"But for Wales?"

Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Fr. Mychal Judge

    For what would you give up your life?  Probably when we think about giving up our life, we think of our soldiers who have sacrificed their lives serving our country.  Or maybe we think about our first responders, especially firefighters who rushed into burning buildings, never to run out, or our law enforcement officers who rush towards danger when everyone else is running away, who were killed by gun shots, stabbings, or even by being hit by a car that wasn’t paying attention.  One of my heroes is Fr. Mychal Judge, who, as a New York City Fire Department chaplain, ran into one of the towers on 9/11 to try to rescue any survivors and show them the way to safety.  There is an iconic photo of first responders carrying out his lifeless body on a stretcher, an image of what laying down one’s life for the good of another looks like.
    So as we heard the first reading, we may have wondered what the big deal was.  These seven brothers and their mother refused to eat pork, because the Law of Moses, received from God, didn’t allow the eating of any cloven-footed animal that did not eat cud.  We might think that death is a bit extreme option, rather than eating a BLT. 
    Thinking about the cost we are willing to pay for what matters reminds me of a scene from “A Man For All Seasons,” about St. Thomas More.  Richard Rich, a former friend of Sir Thomas, perjured himself in order to obtain the office of attorney general of Wales.  St. Thomas, on finding the reason why his so-called friend should lie in court, said, “Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world.  But for Wales?”  In other words, was the perjury worth the promotion?

St. Thomas More

    Many tend to view life from a utilitarian point of view.  I would dare say that at least some of us here have utilitarian morals: as long as it turns out ok, then it’s ok to do.  In other words, the ends justify the means.  If I can do some greater good, even if I have to do something evil, then it’s ok.  But those are not Catholic, nor even Christian morals.  The ends never justify the means.  Even the pagans knew that.  One cannot achieve good by doing evil, as they run in opposite directions. 
    Early Christians had to deal with this dilemma, too.  As the persecutions continued against the new, Christian religion, more and more friends and family became known as followers of Christ.  So those who were responsible for their punishment, their own kith and kin, would sometimes seek to ease the requirements in order to avoid punishment, and, in most cases, death.  Instead of worshiping a false idol, or worshiping the emperor, some Christians were given the option to simply sign a document saying that they worshiped the emperor.  It was just a small lie, one that would save their lives.  Surely the good that could be done by the Christians in the future would be outweighed by their single act of infidelity to God.  Christ is merciful; just turn to Him for forgiveness afterwards. 
    There’s a word for those who did sign: apostates.  In other words, those who abandoned God.  At the end of the day, the pork wasn’t the big deal.  But what was a big deal was disobeying what you knew to be something that God had communicated.  The food wasn’t as weighty as the rejection of God’s ways, signified by the kosher laws.  The holy mother and sons in Maccabees were models because, rather than disobey God and reject His ways, they chose earthly death.  But, they also had hope that, while others could harm the body, God would reward their faithfulness, not only with the soul, but in the resurrection on the last day. 
    There’s another story from the Old Testament, this one long before the Maccabees, about King Saul and the prophet Samuel.  God had told Saul to place all Amalekite people and property under the ban; they were to be destroyed because of how they had previously oppressed God’s Chosen People.  But King Saul decided to keep some sheep and oxen, and spare the life of the king.  Samuel found this out, and confronted Saul.  Saul replied, “‘I did indeed obey the Lord and fulfill the mission…. I have brought back Agag, the king of Amelek, and…I have destroyed the Amalekites.  But from the spoil the army took sheep and oxen, the best of what had been banned, to sacrifice to the Lord your God.’”  It seems like Saul was doing something good.  He saved the best sheep and oxen so that they could be sacrificed to the true God.  But Samuel responded, “‘Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obedience to the Lord’s command?  Obedience is better than sacrifice.’”  And, because of Saul’s disobedience, he loses the kingdom, which will eventually be transferred to David, son of Jesse.
    Our view ought to be a heavenly one, not an earthly one.  What is best is not necessarily what helps us in this life, but what helps us in the life to come.  It is so easy to get caught up like the Sadducees, and see things from our limited vantage.  Instead, God sees all from an eternal vantage, and encourages us to trust Him, even when our minds can create some reason why going our own way appears better.
    I have not often taken the view that we, as Catholics, will have to undergo another persecution in our country.  I’m not quick to talk about the possibility that fidelity to God will cause us suffering.  But the more our State and country move away from God, the more likely we will have to choose between comfort in this world, and comfort in the next.  Already many Catholics have abandoned the position that all life is sacred, including the infant in the womb.  They have chosen their own logic, and why abortion is fine in some, if not all, circumstances.  Those who oppose are called backwards, anti-woman, anti-science, and misogynist.  If Proposal 3 passes, there will be no safeguards for conscience protection against abortion in our State.  Nurses and doctors may be required, in some circumstances, to perform or assist with an abortion, or lose the job.  What will be more important? 
    And what will be more important for you?  Staying faithful to the Catholic faith, to what God has revealed to us for our happiness?  Or abandoning the faith that Christ taught for social status, economic advancement, or even simply family harmony?  What is more important for you?  Status?  Money? Family?  Or God and heaven?  “Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world.  But for Wales?”
 

Small Sacrificies Yield Large Results

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

    From time to time I see ads on TV and on the internet for ways to have a chiseled body, with well defined muscles.  I’m sure that some of the ads were photoshopped a bit, but even so, I often thought about what it would be like to have better muscle definition, stronger muscles, and a stronger appearance.  But to truly get into that shape, I would have to give up a lot of foods that I enjoy eating, and actually go to a gym on a regular basis and lift weights, neither of which sounds that appealing to me.  And looking at me, you can see which path I choose!
    Each in our own way, we probably all have things that we want, but for which we’re not really willing to work.  We have a desire for something, but we’re not really willing to do the things to make that desire an achieved reality.  That can even be the case when it comes to our faith.
    In today’s first reading we hear about a mother and her children who are being tortured and killed because they’re not willing to break God’s law, even though the local government is telling them to.  The back story is that the Greeks had taken over the Holy Land, and wanted everyone to live in the Greek manner of life: they placed idols in the temple, forbade parents to have their sons circumcised, and forced the Jews to eat pork, all as ways of rejecting the Jewish religion.  The part we hear in today’s passage highlights a heroic sacrifice that they make, simply because they would rather obey God and be tortured and killed than disobey God and enjoy prosperity. 
    But this heroic action probably did not start the moment they were arrested and brought before the king.  They likely had made smaller sacrifices to be faithful to God throughout their lives, maybe not even perfectly, but still, doing their best to say yes to God in their choices in small ways, which helped them to say yes to God when it was a major decision with drastic consequences.
    I think we can sometimes be as clueless as the Sadducees in today’s Gospel when it comes to the Resurrection.  We desire to be raised, to reign with Jesus in heaven.  But when it comes to the daily ways that we show that we want to accept this gift of eternal life, we’re not quite there, and we don’t want it that much.  We want the end result without wanting the daily effort it takes to obtain that result.
    Being welcomed into heaven is all about putting behind us the fallen parts of our nature by God’s grace, and accepting God’s grace to choose things which do not always seem to desirable, but which help us to say yes to God and say no to our fallen nature.  St. Paul talks about it as putting to death the old man (Adam, who said no to God), and living the life of the new man (Jesus, who said yes to God).  It’s easy to want to do that in major ways, and praise God when that happens, when we’re able to recognize a major temptation as something leading us away from God, and reject it.  But it’s much harder, but more efficacious, to say yes to God in small ways, which, over time, make us more like Christ.
    I would suggest two small ways that we can live more for Christ, and bring us closer to the desire to be welcomed into heaven.  The first you’re already doing today.  And that’s attending Mass every Sunday and Holyday, unless you're sick or homebound, or necessary work prevents you from attending.  Attending Mass might not seem like much, but that sacrifice to set aside your own desires on how to use your time, and then to drive to Mass to worship God, builds up our spiritual muscles.  You may not see it making a difference, but if we could see the difference it makes in our souls, we would be amazed.  Those who go to Mass still have temptations, but it’s much easier to reject temptation and sin when we’re filled with the grace of the Body and Blood of Christ, received in a state of grace.  Even if we still sin even though we attend weekly Mass, imagine the other sins you may have fallen into without attending Mass.  And daily Mass is even better, still!
    A second small way is abstaining from meat every Friday, not just the Fridays of Lent, unless it’s a solemnity, like on All Saints Day.  We might think that it’s not a big deal, and it’s not, especially if we like fish.  But saying no to our desire to eat whatever we want to is a great small sacrifice that prepares us to be faithful in bigger sacrifices that may come our way.  Sometimes, if visiting family or friends, that may not be possible, so maybe try fasting from lunch, or doing an extra work of charity on that day.  I try to abstain from meat on all Fridays, and I have seen the difference it makes in my own spiritual life.
    When I hear the story of the great martyrs, I am inspired by how they suffered for Christ in such major ways!  Some of the pain I think I could suffer through.  Some, like getting boiling water poured on me or having my fingernails pulled out, do not seem so easy to endure.  But in reality, if I’m not doing the smaller, daily sacrifices, whatever they might be, then I’m not going to be successful in the larger sacrifices if and when they ever come my way.  If we truly want to be in that number when the saints go marching in, to be as faithful as the mother and her children in not rejecting God even when it meant coercion, torture, and death by the government, then let us follow the advice of St. Paul to die to our fallen nature by little daily or weekly sacrifices, and live in the new life of the risen Christ.

Chocolate, Puppies, and Belinda Carlisle

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

What is heaven like?  People have many different ideas.  Some people believe heaven is an unending chocolate fountain of goodness, but the chocolate has no calories.  Some people think heaven is a world full of puppies, except you never have to clean up after them and they obey your every command.  Some people consider heaven to be a tropical island with bottomless piña coladas and cuba libres.  In 1987, Belinda Carlisle told us heaven is a place on earth.

In all of these situations, heaven is simply a better version of earth.  The Sadducees in our Gospel today also took that approach.  They felt that heaven was merely a continuation of earth.  So, they plan to trick Jesus, by showing how problematic even believing in heaven truly is.  They set a trap where a woman in heaven would have seven different husbands, and try to see how Jesus would squirm out of this problem.  But rather than granting their premise that heaven is merely a continuation of earth, maybe with a little less pain, Jesus tells them that they have missed the point entirely.  Heaven is not a better continuation of earth, but is radically different.  In heaven there is no marriage or giving in marriage, because marriage is for earth.  Marriage, at least between two baptized Christians, is a visible symbol of the invisible reality of Christ for His Church, which not only reminds us of Jesus, but communicates His grace.  In heaven, we don’t need physical realities that communicate God’s grace to us, because we have the direct vision of God.  

Heaven is the place where God’s reign comes in its fulness, as compared to what we have today.  We hear about that in our first reading.  This passage tells us of when Jewish brothers and their mother were remaining faithful to God’s law, even though the government, run by pagan Greeks, tried to get them to abandon God’s law.  The brothers knew that God would accept their sacrifice, and would right the wrongs that had been inflicted upon them by giving them new life.  

Heaven is not just earth 2.0.  Heaven is not just earth without any more elections, without any more war, without suffering and pain.  Heaven is as different from our current way of life as our life is different from an ant’s.  The Book of Revelation reminds us that heaven is the place where there are no more wrongs to be righted, and where we see God face to face.  Heaven is the place where there are no more tears or suffering or sorrow, for the old order has passed away.  Heaven is perfect happiness, not to our fallen human nature, but to our human nature perfected by Christ.  And to get there, we have to cooperate with God’s perfection of our nature in this life.  If we work against God’s will by our actions in this life, then we won’t be going to heaven in the life to come.  

The Book of Revelation also describes heaven as an eternal liturgy, an eternal Mass.  Now, before you think to yourself: ‘Heaven is like a never-ending Mass?  I don’t wanna go there!’, there won’t be boring homilies in heaven.  We won’t have to wait for bread and wine to be transubstantiated into the Eucharist in heaven, because we won’t need a sacrament of Jesus’ Body and Blood; Jesus’ Body and Blood will be present for us immediately. 

But if you have ever read the Book of Revelation, and not just the snippets about weird animals and the number 666, then you will recognize that it describes what goes on as worship of God, which is what we do at Mass.  The elders (in Greek, 𝛑𝛒𝛆𝛔𝛃𝛖𝛕𝛆𝛒𝛐𝛓, from which we get the word presbyter or priest) are around the throne of the Lamb, Jesus, throwing down their crowns (I don’t get any crowns) as they worship God.  They are also surrounded by the four living creatures, the Ox, Man, Lion, and Eagle, representing the four evangelists or Gospels, with the Cherubim singing “‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God.’”  The scroll with the Word of God is digested (like we’re supposed to do in the homily), and the elders and the angels and all those who are in heaven sing hymns to the Lord, praising God for what He has done.  And all of this is done over the place where the martyrs are, which is why, since the earliest days of Christianity, altars have been built over the site of martyrdom, or relics have been placed in altars.  If you want to read a good book on this, Scott Hahn’s book “The Lamb’s Supper,” is a great read.  

The Mass is supposed to give us a foretaste of what heaven is like.  It’s not meant to be the same as every day life.  It’s not supposed to be earthly.  It is patterned upon the worship of God in Scripture, and as the Church has developed the Mass throughout the centuries to emphasize what we believe.  While using earthly things, everything about our Mass is supposed to transport our senses, minds, and hearts to the heavenly Jerusalem through the symbols that make that reality present, and the signs that remind us of that reality.  

Heaven is not a mere continuation of our earthly existence.  It’s not earth without mosquitos.  Heaven is not a place on earth, with all due respect to Belinda Carlisle.  Heaven is the place of perfect fulfillment, where we will be who God created us to be.  May we all receive the many graces God gives us, especially through the Mass and confession, so that we will be found worthy of dwelling with God in that place of perfect light, happiness, and peace.

Is Heaven a Place on Earth?

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

            In this month of November, when we remember the dead in a special way, our minds easily turn towards heaven.  We began the month by praying for All Saints: all those who are in heaven, not just the ones the Church knows about and has canonized, but even those who are known only to God.  As we write the names of our family members and friends who have died in the Book of the Dead, we pray and we hope that they are in heaven. 

            Secular music has thought about heaven a fair amount, too.  As I thought about songs with heaven in them, three came right to mind: Belinda Carlisle singing, “Oh, heaven is a place on earth”; Eric Clapton singing, “Would you know my name, if I saw you in heaven?”; and, a little more recently, Los Lonely Boys singing, “how far is heaven?”  You can probably think of more (but do it after Mass so you’re not distracted). 

            Heaven is our goal.  It is the hope we have.  I’ve never known a person who didn’t want to go to heaven.  It was the hope for the seven brothers and their mother as they were offered the choice to eat pork, that is, to break the Mosaic Law, or to die.  We get a few of their stories today, and their perseverance in the face of physical torture is inspiring.  Why do they remain faithful to God rather than make a small concession?  Because they believe that God will reward them for their fidelity.  We have countless martyrs, many from the last century in the Spanish Civil War, during World War II, and in from Communist countries, who died rather than deny their faith.  From the very beginning with St. Stephen, the first martyr, the hope of heaven has been what has consoled the multitude of men and women as they underwent excruciating pain for Jesus.

            Heaven is our hope amid the sighs, mournings, and weepings in this vale of tears, as we pray in the Hail, Holy Queen prayer.  And we intuitively want heaven to be worth the price of what we go through on earth: all the little sacrifices we make, all the big sacrifices we make.  We want to know that heaven is worth it.  In a way, we’re weighing the cost of discipleship against the cost of the world.  For this reason, it’s no surprise that when I visit our parish school classroom, or when I visit our parish high school, Lansing Catholic, I frequently get asked what heaven will be like.

            The students often want to know: will heaven have a TV?  If not, how can I be happy if I can’t make sure I’ve seen all the episodes of my favorite shows?  Will heaven have an X-box?  If not, how can I truly be happy if I’m not killing zombies?  Will heaven have my iPhone?  If not, how am I ever going to finish all the levels of Candy Crush?  Perhaps we adults like to think that we’re a little bit more sophisticated: will my favorite food and drink (maybe adult beverage) be there?  Will it be the perfect temperature?  Will the Lions finally win the Super Bowl?  Our view of heaven is very much based upon what we know, and that is what is earthly, and then making it a perfected earthly existence.

            But it strikes me that in our Gospel today, Jesus challenges the Sadducees, and us, to not get caught up in making heaven simply a better version of earth.  The Sadducees are trying to trap Jesus into making the resurrection seem silly if the Law of Moses is true, because all seven men will claim to be this woman’s husband in heaven.  But Jesus sidesteps the trap by teaching them that heaven is not simply earth perfected.  Heaven involves a change of mind, a change of attitude because it’s not happiness from our fallen point of view, but is happiness from God’s point of view.  God, who made us, and who knows what will make us perfectly happy, gives us true happiness, not just what our minds can conceive as true happiness.  Even our bodies, which we know we will receive back at the end of time in the resurrection of the body, are different, and we see that in Jesus.  It’s still His body; He still has the marks from the nails and the spear, but it’s different; it’s glorified.  And it’s different enough that Mary Magdalene at the tomb does not at first recognize Him; the disciples on the road to Emmaus don’t even recognize Him.  But it’s similar enough that the apostles in the Upper Room do know it’s Jesus. 

            What we know by Scripture and the teaching of the Church is that heaven is perfect happiness, and it involves the worship of God in a time of Sabbath rest.  It is being with God, who made us to be with Himself, and the fulfillment of what it means to be human.  Maybe some of our creature comforts will be there; maybe not.  Maybe the Lions will actually win a Super Bowl; maybe not.  But we do have faith and confidence that whatever heaven is like, we will be perfectly happy because we will be with God and lack for nothing that we truly need.  May we all be found worthy, by the way we live our lives, to accept that gift of eternal blessedness that God wants to give us, so we can experience for ourselves, with all the saints, canonized and known only to God, the joy of entering into the eternal rest of our Lord. 

Food or Jesus?

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

            Now that we’ve passed Halloween, it’s that time of the year again: we hear many familiar themes, and we’re all getting ready for that one day that puts an end to the year.  I’m not talking about the wave of commercials crashing over us that are trying to get us ready for Christmas.  I’m talking about the end of the Liturgical Year at the Solemnity of Christ the King, and the readings that prepare us for that celebration by preparing us for the end times when Christ’s reign will be made totally manifest to all.

            The question that the readings pose to us this week is one that we should not take lightly.  Sure, we might have a quick answer, but if we really start to think about it, perhaps we would not answer so quickly.  The question is: what are you willing to put aside in order to enter in heaven?

            The question comes to us in the first reading, when we hear what a mother and her sons are willing to give up in order to remain faithful to God and share in the heavenly rewards, rather than break the Law given by God through Moses and eat pork.  Now, I’m sure that we’d all like to say that we would certainly rather go to heaven than eat a particular food.  Very few of us would probably admit to preferring bacon to Jesus.  But, if we take a moment, and think about what happens in Lent on Ash Wednesday, and all the Fridays of Lent, we may not be so quick to answer.  How many of us enter into that mental debate on those days, of whether it’s really serious to eat meat, and whether it will make that big of a difference.  Maybe some of us have even given in at one point or another in our life (and I’m not talking about the occasions where we just forgot, but where we freely made a choice to eat meat, rather than obey God and His Church).  While eating meat on Fridays during Lent may not necessarily cast us to hell, it is interesting to think that, at times, we might prefer eating a particular food and satisfying our taste buds than being obedient to God through the apostles and their successors, who have, by divine mandate, the ability to loose and bind sins.

But, even tougher than giving up meat, is the decision that the same family in the second book of Maccabees has to make.  It would have been quite easy simply to taste a little pork, to disobey God’s law, all with the mindset: “Well, I wouldn’t do this if I were free, and I just want to protect my family, so I’ll give in.”  While there may be times where, because the kids are acting up, we would have no problem sacrificing the kids in order to go to heaven, still, I think that most, if not all mothers and fathers, when faced with the decision to save their kids life, would do almost anything in order to protect their children.

            But of course, as Jesus says in the Gospel according to St. Matthew, “‘Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna,’” that is, hell.  Heaven is worth even more than bonds that bind us as a family, and we must be willing to put obedience to God and His truth that He has revealed to us even over the good of our family.  Nothing is more important than union with God.

            And in the Gospel, Jesus tells the Sadducees that they have missed the point of heaven if they simply assume that heaven is earth version 2.0.  Even the bonds of marriage, a sacrament which shows forth Christ’s fidelity to His Church to all the world by the fidelity of the husband to his wife; a love which shows the fruitfulness of God’s love by the fruitfulness of the marital act either through openness to children or, for those who, through no fault of their own cannot have children, through helping to communicate God’s love to those who so often do not receive it by works of charity; even that love is not the most important love in heaven, for those who “‘are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age…neither marry nor are given in marriage.’”

            Does this mean that we won’t recognize our spouse in heaven?  I don’t think that Jesus means that we won’t recognize each other.  But the unique, intense love that marriage is supposed to witness here on earth, will most perfectly be directed to God, whom we should love above all things and all people, even a spouse.

            So how do we prepare for making such a big choice?  How can we practice what the mother and sons in the first reading practiced, and prepare for eternal life when the sacramental system will no longer be necessary, because God will be all in all to those who have entered into heaven, and will communicate His grace, His inner life, His love, directly to us?

            I’m certainly not suggesting that we abandon all family responsibilities and move into a monastery, no matter how tempting that might sound from time to time.  Rather, each day, in very little ways, we have choices which can confirm us in choosing God over others, or confirm us in choosing others over God.  Whether it’s unnecessary work on Sunday, putting sports above our worship of God, laughing at crass jokes that insult the faith so that we can make it farther in our profession, and many other ways which only you will know as they face you, God provides us many small ways in which we can show our love and our loyalty to Him above all else. 

            God loves us, and wants us to share eternity with Him in heaven, where Jesus will reign as eternal king.  But God loves us enough to respect our free choice to return that love or reject that love.  Let’s show, by our daily sacrifices and fidelity to the Gospel, that we do love Him, and want to be with Him forever, faithful subjects of Christ the King.