No Sour-Faced Saints

Second Sunday after Epiphany
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of the things I often preach and sometimes counsel in the confessional is how helpful ascetical practices can be.  Though forgotten by most, the Church asks us to observe all Fridays, except when it is a solemnity, the highest level of feast day, as days of penance.  This traditionally has meant abstinence from meat, but can be observed in other ways.  I have tried to encourage, and observe myself, the Ember Days: four times of the year when do extra days of abstinence and fasting.  Fasting and abstinence from meat help to remind our bodies that they don’t always get what they want, even when what they want is good, and fasting and abstinence can be especially helpful in living a chaste life, though it isn’t a silver bullet.  As the Lord said in the Gospels, we fast while the bridegroom is away, waiting for his return.  We also fast for one hour before we receive Holy Communion, as a way to prepare our bodies, minds, and hearts to receive our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.
    Catholics are often known for their penances, and it can be a good witness to the world that even the best things in life pass away; only God and what is rooted in Him is eternal.  Yet, our Lord, though He did fast, did not always restrict Himself.  In today’s Gospel, in particular, we hear about the Savior attending a wedding.  And not only did He attend a wedding, when they had the sad misfortune of running out of wine (a very sad misfortune, indeed!), He created more.  And the wine wasn’t just common, likely similar to that which they had been drinking, but was excellent, choice wine, as attested to by the chief steward.  

Hillaire Belloc

    I’m not saying Christ was a party animal, but He knew how to rejoice.  He inspired St. Paul to write to the Romans, “rejoice in hope…Rejoice with those who rejoice.”  Living the Catholic life does not mean that we have to be sad and downcast all the time.  St. Teresa of Avila said something to the effect of, “God save us from sour-faced saints.”  There is a rightful place for rejoicing in the Catholic life.  The Catholic historian, Hillaire Belloc wrote, “Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, / There’s always laughter and good red wine. / At least I’ve always found it so. / Benedicamus Domino!”  
    In this time before we enter into Lent, it’s good to take advantage of the joy of the Epiphany, which overflows from 6 January and continues to guide us in these weeks before Septuagesimatide.  On Sundays and Feast Days, especially if it’s a patron saint of ours, we should rejoice and have a more joyful mood and food, because the Lord has risen from the dead (Sundays) and we have brothers and sisters who are already in heaven and who not only give us an example, but intercede for us before the throne of grace to help us get there, too.
    As Catholics, we can sometimes flirt with the heresy of Manichaeism.  This heresy, which the Dominicans have fought so hard to combat, teaches that the material world is evil, while the spiritual world is good.  The Dominicans combatted this ever-present heresy by living an ascetical life, to show that one should not abuse the things of the world, but they also used the things of the world well and rejoiced in what God had created because He created the world good.  They preached against the excess of, for example, drunkenness, but also preached against the opposite excess of teetotaling.  Wine, the psalms say, gives warmth to the heart and joy to the face, and can be used to help us have a good laugh and enjoy the lighter side of life.

    Sometimes we need Heath Ledger’s Joker character from Batman to ask us: Why so serious?  Are there horrible things in our world?  Yes.  Does sin run rampant?  Yes.  Do tragedies strike us and our friends and cause legitimate sorrow?  Yes.  But there is also good in the world.  There are also people who choose virtue over vice.  God blesses us and our friends with so many good things each day, if we are attentive.  And God has overcome sin and death and opened for us the path to eternal salvation.  And if there’s any reason to rejoice, it certainly is that!  The war has been won!  Yes, little skirmishes still have to be fought, but Christ is victorious!  
    Even on the slopes of Mount Doom, Samwise reminds Frodo about the joys of home to temper the last, difficult steps of the journey to destroy the ring.  Joys, even simple joys, give us strength to continue the fight and recharge our batteries.  If all we ever do is muddle through, we’re missing out on the good things the Lord wants us to experience: the hug of a loved one or friend; the texture and flavor of a juicy steak or a nice strip of bacon; the sweet, silky mouthfeel of a fine bourbon; the smell and warmth of a fire, whether in the fireplace or outside on a cool, summer night.  Are there times where we need to give up those joys?  Yes.  But to everything there is a season, and a time for everything under the heavens, including joy.
    So, while we must do penance and cooperate in Christ’s own suffering, do not forget to embrace joy and the good things that God gives us in this life.  “Rejoice with those who rejoice.”  Drink from the good wine that the Lord has made for us, Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Being Carried to Mount Doom

Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

    One of the many moving scenes in the third movie, “Return of the King,” of  the trilogy “The Lord of the Rings,” is when Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee are on the slopes of Mount Doom, the mountain in which the One Ring has to be destroyed in order to end the growing strength and power of the evil Sauron.  Frodo has almost no strength left from the weight of the ring on a chain around his neck, as it grows heavier the closer it gets to destruction.  Sam, too, is tired, but is doing all he can to help his friend complete the quest, without which all of Middle Earth will fall into darkness and despair.
    Even though Sam has offered to carry the ring to help, Frodo has made very clear (to put it lightly) that the ring can only be borne by Frodo.  It is his burden to bear.  So, as Frodo is exhausted on Mount Doom, full of despair and darkness, and cannot take another step, Sam says, “‘I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you.”  And Sam carries Frodo up the slopes towards a small door that grants passage to the fires that will destroy the One Ring.  You can watch the rest of the movie, or, better yet, read the book, to learn how it all turns out.

    J.R.R. Tolkien demonstrates his genius and masterful Catholic storytelling by not having any one character always correspond to one person in salvation and the Scriptures.  Many often compare Frodo to Christ, because he carries the ring like Christ carries the cross and our sin.  And in this sense, we are called to be like Sam, a friend who never leaves the side of the one he loves.  We are to be like the Blessed Mother, John the Apostle, St. Mary Magdalen and the other holy women, Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus, who stayed with Christ through His entire Passion, His entire agony on the cross.  And we are here today to do precisely that.  Through this long, ancient liturgy, begun last night at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, we show our love for Christ, who showed His love for us by dying on the cross.
    And it’s not much.  We’re not fighting against the soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross.  We’re not arguing with the Pharisees and the Sadducees who convinced Pilate to crucify the Lord of Glory.  We’re just here, with Jesus, in the liturgical presentation of His last hours before He dies.  We remain here, mourning, recognizing that our sins led Jesus here and made this day necessary.  
    But, Samwise Gamgee also represents Christ.  We are like Frodo, with the weight of sin around us.  We know that sin has to be destroyed, and we have done all we can to destroy it, but without any success.  The weight is too heavy for us to bear.  Sin clouds our vision so that we can no longer remember our home of heaven, union with God.  Sin gives the devil clear sight of us, a gaze which burns our souls and causes us to lose hope.  But Christ does not abandon us, though we have no strength to carry on.  He lifts us up on His shoulders and carries us so that sin can be destroyed and hope can be restored.  
    So today, we stand at the foot of the cross, remaining here with our Lord so that He does not have to be alone.  We see the cost that our sins have created.  But, let us make our own the words of Samwise Gamgee, the words Christ encourages us with as He suffers for our salvation: “Then let us be rid of it, once and for all.”  As Christ destroys sin and death: come, let us worship.

The Authority of Suffering

Sexagesima
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  To whom do we listen?  Whom do we vest with authority?  That seems to be the topic of the end of the eleventh and the beginning of the twelfth chapters of St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians.  And since our Collect today asks for the help of St. Paul, the Doctor of the Gentiles, I thought it fitting to focus in on those questions.

St. Paul

    Because St. Paul is encouraging them not to listen to the so-called experts who profess to correct the Corinthians and how they should believe.  Instead, the Apostle adjures them to listen to him, not only because of his bona fides, but because of his sufferings.  Yes, he is Hebrew; yes, he is an Israelite; yes, he is of the seed of Abraham.  But the false apostles have not suffered for the faith as St. Paul has: through labors, imprisonment, scourging, stoning, shipwreck, perils all around, and hunger and thirst.  But not just suffering: St. Paul also claims glorious visions of heaven.  And all of that is why St. Paul has a claim to authority to which the people of Corinth should pay attention.
    We so often do exactly what our parents and teachers warned us not to do in childhood: judge a book by its cover.  We look for the finest outside image, rather than looking deeper into the person.  We estimate that the ones who have all the answers are those who look the best.  But they often do not.  
    And if it’s true for the Apostle to the Gentiles, it rings even more true for the Lord who called him to preach to the Gentiles.  Well did Isaiah prophesy about Christ, “He had no majestic bearing to catch our eye, no beauty to draw us to him.  He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, knowing pain, Like one from whom you turn your face, spurned, and we held him in no esteem.”  Yet this rejected God-Man saved the world, and communicated God’s message of reconciliation, not the fair-looking Pharisees in their fine robes and lengthened phylacteries.  
    And to drive home the point, J.R.R. Tolkien develops this same truth in “The Lord of the Rings.”  Aragorn is the rightful heir of the throne of Gondor.  And yet, from his wandering in the wilderness with the Dúnedain, he is rough and bears, at the surface, no kingly visage.  Still, Frodo recognizes, when they first meet, some goodness in him.  Frodo says, “‘I believed that you were a friend….I think one of [the enemy’s] spies would – well, seem fairer and feel fouler.’”  Frodo looks beyond the outward appearance and goes more deeply to see the regal nature of a man so many brushed aside as a mere Ranger.

    Or even consider Frodo himself.  In the end, it was not a wizard, or the son of the Steward of Gondor, or even the fair elf who understood or had to bear the weight of the One Ring.  Frodo, though small and easily written-off, was the only one who could fight effectively the evil that the Ring contained, and, even with some resistance, eventually bring it to Mount Doom where it could be destroyed.
    We do learn some lessons from those who have not had to endure suffering.  You don’t require your doctor to have had cancer in order to seek treatment from him or her.  Though I’m celibate, I am called upon to help married couples in their relationships.  Sometimes there is a wisdom that comes from not struggling through the midst of a problem.  But suffering through something and coming out on top speaks for itself, and provides an authority that those who have never experienced that suffering can never fully understand.  Like Jacob from the Book of Genesis, sometimes we have to wrestle with God all night before truly understanding His plan.
    This should encourage us in our own suffering, whether allowed by God or by our own making.  By going through the fight, by chastising our bodies as we will do in this upcoming Lent, we understand more about God and about ourselves, and how we can respond to His grace better each day.  As we wrestle with God to remain close to Him, even amidst the temptations of life, we understand better His plan and the work of His grace in our lives.  If we remain on the sidelines and take no risks to become saints, we may look better on the outside, but our relationship with God will be shallow and not fulfill us as much as we would like.
    It is as President Theodore Roosevelt said so marvelously, a quote that was echoed in the CBS cop-drama, “Blue Bloods”:
 

It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

As we approach the forty days of Lent, the Quadragesima, may we prepare to enter the arena of self-disciple and conversion.  May we not stand on the sidelines and pretend like we know what it means to enter the desert of self-denial, though we look quite good.  But may we spend the forty days in the desert with Christ, allowing His grace to put to death in us all that is not of Him, getting mangled and beat up and coming out looking none-the-better, but truly knowing what it means to suffer for and with Christ in order that we might take hold of the gift of eternal salvation He offers us: who with the Father and the Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.

Seeking the Lost

 Third Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  I think that we all have had moments like the woman who lost her coin.  It may not have been for money, but I’m willing to be we have all had those times when we are looking for something, we can’t find it, and our mind won’t rest until we do find it.  So we tear the house apart looking for our lost item.  I would remind you that St. Anthony of Padua is a great resource when we have lost something.
    How amazing is it that our God tells us that He is like that woman, searching for us like she searches for a lost coin?!  Of course, unlike coins, we can move ourselves away.  I suppose the metaphor for us would be more like searching for a small frog that likes hopping around the house.  After all, it’s not like we get put somewhere and just stay there.  When we’re lost, it’s because we’ve walked away from God.
    But God keeps coming after us.  He never gives up on us.  Even if we try to run far away from Him, He is always right there behind us, beckoning us back, like a parent of a toddler whose child tries to run away, while the parent never lets the toddler out of his sight or reach.  This devotion to us makes sense only with the logic of love, in the same way that a shepherd going after one lost sheep and leaves the ninety-nine.  The math doesn’t add up, unless one is calculating with love.
    But, as we are called to be those disciples, that is meant to be our mentality, too.  As followers of Christ, God calls us to go after the lost sheep who have wandered away, or even the sheep who have not been part of Christ’s flock, but whom God desires to be one of His own.  This is one way that we live out the spiritual works of mercy: to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, and admonish the sinner.  
    When we do this, it must be with love.  God is love, and so if we wish to draw others to Him, we will only be successful to the degree that we counsel, instruct, and admonish with love.  To tell someone that it’s stupid to question the faith, or to condemn someone’s ignorance, or to yell at someone for something wrong that he or she has done does is not to seek after a lost sheep, but to hunt for one with a rifle; is to trash a house while searching for the lost coin.  
    I know that sounds obvious, but when we love the faith and treasure our relationship with God, as I know we do, it can seem painful to us when that is rejected.  It’s like parents who are so hurt when a child rejects what they say that they discipline in anger, rather than out of love.  Sometimes disciplining in anger, not is love, is not even intended, but it happens.  And so, when we know we’re going to talk to someone who disagrees with us on the faith, or is questioning something near and dear to us, or maybe has left a life of virtue for a life of sin, we should pray for that gentleness of Christ, and to show our love, even when correction is necessary.
    When we counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, and admonish the sinner, we also imitate God when we not only acknowledge, but respect, a person’s free will.  Love never forces itself on another.  It always respects the other person’s freedom.  As Bonnie Rait sang, “I can’t make you love me if you don’t.”  We cannot force another person to see the light.  This is especially frustrating, and I know I have metaphorically banged my head on the wall when there’s someone who doesn’t see how their actions are leading them away from God, or hurting themselves, or, most often, some form of both.  It’s especially hard when it’s someone who is close to us, perhaps a family member or dear friend, who doesn’t see the lies that they’re buying.  

    The analogy that comes to mind is fromthe movie “The Return of the King,” when Samwise, Frodo, and Gollum are climbing the stairs of Cirith Ungol.  Gollum has been poisoning Frodo’s mind to suggest that Sam will try to take the One Ring away and will hurt Frodo.  Gollum then, while Frodo and Sam are sleeping, throws away their food supply, and when Sam awakes to see this happening, starts attacking Gollum.  But Frodo takes Gollum’s side, and sends Sam, who has been nothing but loyal to Frodo, away.  Sin darkens our minds, and doesn’t let us see clearly the pain that we are causing.  And often we don’t see that until we’re snapped out of it through recognizing how bad things have gotten, just as Frodo finally realizes that Sam has been his friend and the one who has truly helped him when Gollum leads Frodo into the lair of the giant spider-like creature, Shelob, so that Shelob can kill Frodo and Gollum can take the ring.  
    Because God desires the lost with a great passion, that should be our passion, too.  As we hear about all the fallen-away Catholics, think of the great numbers our parish could swell to if we were able to bring back even a percentage of those who have strayed.  Pray for those who are away, especially if you’re going to talk to them later.  Pray to both your own and the other person’s guardian angel to protect the conversation from any outside diabolical influence.  Pray for that love of God to be communicated in what you say and how you say it.  Pray to be as convincing as possible, while also respecting the other person’s freedom.  And then pray afterwards that the words you have spoken will be confirmed by the Holy Spirit and that the same Holy Spirit will open that person’s heart to the truth and love of God.  In that way, we will be like our God, who desires not the death of the sinner, but that he repent and live.  In that way we will be like the one who searches for us when we sin, God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Gollum

 Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Gollum (aka Smeagol)

    Many of you know how much I love the “Lord of the Rings” Trilogy.  And in the Trilogy there is an intriguing character named Gollum (also called Smeagol).  When he was younger he went by the name Smeagol, and he was one of the river folk, not unlike a hobbit.  But then he killed his brother, who had found the Ring of Power (an evil talisman), and then was banished to live on his own.  During this exile, he used the name Gollum, reflecting his change from a good-hearted lad to a man closed in on his desire for the Ring.  Eventually Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, takes the ring from him, which he later gives to his nephew, Frodo.  Gollum, still closed in on his desire for the Ring, which he treasures above all things, seeks out Frodo to take the Ring back.
    J.R.R. Tolkien, the author, was a man throughly surrounded by his Catholic faith.  And so you see signs of the Catholicism throughout his work, and the screen adaptations that followed much later.  The Ring, as something evil, can be seen as a cross, as Frodo, who is one Christ-figure, carries it to Mount Doom.  Gollum can easily be understood as what happens when one closes oneself in on evil desires and on oneself.  
    I bring this up because in our Gospel today, Jesus cures a deaf man with a speech impediment.  Imagine being deaf and mute during the time of Jesus: it was a life in many ways, closed in on oneself, not because of sin, but because of the lack of ability to communicate in any great way with the outside world.  Indeed, it is the man’s friends who bring him to Jesus.  And Jesus, to heal him, says to the man, “‘Be opened!’”  Jesus opens this man up to new life, especially physically, as his ears are opened and his speech impediment removed, but even interiorly, to the life of grace.  
    God wants us to be open to His grace and His life which He desires would flow through us like a spring of water.  The life of grace irrigates the desert of life that is ours when we are closed in on ourselves and our desire for sin.  Grace makes us more alive, and allows us to interact with the world in new and spectacular ways.
    Tolkien depicts this in the person of Gollum.  As Gollum tries to steal the Ring, Frodo catches him, and slowly wins Gollum’s trust, even calling him by his old name, Smeagol.  As this happens, Smeagol is re-created, and becomes not a wretched, hacking despicable creature, but a joyful, fun, and even serving individual.  Even Frodo’s choice of a new name, really the original name, is a return to Smeagol’s original youth and innocence, before he was corrupted by the evil Ring and turned in on himself.  Frodo, again, a Christ-figure, is the one who frees Smeagol from his past darkness and restores him to the light.
    Sin turns us toward ourselves and away from God.  While we have a specific sin of selfishness, every sin is selfish.  Love is selfless, and so as we serve God we become less concerned about ourselves and more concerned about others.  Sin, which is opposed to God, is therefore opposed to love of others and cares only for the self, which makes one a shadow of how God created us, and exiles us from God, from others, and even from our true self.  Think about any sin, and you can see the effects of selfishness in it.  Greed is fairly obvious, and we care more for money than God; pride is where we care more for ourselves than for God and others; hatred is where we are more concerned with our injuries caused by others and getting back at them (thus, making us feel good because we got our revenge), rather than being concerned about forgiving the others; lust seeks to use the other person for our own sexual desires and pleasure, whether that person physically close to us or on a screen.  Even smaller sins like gossip are about making sure that we are in control of a narrative, or even that we attempt to make ourselves look better by putting others down.  In all those sins and more, we are closed in on ourselves rather than being open, first and foremost to God, and then also to the people He loves, our fellow human beings.
    Jesus wants to open us up.  He desires a fuller life for us than we can provide when we only concentrate on ourselves.  But the choice to accept God’s grace to open rests with us.  God’s grace always does the first and most important work, but our response is also part of the process.  We have to come to God, or our friends need to bring us to Him.  
    But Smeagol also serves as a good warning, that this process of being opened to God is not a once-for-all event; the choice to allow God to open us is a choice we need to make every day.  Smeagol, who later (wrongly) feels betrayed by Frodo, reverts to his old self.  He turns back in on himself and on his desire for the evil Ring consumes him again, eventually leading to his demise.  So for us, each day we have the choice to open ourselves to God or not; to be a desert and burning sands, or a stream and spring of water.  Ephphatha!  Be opened!

On (St.) Mike's Team

Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

When I was in Catholic elementary school we had this kid named Mike who was an amazing athlete, even then.  He was great at soccer, hockey, and swimming, and he wasn’t bad at basketball, either.  Most days at lunch we would play soccer on the parking lot, and if you were on Mike’s team you were usually going to win.  So, of course, everyone wanted to be on his team, because everyone wanted to win.

In these last weeks of our Church year (Advent begins the new year for the Church), we take time to focus on the end of time and the return of Jesus, what we often call the Second Coming.  Our first reading and our Gospel definitely have that as our focus today.  Jesus focuses on the end, what will happen, how to read the signs of the times, and yet also affirms that nobody knows exactly when it will happen: not the angels, nor even the Son of God, Jesus, when He was on earth.  The choice belongs to God the Father.  And Daniel, the prophet, in our first reading describes how a great battle will take place, but that St. Michael the Archangel will lead God’s people through the “unsurpassed…distress.”  

I’ll be honest with you: it feels like we’re going through an “end times” right now.  The world seems like it’s always one step away from another world war; there is what we might call a mass apostasy, a large exodus of people who are giving up their Catholic faith; hedonism, the philosophy that states that the most important thing in life is personal pleasure, seems to be the prevailing view of many people, even from some inside the Church; Christ’s Church seems to be under constant attack from outside forces; and, to paraphrase Pope St. Paul VI, the smoke of Satan has even entered and seems to have taken hold within the Church at the highest levels.  Things are not good.

To be clear, I’m not saying that these are the end times.  No doubt many people in Rome and beyond felt like the end was coming when the Roman Empire, which had existed since 753 BC and had helped Christianity spread, collapsed in the West in AD 476.  No doubt many people felt like the end of the world was coming when Islam swept across the Middle East, North Africa, and even into Spain.  No doubt, many people felt like the end of the world was coming when Europe started to break apart during the Protestant co-called Reformation and the religious wars that followed.  No doubt, many people felt like the end of the world was coming when Christian nation battled against other Christian nations in World War I and perhaps around 19 million people, civilian and military, died in the “War to end all Wars,” whose centenary the world just solemnly remembered on Armistice Day, 11 November.

As Jesus says, we don’t know when the end of the world will come.  And as we go through these trials, it can be easy to forget that the war has already been won.  Christ has conquered Satan, and all that is with him, sin and death.  Given all the bad news, it can, in fact, feel like we’re losing, that there’s no hope.  But there is hope, and even certainty, that Jesus has won and all that is wrong with the world will be made right, and the forces of evil have lost and will lose in the end.  And that should give us comfort and courage in the midst of these trying times.

But, the trials and tribulations that we are undergoing now should also encourage us to choose the winning team to join in our day to day life.  We should want to be on Mike’s team, not Mike from St. Mary School in Williamston, but St. Michael the Archangel.  He is God’s warrior who defeats evil and will lead the forces of God through the failing forces of evil.  We should want to be on Jesus’ team, for whom St. Michael fights, so that we win at the end.  And that is what is so sad about all those who are walking away from their faith.  I’m not the judge, so I’m not hear to judge their culpability, but we certainly don’t show that we want to be on Jesus’ team by not spending time with Him each week at Mass.  We certainly don’t show that we want to be on Jesus’ team by not following His teachings that He gives us through His Church.  We certainly don’t show that we want to be on Jesus’ team by not making Him the most important aspect of our life, rather than sports, pleasure, or following the culture that has set much of itself against God.  Each day we show by our actions on whose team we want to be.

I don’t know if the world will end soon; no one does.  But in these difficult times of trial and tribulation, when more and more of the world sets itself against Jesus and against His Church, it can be easy to be despaired, to want to quit.  What comes to my mind is a quote from a story told by a Catholic, JRR Tolkien, in his trilogy, Lord of the Rings.  Frodo the Hobbit says, “I wish the Ring had never come to me.  I wish none of this had happened.”  Gandalf the wizard replies, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.  There are other forces at work in the world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.”  Choose to be on Jesus’ team.  Make that choice evident by how you live your life one day at a time.

What to Do with the Time that is Given to Us

Solemnity of St. Pius X

This has been, in many ways, a tough year for us at St. Pius X.  But what immediately comes to my mind when I think of our challenges is a scene in “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings” when Frodo and Gandalf are sitting in the dwarf mine of Moria, waiting to see which way they should go.  Frodo says, “I wish none of this had happened.”  Gandalf responds, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Let me be clear: while I have certainly regretted some of the struggles that we have gone though, as a church and as a diocese, over the past year, I have never regretted becoming your pastor.  And I hope that, even if you have not relished some of the adjustments that have been made since I became your pastor, you do not regret being members of this parish.  But our challenge, as St. Pius X parish, is not the struggles themselves, and the difficult time that our parish and city and diocese are experiencing.  Our challenge is what to do with the time that is given to us.  

This Gospel that we heard is one of my favorites.  The apostles had seen the risen Christ many times, but then He must’ve spent some time away, because they seem to despair again, like in the upper room before they saw Jesus.  So Peter decides to go fishing, and the other apostles go with him.  But, as always in the Gospels, Peter can’t catch anything until Jesus, who mysteriously appears on the shore, tells them to cast their nets to the other side, and they catch 153 large fish.  Peter recognizes Jesus, and with his usual impetuosity, jumps in and swims to shore.  After eating the fish, Jesus takes Peter aside, and asks him the three questions about where St. Peter’s heart is.  

That must have been hard for St. Peter to be asked if he truly loved Jesus.  When someone you love asks you if you really care about him or her, doesn’t that hurt?  And Jesus asks three times, which for Peter had to remind him of the three times he had denied Jesus.  Peter looked back at the past 50 days and didn’t have a lot to show for it.

Right after the last verse, Jesus then prophesies for Peter how he will die, and then Jesus invites Peter to follow Him.  But things don’t always go well for Peter.  He will later be rebuked by St. Paul for not being consistent with welcoming Greeks into Christianity.  And even at the end of his life, as the persecution of Nero is closing in on him, St. Peter, by tradition, will try to flee martyrdom.  But Jesus reveals Himself to Peter walking back to Rome.  St. Peter asks Him, “Domine, quo vadis?” “Lord, where are you going?”  Jesus tells Peter He is going to Rome to be crucified a second time.  Peter then repents of being scared of dying for Jesus, and returns to Rome, to be crucified upside-down.  

St. Pius X himself lived in turbulent times: he only became pope after the clear-and-out favorite was vetoed; during his pontificate a group of theologians tried to undo perennial Church teachings; revolutions against governments in Europe and Asia started to develop, which led to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, which ballooned into World War I, shortly before St. Pius X died.  How many times must he have wondered why he lived in such times?  But instead of simply bemoaning the bad, he worked to promote the good.

And as we celebrate our parish patron, that is our opportunity as well: to decide what we will do with the time we have been given.  God wanted each of us to live right now.  He wanted you to be a part of this parish, and He wanted me to be your pastor.  And He wanted this because we have what it takes to follow His will and strengthen our parish and school to help it survive and thrive in the future.  Yes, the world may seem very dark right now, and not just our little corner of it, but indeed the whole world seems to be teetering on the edge of darkness.  But God is the sun who can put an end to the darkness of night and usher in the light of day.  

In the Lord of the Rings, Frodo still had difficult times ahead of him: battles to survive, getting lost, getting captured, and even making it to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring (which, spoiler alert, he cannot even bring himself to do).  Frodo becomes estranged from the group of his friends, and even at one point sends his best friend, Samwise Gamgee, away.  But, after all that (spoiler alert) the One Ring is finally destroyed, and the darkness is defeated.  Frodo regains his friends and no longer has to carry the burden of the One Ring.

It is up to us to decide what we will do with the time we have been given.  Will we follow where God leads us in being faithful to the teachings of Christ and His Church?  Will we take opportunities to talk to others about Jesus, and invite them to start or deepen their relationship with Christ and the Church He founded?  Will we fight against the powers of darkness who seek to divide this parish and keep it focused on itself rather than love of God and love of neighbor?  

Or do we simply want to keep the status quo?  Do we want to give in to our self-centered culture which only pursues its own desires, no matter what Christ and His Church says?  Are we content simply to keep our faith to ourselves and not share it with others?  If we are for these last approaches, for giving up because the battle is hard, then we will contribute to the weakening and perhaps even eventual dying of our parish.  But, if we are willing to be transformed by the grace of Christ and continue to spread the Gospel, then we won’t be a victim of our difficult times, but a victor in Christ.  

Today I recommit myself, through the intercession of Pope St. Pius X, to working as hard as I can to do the things that will help this parish grow by being faithful to who we are as Catholics: followers of Jesus, transformed by the Sacraments, faithful to His Church, that joyfully spread the Gospel.  Will you join me in this fellowship?  Will you do what you can with the time that is given you?