Recognizing Holiness

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Me after my first Extraordinary Form Mass

    There is a tradition in the Extraordinary Form that the people bow as the priest processes up or down the aisle at the beginning or end of Mass.  This gesture is a sign of respect, not so much for the priest as an individual, but for Christ whom the priest makes present in a special way each Mass.
    I remember at the first Extraordinary Form Mass that I celebrated, I invited my friend to be there.  After Mass we spoke about how it went, and he joked with me that he saw all the people bowing, but he didn’t bow because he knows me too well and he doesn’t think I’m worthy of a bow. 
    I know my friend didn’t mean any disrespect, and he certainly is good at keeping me humble and not thinking that they are bowing to me.  But it illustrates the point that Jesus made in the Gospel today: it’s hard to recognize holiness in people we know well.  It was true for Jesus in His own time, and it continues to be true now.  With merely human friends, we know all their failings and their idiosyncrasies.  Of course, Jesus had no failings or idiosyncrasies.  But the cliché phrase can so easily come true: familiarity breeds contempt. 
    But in our minds, we convince ourselves that if we would have been alive at the time of Christ, we would have been one of His closest followers.  We would have walked all over to see His miracles; we would have believed in Him from His miracles and teachings; we would have stayed faithful to Him during His Passion; we would have stood by the cross at His crucifixion.  But the witness of the Gospels show us that, just because people were close to Jesus didn’t mean they stood by Him all the time or recognized His holiness.
    Holiness can draw people in.  Think of St. Theresa of Calcutta (Mother Theresa) or St. Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio).  Though, even in those cases, most people who were drawn in didn’t spend a lot of time with the saints.  They simply had one or a few powerful encounters.  So it’s also true that holiness can put people off.  St. Francis of Assisi drew a number of people towards him to join in his radical way of life.  But if you stripped down in the town square to show your renunciation of all your worldly goods, it’s not an old man in a white cassock who would come to see you, but a doctor in a white coat who might come to commit you to a mental health facility!  Sometimes the holiest of people can be quite annoying to those of us who don’t share in their total love for God.
    Why?  Why can we find it so difficult to love the saints?  Why is it so easy to be hard-hearted, as God warned Ezekiel the people of Israel would be.  As St. John says in the Gospel, people often prefer darkness to light, and so when the light comes, we try however we can to get rid of it.  The light makes the darkness in us uncomfortable, and makes us realize that we are not who we claim to be. 
    And because of this hardness of heart and preference for darkness, God does not work great things in us.  He can’t, because we leave no openness to His work in our lives, but reject it and work against it.  And God respects our free will, however miserable the misuse of our free will makes us.  He wants to do great things in us, to transform us by the power of His love and grace, but He won’t force Himself on us, because love never forces itself on anyone.  Jesus didn’t work great miracles in His home town because of the people’s lack of faith there.  When we don’t open up to God, when we lack faith that God can do something for us, then He won’t work miracles in us. 
    The key to allowing Christ to work great things in us is to admit we need Him.  Even the smallest opening to God’s work in us can be enough for God to break through.  Think of St. Paul: there must have been some openness to God’s work, even as he was persecuting Christians, so that when Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus, it could change his life and change him from a persecutor of Christians to one of the greatest Christian missionaries the world has ever known. 
    Today, ask God to soften your heart to be open to His work.  Ask him to reveal holy people in your life who can help you grow closer to God.  It could be a friend or a relative.  It could be someone you have written off.  But if we ask God to do great things for us, and make even a small amount of space for His love and grace, there’s no telling how much God can do with us, and make us into the saints He created us to be.  

Getting to Know Christ through the Lenten Gospels

Second Sunday of Lent
    Throughout Lent, we see overarching themes as we enter into this holy season.  Certainly we see mortification and the denial of the body as a way to focus on the higher, spiritual realities.  We are also, certainly, meditating on the Passion of our Lord, and preparing for His ultimate sacrifice which we celebrate during the Sacred Triduum.  And that Passion leads to the Resurrection, as we see in the Transfiguration today.  Our Lord had told the Apostles about His impending Passion, and then He takes Peter, James, and John, and leads them up Mount Tabor, and is transfigured before them, to show that what would happen after He suffered crucifixion. 

Church of the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor

    

    But all of the Gospels passages for this sacred time, both in the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, also help us to understand who Jesus is.  The first two Sundays of Lent find the Gospel readings in both forms of the Roman Rite the same: the temptation of our Lord, and His Transfiguration.  After that, the Gospel selections take different paths.  In the Ordinary Form, since this is Year A in the Cycle of Sunday readings, we hear the long Gospels about the Samaritan woman at the well (3rd Sunday of Lent); the man born blind (4th Sunday of Lent); and the raising of Lazarus (5th Sunday of Lent).  In the Extraordinary Form, where we hear the same readings each year, the passages are: the casting out of demons, and the accusation that our Lord does so by the power of demons (3rd Sunday in Lent); the multiplication of the loaves from John 6 (4th Sunday in Lent); and our Lord telling the Pharisees that He is greater than Abraham (Passion Sunday).  No matter which Form of Mass we attend, the readings help us to know our Lord better as He reveals Himself.
    The identity of Christ is no small matter and is perfect for meditation during Lent.  The better we know Christ, we better know our salvation.  And, since we are members of Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church, the better we know Christ, the better we understand what is in store for us if we stay faithful to Him.
    On the one hand we can talk about who our Lord is objectively, as in facts about Him.  The Gospels show us that He is the Son of God, who has been tempted like us, but has not sinned (first Sunday of Lent).  He is also co-equal with the Father, and sharing in His glory, the God to whom all the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah) point (second Sunday of Lent).  The Savior is the one who brings down the power and reign of Satan (third Sunday of Lent, EF), and does so by convicting us of sin so that we can be healed and receive the waters of Divine Mercy (third Sunday of Lent, OF).  Christ opens our eyes to recognize who He is (fourth Sunday of Lent, OF), and feeds us with miraculous bread, going beyond what any other prophet had done (fourth Sunday of Lent, EF).  Christ is the Resurrection and the Life, who grants eternal life to those who believe in Him (fifth Sunday of Lent), whose day Abraham rejoiced to see (Passion Sunday). 
    But knowing our Lord is more than simply knowing facts about Him.  Knowing Christ means taking all those facts that I just laid out, the facts that we hear from the Gospel, and making a choice about who He is to me.  Even the demons knew facts about Christ, and could probably confess more Trinitarian theology than any of us could.  But they do not have a relationship with Christ; they do not want Him involved in their lives; they do not love Him.
    Following Christ as a disciple means growing in our love of Him.  Lent offers us the opportunity to recommit ourselves to acting like He did in our daily lives.  Do we actively fight temptations and do our best not to give in to the lies of the devil?  Does our glory come from God, or do we seek to glorify ourselves with our own greatness, that does not even come close to shining as brightly as the glory that God desires for us?  How do we fill that thirst that we have for God?  Are we active in cooperating with Christ to tear down the kingdom of the prince of this world and build up the Kingdom of God?  Do we ourselves recognize the ways we want to close our eyes to God’s goodness, and help to open others’ eyes to the truth of the Gospel?  Do we feed on the Living Bread come down from heaven, or do we try to fill our stomachs with food that fails to satisfy and is never enough?  Are we willing to let Christ raise us to new life, or do we treat Him as just another moral teacher, a philosopher, who had some good teachings, but is like all other teachers and philosophers who came before Him?
    Our reading of the Gospels and our participation in this Mass is not simply about gathering facts and putting time in with God.  When we read the Sacred Scriptures, guided by the teachings of the Church, God wants us to understand how we are to find our happiness by putting the old Adam, the one who chose disobedience to God, to death, and rising to life with the new Adam, Christ, who was obedient even to the point of death, death on a cross.  As we worship God in the Mass, God does not only want our praise from our lips.  He gives us the Eucharist, the miraculous Bread from heaven, so that our lives can be transformed and we can have a foretaste within us of the glory to be revealed at the end of time.  God wants us to utilize His presence within us to be more like Him, and to share that presence of Christ when we interact with others.  When family members, friends, co-workers, and others interact with us, do they sense Christ and see, even in small ways, His glory shining through us?  Are they greeted with the love that any person would desire to receive from God, and then invited to participate in the truth that is also God? 
    We are still early in Lent.  There is still time to get to know God better, and to open ourselves to the grace of God which makes deep changes possible in our lives so that we live a life like Christ’s.  Don’t only give up stuff this Lent.  Don’t only know the facts about the great gift of salvation God gave us in dying for us.  Allow what Christ did to become the pattern of your own life, and grow in your friendship with Him. 

What Makes Us Catholic

 Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Due to my retreat I had tried to get ahead of the game and write my homily before I left, which I successfully did.  And then Friday the sixteenth happened.  So, back to the drawing board.
    This past Friday morning, as I was finishing up our usual Friday morning adoration, I received a text from a brother priest of mine in the Diocese who knows how to celebrate the Extraordinary Form, or whatever we’re going to call it from now on, about Traditionis custodes, the new Motu Proprio.  We spoke after the 8 a.m. Mass about the details and the law of the new document (this brother priest is also a canon lawyer).  I then called Bishop Boyea, only to be reminded by his secretary that he is on retreat this week with the bishops of Michigan and Ohio.  I then had time to read over the document myself.
    I have to admit that, even though I only started celebrating according to the Missal of St. John XXIII a couple of months ago, my heart ached at what looks like more restrictions (we’ll see what Bishop Boyea has to say when he gets back with me).  Even in this short time I have come to see the beauty and transcendence of this form of celebration.  I will say that I also think that a priest can celebrate according to the Missal of St. Paul VI beautifully and transcendently, in its own way.  We’ll have to see what future lies in store for us, though I neither want to freak you out with specious speculations, nor presume that everything will be exactly the same.
    But Pope Francis, who is our validly elected Supreme Pontiff, Vicar of Christ, and head of the Universal Church, also reminds us of important points about our Catholic faith, that I believe are worth speaking about here.

   The first is a general point about what makes us Catholic.  We are Catholics because we believe that Jesus founded His Church in a particular way, namely, upon apostolic foundations, with the successor of St. Peter as the Prince of the Apostles, and the visible sign of unity and head of the apostolic college.  Certainly I understand and sympathize (suffer with you) in feeling hurt by our Holy Father, and likely there are feelings of anger, betrayal, or others.  But to say that the pope is not the pope, or that we do not owe him religious submission of will and intellect because he has hurt us, because he has made decisions with which we do not agree, in a matter that is not de fide or part of the moral life of the Church, is not Catholic.  As your spiritual father I understand your pain, but also want to warn against a schismatic attitude that can separate you from the Body of Christ, which is the ordinary means of salvation.  We will continue to see what this new document means, but we have to do so with respect for Pope Francis, lest we endanger our immortal soul.  Does this mean that this legislation of his is the best or even simply right?  I think we can reasonably disagree in charity with this legislation.  But he is still our pope, allowed for us by Christ Himself.  And if St. Catherine of Siena can give that same respect to popes who were wrongly living in Avignon, we can give respect and pray for Pope Francis.  I certainly mention his name every time I pray the Roman Canon.  If you want to be in a parish that is schismatic, separated from visible unity with the Church, then this is not the parish for you.  We are Latin Rite, Roman Catholics, and too many martyrs died to uphold the papacy for us to reject it because of what we consider a hurtful and wrong piece of legislation.  I invite each of you to storm heaven with your prayers, and pray a Chaplet of Divine Mercy for Pope Francis.  
    Secondly, Vatican II.  The jokes about the Spirit of Vatican II being the scariest Halloween costume are funny because they contain a bit of truth.  Many people have taken Vatican II to mean a variety of things which the Council Fathers never intended nor desired.  I was born in 1983 (yes, I’m young), so I have only known a post-Vatican II world, and I have seen some of the negative effects of wrong implementation on the Church.  Many people saw Vatican II as a jettisoning of everything that had come before.  
    But Vatican II, especially in the Constitutions, and even in some of the documents which have less authority (e.g., decrees and declarations), was not a rejection of what came before, but a re-application of what came before.  Lumen gentium itself contains over 200 quotations and 92 references to Pope Pius XII.  As you look through Lumen gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, there is a beautiful collection of citations from Sacred Scripture, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, and the conciliar documents of Trent and Vatican I.  I didn’t have time to count them all, but the references to solid Catholic saints, previous holy popes, and previous councils, is impressive.  
    Further, Pope St. John XXIII, whose missal we use, declared it to be an ecumenical council, and it was confirmed and approved, in the ways ecumenical councils need to be, by Pope St. Paul VI.  So we cannot ignore Vatican II and its documents, without ignoring an ecumenical council called for and confirmed by the successor of St. Peter.  To do so would be to make the same mistake as Luther, Zwingli, Melanchthon, and other so-called reformers of rejecting what we don’t like and keeping what we do.  St. Augustine says this of the Gospel, but the same could be said for ecumenical councils, that if we accept what we like and reject what we don’t like, we do not have faith in God but in ourselves.  
    Further, while everyone likes to quote Lumen gentium, 16 which says that those who, “through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace, strive by their deeds to do his will as it is known through them through the dictates of conscience” can be saved, there is another quote, I would say that is even stronger, about the necessity of belonging to the Church.  Lumen gentium, 14 says, “Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.”  I think all here know that the Catholic Church is a necessary connection to Christ (inasmuch as our Lord Himself said that persecuting His followers was persecuting Him as He spoke to Saul on the road to Damascus).  In the same way, then, we must hold fast to the Church, even when the barque of Peter seems to be adrift and taking on water, or risk damnation, as Vatican II clearly teaches.  
    I know these are hard days.  I know that it seems like the Church may want to abandon us.  But, St. Paul tells us, that we are not called to fear, but to have courage.  And Jesus reminds us in the Gospel, to do whatever it takes to be saved, even if it means suffering greatly.  We can likely see ourselves in the boat in Mark 4 with the apostles, as the storm is pounding us, and the waves are breaking over the boat, so that it seems like it will capsize.  But our Lord is in the boat, and He will not let it sink.  Our duty, even in our pain, frustration, and betrayal, is to stay in the boat with Christ, hold fast to Him, and have faith that He will see us safely to the harbor of heaven, where God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, reign eternally, world without end.  Amen.

Source and Summit

 Solemnity of Corpus Christi

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  First of all I want to say what a joy it is to celebrate my first Extraordinary Form Mass with you on this wonderful day in the life of the Church!  I also want to especially thank Michael Haggerty and Isaiah Rex for helping me get to this point where I feel I can comfortably say this form of the Latin Rite.  I realize it may still be a little slower than what you’re used to, but I appreciate your patience as I grow more and more familiar with it.  It is also so appropriate that my first celebration with you, even though I’m not your pastor yet, is on this Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ.  Sacrosanctum concilium of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council states:
 

“…the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows….From the liturgy, therefore, and especially from the Eucharist, as from a font, grace is poured forth upon us; and the sanctification of men in Christ and the glorification of God, to which all other activities of the Church are directed as toward their end, is achieved in the most efficacious way possible.”

So, this is the source, the beginning, of my celebration of the Extraordinary Form, but what we celebrate today is also the goal for all of our lives, going to heaven where God is eternally worshipped.  
    I also have to say that this Mass is special to me as I’m a member of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Dominic, the Third Order Dominicans for priests, and this Mass was composed by St. Thomas Aquinas, to whom I have a special devotion.  So certainly a special day for me to begin this new part of my priestly life!
    I would hazard that many here, if not most here, already understand that we believe that, by the ministry of the priest and the working of the Holy Spirit, the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of Christ.  And if you didn’t, now you do.  Every time we come to Mass we get to participate in a miracle that God works for us.  Transubstantiation, the changing of the bread and the wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, is nothing less than a miracle.  How often do we ask the Lord in our lives if we can see a miracle, and yet we get to see one at least every Sunday!
    But that miracle, like all of our Lord’s miracles, are not meant as a stupendous event that is supposed to wow the crowd and then fizzle away.  It is meant to help us believe more, and then, believing, to share the good news that we have received, and cooperate in the transformation of the world by God.  Our Gospel today from John, chapter 6, is the middle of the Bread of Life Discourse, that started with the multiplication of the loaves and fish.  Jesus did a great miracle for the people, but the people got stuck on simply being awed by the miracle, and did not follow what our Lord was intending to instruct them, that He is the Bread of Life, and if we want to have eternal life, then we need to eat of Him, and then be sent by the Father just as Christ was.  In fact, after our Lord revealed the Eucharist to the people, most disciples walked away because they found His teaching too difficult.  I’m hoping my teaching doesn’t have the same effect!
    Yes, we see the miracle of the Eucharist, but Christ also wants us to be sent by the Father, just as He was, to share the good news that eternal life is possible for us who are connected and transformed by Him.  Christ also wants us to cooperate with Him to transform the world from something ordinary, like bread and wine, into something extraordinary, like the Body and Blood of Christ, the “supersubstantial bread,” as the Greek version of the Our Father literally says.  
    Part of that witness we will provide tonight as we walk in procession and bear witness to our faith in the Eucharist.  And that public witness is so important!  But that witness needs to continue in what one chart I read called, “The Mass During the Day.”  If you have a hand missal, you notice that the first part of the Mass is the “Mass of the Catechumens,” Mass for those who are not initiated into our Catholic faith.  Starting with the offertory, we begin the “Mass of the Faithful,” the Mass that is for those who have been baptized into Jesus’ Death and Resurrection.  Then, beginning with the dismissal, we have the “Conclusion of the Mass.”  But, in this “Mass During the Day,” we utilize the graces we receive from our Eucharistic Lord to be a good husband or wife, father or mother, priest, deacon, or religious.  We continue the Lord’s ministry to proclaim the truth, to heal, to reveal God’s love with the people we encounter so that others know what it means to be a Catholic and are drawn by our witness to draw closer to Jesus.  
    Just as today is a beginning for me, may the Eucharist always be a beginning for all of us, a beginning of new opportunities to witness a miracle, to be transformed in our own lives, and to continue the mission of our Eucharistic Lord, sent by the Father to give the world the life of the Father, which makes us ready for heaven, where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live and reign, world without end.  Amen.