Concerning Hobbits

Third Sunday after Epiphany
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Over the last week or two I decided to rewatch the trilogy movies of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.”  I’ve watched them countless times, but I find them very enjoyable and they have many connections to Catholicism, since J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote the novels, practiced his Catholic faith devotedly.

    In “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” at the Council of Elrond in Rivendell (an elven oasis) representatives from the major races of beings–dwarves, elves, and men–argue over who will take the One Ring, an evil talisman connected to the evil spirit, Sauron, to Mordor to destroy it by casting it back in the volcanic Mount Doom, thus also destroying Sauron.  As they argue, Frodo, a hobbit, steps up and says that he will take the ring to Mordor, though he does not know the way.  Frodo had brought the ring from his house (since his uncle, Bilbo had found it years ago while on his own quest) to Rivendell.  So he agrees to carry it even farther to its destruction.  Elves were very wise, dwarves were very crafty, and men were very strong.  But it was a hobbit, a small humanoid, who probably stood no more than 4 feet tall, who volunteered to take the ring to its destruction.  Frodo wasn’t the wisest, the craftiest, and certainly not the strongest, but he was the right one for this quest.

    The centurion from our Gospel today was as unlikely for a healing from our Lord as Frodo was to carry the ring to its destruction.  As a soldier, he likely worshiped false gods, and maybe even worshiped the Emperor Tiberius Augustus.  He represented the entire occupying force of Rome in the Promised Land, which had come in 63 BC to make it a client kingdom of Rome, but who took it over around 6 BC as simply a province of Rome.  The centurion did not belong to the Chosen People awaiting a Messiah, and in fact, he was part of the military machine the people expected the Messiah to wipe out.  And yet, Christ says of the centurion that he had not found faith like his in all of Israel.  This centurion was the right one to receive a healing.
    And he was the right one because he believed Christ could heal his servant, even without being present.  No doubt, there were healers that would pop up from time to time in the Promised Land, but they almost always had to be present to heal the suffering person.  The centurion knew that this rabbi from Nazareth was different, and trusted that if He said it would be done, it would be done, just as when the centurion gave orders the soldiers did them.
    The centurion is a great reminder that God often works with the unexpected, perhaps the same message Tolkien tried to convey by choosing a hobbit to carry and destroy the One Ring.  But the common factor that unites the unexpected comes from their reliance on God and not on their own power.  Abraham and Sarah were well past the childbearing age, and yet God made Abraham the father of many nations.  Hannah was barren and put up with ridicule from Penninah, Hannah’s husband’s other wife (apparently the rule on marrying only one wife wasn’t always followed closely), until God granted her request and gave her a son, Samuel.  Ruth, the grandmother of David, was a foreigner, and David was not the son of Jesse that Samuel thought at first glance God would choose as king.  Anne and Joachim were childless until they conceived the Blessed Mother immaculately in Anne’s womb.  Elizabeth and Zechariah were also too old to be though to be able to conceive.  The Blessed Mother was a quiet, young virgin without any real importance from a worldly point of view.  The Apostles, our Lord’s closest followers and the foundations of His Church, did not have the greatest education and the Gospels make clear that, more often than not, they didn’t get what He taught.  All of these people, and more, would never have been expected to do great things for God, or have such a major role in salvation history.  But here we are.
    I could list hundreds of saints whom no one expected to amount to anything, and yet we recall them each year in the canon, or list, of saints.  And that should give us hope.  If a poor friar, working in Detroit without faculties to preach or hear confessions, can be beatified, then we can become a saint.  God can work with us, small as we are, un-spectacular as we are, to accomplish His grand plan of salvation.  We don’t have to be the most powerful, the wisest, or the craftiest.  We simply need to acknowledge our nothingness, and rely on God to carry us through whatever mission He has for us.  Because when we acknowledge our nothingness, that leaves all the room for God and His power.  When we think we are somebody, or have some grand power or prestige, we block God out of our lives and lessen the space that He requires to do truly great things in our lives.

    “Hobbits…are quite content to ignore and be ignored by the world of the big folk….Hobbits must seem of little importance, being neither known as great warriors nor counted among the very wise….In fact, it has been remarked by some that hobbits’ only real passion is for food, a rather unfair observation, as [they] have also developed a keen interest in the brewing of ales and the smoking of pipe weed.”  This is not the likely description of the race to whom the great king of men, King Aragorn of Gondor, would say: “My friends, you bow to no one” because of their role in destroying evil.  Just so, God uses the most unlikely to accomplish His plan of increasing grace and destroying evil, be they young virgin, fisherman, a poor friar, or a man or woman from Genesee County.  May we leave space for God to work great things through us, unexpected as it might be. 

Waiting

First Sunday of Advent

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.].  Advent, I would argue, is a time that is particularly good for our current culture.  I say that, because Advent is a time of waiting.  And we are, as a culture, really bad at waiting.  We are bad at waiting because, more often than not, we don’t have to wait for anything.  If I want to know something, I do a Google search or ask Siri, and almost instantaneously get a response.  If I want food, I pre-order it on my app so that it’s waiting for me when I arrive.  I spend the money for Amazon prime so that I can get almost anything I want within two days of ordering it.  If I need to send a message I can get it to the person immediately by email or texting.  We really don’t wait for that much in life anymore.
    There are obvious exceptions.  We generally still wait for weddings (though even those are happening much more quickly these days, as people, sadly, decide not to get married in the church).  We wait for babies to be born (though as a man, I’m not sure I can truly appreciate the desire of a woman, especially in the last weeks of her term, for the baby to exit the womb).  Those two precious events necessitate waiting, but the wait is worth it, as the joy of celebrating is even greater after the weeks and months of desiring that momentous event.
    Advent’s wait is primarily twofold: the remembrance of the waiting of the Chosen People for their long-awaited Messiah, and our waiting for that same Messiah, Jesus Christ, to return to us in glory.  The waiting of the Chosen People began before they were even a people.  Adam and Eve, after their fall, heard God’s promise of a redeemer, as God told the snake who had led to the Fall: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head while you strike at his heel.”  Even then, at the beginning of creation, God promised a redeemer, the offspring of Eve, who would strike at the head of the serpent.
    Fast-forward some centuries to Abraham, our father in faith.  Scripture scholars estimate that Abraham lived sometime between 2100 and 2000 BC.  When God called Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans, God promised that Abraham would become a great nation, and a source of blessing for “all the communities of the earth.”  Of course, that happened through our Savior, the son of Abraham, but it took some over two thousand years for that promise to come true. 

From atop Mt. Nebo, where Moses recounted the Exodus for the Chosen People

    Fast-forward to around the 1400s BC to Moses, reminding the Israelites of all that had happened to them since they left Egypt.  Moses prophesied, “‘A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you among your own kinsmen; to him you shall listen.’”  The Gospel according to St. John makes clear that some believed our Lord to be “the prophet,” the fulfillment of Moses’ prophecy.  But they had to wait almost a millennium and a half.
    Fast-forward to around the year 1000 BC and King David, resting from all his enemies, desiring to build a temple for the Ark of the Covenant.  God promises David, as the prophet Nathan tells him, “‘I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his kingdom firm.’”  Christ is the Son of David.  As our Lord entered Jerusalem for His Passion, the people chanted, “‘Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”  And Christ even asks the Pharisees, “‘Whose son is [the Messiah]?’  They replied, ‘David’s.’” 
    Fast-forward to 445 BC, and the composition of the Book of the Prophet Malachi, the last prophet in what we call the Old Testament.  Through Malachi, God promises to send a messenger to prepare the way, and to send Elijah before the day of the Lord, and even that “there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek.”  But even this was 445 years before our Lord was even born!  If you put the average age of a person at 45, that’s nine generations between Malachi and the Nativity.  Or, to put it another way, if you were around at the time of the first Christmas, the prophecies of Malachi were at the time of your great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather.  That’s a lot of waiting!!  And you thought waiting for Michigan to beat Ohio State in Columbus was long!!
    And we have been waiting almost 2,000 years for Christ to return in glory.  God continues to speak to us through His Church, and we hear about, and maybe even experience, miracles by which God reinforces His presence and love for us.  But we can become complacent, and think and act like Christ will not return.  He, Himself, tells us in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, that it will be like in the days of Noah, where Noah had prepared the ark according to God’s command.  Sill, there was some waiting before the rain fell, and people probably thought Noah was nuts.  But once the rain came, they had wished they had prepared. 
    Christ also tells us, in the Gospel according to St. Luke, that when we see the signs, we should be ready for the His return.  Those signs have been with us each century, which is Christ’s way of telling us to always be ready, because He could return at any time.  Our wait could be over in a heartbeat.  Have we given up on waiting because it’s been so long?  Or are we ready each day for Christ to return in glory? 
    It can be difficult to wait so long.  It can be difficult to live as we are supposed to when we don’t get what we want immediately.  The works of darkness can seem so tempting when we think we have time.  Instead, God calls us to put on the armor of light, to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Magic Eye

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When I was in grade school, one of the more popular items at our annual Book Fair were books that were called Magic Eyes.  On each page there was a picture, but if you stared at it a certain way, a different, 3-D image would seem to pop off the page.  As I say it, it doesn’t really sound that interesting, especially with the fact that you can now have virtual reality goggles.  But in elementary school in the early ‘90s, it was pretty cool.
    What God sees and what we see can be as different as the Magic Eye books.  Our view is often limited to the externals: how someone combs his hair; what kind of clothes she wears; skin and facial features; etc.  But what God sees goes much deeper than that.
    As Jesus told the parable about the Pharisee and the tax-collector (sometimes called the Publican), He is not only talking about how to pray (the publican) and how not to pray (the Pharisee), but He’s also making a point that had been made several times before in Scripture, that appearances can deceive.  The Pharisee seems to have it all together: he doesn’t commit major sins, he gives to the temple and synagogue, and he doesn’t cooperate with the pagan Romans.  The Publican, on the other hand, seems very downcast, and won’t even raise his eyes to heaven.  He simply, quietly, asks God for mercy from the back row.  And yet, it is the Publican who is justified (put into right relationship with God), not the Pharisee.
    This point had been made in the first book of Samuel, as the prophet Samuel seeks a new king of Israel to replace Saul, who had disobeyed God.  Samuel goes to the house of Jesse, and sees some studly looking men.  And yet, God does not choose any of them.  Instead, God chooses David, the youngest, not as much to behold, who is out tending the sheep, to be the new king of Israel.  Or, think back to to Book of Job.  Job does everything right, so much so, that God brags about Job.  But then Satan asks to take away Job’s prosperity, and then even his health, because Satan is convinced that Job will walk away from God if his good fortune were taken away.  God allows Satan, in the story, to do anything, other than kill Job, which Satan does.  Job loses everything, and his luck is so bad, his own wife says, “Curse God and die” (what a lovely woman!).  Job’s friends come, and try to convince him that he must have done something wrong, so he should repent, and then God will give Job good stuff and health again.  But Job maintains his innocence, all-the-while still trusting God.  In both those stories, and many more, physical strength and material blessings do not mean that God loves you more, nor does lack of goods mean that God hates you. 
    In fact, as we heard from the Book of Sirach, God “hears the cry of the oppressed…is not deaf to the wail of the orphan, nor to the widow.”  Those people seemed like God wasn’t on their side.  If you’re oppressed, you don’t have control of your own freedom.  If you are an orphan, you have no parents to take care of you, and there was no welfare state or foster homes to make sure you were taken care of properly.  If you were a widow, your husband, who made money to feed you, was dead, and you had to rely on the generosity of your children and other family.  In other words, these were all people who had very little, if anything.  And yet, God hears their cries. 
    Even St. Paul is an example of how what looks like failure can actually be success in the eyes of God.  St. Paul did found many churches, groups of believers in Jesus, but none of them were particularly large communities, and they almost always seemed to have problems.  St. Paul writes this second epistle to St. Timothy from house arrest, and is about to die for preaching the Gospel.  He references in another letter how many of his co-workers abandoned him.  And yet, he is sure that “the crown of righteousness awaits” him, because he has, “competed well;…finished the race;…kept the faith.” 
    So how do we measure success?  When do we think God favors us?  Is it when things go well?  Or is it when we have struggles?  In truth, God can favor us in either set of circumstances.  We may have come to church this morning and are on cloud nine because we just received a promotion, or our grandkids just made honor roll.  Or we may be struggling in marriage, doing everything we can to pay the bills and buy food with a meager salary.  God loves us either way.  He hears our prayers when we come to Him in humility, recognizing that whatever we have is from Him: a gift of good things; or the allowance of suffering to strengthen us and bring us closer to Him.
    How, too, do we view others?  Do we see the externals and presume that the person who appears to do well is blessed by God?  Do we presume that the dirty, homeless person must have done something wrong, and we should avoid him or her?  Or do we look deeper, trying to see Christ in every person, regardless of affluence or poverty?
    [Eric, you have chosen a beautiful time to join the Catholic Church.  Unlike decades past, we have lost a lot of clout politically.  Unlike before, what we hold as truths to be revealed by God regarding the dignity of the human person, from natural birth through natural death; the importance of work and using God’s gifts and talents for the building up of society; the definition of marriage given to us by God; that our bodies are good and tell us something factual about ourselves, which cannot be changed by desire or surgery; that the family is the building block of society and should not be infringed by the government; these things are now no longer popular or widely held.  People are leaving the Catholic Church in droves.  This is a beautiful time because God often works best when things seem to be stacked against us.  And you are choosing to witness to what God has revealed through his one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. 
    It will call for great determination to live out that faith.  It may even lead to suffering.  But again, what the world sees as failure–sticking to God when the rest of the world seems to be abandoning Him for more palatable beliefs–is often success, and what the world sees as success is often failure.  And your one voice today, professing your faith with us, will be joined the myriad voices throughout the millennia who have professed that same faith, unbroken and untarnished, though many have sought to destroy it and change it throughout its history. 
    Do not be afraid to live as a Catholic, in all that the word Catholic entails.  Do not be afraid of seeming to be a failure to others by professing an ancient faith that critiques so much of what modern man seems to hold dear.  You may not do it perfectly, none of us do, but if you persevere in doing what you can to follow Christ, no matter how your life looks from the outside, you will merit to hear the words we all hope to hear one day: “Well done, good and faithful servant.  Come, share your Master’s joy.”  

Keep Your Head on a Swivel

Fourth Sunday of Lent

    In the Michigan State Police, and in other settings, there’s a phrase often called “tunnel vision,” and it refers to being so focused on something, that you don’t notice other things.  In particular, this phrase is used when pursuing a vehicle.  The tendency is to stay so focused on that vehicle, that you can totally miss other vehicles on the road, and whether or not they’re stopping for you or getting over to the side of the road.  The solution to tunnel vision is another phrase we like to use, “keep you head on a swivel,” meaning, keep looking around at your surroundings, and not only on the car that you’re chasing right in front of you.
    Tunnel vision is a form of blindness.  Your eyes still work, but they’re so focused on that one thing, that you miss everything else going on.  And we hear about this especially in our first reading and Gospel today.  In the first reading, Samuel the prophet sees the sons of Jesse, and is so fixated on a strong, leader-looking son to be the next king of Israel, that at first, Samuel fails to see as God sees.  We humans see the appearance, “but the Lord looks into the heart.”  Only when David appears, who is the youngest, but still ruddy and handsome to behold, does God reveal the son of Jesse who is to be the next king of Israel.  Later on we learn that David has a radical trust in God, which is precisely what God wanted in a king for Israel, and which allowed small David to conquer the giant, Goliath.
    In the Gospel, we hear about two blind people: the man born blind and the Pharisees.  The man born blind has physical blindness, and yet is able to see the spiritual realities.  The Pharisees can physically see, but they are blind to the work of God.  The man born blind recognizes Jesus in the beginning as a prophet of God, and later, as the Son of God.  The Pharisees see Jesus as, at best, a nuisance, and at worst, a person who leads others away from God and keeping the sabbath law and the laws of Moses. 
    I think that we’re all suffering, at least a little, and in many cases, a lot, from tunnel vision.  We are so focused on one thing, that we fail to see the other things around us.  And of course, that one thing right now, is COVID-19/Coronavirus.  It’s almost all we hear and see on the news.  It has led to the cancellation of public Masses.  It’s on our minds as we drive on empty roads around town.  It’s certainly our focus at the grocery store as we buy beyond our need and, as has happened so often recently, even beyond any sense of reason.  We focus on the virus when we think about touching someone, or even coming closer than 6 feet to another person.  Some have lost jobs, or at least lost hours at work.  We can no longer dine-in at restaurants.  It has become, in many ways, the all-encompassing focus of our lives.  And because there are still so many unknowns, and no known cure at this point, we focus on all the negatives, which only drives us to more fear.
    I will admit, I’ve been in this same boat.  On my mind has been: How do we make the Mass available to people?  Are the people I encounter carriers?  Are they more vulnerable?  How low is the collection going to be?  Which bills should we pay?  Will the school open up after Spring Break, or will it be closed for the rest of the school year?  Will I be able to visit people at the hospital who are sick and need the sacraments?  How can we provide faith-building materials for people in the midst of our changing schedule?  And on an on it goes.  It seems like that’s all that’s on my mind, and I’m sure you feel the same way, too!
    But, because I have suffered form tunnel vision, I have missed seeing things that God also wants me to see.  Just last Monday, while walking from the rectory to the office, the sun was shining, and there were the first, small flowers blooming by the school, with their little lavender petals and a bright yellow circle in the middle.  And I realized that I was blind to the other things that God is doing.  Spring is springing, flowers are starting to bloom; my perennials are pushing up through the soil, the temperature is warming (ever so slightly).  Have we noticed that?  What else are we missing?  There is a generally greater awareness of caring for our neighbors, making sure that they have enough food and supplies.  Hopefully, even as Masses are cancelled, people will recognize their need for the Eucharist, and not see Sunday Mass as merely an obligation, but a chance to worship God and be nourished by His Word and the Body and Blood of Jesus.  Maybe people are learning new devotions to feed their daily prayer life, and/or reading the Bible more.  What happens when you have tunnel vision is that you miss all those things.  But if you keep your head on a swivel, you can notice that, even in the midst of the very real and great challenges in which we find ourselves, God is doing great things.
    Today, I invite you, to think about what positive things are happening in your life.  What is God doing with, for, and in you that is positive?  Can you recognize the good things that God is doing in your life, in the lives of your family and friends, and in the world around you?  They are there; you simply have to look for it.  Keep you head on a swivel!

Catholic Identity

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

A parishioner was recently asking me about my work with the Michigan State Police.  In the midst of the conversation, I started to talk about how, for law enforcement officers in general, their work is their life.  That’s not to say they don’t have hobbies outside of work, but simply that their work changes who they are, how they see people, and how they act.  One example: if a cop goes out to eat, even off duty, he or she almost always will sit facing the entrance, if at all possible, to see what’s going on, who’s coming in, etc.  The same could be said for being a mother: it changes how you see things, and you’re always a mom, even if the child doesn’t necessarily belong to you.  And I’m sure there are others whose identity changes how they relate to the world they encounter each day.

I bring this up because the same should be able to be said about us as Catholics, as followers of Jesus.  Being Catholic is not a matter of belonging to an ancient club, with dues, with old rituals, with hierarchy, that provides certain privileges.  Being Catholic is not only about coming to Mass one day each week.  Being Catholic is, as St. Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, having the same attitude as Christ.  And when we have that same attitude, it changes everything we do.

A statue of King David
from Jerusalem

Even before Jesus, we can see what that looks like in our first reading.  David had been anointed by the Prophet Samuel to take over for King Saul after Saul was dead.  David’s fame and power kept growing, while King Saul’s fame and power was waning (remember that he had disobeyed the Lord, which is why the Lord’s favor left him).  Because of this, King Saul wanted to kill David, to get rid of his rival.  So David had to flee.  But King Saul pursued David.  And that’s where our first reading comes in today.  David is hiding from King Saul, but finds him asleep, along with all of his men.  David could have killed King Saul (Saul’s spear was in the ground next to King Saul’s head), but didn’t.  David’s advisor, Abishai, told David to kill King Saul, so that he could be king instead.  But David rejected that advice, and did no harm to the king that the Lord had anointed.  

That course of action makes no sense outside of faith in God.  If you come upon a man who is hunting you, who is bent on your destruction, and you have the chance to take him out, that is the best thing to do.  David could have become king and ruled over all Israel.  But it was not God’s will, so David did not do it, even though, from the wisdom of the world, it would have ensured success.

Jesus, the Son of David, tells us in the Gospel: 

“love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  […] Give to everyone who asks of you….Do to others as you would have them do to you….Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful….Stop judging…[s]top condemning…[f]orgive.”

That’s not the way to make it in a cutthroat world, the world in which Jesus lived, the world in which we live.  That’s not the smartest plan for someone who wants to be powerful, in control, determining his own destiny.  But that’s the attitude of Christ.

Being Catholic is about living in our daily circumstances like Jesus would live.  It means loving enemies, praying for those who hurt us, being generous with our material goods, being merciful.  Those actions, and everything that Jesus teaches us, is meant to become a part of us, so that, again paraphrasing St. Paul, it is not longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us.  Being Catholic is about becoming like Jesus, not so that we can earn God’s love, but as a result of God’s love.  Being Catholic should be in us as a part of who we are, which changes who we are, how we see people, how we act.   

When we approach people, we should try to see a person created in the image and likeness of God, and love them.  When we are struggling with a co-worker or a family member, our first instinct should be to pray for that person.  When we’re at the grocery or department store, or dealing with customer service, we should treat them as we would want to be treated.  When someone wrongs us, we should try to extend mercy to them, just as our heavenly Father extends mercy to us.  All of those things should flow from us because we are followers of Jesus, because we are Catholic.  Even more to the core of who we are than a job; even more to the core of who we are as a mother or father, we are followers of Jesus, and that should impact the way we live.  

Imagine for a second that our actions flowed from our identity as sons and daughters in the Son of God.  Imagine how different our world would be if we stopped acting out of a worldly mindset where we are in competition with each other for every last scrap, and where if we don’t take someone else down, that they could take us down.  Imagine if we had the same attitude as Christ.

Truth and Beauty

Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

When is a king most a king?  That might seem like a very academic question, but it impacts how we understand and celebrate this Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.  A king, I would suggest, is most a king when he has defeated his enemies, and his kingdom is secure.  The ideal of Jewish kings is King David, who conquered all of his enemies.  King Solomon, his son, is least kingly when he is conquered by his wives’ attachment to their foreign gods.  

So for we who celebrate this great festival, when is Jesus most a king?  When He has defeated His enemies, that is to say, Satan, sin, and death.  And when did Jesus do exactly that?  On the cross.  And so, Jesus is most kingly when He is on the cross, dying for our salvation, and, at the same time, destroying the reign of Satan over this world.  That helps us understand today’s Gospel, which is Christ being interrogated by Pontius Pilate.  Of course, this was right before Jesus was led away to His crucifixion.  Pilate asks about Jesus’ kingship, alleged by the chief priests, and Jesus answers that His kingdom is a kingdom of truth.  That truth was released upon the world in the most powerful way when Jesus was nailed to the cross, the truth that St. John the Evangelist also tells us, that, “God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

Truth is related to something else: beauty.  We so often hear the false, yet ubiquitous statement, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”  Beauty, though, is not subjective, because it is the splendor of the truth, and truth is utterly objective.  Something is beautiful as much as it is true, or reflects the truth.  Lies are ugly.  Tonight we enjoy beautiful music.  It’s beautiful not simply because of the number of people, not simply because of the instrumentation, nor even the notes themselves, but because it reflects the truth of heaven.  Now, maybe Mozart isn’t played 24/7 in heaven, but the genius of Mozart, why it has stood the test of time, is that he tapped into something otherworldly, something heavenly, which helps us recognize the grandeur, the immensity, the order of heaven.  And this particular piece was made for the Mass, where heaven and earth are joined in harmony with each other in this sacred space.  Mozart maybe isn’t played in heaven 24/7, but it helps us to recognize that in this church we straddle both heaven and earth as we worship Christ our King, which is true of every Mass.  

Today we worship Christ, the King, who reigned most perfectly from the cross, and who still reigns perfectly in heaven as He continues to pour Himself out fully to God the Father for Christ’s Bride, the Church.  May our adherence to the truth prepare us for what God destines for us, a place in the Kingdom of Christ the King, where we will experience the fullness of the Beauty of God, in which we participate today.

The King of Glory

Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

I think it would be safe to say that the secretary at my last parish was borderline obsessed with British royalty.  I did her wedding not long after I arrived at St. Joseph in Adrian, and one of her hymns was the same one that was used at the royal wedding.  She would often try to find less expensive versions of dresses that Katherine wears, and when the value of the British pound dropped after Brexit, she and her husband started to make plans to visit.

But America’s love of royalty is not limited to her.  For six years millions of Americans watched “Downton Abbey,” about a British noble family and their servants.  The final season finale drew 9.6 million viewers, so clearly there are a good number of people who like royalty and nobility.  And America even “created” it’s own royal family in John and Jackie Kennedy.  But what do we love about it?  Is it the fancy clothes?  Is the crowns and swords and ceremonial uniforms?  Is it the tradition?  Is it the power?

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.  Even just after our presidential election, we are celebrating a King.  We heard in our first reading a little about the best example of a Jewish king, King David.  King David was the model for all kings who followed, even though David himself wasn’t a perfect king (remember that story about Bathsheba, and how got her pregnant, even though she was someone else’s wife, and then eventually killed her husband to cover up the adultery?).  In fact, when the Archangel Gabriel appears to Mary to tell her that she will be the Mother of God, Gabriel says, “‘He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’”  

But in the rest of the Gospels, Jesus shies away from this heritage, of being a king in the line of David.  In John 6, the people want to make Jesus king after he feeds them miraculously.  But Jesus hides away, and does not let them.  The closest Jesus comes to accepting the fulfillment of the Davidic prophecy of a great king is on Palm Sunday, when Jesus receives the praise from the people that we heard in our Alleluia verse: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!  Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come!”

So why is Jesus so hesitant to be cast as a king in the line of David during His earthly ministry?  If He is a king, why not accept the recognition by the people that He is a king?

Jesus is a king unlike any other, and He does not accept earthly kingship from His own people because their idea of kingship was different than God’s.  Jesus was not concerned with the fancy clothes, the crowns and swords and ceremonial uniforms.  And He was certainly not concerned with power, though all power in heaven and earth belonged to Him.  Our Gospel today shows us what the kingship of Jesus is like: a suffering kingship, that does not seek power, but empties itself out for the good of His people.  Jesus on earth does not rule from a throne of gold, but from the throne of the cross.  In Orthodox churches, their large crucifixes do not have INRI above them like ours (INRI is an abbreviation for Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum, which is Latin for Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews).  Instead, the inscription reads: The King of Glory, to remind them how Christ was glorified, and how we are to be glorified: through the cross.

Can we accept Jesus as our king on the cross?  Sometimes Protestants accuse us of wanting to crucify Jesus again and again because we give such a prominent place to Jesus on the cross, what we commonly call a crucifix, in our churches.  But that is our constant reminder of how Jesus reigns: on the cross.  As our preface before the Eucharistic prayer says, Jesus’ kingdom is “an eternal and universal kingdom, a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, and kingdom of justice, love and peace.”  

Jesus has all power, and yet He, the Lord of Lords, does not lord His power over us.  He invites us to accept His reign, but He does not force it upon us.  There will come a day, at the end of time, when His kingdom will be the only kingdom.  There will be no more lies and death, no more sin and sorrow, no more injustice, hatred, and war.  And at that time, we will be recognized as a part of that kingdom based on how we accepted that kingdom while here on earth.  Instead of being a part of a kingdom because of where we are born, we become a part of Christ’s kingdom by the rebirth of baptism, and we remain a part of that kingdom by being faithful in word and deed throughout the rest of our life.  May we be obsessed, in the best sense of the word, not with British royalty, but with being subjects of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.

Admitting We're Wrong; Receiving God's Mercy

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Sacrament of Penance, aka Confession, is one of my favorite sacraments to celebrate, both as a priest and as a penitent.  Not because I like hearing all the juicy details of your life.  Lord knows other priests have heard mine.  I love giving and receiving the mercy of God.  As a priest, a person’s confession is never about what they have done.  Yes, they have to be sorry; and sometimes I try to get them to truly make the changes that will help them not commit those sins in the future.  But the sacrament is about God’s mercy, and restoring that person to sanctifying grace, that is, the grace that makes us the saints that God called us to be in baptism.  When a person comes into the confessional, he or she may be in serious danger of going to hell because of mortal sin.  When that same person leaves, he or she is once more on the track to being a saint.

I think one of the difficulties in confessing our sins is that it can be embarrassing.  Some sins are embarrassing to confess, or even just to say.  Sometimes it’s the embarrassment of knowing that we did something we knew was wrong.  But when we confess our sins, when we admit that we have done wrong, we are not alone.  David, the best king Israel ever had, the image of what the Messiah would be like, was an adulterer and a murderer.  He got Bathsheba pregnant when she was married to Uriah, tried to have Uriah have relations with his wife so that he would think it was his, and then had Uriah killed when his planned deception did not work.  In today’s first reading, we get part of that story, where God chastises David for doing what was wrong.  But notice that, as soon as David said, “‘I have sinned against the Lord’”, God responds immediately through his prophet Nathan, “‘The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin: you shall not die.’”  As soon as we admit that we are in need of God’s mercy, which is itself made possible by God’s grace, God rushes in to forgive us, and to keep us from death and hell.  

The woman in today’s Gospel passage doesn’t even say she is sorry with her words.  She provides a service of love to Jesus to express how sorry she is.  She can’t even speak her sorrow, but cries because of how much she knows she has strayed from God.  And in her act of love, Jesus says, “‘Your sins are forgiven.’”  She knows the value of God’s love, and wants to be restored to it.  She knows that what she did was wrong, and she seeks God’s mercy.  And God, in Jesus, gives her the mercy for which she was looking.

It’s hard admitting that we’re wrong.  We love to justify ourselves as much as possible, and rationalize what we do when we sin.  Or, in some cases, we do not refer to sins as sinful; we ignore how they are contrary to God’s plan for our happiness.  We know by faith, that our chances of getting into heaven if we die in the state of mortal sin are not good.  God never forces His love upon us, and we can freely choose to reject Him in our actions.  Yet we also know of God’s mercy, that is waiting to be showered upon us.  Pope Francis has especially encouraged us to seek God’s mercy in this Jubilee Year of Mercy.  He invites us to experience personally what Psalm 32 said today: “I acknowledged my sin to you,/ my guilt I covered not./  I said, ‘I confess my faults to the Lord,’/ and you took away the guilt of my sin.//”

In his Papal Bull starting the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis wrote, “Let us place the Sacrament of Reconciliation at the centre [sic] once more in such a way that it will enable people to touch the grandeur of God’s mercy with their own hands.  For every penitent, it will be a source of true interior peace.”  The Lord wants to shower his mercy upon us, but we must first admit that we are the ones who need mercy.  In the Sacrament of Penance, we admit that we are a sinner, and the Lord looks upon us with love and forgiveness.  Or, we recognize, as Pope Francis said in an interview, that, “‘I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.”

So we should not fear the Sacrament of Penance.  Even if it’s been 5 or 10 or 20 or 40 years since your last confession, I invite you to experience the ordinary way that God gives His mercy to us.  Don’t worry if you don’t remember your act of contrition; I’ll help you through it.  Or, if you don’t want to go to me, Fr. Shaun is always available, or you can go to one of the surrounding parishes in Lenawee County.  But don’t miss out on the chance to receive God’s mercy!

A Savior, Not a President

Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord–Mass at Night

In eleven months, we will be electing a new president of the United States.  And yet, we are all too familiar with the fact that campaign season is in full force.  It seems like every fifth commercial on the TV ends with, “I’m so and so, and I approved this message,” or “Paid for by the Elect So and So Fund.”  In recent weeks, in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, much of the attention of the country has turned to what the federal government is doing to keep us safe.  A good chunk of the news is also focused on the use of guns, either by private individuals or police officers.  Every candidate has his or her view on what really needs to be done to keep all people safe from all threats, whether from abroad or from within the homeland.

Hopefully we are forming our consciences by the light of the Gospel and Catholic Social teaching so that, when it comes to the primaries and the general election, we can vote for someone who advances not so much the agenda of a political party, but the truth and policies that will help all people to live in freedom and security.

But it can be too easy for people to pin all their hope on a new president.  They are convinced that if Hillary Clinton is elected, then all will be well.  They are certain that if Donald Trump is elected, then America will be great again.  Brothers and sisters, this Christmas we celebrate and we remember that our hope is not in this person or that person who will have the highest office in the land.  We celebrate not a political solution to our problems, but a Savior!

Our burden is so much greater than high or low taxes; unemployment rates and those no longer looking for jobs; whether or not our military should be involved in a war in the Middle East.  Our burden is sin: sin which causes us to hate others, sin which causes us to take advantage of others, sin which causes us to destroy ourselves.  And no human person can save us from that.  No human person will free us from this cycle of sin.  But we proclaim, this night, that we have a savior.  We have a Person who will smash the yoke that burdens us and the rod of our taskmaster.  We have someone who will confirm judgment and justice for us, who will give light to our lives and make us rejoice.  And that Person is not the person who will occupy the most powerful office in the world.  That Person is the “Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.”  That Person, whose birth around 2,000 years ago we celebrate tonight, instituted His reign as a baby.  “For a child is born to us, a son is given us.”

The temptation is to be no different than all of our ancestors who placed their hope in earthly rulers.  How many people were sure that Caesar Augustus, who instituted the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace, was the savior who would protect and govern the whole world?  And yet, while Octavian Augustus ruled in his fine palazzo in Rome, the true King was born, in a cave, in a land that no one cared about, from a people whose glory had long since faded with the death of King David.

The solutions to our problems, as a nation and as a world, do not come from the political order.  Politics certainly has its place in promoting the common good and order among all people.  But the problems in our nation and our world come from the fact that, while the angels proclaimed a great joy for all people, someone who would truly save us, we are convinced that our salvation cannot come from a peaceful child who grew up to be a crucified leader of a small “heretical” group of Jews.  We do not have peace on earth because we do not give glory to God in the highest.  We are constantly at war–in the world, in our cities, and in our hearts–because we have been like the inn keepers of Bethlehem who, when asked to make room for a poor couple who is about to give birth to their first-born, have pushed them back out into the streets.  The Prince of Peace has come to the doors of our hearts, and we have turned him away.  

The solutions to all of the world’s problems begin here, as they began in a manger in a cave in Bethlehem.  Even with the multitude of the heavenly host praising God, the shepherds must have thought, ‘What good can this little family do?  They are so few, and the kings of the world are so powerful.’  Maybe we think, too, ‘What good would it do if I lived as Christ called me to?  Would it change anything if I truly lived as if Jesus were the most important person in my life?’

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus, the king of Ephyra, was cursed by the gods for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness, and was made to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to see it roll down to the base as he approached the top.  If we place our hope for the solutions to our problems in worldly efforts of this or that political party or that, we are bound to the same results.  But tonight, as we celebrate Christmas, let us recommit ourselves to electing a new king for our hearts, a king who seems powerless, but is the only one who can save us.  

Tonight, Jesus knocks on the door of your heart and invites you to elect Him to rule over you, an election which can change the course of human history, just as He did with twelve uneducated men and a handful of followers in the middle of nowhere in the Roman Empire.  “Beloved: The grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desire and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people as his own, eager to do what is good.”  Beloved: “Today is born our Savior, Christ the Lord.”

Getting an Eye Transplant

Fourth Sunday of Lent–Second Scrutiny

I give real credit to those who use contacts.  I don’t think I’ll ever be a contacts guy because I hate the idea of touching my eyes.  I don’t know why I have this phobia, but one of the most sickening things for me in movies is when someone gets their eye poked or damaged or even removed!  I see pictures of people having eye surgery and it just makes me sick to my stomach!!

But, if we are honest, we need eye transplants.  Our eyes do not work as they are supposed to work.  They receive the light of the sun, but do they receive the light of God?  Just as our eyes need the light of the sun (s-u-n) to see our world, we need the light of the Son (S-o-n) to see as God sees.  Even Samuel, one of God’s greatest prophets, didn’t fully see by the light of God because he couldn’t see God’s choice for the new king of Israel.  Only after God enlightened Samuel did Samuel understand that David was to be the new king, even though David was not considered to be much by his family.  

So, too, the man born blind was able to tell who Jesus was, even without following Him, because Jesus cured Him.  The Pharisees were closed off to the Light of Christ and so they could not see, even when it was right in front of their faces, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.  Of course, even the blind man needs some help in recognizing just who Jesus is, because Jesus has to reveal Himself as the Messiah.  But as soon as that comes to light, the man born blind believes.

Today we’ll pray again for our Elect, that they might see with the light of the Son of God.  We will pray that they will be freed from being blind to truth, and seeing false values and lies.  And this freedom from lies will happen through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth.  But we also need to pray for ourselves.  We also need the Spirit of Truth to give us new eyes to see as God sees.  What a great gift to be able to see that way.  How differently would we treat each other if, when we saw a person in our work, on the street, and even in our homes, with the eyes of God!  What a difference that would make in our life and in theirs!!  

As much as it makes me a little queasy just to think about it, we need to pop out our eyes that see from a worldly point of view, and pop in eyes that only are work with the Light of Christ.  At the Easter Vigil I will sing “The Light of Christ” as that one Paschal Candle illumines the darkness of the night, showing us in visible form how Christ is the Light of the World who dispels the darkness.  In these next few weeks as we prepare for the Easter Vigil, that Vigil of Vigils, may our eyes be more attuned to the only light that we truly need: the Light of Christ.

Promises, Promises

Fourth Sunday of Advent

One of the things we learn from a very early is that we are supposed to keep our promises.  When we say something, we are supposed to stand behind what we say and follow through.  Sometimes it requires that special phrasing, “I promise I’ll give you $20 if you drink that milk that’s 5 days past the expiration date.”  Sometimes it is expressed by a handshake or a signature.  In any case, we expect that when someone tells us that something will be done, it will.  We can just hear the kids whining when they don’t get something they thought they were told they were: “Awwww, but you promised!”

It seems like promises don’t hold the same weight as they did before, though.  Some people still stand behind their word alone (without the words, “I promise” or a signature).  But those people seem to be in a minority.  It’s almost expected now in contracts that there is some special language which basically backs a person out the guarantee that was made, so that it’s only the rarest of cases where a business has to stand behind what it promised (with all the fine print that alleviates them from that burden).  When a man and woman have sex, they make a promise with their bodies that they give all of who they are, past, present, and future, to the other (which is why sex is made for marriage), and yet how often, in the culture of hook-ups, friends with benefits, and one-night stands is that promise broken, leading to many broken hearts and lives.  And, when a child is conceived after sex, an implicit promise is made to the infant in the womb, that the mother and father will take care of that child, but how often is that promise broken through abortion or an absentee parent!  In marriage, a promise is made to love each other above the self for life, no matter what happens.  And while sometimes separation and divorce follow because of abuse, or something that only became known after the marriage which would have changed the mind of at least one of the spouses getting married, we live in the no-fault divorce culture, so that if you simply grow tired of living with the same person, you can go your separate ways.  We live in a world of broken promises.

In the midst of all these broken promises, we hear good news today: God is the one who always keeps His promises.  These promises are kept most perfectly in Jesus.  In the first reading, we heard about how David would always have an heir on the throne, and that his kingdom and throne would endure forever.  The Jews were waiting for that promise to be fulfilled.  Not for hundreds of years had Judah had a king.  For hundreds of years they had been ruled by foreign powers, who had appointed puppet kings to help govern the people.  But it seemed like David’s throne and kingdom were only a thing of the past.

But what the Archangel Gabriel tells Mary is that the child that will be conceived in her womb is God (“Son of the Most High,” he says), and God will give Him the throne of David, His father.  This makes sense as Mary was a descendant of David.  But the family of David was long past its ruling days.  So God is making good on His promise to David, and in Jesus the throne of David would endure forever, since Jesus’ rule has no end.  In Jesus, the promise made to David is fulfilled.

But Jesus also fulfills an older promise that God had made.  After Adam and Eve had sinned against God, God laid out the consequences of sin.  For the serpent, the consequence is that there would be a battle between the serpent and the woman, “and between your offspring and hers.”  Eve’s children would always fight against the spawn of the evil one.  But God promises a savior to Adam and Eve, a victor in the battle, when He says, “‘He [the offspring] will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.’”  God promises to end the battle, once and for all, by a male offspring of Eve, who will strike the serpent at its head, killing it.  Jesus is that offspring of Adam and Eve, since he takes human nature upon Himself in the Incarnation.  Though Satan strikes at Jesus on the cross and uses all his influence to get Jesus killed, by Jesus’ death and resurrection, He destroys the kingdom of Satan and restores the kingdom of David, the kingdom of God, for all time.  

God has made a promise to us, and He has fulfilled it in Jesus.  He has promised to be our God, and we His People.  In Jesus, humanity is forever married to divinity, and God and His People are inseparably joined.  God has promised to dwell with us.  In Jesus, we see Emmanuel: God-with-us.  God never breaks His promise.  He is ever-faithful, even if it seems like He has forgotten.  Think of the Jews who were waiting for the kingdom of David to be restored.  It was almost 1,000 years until Jesus came.  And those Jews who do not acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah are still waiting.  But they know that God will fulfill His promise.  

God has promised to be with us.  In the midst of the myriad broken promises that surround us, God reminds us that He can be trusted.  And only living as disciples of Jesus can enable us to live up to the promises we make on this earth.  What good news it is for us that God keeps His promises!  May that inspire us to keep ours.