost every Pauline letter, there is division in the Church, and not simply divisions between rich and poor, but divisions in faith and morality.  Indeed, St. Paul exhorts the faithful in Corinth to excommunicate a member for his egregious behavior.  But still, he calls for gentleness and humility here, along with patience and unity.

    Fast forward a few centuries to St. Augustine of Hippo.  St. Augustine was no wilting flower.  He fought heresy whenever he found it.  Indeed, he fought heresies that sometimes made him seem to be contradicting himself, in order to emphasize either God’s grace or our participation with it.  The Pelagians taught the heresy that original sin has not tainted us, and so we can do good works simply by our nature, rather than by the grace of God.  The Donatists taught the heresy that sin was everywhere and made us wretches and the priest had to be a saint in order to validly confect the sacraments.  St. Augustine also fought the Manichaeans, who taught the heresy that the world was divided into good and evil, the spiritual being good, and the material being evil.  
    But St. Augustine, even while being tough on heresy, strove to follow the words of St. Paul that we heard today.  The Doctor of Grace wrote of those who denied the validity of Catholic baptism (no small accusation):
 

when we do not repeat their baptism but acknowledge it to be our own, we are saying to them: You are our brothers.  […] And so, dear brothers, we entreat you on their behalf, in the name of the very source of our love, by whose milk we are nourished, and whose bread is our strength, in the name of Christ our Lord and his gentle love.  For it is time now for us to show them great love and abundant compassion by praying to God for them.  […] They respond with the same Amen, not with us, but still the same.  And so pour out your hearts for them in prayer to God.  

This guardian of orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right practice or worship), neither gave up the faith, nor gave up charity to those who had wandered away.
    Christ shows us the basis for what St. Augustine taught and lived.  He was very hard on the Pharisees, who had twisted the words of Sacred Scripture in favor of their own traditions.  They executed a sham trial of Him for blasphemy, and led Him to be put to death by the Romans, all the while mocking Him as He offered Himself for us on the altar of the cross.  Christ did not give in to their lies and perjury, but He also prayed for them as He offered Himself to the eternal Father.  
    So how are we are unity?  How gentle and humble are we, especially with those whom we oppose?  Do we automatically condemn and excise from our life, or do we seek reconciliation and peace, whether from afar when it is not possible due to antagonisms when in person, or even close up when we have the chance?
    And this goes, not only for political opponents, many of whom profess the same faith, even if their actions show a lack of understanding of that faith and a lack of integrity in living out that faith, but also for fellow Catholics and priests and bishops.  It is easy to ostracize those with whom we do not agree, and sometimes we must take harsh action.  But are we willing to pray for them, and even to meet and dialogue with them, not giving up the truth, but being willing to hear their position and agree where we can, and be charitable where we can?
    Last weekend I was in Chicago for the Annual Investiture Weekend of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem.  I am honored to be a member, and was glad to welcome one of our parishioners, Kishore, to this august group that supports the Christian presence in the Holy Land.  The spiritual leader of our North Central Lieutenancy is the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago.  He and I likely disagree on a number of priorities and prudential decisions when it comes to our Catholic faith.  There may even be areas where we disagree on the faith.  But, during one of our evening socials, he was suddenly right in front of me, and extended his hand in greeting.  I introduced myself, told him that I was a priest of Lansing, and we joked a bit about Bishop Boyea, who followed the Archbishop at the Josephenum as Rector.  We had a short, but pleasant conversation, before he moved on to other members to greet them.  I was struck by His Eminence’s sincere interest in meeting us, his charm, and his willingness to give of his time to be with us, when he likely has other more important matters (at least in his estimation) with which to deal.
    Meeting him didn’t change my disagreements with the head of the Church in Chicago.  It didn’t convince me that his prudential decisions were well-made.  I’m not signing up to be a member of his fan club (if he has one).  But it did bring home the Apostle’s admonition today, to be gentle and humble, patient, and to strive for unity where one can find it.
    Many Catholics today are quick to write-off those whom we feel are heterodox or heteropracticers (I just created that word for those who practice heteropraxy).  We can demonize them in words on blogs and Facebook posts, and then advocate all kinds of hateful actions, justified, in our minds, by seeking to maintain orthodoxy and orthopraxy.  But I think we would do well to follow the method of St. Augustine, who followed the method of St. Paul, who followed the model of our Lord: profess the truth, without giving in to error; hold fast to what God has revealed, even when it means suffering; but do all this with charity towards others, seeking forgiveness for those who have wandered away and who persecute us, simply for following and conforming ourselves to God.  Pour our your hearts for them to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Follow the Head

 Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When I was in middle school and playing soccer, I often played defense.  While it was just a recreation league in the fall and spring, by the time we were in middle school, some of the opposing forwards (the offense) were getting much better at dribbling the ball, and using fancy moves to get past us.  One of my coaches, after seeing us struggle with this, said, “Always watch their hips.  They can’t go anywhere without their hips.  Whatever way their hips are pointing, that’s the way they’re going to eventually go.”  
    The same could be said about the head: we can’t go anywhere without it.  In fact, while you can lose certain parts of your body as long as you have your head, even if you had the entire rest of your body from the neck down, if you didn’t have your head, you’d be dead.  
    St. Paul in our second reading refers to Christ as “the head of the body, the church.”  This is more than simply a metaphor; it’s a reality.  The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, with Jesus as the head, the one who rules and coordinates the other members.  When we celebrate the Ascension, we say that we, in a mystical way, are already in heaven if we are connected to Christ.  That would not be the case if we were the Body of Christ only metaphorically.  
    That is why remaining with the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is so important.  That is why we need to stay connected to what the head tells us.  Otherwise, we risk getting separated, and then dying, as any body part does when not connected to the rest of the body.
    In a general sense, staying connected to Christ means staying connected to His Church.  Many people feel that it’s not a big deal to leave the Catholic Church for some other ecclesial communion (the phrase we use for other denominations, like Lutherans or Methodists or Evangelicals).  But if we leave the Church, then we’re leaving the Mystical Body of Christ, and perhaps separating ourselves from that living Body which is the Church (I say perhaps because God is the only judge, and the only one who knows with surety if we are connected to Christ).  But we know for sure that if we stay connected to the Church, then we are staying connected to the Mystical Body of Christ, the Body which is alive and which is in heaven.
    In a more particular sense, we stay connected to Christ when we follow His teachings, and we disconnect ourselves when we do not follow His teachings.  Again, many Catholics consider it no big deal when they disagree with teachings of the Church that need to be believed, or disagree with the moral teachings of the Church which need to guide the way a Catholic lives.  But we can’t go anywhere without our head, and so if we are believing something different than what our Head has given us, or living differently than how our Head has instructed us, we may find ourselves cut off from Him and, therefore, cut off from eternal life.
    We saw this recently with the Supreme Court ruling that abortion is not a constitutionally protected action.  I have numerous Catholic friends who said that every person should be able to have an abortion if she wants.  This is not what Christ has revealed to us (the Church has always held that abortion, the direct and intentional killing of an innocent human child before birth, is gravely contrary to what Christ taught us).  And if a Catholic worked to promote abortion, he or she would be starting to cut him or herself away from the Mystical Body of Christ.  That is why procuring or assisting at an abortion carries the penalty of excommunication: a person who does so loses communion, or union with, the rest of the Church.
    The same can be said for those Catholics who promote so-called homosexual marriage, or any sexual act outside of marriage, whether homo- or heterosexual.  Christ has revealed to us, through the Sacred Scriptures and through the Church’s unbroken teaching, that marriage is only between a man and a woman, and that sexual acts only should take place within marriage.  Any Catholic who acts or promotes policies otherwise is tearing him or herself away from the Body of Christ.  
    The same is true, as we hear from our Gospel, for those who willingly abandon the poor when they are able to help.  In the Gospel, Christ teaches us that we have a responsibility for our neighbor, as part of our obligation to love God and love our neighbor.  When we can help and we don’t, when we purposefully ignore assisting someone in a way that we are able, we start tearing ourselves away from the Body of Christ.  Does this mean that we need to give everyone asking for money a handout?  Or that we let every homeless person live with us?  No.  But it means we do what we can, whether individually, or through a larger organization like the St. Luke NEW Life Center or Catholic Charities, or through supporting a social safety net by the government for those who legitimately cannot work.  
    As I said earlier, no one on earth, be he a layman, deacon, priest, bishop, or even the Pope, will judge a person at the end of his or her life.  God is the only judge.  And yet, God has revealed that certain beliefs and decisions are consistent with following Him, and certain beliefs and decisions are inconsistent with following Him.  Stay connected to Christ through His Mystical Body.  Stay with the Church, not only through baptism, but through full acceptance of what the Church teaches on faith and morals.  Follow the Head, Jesus Christ.

Like St. Matthew

 Solemnity of St. Matthew

    Probably we take for granted that each church building is named after a saint, or after a mystery of our Lord’s life.  As we look around Genesee County we think of churches and parishes and immediately go to the name of the holy one or holy ones associated with it: St. Pius X, St. John Vianney, Holy Redeemer, Sts. Charles and Helena, etc.  But have you ever stopped to think why we do this?  
    Naming churches is not simply to distinguish one church from another, though that is helpful.  As a young child (some may still think I’m a young child), I was confused for a bit that every town had a First Baptist Church.  How could every town have the first one?  But we name our churches to put that church and the people who enter it, the people of the parish, under the patronage or protection of that mystery of our Lord’s life or that saint.  So we gather to worship God under the protection and with the assistance and intercession of St. Matthew, the Apostle and Evangelist.  He is, in the apse of the church (the rounded part of the sanctuary), looking down at us each time we gather, and looking out at us through the statue at the high altar.  
    We also talk about patron saints.  Certain saints are associated with certain professions or hobbies, and their intercession is sought for those particular needs.  St. Matthew is the patron saint of accountants, bankers, bookkeepers, security guards, and stockbrokers.  The money aspect makes perfect sense because St. Matthew was a tax collector, which was at best as popular then as it is now, perhaps even less popular because St. Matthew collected taxes for a foreign, occupying power.  
    But we also look to our patron saints to inspire us to live like they did.  We are not to “ape” them, just doing everything that he did (collect taxes, move to Israel, write a long story about Jesus’ life, Death, and Resurrection, etc.), but we are to live in our own day in our own vocation following the pattern that St. Matthew set out for us.  And it is on that aspect of our heavenly patron that I want to focus today.

    In our Gospel today we heard Jesus call St. Matthew to follow Him, and St. Matthew did just that.  He abandoned his profession, held a banquet for Christ and his disciples, and then abandoned everything to follow our Lord.  For most of you (but perhaps not all), Christ is not asking you to quit your job.  But He does desire that we make Him the most important thing in our life.  And that is something that we can all do.  Today our Lord is inviting us to follow Him; to put in second (or third or fourth) place the things that usually vex our mind, and to focus on Christ.  
    Notice that our Savior does not call St. Matthew because of Matthew’s perfections.  We don’t know anything about St. Matthew’s moral life explicitly, but if other tax collectors and sinners came to his house for dinner, there was likely some affinity with those who sinned.  Matthew didn’t have it all together, and our Lord didn’t make that a prerequisite for following Him.  All Christ required was a willingness to do what He said.  
    And if we want to be saints, Christ calls us to do the same, under the patronage of St. Matthew.  Christ is not calling us to follow Him because we are perfect.  If Christ waited for our perfection in order to call us, He would be waiting for an eternity.  But He calls us and comes to us because He came “‘to call [not] the righteous but sinners.’”  He wants to heal us as the Divine Physician of any wounds or sicknesses that afflict our hearts.  He knows we need Him, and He hopes that we, like St. Matthew, can recognize that and follow Jesus’ call.
    But following St. Matthew doesn’t stop at simply following our Lord, just as St. Matthew didn’t just follow Him until the crucifixion.  After the Resurrection and Pentecost, St. Matthew went, by tradition, to Persia and Ethiopia.  Having been transformed by Christ’s healing love, and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, St. Matthew could not help but share that Good News, the Gospel, with others.  He did so in writing in his account of the Gospel, written especially to a Jewish-Christian community, and by word of mouth in foreign lands.
    Again, we are not to ape St. Matthew.  I’m not telling you to go to Iran (modern-day Persia) or Ethiopia, though you are most welcome to do that if God is calling you to do so.  But right here in Genesee County, right here in Flint, are people who need to hear the Gospel.  In writing and by our speech, St. Matthew should inspire us to share the Good News with others, and not to keep it to ourselves like a lamp under a bushel basket.  
    I am new here, and so far only a small part of St. Matthew’s long, proud history.  I have heard from parishioners about times when the church would be filled, or at least be fuller than it is today.  And I know people want that again.  We may not ever have a high school again, but we want to have families so that we could.  We would love to have more Masses here like in days gone by, needed simply to accommodate all the people who seek God’s salvation in this church through the intercession of St. Matthew.  It is not impossible.  It’s not even improbable.  But it will take each of us becoming an evangelist, each of us becoming a sharer of the Good News of Christ.  There are so many people who need it, and the beauty of this amazing church draws people to our Triune God who is Beauty Himself.  But they will never get here if we don’t invite them.  And I’m not talking simply about stealing other Catholics from other parishes.  I’m talking about reaching out to those who are not Catholic, those who may be connected to Christ through baptism but who do not have the fullness of God’s revelation which is present in the Catholic Church.  Or even those who are ignorant of God and His ways, those who are unbaptized.  If we really believe that God is such an important part of life, then we are required, as an act of charity, to share it with them!  They may accept or reject it, but at least we have done our part to make sure they know it.
    When was the last time you invited a fellow Catholic and especially a non-Catholic to come to church with you?  Sometimes it takes just one time of entering a gorgeous church like this and hearing the Gospel for the heart to be moved to convert one’s life.  True, only Catholics can receive Holy Communion, but let the reception of Christ’s Body and Blood be the goal that the visitor desires and which draws them to convert their life and join the Catholic Church.  
    Today we ask St. Matthew, not only to intercede for us with God to make us saints, which is very important, but also to help us spread the Gospel.  If we truly want to be sons and daughters of so great an intercessor, if we truly want to call ourselves members of St. Matthew, then may our lives demonstrate that same zeal that St. Matthew had.  Today, let us recommit ourselves to inviting a friend to come to church with us, and sharing with them the Gospel, so that more and more may hear and obey the invitation of Christ to follow Him.

Listening

 Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Fr. Jim Rolph

    Last Sunday I went to a family’s house for dinner, a family that I have visited before.  When I visit, the adult children in the family like to tease me and say how much more they like Fr. Jim Rolph, the chaplain at Powers Catholic.  So during dinner conversation last Sunday I was talking to someone else at the table, but one of the kids interjected and said something, but all I heard was “in Flint.”  At first I just let it pass and figured it wasn’t anything important, but then young man started laughing, and realizing it was connected to what I had missed, I said, “Wait; what did you say?”  He started laughing and said, “I wondered why you didn’t react.  I said, ‘After all, Fr. Jim is the best priest in the Flint area!’”  
    Sometimes our attention is divided, and we don’t hear what’s going on.  And because we don’t hear, we miss something that we would want to know.  It’s not such a big deal when a young man is poking fun and saying that a brother priest is better than you (for the record, Fr. Jim and I are good friends, and I respect him greatly!).  But if it’s not teasing, but the voice of God, it’s much more important to pay attention and listen.
    In our first reading, Moses prophesies that God will send another prophet, like Moses, to whom the people need to listen.  This prophet will have very important messages to communicate.  Of course, we know that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the prophets, and was a prophet Himself, since He spoke for God.  But He didn’t even speak like the other prophets, but spoke with authority, authority that came from Himself, since He is God.  The people listening to Jesus recognize this, and they recognize “a new teaching with authority.”  
    Part of this authority is that Jesus, unlike the other rabbis of His time, would not appeal to an earlier rabbi.  That was the way the interpretation of laws and teachings worked for the Jewish people.  If you were a rabbi, people wouldn’t necessarily believe what you were teaching or interpreting.  But if you could appeal to an earlier rabbi who was well-respected, then your teaching took on more authority.  And the closer you could get to Moses, the more authority you would have.  
    But Jesus did not appeal to any other rabbi.  He simply spoke as if it were true.  Think back to Matthew chapter 5.  Jesus keeps saying, “You have heard it said…but I say to you…”. He teaches as one who is authentically interpreting God’s will, authentically speaking for God, like Moses, but even more authoritative than even Moses.  And even unclean spirits respond to the words that Jesus speaks.  It’s not even a contest about who has authority; Jesus speaks and they have to obey, because He is the Creator, and they are mere creatures.
    It is with this same authority that the Church, when teaching on faith or morals, speaks.  Because the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, and because Jesus has given His authority to the pope and bishops who lead His Church (remember that Jesus said to the apostles that whoever listens to them listens to Him), the Church can say that, to be in union with Jesus, you have to believe this, or you can’t believe that.  The Church can also say with the authority of Jesus that, in order to be living as a disciple, you should do this or you shouldn’t do that.  It’s not simply the opinion of some old men who wear pointy hats; it is Jesus Himself teaching.
    Our psalm today encourages us: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”  How often do our hearts harden when someone tells us something that we have to do, especially in the area of faith (what to believe) or morals (how to live).  It’s almost like an instantaneous reaction that someone tells us what to do and we automatically want to do the opposite.  That’s our fallen human intellect and will.  When the Church says we cannot support abortion, or we need to assist the poor, we have a responsibility as followers of Jesus to obey.  When the Church says that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Jesus, or that marriage is only between one man and one woman, to be loyal to Jesus we conform our lives to that teaching.  Sometimes it’s hard.  Sometimes it’s very hard, and may even seem counterintuitive, but God asks us to listen to His Son, who will never lead us astray if we follow Him.
    But besides the struggles to listen to Jesus as He speaks through His Church, it can also simply be hard to listen to Jesus.  Our age is filled with cacophony, which comes from the Greek meaning “bad sounds.”  We often surround ourselves with noise, and in doing so, drown out the God who likes to speak to us like He spoke to the Prophet Elijah: in the whisper in the silence.  Hardening our hearts can include not making time for God in daily prayer.  Maybe the only time you have is five minutes; maybe it’s turning off the radio in your car; maybe it’s coming to a daily Mass, or spending time in adoration.  But in order to hear God, we have to carve out time for Him, especially in silence, not only speaking to God, but listening to how God responds.  Sometimes silence can be scary, but God will, in His way, in His time, speak to us.  All we have to do is pay attention and listen.
    Don’t miss the conversation God wants to have with you.  Don’t miss out on how God teaches us to follow Him and to find true happiness.  Listen to the Church when it comes to faith and morals.  Make time for silence with God each week.  You will find the happiness for which you long.

Gone and Yet Here

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

    If there’s one thing that has proliferated during our pandemic, it’s memes.  Memes, if you’re not familiar with the word, is a picture, often with a short phrase, that’s intended to be humorous.  One that came to mind today (which I saw in April but would have also been appropriate earlier this month!) was: Anyone else feel like life is being written by a 4th grader right now?  “And there was this virus, and everyone was scared.  And then the world ran out of toilet paper.  Yeah, and then there was no school for like a month, and then it snowed.”  If we bring it up to the present day we could also include murder hornets and, sadly, the recent floods in central Michigan and wildfires near Grayling.  It does certainly sound like a bad story!
    As we go through the main points of the Gospel, it may also sound a little like a disjointed story.  You can imagine trying to explain the Gospel to someone who has never heard it before: There’s a virgin, Mary, who conceives a Son.  But it’s not conceived with her husband, but by the Holy Spirit.  And Mary’s Son, Jesus, is also God’s Son, but he’s not half-God and half-human, he’s fully God and fully human.  And Jesus heals people and walks on water, and multiplies bread and fish for the hungry, but then He dies on the cross.  But then He comes back from the dead, not like a zombie, but in a glorified body which can pass through doors.  And He visits some people during 40 days after the Resurrection, but then ascends into heaven.  But He’s not really gone, because His Body is the Church. 
    Christianity holds in tension so many things: Mary who is mother and virgin; Jesus who is God and man; Jesus who truly dies, but is truly risen from the dead; and what we celebrate today, Jesus ascended into heaven, but did not leave us orphans without His presence.  He’s gone, but He’s still here.  After all, we heard it at the end of the Gospel today: “‘behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.’”
    So how is Jesus still present with us, if, as we heard in the Gospel, He ascended beyond our sight into the heavens?  There are two ways.  The first we’ll celebrate next Sunday on Pentecost.  When the Ascension was celebrated when it should be (on Ascension Thursday, 40 days after Easter), we could point to the first novena in the church.  This is where you can insert the bad joke, where a Franciscan, a Dominican, and a diocesan priest are all asked individually by a layman, “Is there a novena for a Ferrari?”  The Franciscan, when asked, answers, “What’s a Ferrari?”  The Dominican, when asked, likewise answers, “What’s a Ferrari?”  The diocesan priest, when asked, answers, “What’s a novena?” 
    A novena is 9 days of prayer, usually for an intention.  There are nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost, and the Blessed Mother, Apostles, and disciples were praying for those nine days to continue the work of Jesus, without really knowing what they should be doing.  And their prayers are answered by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, where all gathered in that upper room are empowered to preach the Gospel.
    The Holy Spirit continues Jesus’ presence in the world.  Through the Holy Spirit, the Good News is still preached, freedom from sin is still granted, the hungry are still fed, the sick are still healed, the dead are still raised.  All that Jesus did on earth continues through the work of the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes that happens directly by the Holy Spirit, but sometimes it happens by people empowered by the Holy Spirit, like the first Apostles and disciples, who continue that work through the Church.
    And the Church is the second way that Jesus’ presence is continued on earth.  The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, and is present in heaven with Christ at the right hand of the Father (what we call the Church Triumphant), is present in Purgatory, awaiting the time when they will be ready for heaven (what we call the Church Suffering), and is present here on earth, as St. Paul says, working out our salvation and trying to live the life of Jesus daily (what we call the Church Militant).  The Church continues the teaching of Jesus, frees people from sin through the Sacrament of Penance, feeds the hungry of body through food pantries, and feeds the hungry of soul through the Eucharist, heals the sick through the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, and prays for the resurrection of the dead in the funeral rites and Mass.  And in many more ways, the ministry of Jesus in Judea 2,000 years ago continues throughout the world.
    And that’s you and me.  Our call through baptism and confirmation is to continue the presence of Jesus in whatever way that we can.  People are no less hungry for Jesus than they were 2,000 years ago, and Jesus can satisfy their hunger through the Holy Spirit working through us as the Church. 
    Yes, there is that tension, that Jesus is both gone and present here on earth.  But His presence on earth is both the work of the Holy Spirit and us, in cooperation with the Holy Spirit.  This week, let’s make sure that our lives reveal that Jesus is alive and that, while He ascended into heaven, He is still working and active here on earth!

Currahee!

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Why such difficulty to enter heaven?  Jesus says that the way to heaven is narrow, and many are not strong enough to enter.  Certainly, the easy answer is that our fallen human nature tends towards things that it should not want.  We call this concupiscence.  But I think that there’s a larger point that Jesus was making, and it didn’t really occur to me until around midday this/Saturday morning.
    For those of you who don’t know, I had been training to run the Crim, and had signed up to do the full 10-mile race.  I had never run 10 miles in my life (and this may be the only time I do so).  I knew I had to train, and in May asked one of the Powers graduates who ran cross country, Ethan Hamilton, for advice.  He suggested that I try to run 5 miles 3-4 times per week, and 7.5 miles once per week.  Because of my parish and State Police responsibilities, and especially never knowing when I would be needed for an emergency, I ran around the edge of the parking lot.  So you’re aware, the edge of our parking lot is about four-tenths of a mile, so I was running a little bit more than 12 laps for 5 miles, and around 18 laps for 7.5.  It was not the most entertaining path to run.  I trained pretty well in May, really well in June, and then in July things started to taper off a bit as my resolve wavered, and in the past few weeks, I did not run as much as I should, and I had only done one 7.5 mile run in probably 2 months. 
    So, I trained, and yesterday morning, I ran the CRIM.  I was nervous (I don't know why; it’s only running and I didn’t have a goal for time, I simply wanted to finish and try not to walk any of it).  One of our parish families helped me navigate getting to parking and getting around before the race began.  And then the race started.  My parents had come (they have both run marathons, including Boston) to support me, as well.  As I ran the race, there were people lining the streets, cheering everyone on.  But what I noticed is that, when I saw parishioners, or when I saw Troops from our Flint Post who were working traffic, I got an extra boost. 
    I had been warned about the dreaded Bradley Hills, the steep inclines on Bradley Street that occur around miles 5-6.  Honestly, and I don’t say this to brag, but they weren’t that bad for me.  And part of the reason was a word that I said when running up them (and all the hills): Currahee.  I learned the word from watching “Band of Brothers,” an HBO miniseries on Easy Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division of the Army in World War II.  Currahee was the name of a hill they had to run up and down at Camp Toccoa for training.  And the word Currahee is a Cherokee word which means, “We stand alone.”  That word connected me to the heroes who worked hard to be prepared so that, when they landed behind enemy lines the night of D-Day; when they were surrounded and short of ammo in the snowy forest of Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge; as they ran up Eagle’s Nest in some of the last holdouts of Nazi Germany; they could conquer any force that came their way.    I mention the CRIM because I realized that I was able to accomplish what I did because of others.  If I would have tried the CRIM alone, and had no support from parishioners and Troopers, I hope I would have finished, but maybe I would have walked, and maybe it wouldn’t have happened at all. 

    Salvation is hard, getting to heaven is hard, because we so often try to go it alone.  If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob couldn’t get to heaven on their own; if Moses and Elijah couldn’t get to heaven on their own, then we probably don’t have much of a chance either.  Heaven is only possible when we support each other.
    The most important support in salvation is, of course, Jesus, without whom salvation is impossible.  Without Jesus, we can do nothing that will get us to heaven, no matter how many “good deeds” we do.  But how often do we try to make it on our own good deeds and best behavior?  And how often do we not even live up the weak standards we set for our behavior?
    It’s also important to work with each other to get to heaven.  Again, without Jesus, no matter how many supporters we have, we can’t get there.  But maybe we need to focus more on helping each other get to heaven.  It’s the reason the Church exists: as a band of brothers (and sisters) who help each other get to heaven.  Coming for Mass is the chance to root each other on, as well as to partner up again with Jesus through worthy reception of Holy Communion.  Confession is saying sorry for the ways that we tried to make it on our own, and weren’t successful.  But we need each other.  It’s not simply me and Jesus.  Jesus has a Mystical Body, and that Mystical Body is the Church, where we are assembled to help each other on the way to salvation.  That’s my mission as your pastor: to help you get to heaven.  I hope your mission as parishioners is to help me get to heaven.
    St. Paul compares life to a race.  He says in his second letter to St. Timothy: “I have competed well; I have finished the race…From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me.”  In the CRIM today I was given strength by the parishioners and Troops who waved and cheered as I passed them by.  I was able to finish (my official time was 1:34:58; not bad for a first-timer) my race because of others.  Heaven is not necessarily hard because of the moral demands that Jesus makes on each one of us.  It’s hard, and many fail to enter, because they try without Jesus, and without their brothers and sisters in the Church.  Don’t run alone; you’ll never make it.  Run with Jesus; don’t simply focus on yourself; help others get to heaven.  It will make the race much easier.
   

Belonging to Jesus

Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord

One of the great feelings that we get to experience as humans is the feeling that we belong.  There are so many groups to which we can belong.  First and foremost is family, and as we celebrate Christmas, we have a strong sense of belonging to that group.  We might also belong to a school, and we especially gravitate towards high school and belonging to a particular class (e.g., I’m a member of the Lansing Catholic High School class of 2002).  Maybe work gives us a sense of belonging.  I know that one of the greatest blessings in my life is belonging to the fraternity of the Catholic priesthood, a band of brothers who are in the field, fighting spiritual combat day in and day out.  Or perhaps our volunteer work gives us that sense of belonging.  I would say that being a chaplain for the Michigan State Police is also a great blessing for me and is a group I treasure.  Or maybe it’s something altogether different than any of the categories that I have mentioned.  Still, as humans, we seek to belong.

As Catholics, there is a group to which we belong which should be a defining aspect of our life: our faith.  In baptism, we became part of the family of God.  We also became members of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, through baptism, a group that offers us belonging.  We often break down this sense of belonging into a more manageable size, we might say bite-size pieces, as we look to our parish.  Parish identity is often how people identify how they belong to the Catholic Church, and how they define their membership as a Catholic.  I know that, as a priest, while I have been in three parishes in my eight and a half years as a Catholic priest, each time I go to a place, I dive in, and make that new place my home, my family, and how identify myself (at least partially).  

I think of all the people who are back here tonight because of a connection, present or past, to St. Pius X parish.  In my three years here I have seen people come to Christmas Mass here (regardless of where they live now) because they went to school here, because they were baptized here, or because their family still goes here.  And it’s beautiful to welcome them back.  People always talk about how St. Pius X always feels like home.  And I think we can say that part of that is that they belong.

But what we celebrate tonight is one of the primary mysteries, or realities, of our faith: that God became man.  God did not lack anything.  He was a perfect communion of Divine Persons–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–existing from all eternity in perfect love, in perfect belonging.  But, in the fullness of time, in order to save His highest creation, humanity, who had wandered away starting in the Garden of Eden and through the subsequent centuries.  God joined Himself to us in Christ, uniting the Divine to the Human in the Person of Jesus.  We might say, in a sense, that God wanted to belong with us in a way that He never had before.  God knew us better than we knew ourselves, but He wanted to share all of our human experiences, except without sin.  And that’s what we celebrate tonight/today: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  Jesus, who is consubstantial with the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Mother by the power of the Holy Spirit, and was born in Bethlehem.

Few things are more hurtful than when the desire to belong is not reciprocated.  Mary and Joseph, looking for a place to give birth, did not belong and were not welcomed in Bethlehem.  How many times would Jesus be rejected throughout His public ministry, especially by the Pharisees and scribes, but eventually by almost all people, including most of His closest friends who were not with Him at the foot of the cross.  When Jesus taught about Himself as the Bread of Life, the Eucharist, in John 6, at the end, it says that many of His disciples left Him because His teaching was too difficult for them.  And on the cross, Jesus even experiences the full weight of sin, of feeling separated from God the Father, as He cries out, “‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’”

But have we changed?  Are we so different from those who rejected Jesus?  Being a follower of Jesus means more than just showing up tonight/today.  Yes, this is one of the important high points of following Jesus, celebrating His Nativity, but if we wish to truly belong with Jesus, then it can’t be the only point.  If we think of our relationship with God like a marriage, it becomes obvious that this is true.  If I imagined myself married for a second (every woman’s nightmare, I’m sure!), and then, after the wedding, told my bride that I’d see her once a year, or even once a month, I’m sure our marriage wouldn’t be exactly a model union.  If, in our home, we agreed to treat each other with a certain level of respect, and follow certain practices for the betterment of our union, like putting the toilet seat down after I’m done, but then I never followed through, I’m sure our marriage wouldn’t be one for the ages.  I’m sure if we had kids, and I let the kids do whatever they wanted, while I relied on my wife to do all the disciplining, our marriage would be more written in the sand than in the stars.  

Belonging to someone means that we change our life for that person.  Belonging to Jesus means that we give our whole life–not just one day a year, or one day a month, or even just one day a week–to Him.  If we haven’t before, today is the perfect day to start.  The Lord always is waiting for us with open arms.  Jesus gave us everything: His conception, His birth, His life, His Death, and His Resurrection.  He left nothing out when He chose to belong to us.  Will we, to the best of our ability, leave nothing out when we have chosen to belong to Him?