An Easy Yoke, A Light Burden

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Recently we celebrated Father’s Day, and I received a number of Father’s Day greetings for my role as your spiritual father, for which I was very grateful.  While my responsibilities of caring for you may not be as concrete as the ways that fathers make sure (with their wife) that the kids are housed, clothed, and nourished, certainly the weight of my spiritual responsibilities to you, my spiritual children, are not lost.  By my actions and by my words, I either help you get to heaven or lead you farther away from heaven, even if you also have a certain responsibility towards your own spiritual formation.
    And as any father knows, children respond to different ways of parenting differently.  One child may just need “the look” to correct behavior, while another child needs a spanking at times.  One child may find encouragement in a parent challenging them to do better, while another child needs more tender care to bring out the best.  And this goes for you, my spiritual children, as well.  I often preach strongly, with challenges about avoiding sin and living the faith concretely in your life, not just saying you’re Catholic without any evidence to support that claim.  But today, rather than challenging, I do want to preach more gently, based upon the readings.  And even those who enjoy a challenge, sometimes need a break and a word of comfort.

Mural from Bethany, where Christ began his entry into Jerusalem 

    And what drew me to this approach today is how Christ comes to us: meekly.  Zechariah prophesies that the Dividic king will come to them, not with the pomp and circumstance of a military victor, but meekly.  He will not storm in on a gallant horse or with a chariot, but will ride a humble beast of burden.  We rightly associate this reading with Palm Sunday, as Jesus fulfills it, riding into His city, the City of David, on an ass.  And even though the people give Jesus an exuberant welcome, Jesus does not grand stand, but enters with the meekness of which Zechariah spoke.
    This entry finds commonality with the Incarnation, both as the Word became flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and as the Word-Made-Flesh was born for us in Bethlehem.  While the Archangel Gabriel certainly has some pomp and circumstance, others did not know, at first, of Mary’s special role.  Gabriel simply appeared to Mary, and invited her to become the Mother of God, and it happened with Mary’s fiat, her yes.  No trumpet; no thunder; no proclamation from the heavens.  Simply the event.
    At Bethlehem, there were heavenly messengers, angels, telling the shepherds that the Messiah was born for them, but we have no indication that any one else really took notice or cared.  Our Lord came to us in a humble setting, in a cave, because there was no room at the inn.  And even with the angelic choirs, Christ came to us as a baby, as one utterly devoid of power or prestige.  His meekness demonstrated itself by His fragility, His smallness, His accessibility.  We didn’t have to grovel and beg to have an audience with the King of Kings.  He let us come to Him and approach Him as one like us in all things but sin.  
    And so Christ in the Gospel invites us to come to Him, not only to encounter Him, but to lay our worries, our troubles, our concerns upon Him.  He invites us to give Him our labors, and take His yoke upon our shoulders, because He is “meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.  For [His] yoke is easy, and [His] burden light.”  
    So today, no strong words about avoiding sin, or spreading the Gospel by word and deed, or living in a way that provides enough evidence that you do, in fact, love God.  Simply an invitation to offer to Christ whatever heaviness weighs on your heart and mind.  Give to Him your anxiety about family, friends, or your job.  Give to God whatever labors give you fatigue, whatever areas of your life where you feel inadequate, and feel the embrace of the Father who knows you and loves you more than anyone else, even a spouse or parent, ever could.  
    In many areas of our life, we can feel like we just have to do things ourselves and we cannot ask for help.  When it comes to our life in Christ, it’s the exact opposite.  We should always ask God for His help, because we cannot live as disciples without God’s grace.  Anything good we can do only becomes possible with God.  As Christ says elsewhere, without Him we can do nothing.  And when we try to live as saints on our own power, our failures become tiring, and we can easily despair.  But, again, that’s not what God wants you to do.  He wants you to run to Him, even in your failures, and offer everything to Him who can transform even the worst failures in the greatest successes, as we see in Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  He wants you to unite your life in the bread and wine offered on this altar, and see God transform the different areas of your life, just as He transforms bread and wine into the Body and Blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.  
    Today, run to God the Father.  Approach Jesus, who remains meek for us so that we can approach Him.  Invite the Holy Spirit to give you a real sense of the love of God and His care for you in easing your burdens.  “See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, [and] meek.”  Take His yoke upon your shoulders, and you will find rest.  For His yoke is easy, and His burden light.

No Man is a Failure who has God as his Friend

Nativity of the Lord–Second Mass

   In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  While there are many classic Christmas movies, one of the great is “It’s A Wonderful Life,” starring Jimmy Stewart.  But, truth be told, it’s not the most joyful Christmas movie ever.  In the second half of the movie, after we’ve been introduced to George Bailey by an angel named Clarence, we see Bailey, a good man, go from failure to failure, as his absent-minded uncle loses a significant deposit that kept his bank in business, and then he foolishly decides that everyone would be better off if he hadn’t existed.
    How many of us here have been in George Bailey’s shoes?  Maybe not wanting to jump into a freezing river off a bridge, but wondering if our life has made a difference, or if anyone would really notice if we didn’t exist.  Maybe we feel like they would be better if we didn’t.
    Clarence, George’s angel, grants, if even for small while, George’s wish and shows George just what an effect he had on others: from his family, to those who benefited from his reasonable loans, to local citizens.  Spoiler alert: George realizes just the impact he has had on others’ lives.  He recognizes that when one gives of himself, when one treats others as human beings and not as means to gain power or money, one becomes rich, no matter how much or how little one has.  George recognizes that, despite what seems like earthly failures, he is, as his brother Harry calls him, “the richest man in town.”  Or, as his angel, Clarence, writes in the front cover of his Bible, “No man is a failure who has friends.”
    How poor we humans were, even the Chosen People of God.  We found ourselves trapped in cycles of sin.  The greatest king God had provided for His people, King David, was long dead, and his descendants no loner occupied a throne.  Even the voice of prophets had fallen silent.  A foreign, pagan power controlled the Holy City and daily oppressed the ones whom God had promised never to abandon.  We walked in darkness.  We were poor.

    And yet, “the kindness and generous love of our God…appeared.”  At the moment we had lost hope; when despair had almost taken us, God sent us an Angel of Salvation, the Angel that the canon references when it says, “command that these gifts be borne by the hands of your holy Angel to your altar on high in the sight of your divine majesty,” Jesus Christ, the fullest messenger (𝛼𝛾𝛾𝜀𝜆𝜊𝜍 in Greek) that God ever sent.
    And God revealed to us that we were not poor, as long as we enjoyed friendship with Him.  As long as we remained close to God, we had everything, because “everything belongs to you…and you to Christ, and Christ to God,” as St. Paul says in his first epistle to the Corinthians.  
    But it was not only the Chosen People who felt the sting of their poverty.  Even we, who have been washed clean from original sin and made the adopted children of God in Christ through Holy Baptism can feel like George Bailey.  We can feel like we don’t add anything to society, or even our friends or family.  Life gives us lemons, and we make sour faces.  
    The Good News is that God found us worth saving, though we had no worth in ourselves.  The Good News of the Incarnation is the grand love story of God for His People, who, though they walked in darkness, God did not abandon, but illuminated.  God doesn’t have to show us what life would be like without us; He shows us that we are worth humbling Himself and taking on our frail humanity in order to prove His love for us.  Our debt consists of much more than $8,000 that Uncle Billy lost and Mr. Potter took.  But like the village that rallied around George Bailey, God gives us what we need so that our debt does not mean that we are lost to eternal bondage to sin and death.  And unlike the fellow citizens of Bedford Falls, we didn’t do anything for God.  He owed us nothing.  And yet He still gave, up to and including the Precious Blood of His Beloved Son.  If the donation of money from George Bailey’s neighbors signified their support for the banker who had carried them through the Great Depression, financed their homes and businesses, and saved them from foolish decisions, how much more does the Incarnation and Paschal Mystery show us just how much God supports us and loves us.  
    And this gift from God, the reason for Christmas, truly changed the world.  Without Christ we don’t truly understand human dignity and individual liberties.  Without Christ we mark time altogether differently.  Without Christ we don’t have universities, hospitals, magnificent cathedrals, the scientific method, so many things that we take for granted.  But, above all, without Christ we don’t have salvation, and the kingdom of heaven remains locked to us, which would be the saddest fact of all.  
    But God gives Himself to us, to prove just how much we mean to Him.  Though we are poor, like the shepherds in Bethlehem, God calls us to Himself by the voices of other messengers, other angels, to let us know the good news that our lives have value beyond what we could ever imagine, no matter how good or how bad our lives seem to go.  
    One of the reasons that “It’s A Wonderful Life” continues to be a Christmas classic is because it tells a timeless truth on the silver screen: even when we are at our worst; even when life seems to crash down all around us; even when things seem the darkest; God loves us and values us and is willing to pay any price to save us and help us walk in the light.  If I may be so bold, I would slightly change Clarence the angel’s words to George Bailey, as words that we should always keep at the front of our minds, not only at Christmas, but every day: “No man is a failure who has God as his friend”: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Humility and Poverty

Sunday within the Octave of the Nativity

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of the foci (plural of focus) of St. Francis of Assisi (or, as the Dominicans call him, our Holy Father St. Francis), and the Franciscan Orders, is the humility and poverty of God.  This shouldn’t surprise us much, as Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone (as he was baptized) gave up his family’s wealth and prestige to become a begging or mendicant friar and took the name Francis.  He literally (and I use that word properly) stripped off his family’s wealthy clothes and put on a rough, brown habit, and relied on the generosity of others to survive.  And through this poverty, and with the assistance of our Holy Father St. Dominic, they did much to rebuild the Church, which had so greatly fallen into disrepair.
    But poverty and humility don’t only regard physical possessions or wealth.  Our Lord shows us great humility and poverty in His Incarnation.  And yes, the Gospels are clear that the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph did not have much wealth (they had to present the poor family’s offering of two turtledoves or pigeons to redeem their firstborn son).  But the poverty of Christ comes from recognizing how much He gave up to take our human nature onto Himself.  As pure spirit, before the Incarnation, Christ had no limits, experienced no lack, and existed in pure actuality.  After the Incarnation, Christ could be seen in only one place, few the pangs of hunger and thirst, and would grow from potentiality to actuality throughout His life.  The King of the Universe could be mocked by his neighbors.  He could get splinters and feel pain while working with St. Joseph in his workshop.  
    But beyond that, Christ subjected Himself to the Law of Moses.  Our Lord gave the Law to Moses, and knew its deeper meaning, as He would preach in the Sermon on the Mount.  But, as one like us in all things but sin, He subjected Himself to a Law to which He, as Lawgiver, should never have had to follow.  The Law was for children as a tutor.  He needed no such tutor.  And yet, He did not consider it beneath Himself to obey the law in all its commands.  He received circumcision on the eighth day (as we will hear on Wednesday); His parents redeemed Him in the Temple 40 days after His birth (as we will celebrate on Candlemas), which is the earlier passage of today’s Gospel; He went to the Temple for Passover and the Feast of Booths and the Day of Atonement.  He who would declare all animals clean to St. Peter in a vision, obeyed kosher laws.  He would pay the temple tax, though He was the Lord of the temple and the object of its worship.  
    And He did all this so that He could redeem those under the law, so that we might not simply be servants or slaves (though St. Paul will still use these words from time to time), but sons and daughters in the Son of God, so that we could have the same access to the Father that He has.  What great humility for the one who did not sin, which the Law was meant to guard against, to live according to the Law!  What great poverty that He would live under the same rule as slaves, though He is Son.
    So how do we demonstrate this humility and poverty?  Or are we too important to humble ourselves and live under the rules of others, even when they seem not to apply to us (as long as they don’t go against our conscience)?  Kids will often confess disobedience to their parents in one way or another.  I know I disobeyed my parents when I was a child (shocking, I know!).  I will often remind them that our Lord, when He was a child, obeyed Mary and Joseph, even though Christ made and redeemed Mary and Joseph.  Christ, strictly speaking, owed no obedience to anyone; He is God.  And yet, if Joseph told Him to wash His face, or help His mother with dinner, or join in in the workshop, Jesus would yes, “Yes, Abba.”  If the Lord of all Creation can obey human parents, then we, who are not divine, can certainly give our best attempts to obey our parents and what they say.
    How about when Holy Mother Church asks us to do something: how do we respond then?  Some laws are man-made.  They are rooted in what we believe, but they are not directly from God.  Do we take time to obey them, or do we figure that we know better and don’t need to be shackled by such limiting regulations?  When the Church asks us to do penance to unite ourselves to Christ on the cross on Fridays, do we do that, in one way or another?  When the Church asks for some support in prayer, can we add a little prayer time to our daily habits, or do we complain that we pray enough, and are too busy to add another devotion?  Certainly devotions are not necessary, but they can sometimes help.  
    It is so easy to think that we know best, and we shouldn’t have to do something because it doesn’t apply to us, or won’t have an effect on us.  But Christ, through. His Incarnation and Nativity, shows us how to humble ourselves, and how to live in poverty, maybe not of possessions or money, but in poverty of spirit.  May the humble Christ Child, whom St. Francis, il Poverello, the little poor one, loved so much and imitated, help us all to be a bit more humble, a bit more poor, so that we can be more like our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

"Jesus Our Brother, Kind and Good"

Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord
    Merry Christmas!  One of the non-theological things that I enjoyed most about seminary was the fraternity.  Now, when we think of fraternity and college students, our minds probably turn to John Belushi and rowdy houses filled with boys in men’s bodies, drinking, debauching, and the like.  But I mean fraternity in the sense of brotherhood.  I have two younger sisters, so going from that to a seminary with 80-110 young men my age was a big, but welcome shift.  It was good to have other guys with whom I could play the board game Risk or the video game Call of Duty, share the joys and struggles of the very fast-paced and filled-to-the-brim activities of preparing for the priesthood, play ultimate frisbee, and watch “Band of Brothers,” not to mention enjoying an adult beverage once we had come of age.  

    So, as we celebrate Christmas, my mind this year turned to Christ our brother.  This is part of the great news of Christmas and the Incarnation.  Jesus became our brother.  He took on our human nature, though without sin.  I’m sure the neighbor kids at Nazareth–where the Savior spent His youth after His family fled Bethlehem for Egypt, and then moved to Nazareth after leaving Egypt–played games with the young Messiah, talked about their joys and sorrows, and took time to enjoy His company.  
    But beyond the very human daily activities, Christ chose to stand in solidarity with us, to be united with us in all the things that made us great, and even took upon Himself all the sins that are the worst of us.  [That’s why we read the entire genealogy tonight, which I usually don’t do: to show that] Jesus became our brother, a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, a son of King David, and even joined with us in the darker parts and stories of our human family, names like Tamar, the wife of Uriah, Manasseh, whose wickedness led to the Babylonian Exile.  Christ was our brother with all the holy men and women who came before Him, and Christ was our brother with all the evil men and women who came before Him.  
    And because He is our brother, this gives us a certain familiarity.  This is certainly true for priests who are ordained to act in His Name.  One of my favorite lines of prayer comes from the Preface for the Chrism Mass: “…with a brother’s kindness he also chooses men to become sharers in his sacred ministry through the laying on of hands.”  But it’s also true for all the faithful, not just priests.  We hear it in the devotional Christmas carol, “Jesus Our Brother, Kind and Good,” whose title is the first line of the song.  We hear it in the third verse of the Christmas carol, “O Holy Night,” as we sing, “Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother.”  We read it in the Letter to the Hebrews, chapter 2, verses 11-12: “Therefore, he is not ashamed to call them ‘brothers,’ saying: ‘I will proclaim your name to my brothers, in the midst of the assembly I will praise you.’”  
    But the mystery of the Incarnation is not simply about a fellow human who did some amazing things and lived a holy life.  The Redeemer is not only our brother; He is also our God.  He is not just a good man; or a good teacher; or a person who live an exemplary life.  He is the Eternal God, Son of the Eternal Father.  If He were only our brother, He could not save us, anymore than Abraham, Moses, or Elijah could save us, though they were holy and upright and allowed to work great deeds in God’s Name.  But, if He were not our brother, we would not feel the camaraderie with God that God desired us to have, like He had with Adam and Eve when He walked with them in the cool of the evening, as Genesis 3:8 says.  In the Messiah, the divinity of God, whom we cannot approach and before whom the proper response is to fall on our needs (again quoting “O Holy Night”), comes to us in a way that we can accept and feel comfortable, so that we could imagine, as the country singer Thomas Rhett does, having a beer with Jesus.  It all comes together in Christ, so that we can sing another great hymn, though not specifically about Christmas: “Jesus my Lord, my God, my all / How can I love thee as I ought?”  
    That is why our hearts are moved with great love and tenderness as we think on the Christ Child, lying in a manger, but also why I bowed before that same manger, and why we will all genuflect today as we profess our faith that, “by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”  In Jesus Christ, we encounter both our Lord who frees us from the bonds of sin and death, and our brother who shares with us in all that is truly good.  
    Today, as we come to receive Him in the Sacrament of the Eucharist at Holy Communion, we approach our Lord and our brother.  Probably, we each emphasize one or the other, but both are equally true.  Our goal as followers of Christ is to live both in balance.  If we tend to focus on Jesus as Lord most of the time, then perhaps allow a little more familiarity in your life with Him, and make it a point to remember that, aside from sin, He did not deem it unbecoming to take on all that it meant to be human: from soiling His diapers, to enjoying a good meal, to sitting with friends and just talking about life.  If we tend to focus on Jesus as our brother most of the time, then remember that our brother created all the heavens and the earth, and is our King, whom the angels dare not even look upon out of reverence and awe.  Both Lord and Brother come together in Christ, and are present with us here tonight, in you, the People He has made His own; in His Word, proclaimed to us and alive for us; in me, His brother who, despite my unworthiness, He chose to act in His Name and with His power; and most especially in the Eucharist, the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of our Lord and our Brother who shares with us all that it truly means to be human and redeems us from all the fallen realities that were not supposed to be part of being human, but which we introduced into the world through our disobedience.  On this Holy Night/Day, may we remember and put into action in our lives the reality that Christ is both our Lord and our Brother, through the words of the hymn:
 

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we;
Let all within us praise His holy name.
Christ is our Lord!  O praise His name forever!
His pow’r and glory evermore proclaim!

Never Could Have Imagined

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

    For whatever reason, once you reach a certain age, there is a requirement that you tell younger people how passes more quickly the older you get when they say that they can’t believe how fast time is going.  As a youngster and on the receiving end, I never really appreciated how true that statement could be.  After all, time, at best, seemed like a constant, and it seemed like it just dragged on.  But, as I approach my forty-first birthday next week, I appreciate more the reality that time really does go faster the older you get.
    When Moses asked the rhetorical question to the Israelites, “what great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the Lord, our God is to us whenever we call upon him?”, the Chosen People certainly could think of the closeness of God.  Ever since their departure from Egypt, God had accompanied them by a column of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night.  He had stopped the flow of the Red Sea for them.  He had appeared in trumpet blast and storms on Mount Sinai.  He traveled with them in the Ark of the Covenant.  There was no question that God sojourned with His People.  But they didn’t appreciate how close God would get to us.
    Centuries later, King Solomon built a temple to God to be a resting place for the Ark of the Covenant, which King David had previously moved to the new capital city of Jerusalem.  In the great temple, with all of its gold and silver beyond value, all of the fine wood and decorations of the different courts for different groups of people, leading up to the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctuary where God dwelt, God could be approached.  He had a physical footstool on earth, a place where the people could draw close to Him at any time they wanted.  While the Chosen People had spread out over the Promised Land, they could come to God to give thanks or to ask for blessings.  God no longer seemed itinerant, but had a home fit for the King of Kings.  But still they couldn’t imagine how close God would get to us.

    Centuries later, in a village called Nazareth, the Archangel Gabriel appeared to a young virgin named Mary.  Gabriel asked Mary if she would become the Mother of God, and would carry the Son of God and Son of David in her womb for nine months.  Mary said yes, and suddenly, God’s presence was again itinerant, but this time not in cloud or fire, but in the Incarnation, the union of God and man in the Person of Jesus Christ.  Mary gave birth in Bethlehem, and suddenly people could not only see God from afar in the cloud and smoke; people could not only visit God in a particular place; the shepherds could now gaze loving on God, who looked like a little baby.  The Magi could offer their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the little Christ Child.  And that child would grow, so that people could see the face of God, which before not even Moses could do, as God warned it would kill him.  But not only could you see the face of God, you could touch God, hear His voice, and experience His love in a way previously thought impossible.  But still, they couldn’t imagine how close God would get to us.
    Because while Jesus Christ, God-made-man, walked this earth and helped people experience God in ways unthought of before, while He walked this earth He limited Himself to being in one place, at one time.  The Lord of all creation who created time and space became subject to time and space.  Until He gave us the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, His Body and Blood, given to us under the appearance of bread and wine, which would prolong His presence with us, not through his limited Body, but through His glorified Body, which now reigns at the right hand of the Father in heaven.  You don’t have to go to the Holy Land to see Jesus.  He comes to you at each Mass, so that you only have to travel a short distance to see Him, not fly over oceans and seas and other continents.  And God enters into us, into our very person, so that He is closer to us than any other person could ever be.  We can say, in a way Moses probably never imagined while he was on earth, “what great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the Lord, our God is to us whenever we call upon him?”!
    What a great gift God gives us!  How could we ever repay God for His generosity, for His proximity to us?  St. James tells us a way that we can repay, however humbly, the great gift God has given us: “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only.”  The best thank you we can say to God is to worship Him, to open ourselves to His grace, and to do our best to conform our lives to the pattern God has given us, especially by loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.  
    I could never have imagined how fast time continues to pass in my own life.  Moses could never have imagined how close God would come to us through the Eucharist.  But it is true.  God has come to dwell with us.  Come, let us worship!

The Extended Plan

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  In college seminary on an occasional Friday night my brother seminarians and I would pull out the game of Risk, especially if we knew we had a lot of time and didn’t have to get up early the next morning.  I was never particularly good at Risk.  I would hold my own for a little while, but usually tried stretching my armies too much, which made them vulnerable to attack, and then other armies would come and wipe them out.  I usually liked starting with Australia, but then when I tried to attack different parts of Asia, it wouldn’t work our well for me.  

St. Paul

    St. Paul in the epistle today outlines in a very general sense the plan of God for his re-conquest of humanity.  In our first parents, Adam and Eve, humanity had been taken captive by the devil and his lies.  But God, not wanting us to stay prisoners to sin and death, developed a plan to win us back.  St. Paul highlights Abraham and Moses (whom he references by mentioning the law), culminating in the Incarnation of the Lord.  
    The Apostle writes that God called Abraham and promised prosperity for his seed, which, if only reading the Old Testament, one would think applies to Isaac, but in fact, St. Paul argues, applies to Christ, at least in the fullness of God’s revelation.  Now, he acknowledges another covenant, that of the Law, made through the mediator, Moses.  But St. Paul writes that the second covenant does not annul the first, the law does not cancel out the promise, because the promise is greater than the law.  But all of it is fulfilled in Christ, who fulfills God’s promise and fulfills even the law, so that we might no longer be under the reign of sin, but be heirs of the promise made to Abraham through our union with Christ, the son of Abraham in Christ’s human nature.  
    We see, then, that God sometimes takes a very long view of things, at least from our finite, temporal reality.  Since God is present in all times at once, it’s not a long view, but an eternal present.  We know this in salvation: Abraham is commonly thought to have lived around the year 2,000 BC.  The law came some four hundred and so years after that.  And Christ came around 2,000 years after Abraham.  But God, not infringing upon our free will, yet guiding history towards its climax in the Incarnation, sought to bring salvation to the creatures He had made in His image and likeness.  
    But God doesn’t only work that way with salvation history on the macro scale.  He also at times works that way in our lives.  Now, we don’t have 2,000 years to wait, but we can be patient with the time that God does allow things to work out in our lives, adjusting and compensating for our free will.  For most married couples, we ask them to have a period of nine or so months between their engagement and their wedding date.  I know that for couples, this seems like a never-ending time.  But this allows them to continue to deepen their relationship, and continue to learn how to sacrifice their own wills for the good of the other.  
    Or think about the nine months that a mother carries an infant in her womb.  Especially in that last trimester, I’ve known many moms who feel like the child is never going to leave her body.  But that period of waiting allows the child to develop, little by little, so that, at the appropriate time, the child can experience its life outside of the womb.
    For me, as a seminarian, I thought I was never going to make it to ordination.  I have 8 years of seminary, and that was the short way (if I would have gone to a secular college, then into seminary, I would have had four years of college, at least, and then two years of philosophy, and then four years of theology, so at least 10 years, if not more).  But my time in seminary proved invaluable in teaching me more about prayer, about how the Lord works, about growing in virtue, about what the Church teaches, about how to celebrate the sacraments, about the promise of celibacy made at diaconate ordination, etc.  I didn’t always enjoy seminary, but I believe the length helped me to grow in love with the Lord, to get to know Him and His Church better, and to discern if I could live a celibate life.
    But the “extended plan,” if you will, is not just about vocation.  It also applies in our hopes for our professional or social lives, travel plans, etc.  God works with us through our daily lives, even the small choices we make, to try to bring about our salvation with our cooperation.  He puts us in some situations that we think we will never make it through, and He saves us from some situations that we think we might want, but which would draw us farther away from Him.  We’re not always grateful for those times, but they do give us the opportunity to be the people God wants us to be for our own happiness and salvation.
    As country songs are three chords and the truth, there’s a good country song that references this reality: “Unanswered Prayers” by Garth Brooks.  In the song, the artist references a girl with whom he was smitten in high school, that he begged God would allow them to get married and spend a lifetime together.  But God didn’t answer his prayers the way he wanted.  And years later, at a football game with the woman he did marry, as he sees that high school crush again, he realizes that he wouldn’t have been happy marrying his originally-desired woman.  And so he thanks God for unanswered prayers, and sings that “just because He may not answer, doesn’t mean He don’t care,” because “some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.”  
    We can find it difficult to be patient with God’s plans, especially when we don’t think they’re for our good.  But God always works for our salvation, and sometimes works out that plan over weeks, months, years, centuries, and even millennia.  His strategy is always the best, and I pray that we can all trust in the loving, merciful, and providential will of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Joy and Sorrow

Nativity of the Lord: At the Vigil Mass
    This is certainly a unique Christmas Mass.  On the one hand tonight is a time of great rejoicing as we celebrate the birth of our God and Redeemer in the flesh.  On the other hand, this will be the last Christmas this church building will experience as a Catholic church.  For decades, families have gathered on the evening of 24 December to begin their celebration of Christmas by worshiping God.  Bittersweet does not begin to describe what so many of you, and I, are feeling tonight.  I’m not sure there is a word that can quite communicate all the emotions of this final St. Pius X Christmas Mass.

    But while we may vividly understand the prophet Isaiah talking about Israel seeming forsaken, or the land desolate, notice that those terms do not define Israel.  Instead, Isaiah prophecies that Israel shall be called “‘My Delight’” and the land “‘Espoused.’  For the Lord delights in you and makes your land his spouse.”  And, as the Psalmist says, forever God will maintain his kindness toward David and his descendants, and his covenant stands firm.  God has not abandoned us, nor can His covenant with us ever fade away.
    Indeed, even the Nativity itself had a tinge of struggle and sorrow.  What mother would want to give birth to her child, especially a child she knew to be the Son of God, in a cave?  Mary and Joseph were forced to go to Bethlehem to register for the Roman census.  A census was against what God had commanded, and it was being done by a foreign, occupying army.  Forty days after Christmas, when Mary and Joseph presented the Christ child in the temple, Simeon would tell Mary that her heart would be pierced.  And by the time Jesus was two, King Herod would try to kill Him, and kill many other baby boys, as a way to try to get rid of this newborn king. 
    And we also know that God’s ultimate plan, a plan that Jesus fully accepted in His human will, was to die on the cross so that sin and death would be defeated.  So while the Incarnation brought such great joy, it also made possible the worst offense to God that we could have ever committed: killing Him. 
    Still, even with being born in a cave; even with the sorrow that Mary would experience; even with the slaughter of the Holy Innocents; even with the rejection of His own people; even with the crucifixion; God did not abandon us, and brought joy to take the place of all that sorrow because He rose from the dead and defeated sin and death so that we could go to heaven and be perfectly happy with Him for eternity.  No matter how bad things got, God always brought joy and new life. 
    And He does that today.  God gives us the joy as celebrating, one last time, as a parish family, along with the yearly visitors we get for this solemn evening.  He is today, as much as He was some two thousand years ago, Emmanuel, God with us, who will not abandon us.  God will help us to continue to practice our faith in the coming months, just as He helped us practice our faith in this parish for almost seventy years.  God will bring joy and new life out of sorrow and death every time, as long as we remain close to Him and stay faithful to Him. 
    That joy and new life most often come in unexpected times and places.  Remember that no one cared about Mary when she conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit.  She wasn’t a powerful earthly queen; she wasn’t a well-known personality or religious figure.  She was a humble young woman, dedicated to doing God’s will.  Bethlehem, as the prophet Micah says, was the “least among the clans of Judah.”  The Roman province of Judea was not a metropolitan center of activity, but a backwater part of the Empire.  And while Mary and Joseph were both of the house of David, their kingly family had long since lost any political power or prestige.  But from these small, unnoticed, unspectacular circumstances, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah would be born and would begin to do what no one else could do: save the human race. 
    And so God will do with us, if we cooperate with His will.  He will raise up the humble, strengthen the weak, and continue His salvation through those who continue to cooperate with Jesus.  He doesn’t need prosperity or clout; all He needs is our willingness to follow His plan. 
    I will end tonight with the words that Pope St. Leo the Great.  Pope St. Leo the Great was supreme pontiff from 440 until 461, a time of great decline in the Roman Empire.  Barbarians were sacking and taking control of lands that had one been ruled by Rome.  False teachings persisted.  Disease and death were everywhere.  His time, like our own, was not easy.  And yet, for the celebration of Christmas, he writes:
 

Dearly beloved, today our Savior is born; let us rejoice.  Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life.  The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness.  No one is shut out from this joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing.  Our Lord, victor over sin and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all.  […] When the angels on high are so exultant at this marvelous work of God’s goodness, what joy should it not bring to the lowly hearts of men?

Despite any darkness that comes our way, Jesus, the Light of the World, dispels it all and enlightens us so that we can live in the joy of His radiance.  We are the delight of the Lord, and His spouse.  As long as we stay with Him, no sadness can ruin the joy that belongs to us as sons and daughters in the Son of God, who tomorrow was born for us, Christ the Lord.

Being the Best Man

Third Sunday of Advent

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Today we are reintroduced to the person of St. John the Baptist.  We often do with the Precursor what we tend to do with other saintly personalities that startle us: we try to domesticate them.  We quickly skim over the more radical parts of their personalities and messages, and we go to the parts with which we are more comfortable and familiar.  With John, we may soften his facial features, and have him gently pointing out the Lamb of God along the Jordan River. 
    But a person who ate locusts and wild honey probably didn’t have the best complexion.  And I can’t imagine camel-hair clothing being all that fashionable, even back them.  John says that he fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah, to make straight the way for the Lord.  But as he does so, he calls out the Pharisees and scribes, and calls them a brood of vipers.  He prophesies to the religious leaders that any tree that does not bear fruit will be chopped down at its roots, and that God will burn the chaff, the useless bits of the harvest, “with unquenchable fire.”  John was not a wilting lily, but, in his own way, an extremist, who wasn’t afraid to call out those who needed to repent.
    But a later passage from the Gospel according to John, from whose Gospel we heard today, has St. John the Baptist also saying, “‘The one who has the bride is the bridegroom; the best man, who stands and listens to him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice.  So this joy of mine has been made complete.  He must increase; I must decrease.’”  And since the liturgy wants us to rejoice on this Gaudete Sunday, this Sunday that our introit and epistle both center on rejoicing, it’s also important to meditate on the joy of hearing the voice of the bridegroom.
    When it comes to the image the Forerunner uses, that of a wedding party, we should make sure we have each character rightly understood.  The Bridegroom is Christ.  The bride is the Church.  This image can be difficult for guys, as we don’t think of ourselves as brides.  A bride is an altogether feminine image, and we men don’t readily attribute to ourselves femininity, which is proper to women.  But, it’s the flip side of the coin that we are all united and participate in the Son of God through baptism, which is a more difficult image for women, who probably don’t think of themselves in the masculine reality of being a son.  Still, as members of the Church, we are Christ’s bride, the one for whom He gives His life, His top priority and greatest love. 
    Because of the Incarnation, the Divine Bridegroom has connected us to Himself.  By His Passion He paid the price to free us from the dominion of sin and death, and liberate us into the free and elevating spousal union.  And this is certainly a reason to rejoice.  Of course, this Sunday we rejoice because we are more than halfway to the celebration to Christmas (in fact, this year, we only have 8 more days until Christmas).  But we rejoice because we will soon rejoice even more in the celebration of the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies where God promised to send us a redeemer.  And living in this post-Incarnation time, we rejoice that we are the bride of Christ, united to Him through Holy Baptism so that we can reign with Him forever if we stay united to Him throughout our life.
    But, in another image that may be more difficult for women, we are also the best man.  Yes, that term specifically refers to St. John the Baptist, but it can also refer to us, because we also are supposed to stand at attention for His return, and listen for His voice.  And when we hear that voice, it causes joy because our role as best man is to help the groom prepare for his wedding feast where he takes a bride for himself.  God calls us, as He called St. John the Baptist, to be ready and listen for how God reveals Himself, so that we can point Him out when we notice Him. 
    This is part of how we live as those who evangelize.  We should constantly keep our ears and eyes attuned to the working of God, not only in our own life and in the life of our family, but also in the lives of those whom we daily encounter.  We should be ready to point out to people how we see God working in their lives.  Do we have the courage to help others see how God works in their lives?  Can we recognize how God works? 
    In that way, we are all supposed to be like Precursor of the Lord.  Whether it is helping others through turmoil and difficulty because of their lack of the Lord, or when we experience what many call a “God-moment” where we sense that God has just done something, part of our mission as disciples is to point out God working in other lives so that it leads to deeper faith.  So often we can go through life just presuming that everything is a result of our actions and choices.  It can be so easy to live like a deist, who believes that God exists but that He doesn’t really interact with our world, He just lets us do our own thing while He watches from afar.  But we are not deists.  We are Incarnationalists.  We believe that God took flesh because He wanted to, ever more closely, interact with us and draw us to Himself.  And while Christ our Incarnate Lord did ascend into the heavens, He promised not to leave us orphans, but to send the Holy Spirit to continue His work and to lead us into all truth.  And that Holy Spirit is alive and powerful and can work great things through us, if we let Him.  And when we see that work of the Holy Spirit, we can be like Buddy the Elf, who, upon learning that Santa is coming to the mall says, “I know him!” 

    We should not domesticate St. John the Baptist because it domesticates our vocation to point out the Lamb of God in our daily lives.  And the domestication of that vocation means that we don’t bother to point out the Lamb because we are afraid, or we don’t think others want to know Him, or maybe even that we want to keep the Lamb to ourselves.  But if we wish to rejoice, and if we wish others to rejoice, then we must stand attentive to the voice of the Bridegroom, prepare the way of the Lord, and point Him out when He comes: Jesus, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God for ever and ever.  Amen.

Charlie Brown and the Meaning of Christmas

 Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord

    I’m pretty sure my mom’s favorite Christmas show is  “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”  I’m sure we’re all familiar with the story: Charlie Brown wants a great Christmas, there’s a school Christmas play, Snoopy has decorated his dog house over the top, and the tree that Charlie Brown picks is a small, pitiful tree that barely has any needles left on it.  The play is falling apart, Lucy is being her usual self, and nothing seems to be going right.  Enter Linus, who, responding to Charlie Brown’s query if anyone knows what Christmas is about, says:
 

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.  And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.  And the angel said unto them, “Fear not: for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

There is so much that goes on at Christmas, so many things that we prepare for, so many parties to attend, presents to buy, houses to clean, that sometimes we forget what Christmas is all about.  And we’ve celebrated it so many times, that perhaps it has lost some of its newness and power.  Perhaps we have become numb to the real meaning of Christmas, what Christmas is all about.
    To properly understand the real meaning of Christmas, we have to start at the beginning.  Adam and Eve had offended God by disobeying Him and seeking to be God on their own terms.  They were sorry.  God accepted the apology, and sought humanity out time and time again, but humanity kept distancing itself more and more away from God.
    Christmas, then, is about God making the ultimate move of reconciliation.  We could not approach God on our own.  We were hopeless that anything could be done to fully restore what we had broken.  And knowing that we had caused the pain, knowing that we had done wrong, we stayed to ourselves.  But God didn’t leave us to ourselves.  He sent us someone who could reconcile us to Himself, and someone who could do so without shaming us.  Christ was and is one like us, but without sin.  He took on our human flesh so that we could be comfortable in the presence of God again.  God became man so that man might become God.  Rather than seeing us continually suffer by our separation from Him, He came to us so that we could be healed.
    And He came in a way that utterly disarmed us.  The Incarnation was like the Trojan Horse, because how could we not accept one so tiny and fragile?  How could we not smile at a cute baby, whose face looked like ours, but was truly the face of God?  It would be like being estranged from a dear friend or family member, not knowing if we could ever be amicable with them again because of the pain that we caused, but then that dear friend sends us a little gift, something that we treasure, as a way of restoring that relationship.  We certainly did not earn that gift, and would never have expected it, but that friend sent it anyway, and the healing could commence.  

    The real meaning of Christmas is God’s love and mercy for us doing the unthinkable: lowering Himself beyond all expectation, just so that we could be reunited with Him.  The snow is beautiful (though you may think otherwise having driven in it to get here); the glimmering trees and the presents that often are under them give us passing happiness; the favorite and timeless songs that we sing give our hearts a certain levity.  But all those things will pass, and will be put away for another twelve months.  The love and mercy of God will remain, long after the snow has melted, after the trees have dropped all their needles and the presents are forgotten or broken, after you can only find Christmas songs on YouTube or Spotify.  
    Are we willing to embrace that mercy?  Are we willing to accept the love of God offered to us to restore us to friendship with God?  It seems like a silly question, but sometimes, after we know we have done something wrong, we fear even accepting an offer of mercy and love, because we so define ourselves by our faults and failing.  We think that the broken relationship cannot be made whole again.  Or we are afraid that, having restored that friendship, we will break it off again once more.  
    As the angel said to the shepherds in the field at Bethlehem, “Be not afraid.”  We are not the sum of our failings, as Pope St. John Paul II once said.  God can make what is broken whole again.  And yes, we may offend God again, but God, through Christ, will reach out His hand again when we turn back in sorrow for our sins, and will not reject any who come to Him, even if our sins were like scarlet.  And he will not do so begrudgingly, but with great haste and intention, because He would rather lower Himself and take on human frailty; He would rather die than have one of His beloved be separated from Him.  So great is the love of God that He will go to any lengths He can to save us.
    That is what we see at Christmas.  That is what we experience in the Incarnation.  That is what we celebrate today, every Sunday, and even every day as the priest, and the people united with him interiorly, offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  God loves you so much that He became like you.  Accept that great gift of love and mercy, and allow it to transform your life today, tomorrow, and all the tomorrows that you will have.  We broke off our friendship with God, but God has given us the opportunity to be His adopted sons and daughters in the Incarnate Son of God.  That is the real meaning of Christmas.  That is what Christmas is all about.

Doing It On Our Own?

 Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

    A year or so I bought a grill for a young couple with whom I am friends who had expressed some interest in getting a combination grill/smoker.  I did some shopping, found what I wanted at a Lowe's in Brighton, and bought the grill.  When it came time to load it into my Jeep, I realized it was going to be a bit of a struggle, as it was much heavier than I expected.  Luckily, an off-duty State Trooper I know just happened to be coming into the Lowe's when I about ready to load it in, so he was able to help me.  This should have been my first clue that putting this grill together was going to require more than one person, given that even simply loading it into my vehicle required two of us.
    I got home, and, when I had a day off, I decided I was going to put it together.  I quickly learned that it was meant to be a two- to three-person job, because some of the parts were supposed to be held as bolts were tightened.  But, stubborn as I am, I found a way, somehow, to put it together.  With the help of another friend, I delivered it, only to notice that some of the screws I had tightened were a bit loose, due, no doubt, to the fact that I tried to assemble the grill/smoker myself.
    When it comes to salvation, we might take the same approach: I can do it myself.  And maybe even today’s Gospel seems to back us up.  After all, Jesus says, “‘Which of you wishing to construct a tower doe snot first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion?’”  In other words, we may interpret Jesus to be saying, “Do you have enough to follow me?”  
    But, the fact is, we cannot follow Jesus without Jesus.  That may seem quite obvious when stated that way.  But how many times do we attempt to be our own savior, only to get frustrated when it doesn’t work?  We figure that we simply have to muscle through being a disciple, and then God will be pleased with us and we’ll go to heaven.  When we meet failure (as we most certainly will at some point), it then forces a decision: do we try to muscle through even harder (we failed because we weren’t trying hard enough)?  Or do we just give up because following Jesus is too hard?
    Of course, the better option is to allow Jesus to work within us, rather than trying to save ourselves.  If humanity could save itself, then Jesus and the Incarnation is altogether unnecessary.  If humanity could save itself, then certainly Abraham, or Moses, or David, or one of the prophets would have figured it out.  But, of course, they didn’t.  Not one of the patriarchs, kings, or prophets, no matter how good they attempted to be, could save themselves and follow God perfectly.  They all needed help from above.
    And we cannot follow Jesus without Him.  In fact, He does most of the work, and our job is to cooperate with that work and not get in the way.  When we do fail, it’s usually because we have gotten in the way.  “But Fr. Anthony,” you may say, “Jesus today said that if we do not carry our own cross and follow Him, we cannot be His disciple.”  That is what Jesus said.  But we are not meant to carry our cross by ourselves.  Jesus Himself received the assistance, albeit coerced by the Romans, of Simon of Cyrene to carry the Cross that brought us salvation.  So if even the Master receives assistance in carrying His literal cross, then why do we think that we can do it without any assistance?
    Trying to be our own savior and carrying our cross without Jesus can look very similar to someone who is allowing Jesus to be the savior and allowing Jesus to help carry our cross.  From the externals, it may be exactly the same: we pray, we make time for God, we talk to others about Jesus, we do works of charity for others, etc.  But what is different is the interior disposition.  The person who wants to save him or herself; the person who decides to carry the cross on his or her own, prays, but only because it is required.  That person makes time for God, but only out of fear that if we don’t give God some minimal amount of time, then He won’t let us into heaven.  That person talks about God, but only to increase the size of the parish by adding another member or two.  That person gives money to the poor or to organizations because it’s a nice tax write-off, or he or she likes seeing the name in a donor list.
    On the other hand, the person who allows Jesus to be the savior and help carry our cross prays because it is a chance to spend time with the Beloved, who wants to hear what is going on in our life, and wants to communicate a path forward.  That person makes time for God because that is the number one priority, and the other priorities fall into place after Him.  That person speaks to others about Jesus as a friend or spouse talks about their beloved, and wants others to know that same joy and love.  That person sees Jesus in the poor and the suffering and so does what he or she can to alleviate that suffering in the least of the brothers and sisters of Jesus.  The acts might be the same, but the motivation is totally different.
    You cannot save yourself.  You cannot carry your cross alone.  You cannot earn heaven by anything you could ever do, even in a million years.  Allow Christ to be your Savior.  Let Him work in you, and cooperate with that work, not trying to earn the love of God, but responding to it.  When we do respond to God’s love because of the love He has first shown us, then we will be the disciples that God calls us to be.

Responding to the Word

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Usually every week, a different day each week, I get a phone call.  Recently it’s been more local numbers, like from Lansing, Detroit, or somewhere in the area.  I answer the call, and this is what I hear: (long pause); and then: hello, could I please speak with Mr. Strouse?  I think if you own a phone, you get those calls, too, unless you just let them go to voicemail (which they never leave, of course).

Today we hear about great news: God is closer to us than we could ever imagine.  Moses tells the Chosen People in the first reading, “‘For what great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the Lord, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him?’”  And while that was true in its own way in the Old Testament, as God revealed Himself to His people, and gave displays of His presence while crossing the Red Sea, while fighting the pagan nations, and while giving the Law on Mount Sinai, it’s even more true for us because of Jesus, the Messiah, who is God-made-flesh.  Jesus is truly and full God, and yet truly and fully man.  God walked among us, spoke to us with a human voice, listened to us with human ears, touched us with human hands, and experienced everything we do, except without sin.

We’re used to that news, because we’ve heard it for almost 2,000 years.  But it’s pretty shocking.  God, who is transcendent, made Himself sensible and limited.  He knows what it’s like to be born, to be in a family, to be poor.  He knows the heat of the day and the cold of the night, the fatigue of walking all day and the joy of reaching a destination.  He knows the cool splash of water, and having a great meal fill His stomach.  He knows what it is to be loved, but also what it is to be rejected.  And He knows what it is to die, to experience excruciating pain.  In any experience we have, we know that God understands us, even better than we do ourselves.

And that’s a great comfort.  When we’re sick, when we’re tired, when we’re lonely, when we’re supported by family, when we make a new friend, when we complete a job; all these things the Lord Jesus knows intimately.  He never abandons us.  And God desires to be so close to us that He gives us the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, the co-eternal Son of God, in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, so that He can dwell inside us, just like in a tabernacle here in the church.  That’s great news!!

And yet, we can sometimes be like the telemarketers who call us but who don’t respond.  God gives us this great gift, and we’re unresponsive, or, even worse, apathetic.  St. James tells us today that we are to be “doers of the word and not hearers only.”  We’re often good at hearing.  We often stink at doing.  

We are part of the way that God’s work, the ministry of Jesus, continues today.  The Holy Spirit gives us His gifts to continue the work of Jesus.  God doesn’t need us, as if we didn’t exist nothing could happen.  And yet God humbles Himself to allow us to bring His presence to others.  He gives us His grace so that we can continue that closeness with His people.  His Spirit fills us with His life (what we call grace) so that when His children are sick, tired, lonely, celebrating, making new friends, completing a job, etc., they feel His presence and His love through us.  Sometimes, too, God wants us to challenge others with the power of His Spirit.  When we see something happening that is not right, we are not called to be tattletales, but are called to address the wrong.  

People are rightfully upset about the reports coming out that other bishops knew about Archbishop McCarrick and the evils he perpetrated, and yet they did nothing.  There seems to be some evidence that even Pope Francis knew.  And we are justifiably and righteously angry about that.  But it should also become an opportunity for us ask if we have looked the other way in our own circumstances when we have seen evil done: evil like cheating or stealing from a company; greed; harassment; inappropriate jokes; and more.  We have to be prudent about when to address wrongs and how to address them, but how often are we content to be hearers only of this message of repentance, and not doers ourselves?

God is close to us.  He is closer to us than we are to ourselves.  And Jesus makes Himself present to us in a special way by humbling Himself each day by becoming incarnate, once more, in the Eucharist, in His Body and Blood that look like bread and wine.  But God, who strengthens us with His grace and His presence, wants us not only to enjoy His presence, but to spread it to others, to help others experience how close the Lord, our God, is to us whenever we call upon him.  “Be doers of the word and not hearers only.”

How Can I Keep From Singing

Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord–Mass during the Day

“Fr. Anthony, you sing a lot.”  I have heard that phrase no small amount of times.  Some people like the chanting.  Others do not enjoy it.  Some have even accused me of chanting just to show off my voice.  Why do I sing?

St. Augustine says that singing is for those who are in love.  And I am in love…with my God, above all.  So I sing, I chant, to Him.  Think about your favorite love song for a second.  What would it be?  In your mind, hum a few bars of the song, or at least imagine that person singing it.  Now imagine that person simply saying it.  Very different, right?  One of my favorite love songs is “My Girl” by the Temptations.  Probably most of us know it.  We can hear the into…We can hear The Temptations singing it.  So imagine if it were simply stated: “I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day/ When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May/ I guess you’d say/ What can make me feel this way?// My girl, my girl, my girl/ Talkin’ bout my girl/ My girl.”  Not quite the same, is it (and not just because it’s me reciting it!)?

I rarely preach on the Psalm, but today did you listen to it?  “Sing to the Lord a new song,” and “Sing joyfully to the Lord, all you lands; break into song; sing praise.” and “Sing praise to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and melodious song.  With trumpets and the sound of the horn sing joyfully before the King, the Lord.”  The Psalm itself is a song, and it’s encouraging us to sing!!  But why?

We sing today because we are (hopefully) overflowing with love because God has become man in Jesus.  Salvation has been announced, the Lord has restored Zion, He has comforted His people and redeemed Jerusalem.  In Christ, we see our salvation.  And we know the Gospel.  While the brightness of the day is slightly clouded by the crucifixion which we will recall in three short months, the crucifixion itself is enlightened by the Resurrection.  

We sing today because we are (hopefully) overflowing with love because while “In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he has spoken to us through the Son.”  Jesus is the fulfillment of the entire Old Testament, and makes clear in Himself what God wants us to know and how God wants us to live.  Jesus, the refulgence (there’s your million dollar word for the day) of the glory of God the Father, “the very imprint of his being,” begins the way by which He purifies us from our sins.  We sing today because “A holy day has dawned upon us.  For today a great light has come upon the earth.”  

We sing today because we are (hopefully) overflowing with love because Jesus, the eternal Word who was in the beginning with God and is God; who created all things and without whom nothing came to be; became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we say his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son.”  We rejoice because “From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace, because while the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”  

All of this is Good News, is great news!!  Our hearts should be bursting with joy at this news.  Even those for whom this is a particularly tough time of year, those who have lost loved ones, whether recently or longer ago, can rejoice because by the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation, which made possible the crucifixion and Resurrection, we know that death is not the end, and that those who follow Jesus can look forward to an eternal life of joy.  By His Incarnation, Jesus gave us the possibility to be healed from all illness, and to find the fullness of life in heaven.  That is joyful news!!

Will we keep it to ourselves?  Or will we share it with others?  Will we limited by word, like reciting a love song, or will we break into song and sing praise?  May we be the ones about whom Isaiah prophesied when he said, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings glad tidings, announcing peace, bearing good news, announcing salvation.”  May we “Sing joyfully to the Lord…break into song; sing praise.”

God Takes On the Life of Job

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

If you came to Mass today looking for a pick-me-up reading, our first reading from the Book of Job was probably not helpful.  We’ve probably all had days like Job, though, thinking that our life is just dragging on and is full of misery.  Remember that at this point, Job has lost almost of all of his material wealth, his children have been killed, and he himself is afflicted with sores.  His wife’s advice in all of this: curse God and die!  Not the loving support you want to hear from your spouse!  Instead, I think in hard times we all would rather that we had someone to sympathize with us; not just someone who feels bad for us, but someone who has gone through the same or similar circumstances.

That is the great news about the Incarnation!  God sees us in our misery, a misery which far surpasses that of Job, but He doesn’t just empathize with us, that is, suffer in us without any idea of what it really means.  Our God takes flesh in the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and comes down to know our pain.  When God takes on our human flesh, not just living in it but truly making it His own, uniting our human nature to His divine nature forever, He takes on our misery, without giving up any of His glory.  

But while He could have avoided the nastiness of our fallen condition, He doesn’t.  In fact, our Gospel reminds us that He went down right into the middle of it all.  He spends time and touches people who are sick “with various diseases.”  He drives out demons.  He even enters into the delicate relationship between a son and his mother-in-law when He goes to the house of Simon Peter.  And, as our Gospel also states, He goes out to preach and to heal and to expel demons in other villages, not just His own.  He takes upon Himself all that it means to be human, but without sinning.  But, though He never sins, He even takes sin upon Himself as He suffers the pain and the penalty of sin.  When we sin, we (hopefully) feel bad enough because we have injured (venial sins) or severed (mortal sins) our relationship with God.  But imagine how much more horrible that must have felt for Jesus Christ, Himself God, to take upon Himself separation from God.  When we think about it, Jesus’ words on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” become even more powerful.  Jesus even shares in our death, the ultimate penalty of sin, as He breathes His last and His body loses the breath of God.

That doesn’t sound like it, but it’s good news.  It sounds horrible that God would have to go through that, and it’s for that reason that people weep when they think about the Passion of Jesus Christ, but it’s really good news.  Our God does not simply empathize with us, but sympathizes with us(which means He suffers with us).  He embraces us as we suffer, and reminds us that He knows the pain that we go through, not as a distant onlooker, but as a participant in our pain.

And that is the good news that St. Paul preaches.  That is the Gospel (which means good news) that St. Paul is obliged to preach, because he wants others to know that they do not suffer alone, and that, after all Jesus’ suffering, new life was won.  That is why St. Paul made himself a slave to all; why he became weak to the weak and all things to all.  St. Paul wants others to know that while life can sometimes seem as miserable as Job, Jesus has passed through pain and death and has transformed it into joy and life.  

Today the Church celebrates World Marriage Day, and next weekend we’ll have a blessing for Married Couples which will coincide with our St. Valentine’s Day Dinner Dance (and the Sunday after).  The call of Catholic married couples is to be a sacrament, a sign instituted by Christ which brings grace.  Too many married couples feel like Job, with life as a drag.  Catholic married couples are meant to show them, through their own living out of the vocation of marriage, that marriage may not be easy, and that sometimes couples might feel like Job, but that Christ has transformed marriage into a way to become holy.  They show it to others by their love for each other.  They show it to a new generation as they conceive and raise children in the faith.  They preach the Gospel by letting Christ sanctify and transform their love for each other so that when others look at them, they see the love of Jesus for His Bride, the Church.  

And we, the Bride, the Church, are not always easy to love, as many married couples sometimes experience.  We, God’s People, are not always faithful to Him; we do not always love Him; we do not always show that love for Him by prayer, spending time with Him, making Him the priority in our life.  And yet, Jesus continues to love us and pour Himself out for us as He sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us.  Married couples: I challenge you to say 1 Our Father with each other each day.  If you do, I promise not that marriage will be easy, but that you will have the strength from heaven to persevere even in the hard times.  High schoolers, college students, and young adults: I challenge you to say 1 Hail Mary each day, asking our Blessed Mother to help show you if you are called to marriage, and if you are called to that beautiful vocation, to show you whom to marry.  For the rest of us, let us pray 1 Glory Be each day for the sanctification of married couples and those discerning a vocation to marriage so that our church, our city, our nation, and our world can be filled with examples of Christ’s love.

Sensing God's Presence

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Today we come to the end of the Season of Christmas.  It’s the shortest season of the year, usually only lasting 20 or so days.  This year it was only 17 days.  And yet, what we celebrate at Christmas changes everything.  It is more monumental to human history than the discovery of fire; than Aeneas traveling to Italy from Troy or Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon; than the Battles of Lepanto and Vienna stopping the Muslim invasion into Europe; than the storming of Normandy on 6 June; than the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the resignation of Richard Nixon; than the terrorist attacks on 9/11.  

The Incarnation was bigger than all those world-changing events.  God Himself was able to be seen in His Son, Jesus.  When you looked at Jesus, you saw God.  When you heard Jesus, you heard God.  When you touched Jesus, as so many people did for healing, as Mary did in holding her baby, you touched God.  This was a radical change from what had come before.  And it changed radically what would come after.

Because of the Incarnation, God communicated Himself through physical reality.  This includes the Sacraments.  Through the Sacraments, we experience God.  And this is an effect of the Incarnation.  Water remains H₂0, but by the power of the Holy Spirit and the ministry of the priest, it also gives God's grace and makes a person a child of God and a member of the Church for all eternity.  Olive oil remains what it is, but becomes a vehicle of God’s grace to strengthen, console, and anoint a person for a mission in the Church.  A promise between one man and one woman remains a valid agreement between two free people, but is strengthened by God’s grace to allow the married couple to share God’s grace with others just by living their married life with God.  The Sacraments are possible because of the Incarnation.  In the Sacraments we encounter God and share in the events of the life of Jesus Christ.  As Pope St. Leo the Great said, “Our Redeemers’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments.”  Every time we celebrate a Sacrament, we are coming into contact with the Risen Lord.

God uses material things to make Himself known.  That is the great news of the Incarnation.  He made us to come to know reality by our senses.  There is nothing that we know that we did not learn, at least at its heart, by our senses.  Numbers, which are immaterial, are learned through physical things: if we add one orange to one orange, we get two oranges.  We learn about history through hearing.  We learn to do so much by experiencing it.  God knows that we learn through our senses because He created us this way.  And so He continues to come to us through our senses.  

Look at today’s celebration, the Baptism of the Lord.  When Jesus is baptized, the Holy Spirit, like a dove, descends, and God the Father’s voice is heard.  God makes Himself known.  St. John talks about this in our second reading, when he says that, “there are three that testify, the Spirit, the water, and the blood.”  Even the blood of Jesus, a blood that was seen poured out, and the water the flowed from the side of Jesus, and the Spirit who rent in two the veil of the temple, make known God’s presence.  God does not leave us simply to imagine that He exists, imagine that He comes to us, imagine that he loves us.  God shows us that love by physical signs.  God’s presence is effective.  His Word, another way God communicates through our senses, changes us, just as Isaiah prophesied in the first reading: “just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return there till they have watered the earth…so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me void.”

In the Sacraments, we are meant to have an encounter with Christ, no less than when John the Baptist and the people at the Jordan River saw Jesus rising from the waters, saw the Spirit descending like a dove, and heard the voice from the heavens.  In the Sacraments, especially the Sacrament of the Eucharist, we are meant to experience Jesus who helps us to know if we are called to be a priest, a consecrated man or woman, or married.  In the Sacraments, Christ wants to strengthen our priesthood, our consecration, and our marriages.  But we have to be open.  God wants to reveal Himself to you in the Sacraments.  Today, as we prepare to receive the Eucharist, ask God to reveal Himself to you.  If you are open to His presence in the Sacraments, you will know of His presence.