Are You Saved?

First Sunday of Lent
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  Are you saved?  This is a question that we can get from some of our Protestant brothers and sisters when we encounter them.  Or we might hear them talking about how they were saved on a particular date or at a particular age.  A week ago yesterday I attended the funeral of the mother of the Flint Post Administrator for the Michigan State Police.  She was baptist, and the preacher asked that very question to us, and talked about how Nadine was saved at a particular age when she accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior.
    We as Catholics don’t use that language.  And so when we’re asked, perhaps we don’t know how to answer.  But as we begin Lent, it’s a good thing to explore.  St. Peter in his first letter [today] talks about being saved by baptism, which was prefigured by Noah being saved in the ark from the great Flood.  In terms of baptism, we can point to a day in which we were saved from original sin and became a child of God in the Son of God and, therefore, a member of the Church.  Baptism is a one-time event because it forever claims us for God and washes away, not only original sin, but any other sins that we have committed up to that point (if we’re not baptized as an infant, who wouldn’t have any personal sins that would need to be wiped away).  When it comes to baptism, we can rightly say that we were saved on that day.
    However, baptism isn’t only about a day.  Baptism begins a life of following Christ.  It’s not as if that one day means that we never have to worry about salvation after that.  Even though original sin is washed away, we still retain concupiscence, a desire for lesser goods.  While many Christians reject the idea of concupiscence after baptism, it seems quite obvious from human existence.  We probably can’t count the number of times even in just one day that we are tempted to do things that we know we shouldn’t do.  It doesn’t mean we have to give in to those temptations.  Through baptism, we have all the graces we need to avoid all mortal sins throughout our life.  But we still want what we shouldn’t want, as St. Paul himself describes.  Adam and Eve, who had no sin at first, were still tempted to reject God, and their choice to reject God affected all of us.  And Satan even tempted our Lord in the desert, as the Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent describes.  Our Lord had no sin whatsoever, and yet, due to His human nature, Satan thought he could get Christ to give in to lesser goods, just as Satan had tempted our first parents. 
    So, in this sense, we can say that we are being saved, in as much as we are choosing each day, more or less, to follow Christ.  To the extent that we follow Him, we are participating more in the salvation that God first offered to us in Holy Baptism.  To the extent that we choose lesser goods, things that we shouldn’t do, we are participating less in the salvation that God first offered us in Holy Baptism.
    And that leads to the last aspect of salvation for us as Catholics: we hope to be saved.  Life is our time of accepting or rejecting God and the promises of Holy Baptism to live as a disciple.  Each day we move closer to or farther away from eternal life in heaven.  There is no staying put or coasting.  But at some point, we will have cemented our decision because we won’t have any more decisions to make because we’re dead.  At that point, our life will witness to whether or not we accepted the salvation that God offered us in Holy Baptism and we will receive our eternal reward in Heaven (or the time preparing for Heaven in Purgatory) or our enteral punishment in Hell.  Once we die, there are no more second chances.  And so we hope that the decisions we make throughout our life show that we have accepted the salvation that Christ won for us by His Passion, Death, and Resurrection.  Only then will we know for sure if we are saved, though we have hope, because of baptism and because of being in a state of grace, that is, without mortal sin, at the time of our death. 

Powers Catholic Varsity Hockey Team

    While all analogies limp, think of it like being a hockey player.  When you first were able to skate on your own and hold a stick, you were, in a very beginning sense, a hockey player.  Sure, you didn’t have the ability to skate all that well, or the power from your muscles to push the puck far, but you were at the beginning.  Later, you developed more skills, and grew in your ability as a hockey player.  You also had times where you could decide to follow your desire to be a hockey player, or you could have chosen something else to do and abandon hockey.  Even for those of you who won the State Championship last year, you would each probably acknowledge ways that you can still grow as a hockey player.  Maybe we could, using this analogy, say that making to the NHL means that you are truly a hockey player, something some of you may hope to achieve someday.  So you were a hockey player when you just started out; you are still working on being a hockey player now; and you hope to truly be a hockey player in the NHL someday. 
    But for all of us, hockey players and non-hockey players alike, our goal is to continue to accept the gift of salvation that God offers us each day.  And our Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are meant to train us in a special way during this time of year to be able to choose the higher goods of following God’s will, and say no to the lesser goods of following only our will.  May those things that we have given up and the extra things we’re doing during Lent; may the extra prayers we say as we talk more and listen more to God; and may the generosity that we show to those in need during our Lenten season continue us on the path of salvation that God has set out for us [the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen].

Already and Not Yet

Feast of Christ the King
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  As we celebrate Christ the King, we celebrate what is, but also long for what is to come.  We see this even in our Lord’s description of His kingdom.  In the Gospel according to St. Mark, in the very first chapter, Christ says, “‘This is the time of fulfillment.  The kingdom of God is at hand.”  In the Gospel according to St. Luke, in chapter 21, the same Christ says, “‘behold, the kingdom of God is among you.’”  And yet, as we heard today, Christ also says in the Gospel according to St. John, “‘My kingdom does not belong to this world.  If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants [would] be fighting to keep me from being handed over….  But as it is, my kingdom is not here.’”  So, which is it?  Is the kingdom at hand and even among us, or is it not here?

    Yes.  Yes it is at hand; yes it is among us; yes it is not here.  As with so many aspects of our faith, we need to unpack the idea of Christ’s kingdom.  The Incarnation is the presence of the Kingdom of God, where all is right.  Christ holds all things together in himself, and in Christ we have the perfect union of God and man, which is part of the kingdom.  In Christ, the human soul is subject to the will of God perfectly, and the body is subject to the human soul.  In Christ, love and truth have met, justice and peace have kissed (to cite Psalm 84).  
    But, and you don’t have to look hard to realize this next point, we’re not living in the fullness of the kingdom.  Our bodies do not always obey our souls, which do not always obey the will of God.  Love is distorted to mean delight or even license; justice is often available to the highest bidder and is applied differently if you have money and/or power than if you don’t; civil unrest, battles, and wars still plague our cities, State, nation, and world.  Sorry, Belinda Carlisle, but heaven is not a place on earth.      And yet, as followers of Christ live the Gospel, heaven does break into earth more and more, and the kingdom establishes itself more perfectly.  When we love to the best of our ability with the love of God, the kingdom grows.  When we proclaim the truth of the Gospel, the truth that the Church continues to unpack throughout the centuries, the kingdom grows.  When we not only give each other his or her due, but also help others to thrive, the kingdom grows.  When we are able to pray for our enemies and do good to those who persecute us, the kingdom grows.  This is not to say that we are the ones who bring about the kingdom; that work is always primarily the work of God, with which we participate.  The approach that we have to usher in the kingdom tends to go wrong pretty quickly, due to our own sinfulness.  Just look at the approach taken in Central America which sought to bring about the kingdom, but which ended up being Marxist regimes that oppressed the people and led to class warfare and societal instability.
    It is Christ who brings about His own kingdom, and He will fully establish His reign at the end of time, when His angels will separate the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff, and will cast down the beast and its followers for eternity in Hell.  That will be a dies irae for those who work against God, and the battle will be swift and decisively victorious for Christ.
    It will be decisive because Christ already decisively conquered on a tree.  His sacrifice, re-presented for us in an unbloody manner on this altar, was the defining battle of all time, when Satan was conquered once-for-all, and sin and death were trod underfoot.  So Christ already achieved victory, but that victory has not been extended in totality yet.  And that is why we wait.
    And as we wait, we show if we want to be victorious in Christ, or conquered with the ancient foe.  We demonstrate whether we prefer to serve in heaven or reign in hell.  Our actions are our response to the invitation of eternal salvation in the kingdom of God.  Are we going to the wedding feast of the kingdom, or do we find excuses why we cannot attend?
    If we wish that kingdom to spread, if we wish to cooperate in spreading that kingdom, then it begins here.  If Christ is the kingdom of God in its fullness, then when we receive Holy Communion worthily, the kingdom of God is among us and even within us.  Coming to Mass, offering ourselves with the host and the wine, and then receiving in a state of grace the Eucharist allows the kingdom of God to be planted inside of us at least each week, or even every day.  The more that we receive the Eucharist in a state of grace, the more likely it is that we will respond to spreading that kingdom in our lives at work, at home, on vacation, at sporting events, etc.  
    That kingdom also spreads most easily through the domestic church, the family.  When parents demonstrate love, the children learn to do the same.  When children and parents tell the truth, God’s kingdom is strengthened among them.  When parents make sure that every member of the family has the ability, not only to survive but to thrive, the justice of the Kingdom of God grows.  When children learn how to say “I’m sorry” when they have done wrong, and when children see their parents apologize for their sins in confession and in the home, Christ’s kingship is established more and more.  And then those children are more likely to do the same in the homes and families that they make for themselves.  And the kingdom spreads even more.  
    If you wish to help the kingdom God, then love, not only your neighbors, but also your enemies.  If you wish to help the kingdom of God, tell the truth, be honest in contracts.  If you wish to help the kingdom of God, stand up for what is right, no matter how unpopular it may be, correct with charity, when appropriate, and administer discipline as your state calls you.  If you wish to help the kingdom of God, admit when you’re wrong, and forgive when others have wronged you.  It will help show the “already” of the kingdom, and will allow us to persevere in the “not yet,” until Christ reigns fully, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Prepping for Lent

 Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Many of you probably remember my attempt a few years back to practice with the Powers Catholic boys soccer team, and how I broke my thumb in a drill.  Certainly it was a humbling experience in my life.  But it happened because I wasn’t ready.  34-year-old me thought (quite incorrectly) that I was still 20-year-old me, and could simply run around without having really exercised in quite some time and still have the same ability and stamina.  Was I ever wrong!!
    So as we sit today only a few short days away from Lent, we may think that we can just pick-up this Lent where we left off last year, without any real preparation.  Or maybe we’re just procrastinators who live by the motto: don’t do today what you can put off till tomorrow.  But if either of those are our approaches, I’m going to suggest that Lent might not be that fruitful for you.
    And Lent is supposed to be fruitful.  We often think of it as a time of negation and less, but in terms of our spiritual life, it’s a privileged time of growth.  Lent is meant to help us more and more to do what St. Paul said in our second reading: to imitate Christ and the saints.  And we do this in three primary ways during Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
    Prayer is key to our life as followers of Jesus and in imitation of Him.  The lepers today in the Gospel spoke to Jesus, and asked Him for the favor of healing.  That’s what prayer is for us, whatever our physical or spiritual needs.  We talk to God–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–and present what’s going on in our life to Him.  Sometimes it’s asking for ourselves, sometimes it’s thanking, sometimes it’s praising, sometimes it’s interceding for another.  In the comedic Will Ferrell movie, “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story,” the coach says, “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.”  For prayer, I adapt that to say if you can talk to a friend, you can talk to God.  
    But prayer is also listening.  How much time do you spend listening to God?  How much time do you make for God in silence?  We offer beautiful times for silence before the Blessed Sacrament, almost every Friday from 7-7:45 a.m. and every third Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.  But besides that, our church is open usually until 3 p.m. or so each day.  Even if you don’t want to come to church when there are crowds, pick out a time during the day, and for the most part, the church is empty or almost empty.  You can visit the Lord, speaking, listening, and being close to him while social distancing from everyone else.
    Fasting is something we’ve gotten away from in the Church, and I would say to our detriment.  We all have a sickness, not leprosy, but concupiscence, which draws us to avoid good things that should do, and draws us to do bad things that we shouldn’t do.  Our body sometimes draws us in ways that are not in accord with God’s will.  Just like in sports, we have to train our body and soul to perform at its best levels.  Fasting is a great way of training our bodies and souls to reject the bad, but denying ourselves even good things that we don’t necessarily need.  
    When we talk about fasting specifically, we’re talking about not eating certain amounts of food, like we do on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, the two days that the Church requires us to fast.  We eat one main meal, and two smaller meals that, combined, equal or are less than the one main meal, and at the same time don’t snack.  But fasting in a broader sense can include what we call abstinence, which, in the case of our penitential practices, means abstaining from beef, pork, and chicken on Fridays, but especially Fridays of Lent.  Many of you are old enough to remember not eating meat on any Friday, and that’s a practice I have taken up, and I do find that it has helped me draw closer to God, choose good things more and bad things less.  Fasting can also mean giving up a particular type of food or drink, either for a time or permanently, in order to help our spiritual life.
    Fasting also is meant to give us solidarity with the poor.  There are so many people in our world, and even in our very rich nation, that don’t eat because they don’t have money to buy food.  Or they rely on the generosity of neighbors and food banks to give them their daily bread.  Fasting reminds us that we are no better than them, and that we are all children of our heavenly Father.  My plan is to give up alcohol this Lent as a sign of solidarity with all those who struggle with alcoholism.
    Almsgiving means giving money or goods.  Almsgiving is, in its original sense, money or goods given to the poor.  It is an imitation of our loving Father who gives blessings to many people, no matter who they are or what they do.  Almsgiving is also stretched to mean giving money to the church or to another charitable organization.  As I mentioned in our annual stewardship report a couple of weeks ago, I am very appreciative of your generosity to the parish, to help us continue to serve you.  This current fiscal year, our Sunday and Holyday collections have accounted for 77% of our income.  Because of your generosity, I don’t talk about money that much, but, as expenses continue to grow each year, we need to keep our weekly income at least at the $7,700 per week level.  Your almsgiving to the church will decide what our staff levels and office hours are for next year.  We can only give what we can, but it’s a way of sustaining not just ourselves, but our entire faith community.
    I would encourage you not to “stumble” into Lent this year.  Take these next few days to really consider how the Lord is asking you to pray, to fast, and to give alms.  Don’t make Lent a quick diet, but by your planning and prayerful consideration of what God is calling you to do, make it a great time of spiritual growth and development!

Job and Detroit Lions Fans

 Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    I am convinced that at some point in the future, the Lions will make it to the Super Bowl.  It will be the fourth quarter, and the Lions will be losing by 1 point.  They’ll be on the opponent’s 20 yard line, ready to kick the game-winning field goal, with 1 second left on the clock.  The kicker will kick the ball, and it will go straight, ready to pass through the uprights, and just as it’s about to pass through, and the refs are about to raise their hands, Jesus Christ will return in glory, and the Lions will forever be the team that never won a Super Bowl.
    As Lions fans we are used to disappointment.  There are other bad teams, but only the Lions seem to find new and exciting ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  So perhaps we can sympathize with Job from our first reading and say “I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted to me.”  In case you’re unfamiliar with Job, it’s a beautiful book of the Bible.  It may be more of a parable than a literal story, but it tells the story of a man who is faithful to God, but then undergoes great trials.  His first trial is that his oxen and donkeys were grazing, and were stolen by Sabeans, who killed all the herdsmen, save one.  Lightening struck all his sheep and shepherds and killed all but one shepherd.  Chaldeans came and stole all of Job’s camels, and killed all their caretakers, save one.  His seven sons and three daughters were all killed when their house collapsed during a party, and only one servant survived.  To this Job says: “‘The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’”  Quite the ordeal!
 

   But then, Job is struck by severe boils “from the soles of his feet to the crown of the head.”  Life is so bad that his wife, obviously a loving and caring woman, tells Job, “‘Curse God and die.’”  The Book of Job makes clear that Job has done nothing wrong, and yet he suffers greatly.  This story of Job is an attempt to understand why bad things happen to good people.  I encourage you to read the rest of the book (we only hear a part of chapter 7 today) to see how it ends.
    Suffering is a part of life, not just for Lions’ fans.  There are moral evils that we have to suffer with (crimes, betrayals, loneliness from others’ rejection of us); there are also natural evils that make us suffer (natural disasters, illnesses, pandemics).  People of all faiths and none struggle with this question, sometimes called Theodicy, of why bad things happen to good people, and why there is evil in the world.  In case you’re wondering, there is no easy answer.
    Jesus, as He so often does, turns the question on its head.  What does He do?  He heals; He grants wholeness; He saves.  Our Gospel today relates healings that Jesus did, exorcisms, and preaching.  Jesus shows us that He enters into our evils, some of our own making, some that we have no control over, and He brings healing.  The very word for savior in Latin, Salvator, is connected to another word, salus, meaning health.  The Salvator is the one who brings salus.  
    But Jesus, our Savior, doesn’t do so extrinsically, outside of all our sufferings.  He doesn’t watch from afar and offer us health while social distancing.  He enters into our pain, our suffering, our illness, and brings us delight, wholeness, and health.  And that’s part of the beautiful message of the Gospel: Jesus defeats sin and death through His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension; but we still see it happening, until Jesus returns and ushers in the fullness of His Kingdom.  Until then, Jesus suffers with and in us; He does not abandon us.  And while suffering is not good, it always helps to know that we are not alone, that our suffering has not separated us from the One who loves us above all, as suffering often does make us feel segregated.
    I think this is so clear from our pandemic.  I’m not here to argue against science and taking necessary precautions to protect one’s health.  But one of the greatest evils in this pandemic, whether physically necessary or not, is that we are being disconnected from each other.  Whether we have symptoms, are asymptomatic, or are virus-free, COVID has sought to divide us from each other.  The age-old wounds of sin and division, that were always just below the surface, have come to the top and are festering.  And because we lack a physical unity with each other, that spiritual and emotional unity has also been stretched, or even torn.  
    In the midst of that division, Jesus continues to heal and make whole.  There are stories of heroic Catholics–priests, deacons, and lay faithful–who have refused to let people die alone, even if they had COVID.  The Church has continued to feed the poor, shelter the homeless, educate adults and children, because that is Jesus’ work, and that work does not stop just because there’s a pandemic.  My mind is drawn, by way of an earlier example, to St. Damian of Molokai, whose Belgian blood I share, who gave up his own life to bring Jesus and His healing, especially spiritual healing, to the leper colony in the Hawaiian islands.  
    But even today, through the Sacrament of Penance (confession) and the Eucharist, Jesus continues to heal, and continues to walk with us through our suffering.  He has defeated it, and suffering will end when Christ is all in all.  But until then, Jesus does not leave us orphans; He does not leave us to suffer alone, but suffers with and in us, so that we can bear our burden with Him.
    In the times when you feel most alone, most abandoned, most bereft of human interaction, turn to Jesus in prayer.  Come to the church and spend time in front of the Blessed Sacrament.  Look to the crucifix, and lay all your trials on that cross.  If you do, life, victory, and wholeness will be yours in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Listening

 Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Fr. Jim Rolph

    Last Sunday I went to a family’s house for dinner, a family that I have visited before.  When I visit, the adult children in the family like to tease me and say how much more they like Fr. Jim Rolph, the chaplain at Powers Catholic.  So during dinner conversation last Sunday I was talking to someone else at the table, but one of the kids interjected and said something, but all I heard was “in Flint.”  At first I just let it pass and figured it wasn’t anything important, but then young man started laughing, and realizing it was connected to what I had missed, I said, “Wait; what did you say?”  He started laughing and said, “I wondered why you didn’t react.  I said, ‘After all, Fr. Jim is the best priest in the Flint area!’”  
    Sometimes our attention is divided, and we don’t hear what’s going on.  And because we don’t hear, we miss something that we would want to know.  It’s not such a big deal when a young man is poking fun and saying that a brother priest is better than you (for the record, Fr. Jim and I are good friends, and I respect him greatly!).  But if it’s not teasing, but the voice of God, it’s much more important to pay attention and listen.
    In our first reading, Moses prophesies that God will send another prophet, like Moses, to whom the people need to listen.  This prophet will have very important messages to communicate.  Of course, we know that Jesus was the fulfillment of all the prophets, and was a prophet Himself, since He spoke for God.  But He didn’t even speak like the other prophets, but spoke with authority, authority that came from Himself, since He is God.  The people listening to Jesus recognize this, and they recognize “a new teaching with authority.”  
    Part of this authority is that Jesus, unlike the other rabbis of His time, would not appeal to an earlier rabbi.  That was the way the interpretation of laws and teachings worked for the Jewish people.  If you were a rabbi, people wouldn’t necessarily believe what you were teaching or interpreting.  But if you could appeal to an earlier rabbi who was well-respected, then your teaching took on more authority.  And the closer you could get to Moses, the more authority you would have.  
    But Jesus did not appeal to any other rabbi.  He simply spoke as if it were true.  Think back to Matthew chapter 5.  Jesus keeps saying, “You have heard it said…but I say to you…”. He teaches as one who is authentically interpreting God’s will, authentically speaking for God, like Moses, but even more authoritative than even Moses.  And even unclean spirits respond to the words that Jesus speaks.  It’s not even a contest about who has authority; Jesus speaks and they have to obey, because He is the Creator, and they are mere creatures.
    It is with this same authority that the Church, when teaching on faith or morals, speaks.  Because the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, and because Jesus has given His authority to the pope and bishops who lead His Church (remember that Jesus said to the apostles that whoever listens to them listens to Him), the Church can say that, to be in union with Jesus, you have to believe this, or you can’t believe that.  The Church can also say with the authority of Jesus that, in order to be living as a disciple, you should do this or you shouldn’t do that.  It’s not simply the opinion of some old men who wear pointy hats; it is Jesus Himself teaching.
    Our psalm today encourages us: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”  How often do our hearts harden when someone tells us something that we have to do, especially in the area of faith (what to believe) or morals (how to live).  It’s almost like an instantaneous reaction that someone tells us what to do and we automatically want to do the opposite.  That’s our fallen human intellect and will.  When the Church says we cannot support abortion, or we need to assist the poor, we have a responsibility as followers of Jesus to obey.  When the Church says that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Jesus, or that marriage is only between one man and one woman, to be loyal to Jesus we conform our lives to that teaching.  Sometimes it’s hard.  Sometimes it’s very hard, and may even seem counterintuitive, but God asks us to listen to His Son, who will never lead us astray if we follow Him.
    But besides the struggles to listen to Jesus as He speaks through His Church, it can also simply be hard to listen to Jesus.  Our age is filled with cacophony, which comes from the Greek meaning “bad sounds.”  We often surround ourselves with noise, and in doing so, drown out the God who likes to speak to us like He spoke to the Prophet Elijah: in the whisper in the silence.  Hardening our hearts can include not making time for God in daily prayer.  Maybe the only time you have is five minutes; maybe it’s turning off the radio in your car; maybe it’s coming to a daily Mass, or spending time in adoration.  But in order to hear God, we have to carve out time for Him, especially in silence, not only speaking to God, but listening to how God responds.  Sometimes silence can be scary, but God will, in His way, in His time, speak to us.  All we have to do is pay attention and listen.
    Don’t miss the conversation God wants to have with you.  Don’t miss out on how God teaches us to follow Him and to find true happiness.  Listen to the Church when it comes to faith and morals.  Make time for silence with God each week.  You will find the happiness for which you long.

Banjos and Baptism

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

    As a fan of country music, I love the sound of the banjo.  The banjo got a bad name from the movie “Deliverance,” but it’s a beautiful instrument with a great sound, almost part and parcel of country music.  When I served as a priest in East Lansing, I decided one year to get a banjo.  I’ve played piano, saxophone, and the bassoon before, so I felt I could handle a new instrument.  I took lessons for a few months, bought a book with an accompanying DVD to help me learn, and went to it.  I didn’t pick up the instrument as quickly as I liked, and then Bishop Boyea named me pastor of St. Joseph in Adrian, so it fell by the wayside.  After years of not using it, I gave it to Jake, the seminarian who was living with me for the summer when I became pastor here.  Hopefully he has found more use for and success with it than I did!
    Sometimes we Catholics treat baptism and our faith life like a banjo.  We’re excited about it when there’s a new child, we might use it a lot at the beginning, but then things get hard, and we set it off to the side, never to use it again.  I think some of this comes from a misunderstanding of what baptism is and means.
    For years after the Second Vatican Council, there was an emphasis on how similar our sacraments were to human milestones.  The intent was good.  If all people are created in the image and likeness of God, and if all humans truly desire God, as St. Augustine noted, then it makes sense that other cultures and even other religions would have times and ceremonies that mimic what Christ Himself instituted in the sacraments.  For example, baptism is connected to birth, confirmation to adolescence, matrimony and holy orders to marriage and family, anointing of the sick to dying and death.  Many cultures and religions do have rituals during those times of life, and I do think that it reflects the pieces of truth that connect other cultures and faiths to our true religion.
    But at the same time, baptism now is often viewed as a merely sociological experience that is over as quickly as it begins.  Parents come to church to have their children baptized, and then they’re not seen again until first reconciliation and first Holy Communion, then leave again, then not seen again until confirmation, then leave again, then return again for marriage (often because it’s a requirement of the parents who are footing the bill), and then leave again, hopefully returning again at the baptism of their own children. 
    But millennials in particular, and the generations that are following them, are not into empty rituals that are done for the sake of being done.  Many young people who leave the church during college never return, unlike the generations before them.  And when they have kids, fewer and fewer are having their children baptized.  In some ways that’s troubling, because baptism is the ordinary way that eternal life is opened up for humans, but in other ways, it’s almost more honest, at least if the parents have no intent to live out their faith. 
    Baptism means seeking the Lord, like Isaiah said in the first reading, but it also means the scoundrel has to “forsake his way and the wicked mad his thoughts.”  It’s the beginning of the growth of new life and a relationship with God, the first watering of the field of the soul, not the harvest and the rest that comes after.  Jesus didn’t quit telling people about God the Father and drawing them into relationship with the Father once Jesus was baptized; He began His public ministry of calling all to repentance and the fulness of happiness.  As a pastor, it seems like many take baptism to mean that they never have to work at keeping the commandments, unlike what St. John said in the second reading.  Baptism is treated as a Get Out of Hell Free card. 
    But Baptism really means that the person will try his or her best to make the life of Jesus his or her own.  Baptism is the grace-assisted and grace-empowering beginning of a habit of: listening to the Holy Spirit; trusting in and following the will of God; dying to our own preferences and fallen desires and habits; putting behind us sinful life and living for God above all else.  Yes, it washes away original sin; yes it imparts a character with which we are sealed for all eternity as a child of God; yes it gives us sanctifying grace which pushes us toward heaven.  But it’s not magic.  It’s not a “do this and then you’ll never have to do anything else” ritual. 
    Baptism is the beginning of a grand adventure with God.  Baptism is the beginning of a saintly life.  It doesn’t mean that we always get the saint part right, but it means we’re trying to, and we put behind us things that don’t help us be saints.  It is a life-long commitment to strive to do the will of God in every circumstance.  It gives us the identity of a son or daughter in the Son of God, which isn’t so much a badge that we can scan to get to exclusive areas, but rather a mission to live like Jesus would in our own day, a life that truly begins happiness, and share that call to happiness with those we meet, both by word and by deed. 
    Don’t let your baptism be like my banjo.  Don’t just start and then not follow through.  Don’t just pick it up every now and then.  Allow your baptism to be the strength which allows you to live each day in the freedom of the children of God, a freedom God gave us not for license, for doing whatever we want, but for holiness, for doing what God wants.  Live your baptism every day, and at your judgement you will hear from the Father: “‘This is my beloved…with you I am well pleased.’”

Thanos and Gamora

 Second Sunday of Advent
    Before COVID, we had these things called movie theaters that gathered lots of people together in a single place, sitting within two feet of each other, without masks, watching a movie on a giant screen, while eating food and drinking beverages.  Some of you may remember this distant, past phenomenon.  I remember going, each year, to see the newest movie that featured comic book heroes from the Marvel universe.  And one of those movies, called “Avengers: Infinity War,” came to mind as I prepared for this week’s homily.  Since it’s been out since 27 April 2018, or 687 days before the COVID-19 first lockdown, I don’t think there’ll be any spoilers in the homily, but if you haven’t seen it, you may want to cover your ears a bit (or at least now you don’t have to make up your own excuse not to listen to the homily).
  

Thanos & Gamora

In that movie, as part of the build-up to the climax, Thanos, the villain, in search for the Soul Stone to increase his power, is told that he has to sacrifice something he loves in order to get the Soul Stone.  Thanos has with him Gamora, his “adopted” daughter (I say adopted because in reality, Thanos killed her parents as he destroyed half the population on her planet, including her parents).  So Thanos kills her, and in doing so, gains the Soul Stone, part of his quest to gain all the six Infinity Stones which will give him the power to destroy half the life in the universe.  
    Perhaps not the cheery image you were looking for on this second Sunday of Advent.  But then again, maybe the word “repent” is not one that you associate with Advent, either.  And yet, that is the proclamation of St. John the Baptist, which prepares the way for Jesus.  We probably prefer the rosy, cozy message that we heard from Isaiah: “Comfort, give comfort to my people…Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.”  And that is also the message of Jesus.  But the comfort comes once we acknowledge our sins.  
    How does that work?  In order to our Lord to heal in us that which is sick and wounded, we first, by His grace, have to admit that we are sick and wounded.  Otherwise we’re like the Black Knight from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” whose arms and legs are being chopped off as he battles King Arthur, but pretends it’s not serious and says, “It’s just a flesh wound.”  The primary and first proclamation of the Gospel is that we are sick and wounded, and we cannot heal ourselves, but Jesus can, and will.

And people know that they’re not alright.  In the Gospel, people “of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem” were going to St. John the Baptist to acknowledge their sins and be baptized.  They all knew that they were not how they were supposed to be.  Who ignored their sins?  The Pharisees.  They were convinced that they didn’t need healing, so they reject the message of St. John the Baptist, and consequently, the message of Jesus.  The people, on the other hand, can accept the message of Jesus because they first accepted the message of repentance.  Repentance prepares the way for the Lord.
    It’s as if we’re Thanos, and in order to gain the Soul Stone, we have to sacrifice something that we love.  But we’re not to sacrifice a person, but our sins, in order to gain our soul.  In Greek, the word for death is 𝛩𝛼𝜈𝛼𝜏𝜊𝜍.  Those in death, 𝛩𝛼𝜈𝛼𝜏𝜊𝜍, in order to gain life, has to give up what they mistakenly treasure–sin–in order to become full of life or immortal, 𝛢𝜃𝛼𝜈𝛼𝜎𝜄𝜊𝜍 in Greek.  
    Which is why, as we assemble for Mass, we begin by acknowledging our sins.  We don’t pretend we aren’t sinners (at least hopefully we don’t).  We don’t have to be major sinners; but all of us sin.  Pope Francis himself said in one interview when asked who he is, “I am a sinner.  This the most accurate definition.  It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre.  I am a sinner.”  Or, as has been claimed, Pope Francis said when accepting the papacy, “I am a sinner, but I trust in the infinite mercy and patience of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  If Pope Francis can admit that he’s a sinner, then we all can.  I certainly am a sinner, in need of the Lord’s mercy.  And because I know I need the Lord’s mercy, I am much more likely to accept it.  Again, like the Pharisees, those who do not think they need the Lord’s mercy will not be able to accept it when it comes.  
    What do we value above God, or place before our love for God?  What is more important to us than God?  What sins, big or small, are we grasping onto as if our life depended on them?  If our hands are grasping onto our sins, then our hands are not open to receive the mercy of the Lord.  Whatever the sin, bring it to the Lord in confession.  Express sorrow for your sins (the asking is itself a gift from God), and open your hands and your hearts to the mercy of God.  You may not gain the Soul Stone, but you will allow God to save your soul.

Imitation

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

A picture of me in my
"dress code"

It could be said that while I was in college seminary, I had a certain dress code that was always associated with me.  It was basically khaki pants, a polo shirt (buttoned-up all the way), with a cross on a chain around my neck.  It was kind of my style.  But I didn’t realize it was so associated with me until Halloween in my junior year.  I was studying in Rome, both with seminarians and non-seminarians.  We all lived in the same house, and we tried to observe American holidays to keep us connected, even while we were abroad.  We couldn’t really go trick-or-treating, but we did have a costume party.  A friend of mine, not a seminarian, came down the party dressed in khaki pants, a polo shirt (buttoned-up all the way), with a cross on a chain around his neck.  I saw him and asked him what he was going as, and he said a seminarian.  I told him it was a great costume, not knowing that he was, in fact, going as me.  Dave and I remain friends to this day, even though he went as me for Halloween.

Dave Berthiaume, who
went as me for Halloween,
pictured with his then-girlfriend
(now-wife), Annie

St. Paul said in our second reading, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ,” but I’m quite sure he didn’t mean go trick-or-treating as St. Paul.  Yes, dressing up like someone is one form of imitation, but what is really meant is living a life through which Christ is reflected.  If we’re a husband or wife, it means loving our spouse and children with as close as we can muster to unconditional love.  If we’re a manager of people we treat our employees as Christ would have treated them.  If we’re a janitor it means that we clean to the best of our ability to honor God.  If we’re a student, it means we use and develop our God-given intellect to do our homework and prepare for college or a trade-school.  It is, as St. Paul also mentioned in the second reading, doing whatever we are doing for the glory of God.

When I pray with our student athletes, both from St. Pius X and from Powers, I always pray that they will use their talents for the greater glory of God and the honor of their schools.  But it certainly goes beyond sports.  Imagine if we did our jobs and lived our vocations with the glory of God and the honor of our company or family at the front of our mind!

As we prepare for Lent, with Ash Wednesday this upcoming Wednesday, that’s a great way to have a great Lent: keeping the glory of God at the front of our minds.  It can often get shoved to the back of our minds, and all the concerns of life clamor for more and more attention.  Think about illness (and we heard about it in our first reading and Gospel).  When someone is sick, it can be very easy to ostracize that person because the fear of contracting that illness moves to the front of our mind.  Last week when I was sick, I didn’t have leprosy, but I might as well have walked around shouting, “Unclean, unclean!”  And I don’t mind saying that the sick person, acting out of the love of God, probably shouldn’t want to infect others and so should take precautions to not spread the bacteria and viruses as much as possible.  While it was frustrating, it was good for me to keep myself away from my office, the school, and even limit my contact with the parish last weekend.  

But does the motivation come from what we think God would do, what would bring glory to God, or does it come from fear?  Again, I’m not saying we should ignore good hygiene practices and protect our public from preventable illnesses, but in our Gospel, Jesus is not scared by the leper, but treats the diseased person (and a very contagious disease at that) with respect and love.

There are always people that scare us that we can be tempted to not treat with the love of God, or not act in a way towards them with the glory of God at the front of our mind.  I remember in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s learning about AIDS and how, at that time, there was a lot of fear that even being remotely close to someone with AIDS could mean getting what was at that time a very scary and deadly disease.  But that didn’t stop John Cardinal O’Connor, the late Archbishop of New York, from opening clinics and even working with people who had AIDS to make sure that God’s children, no matter how scary AIDS seemed, received loving medical care.

There are probably people that scare us today, too.  I won’t hypothesize what situations or people scare you.  But I invite you, as I challenge myself, to truly consider in prayer if I treat the people or situations that scare me as an opportunity to imitate Christ and glorify God, or if I act out of my fear.  God does not call us to be naïve, but He doesn’t call us to be jaded, either.  

St. Paul invites us to be imitators of Christ.  No, that doesn’t mean we wear a tunic, grow a beard, and wear sandals.  But it does mean acting like Christ would in each of the situations that life presents to us each day.  If we all did things with the greater glory of God on our minds, I think our world would be a much better place.

Last Week on Mass at St. Pius X...

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

One of the great things about being the only priest in a parish is that you always know what was preached the week before.  When I was in East Lansing, I was one of three priests, and we had 8 Masses each weekend at two sites during the school year (7 during the summer months).  So one week I might have the Saturday evening Mass at St. Thomas and the 8 & 10 a.m. Masses at St. John Student Center, and then the following week I might have the 9 & 11 a.m. Masses at St. Thomas, and the following week I might have the 12, 5, & 7 p.m. Masses at St. John.  It was hard to be consistent in preaching, as each priest would often pick up on a different aspect of the readings.

But you’re stuck with only me, and I know that, if you came to Mass here last week, you heard about obedience and how we need to be obedient to God in all things.  But that obedience applies to us in a special way about what we heard in the second reading and the Gospel (we’ll not dwell on the Debbie Downer first reading from Job this week).  And that obedience comes to each of us to preach the Gospel.

In the Gospel, Jesus takes a little time off to pray, to recharge His batteries, to have time with His Father so that His ministry might be fruitful.  But not long after, the disciples find Jesus and tell Him that everyone is looking for Him.  Jesus then says, “‘Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also.  For this purpose have I come.’”  Jesus’ mission is to preach the good news, the Gospel.  In obedience to the Father, He goes beyond His home village to preach that God is fulfilling His promise, and God is freeing the people from their oppressors, not so much the Romans, but the oppression of Satan and sin.

God also gives St. Paul the mission to preach, and St. Paul takes it very seriously.  He calls it an obligation imposed on him by God, “and woe…if I do not preach it!”  St. Paul does everything he can to spread the message.  To the weak he becomes weak to win them over.  He becomes all things to all so that at least some of them may be saved.  And his only recompense is having a share in the Gospel.  

We have also received this mandate to preach the Gospel.  You might not remember it, but it happened at your baptism.  And will happen tonight/happened last night at Jack’s baptism.  After the triple pouring of water, I anoint the child with Sacred Chrism, perfumed oil that has been consecrated by Bishop Boyea.  The second half of the prayer says: “As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet, and King, so may you live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life.”  Being anointed as a Prophet means that we are specially chosen to proclaim God’s Word, just like the prophets in the Old Testament and St. John the Baptist (but you don’t have to wear camel hair and eat locusts and honey).  And at the end of the rite I touch the ears and the mouth of the newly baptized child and say, “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak.  May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.”  In these two ways the Church clearly shows how we are mandated, like St. Paul, to preach the Gospel.

But what is the core of the Gospel?  Do we know what the good news is?  I can give you the basics right now in three points, and certainly there is more that can be fleshed out, but here it is: 1) We are sinners and were separated from God by sin; 2) Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, and came to pay the penalty for sin for us by dying on the cross; 3) Jesus rose from the dead, destroying death and offering new life to those who believe in and follow Him.  Again, there is more to the Gospel than just those three points, but those three points are the heart of the Gospel.

So do we take our mandate seriously?  Are we obedient to God as being evangelizers, those who spread the good news?  Do we recognize, as St. Paul did, that an obligation to spread the Gospel has been imposed on us, and woe to us if we do not preach it?  And we can’t say that it all happens by our actions.  It was popular to quote St. Francis of Assisi with the saying, “Preach the Gospel always; use words if necessary.”  The problem is that he never said that.  And certainly St. Francis did not live that way, as he was constantly talking about Jesus, even to the Sultan in Egypt.  

Does this mean that we have to leave our jobs and do nothing but talk about Jesus?  No.  In fact, Vatican II reminded us that the laity, you, are called to sanctify, to make holy, the temporal order.  You’re supposed to talk about Jesus and live as a disciple of Jesus in your job.  You don’t have to be pushy (in fact, that tends to turn people off to the Gospel), but can still help others see by your life and your words what a difference being Catholic makes in your life.  Sometimes you’ll get asked questions you to which you have no answer.  That’s ok; it’s better to be honest and not have an answer than try to make one up and be fake.  The key is that we’re trying.

I certainly try to take my obligation to preach the Gospel seriously.  My eternal judgment will be partially based on how well I preached the Gospel, and if I watered it down to avoid conflict and thus betrayed the truth.  But we all were mandated in baptism to preach the Gospel in our daily lives.  Woe to all of us if we do not preach it!

"No"

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

While children are cute and innocent, there comes a point in their lives where that cuteness gets clouded a little, and that innocence starts to wear off a little.  And that point in their lives, I think it’s safe to say, comes when they learn how to say a particular short word, and what that word means, and that word is “no.”  All of the sudden childhood changes and it can often become a battle of wills between child and parents.  And perhaps that word is so easily learned because parents are so often saying it to their child, more often than not to keep them safe.

Today our first reading and Gospel focus on the virtue of obedience.  That word is probably a difficult word for some, if not all, of us.  We are Americans!  We are independent!  We do what we want!  The very word obedience may swell within us the very desire to say the word “no!”

But Moses reminds the Israelites, who are near the Promised Land, that God will raise up a prophet like Moses from among them, and they need to listen to that prophet.  “Whoever will not listen to my words,” says the Lord, “which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it.”  This prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus, from the family of Israel, a prophet like Moses (Matthew makes this very clear in explaining Jesus as giving a new law, the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount).  At first they think John the Baptist might be that prophet (the priests and Levites from Jerusalem ask him, ‘Are you the Prophet?’).  But then they think that Jesus is the Prophet.  In John 6 they say, “‘This is truly the Prophet…’”  But the people struggle with the obedience part.  Not long after they acknowledge Jesus as this Prophet that Moses prophesied, Jesus tells them that they have to eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have life within them, and most of them walk away.  They do exactly the opposite of what Psalm 95 said today: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

Ironically, though, as our Gospel demonstrates, the demons are obedient to Jesus.  As soon as he comes by, without addressing the demon at all, the man with the demon cries out at Jesus.  Jesus then rebukes him, and commands him to come out of the man, and the demon leaves the man.  There was no arguing, no delaying, just simple obedience.  The creature, in the presence of its Creator, recognizes what it has to do and obeys.

Here’s the scary thought: the demons obey God better than we do, at times at least.  Those whose entire purpose in their existence is to work against God, can often times be more obedient to God than those whose entire purpose in their existence is to be with God.  St. Benedict, the Father of Western Monasticism, begins his rule for monks with obedience.  He writes, “Listen carefully, my child, to your master’s precepts, and incline the ear of your heart…that by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience.”  Even that first word, “Listen,” is connected to obedience, as the word obedience comes from the Latin ob and audire which means to listen to someone.  We obey when we listen to someone else and make their will our own.

Again, as Americans we pride ourselves on not listening to others, not obeying, but being independent.  And independence is sometimes a good thing (like the Declaration of Independence).  But when we decide not to listen to God, when we decide not to obey at all, independence becomes nothing more than the rule of my will over everyone else’s, and leads to anarchy, chaos, and violence.  

Recently the term Cafeteria Catholics has been coined for those who only obey when it suits them (which means it’s never true obedience).  Cafeteria Catholics pick and choose which teachings of the Church they want to follow.  These Catholics stopped listening, and therefore stopped obeying.  They argue, “But the Church is just made up of old men!”  But they forget the words of Jesus to the Apostles in the Scriptures, “‘Whoever listens to you listens to me.  Whoever rejects you rejects me.’” and “‘Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’”  Certainly we can wrestle with Church teachings, trying to understand, trying to listen for the voice of Jesus in them.  And some things (like celibacy and fasting rules) are Church disciplines which can change over time.  But other teachings (too many to mention here, and more than simply what is contained in the Nicene Creed) are given to us by Jesus through His Church, which we are bound by justice to obey since we are the creature and they come from our Creator.  If we truly believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to protect the Church from teaching anything contrary to what He wants (even though those who lead the Church are still sinful men), then we need not fear to listen to Jesus and conform our wills to His.  That is one of the great gifts of a Catholic education: we can teach children expressly how to listen to the voice of Jesus, and how to obey that voice when we hear it.  But, even if we ourselves generally agree with Church teachings and obey them to the best of our ability, everyone, because we are fallen and live in a fallen world, struggles to listen to God and obey God in the daily moments of our lives.  

So today let us recommit ourselves to obedience to God in all things, not saying “no” like a toddler to his or her parents, but saying with the Blessed Virgin Mary, “‘May it be done to me according to your word.’”

Drafted for the Gospel

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

There are things for which we want to be chosen.  As adults it’s often the job that we applied for, or maybe it’s the significant other that we’ve been dating, whom we hope will ask us to marry.  As children we may want to be chosen to be on the team with our friends on the playground, or for the school play.  I think we all know that the reality is that we often don’t get chosen for the things we want.  Maybe we don’t get the job; maybe we get dumped; maybe we don’t get the role we want or are not on the team we want.

A young man I know from when I was a priest in East Lansing, Cooper Rush, was chosen again and again for football teams, despite ever-increasing odds not to be chosen.  He was the quarterback for Lansing Catholic, holds records for an MHSAA playoff game, led Lansing Catholic one year to the State Championship (where, ironically, Lansing Catholic lost to Flint Powers).  He then was chosen to play quarterback at Central Michigan University, and was very successful at Central, going to bowl games and even holding a FBS Bowl Game record for most touchdowns passes in a Bowl Game.  Currently, he is a back-up quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys.  And besides being a good athlete, he is also an upstanding man.

The odds of him making it to the NFL weren’t that good.  One stat from 2015 says that there were 1.087 million high school football players.  Of those, 310,000 high school football players were seniors.  Of those, only 70,000 were chosen to be on an NCAA football team.  Of those, on 20,000 played on an NCAA team.  Of those 20,000, about 15,500 were college seniors.  Of those 15,500 seniors, 6,500 were scouted by the NFL, and only 350 were invited to a combine to show their football skills.  Of those, 256 players were drafted by the NFL.  The odds of being chosen for high school, college, and professional football are about 1.6 out of 100.

The odds of being chosen to preach the Gospel, however, are much better.  Every baptized person has been chosen, drafted, we might say, to preach the Gospel both by deeds and words.  And while we might not think of ourselves as a draft pick, we heard in our first reading and Gospel about some unlikely characters who are chosen.

In the first reading, we hear about Jonah being asked by God to preach to the citizens of Nineveh.  God asks Jonah to tell them to repent, to turn away from their sinful, pagan ways.  Jonah didn’t want to go; he hated Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire which had exiled the members of the northern kingdom of Israel.  Jonah even tried to run away, but God did not abandon Jonah or let him off the hook.  And even when Jonah preached repentance, he hoped that the Assyrians would not listen, so that God could destroy the pagan empire.  Probably not a first round evangelist.

And in the Gospel we hear about Jesus calling the first apostles: Simon, Andrew, James, and John.  They were not rabbis.  There were not the educated elite of Judaism.  They were fishermen.  But Jesus saw something in them that He knew would be important for having as disciple.  It wasn’t always obvious to others, though.  Peter always seemed to speak before thinking, denied Jesus during His Passion, and even almost ran away from his martyrdom in Rome.  James and John were the ones who asked for a privileged spot in the kingdom of God, in front of the line of the other apostles, and asked Jesus to call down fire upon the Samaritan towns when they wouldn’t receive Jesus on His journey to Jerusalem.  And even the other apostles were not seemingly the best catch: Matthew was a tax collector; Thomas doubted; Simon wanted to violently overthrow the Roman government; and they were all uneducated, simple people.  And yet Jesus called each of them to preach the Gospel.

You may not think it, but Jesus has also called you to preach the Gospel.  When you were baptized you were committed or you committed yourself to being a disciple of Jesus, to conforming your life to His, to sharing with others the good news of what Jesus has done for us (freeing us from sin and death).  You may not think you have what it takes, but Jesus does.  And even if you feel like you need to know more, that’s why we have Bible studies, and faith sharing groups, and formational events both here, in the greater-Flint area, and across the Diocese, events like the Men’s and Women’s Conferences.  If you don’t feel like you have what it takes, then work towards that goal of having what it takes.  Make your faith life more than simply coming to Mass on Sundays and holydays.  Get involved in deepening your faith and maybe volunteering in our parish ministries.  You might just be the one to bring another person to Jesus.

Pointing

Second Sunday of Advent

Last week I mentioned that we began a new liturgical year with our beginning of the season of Advent.  New years are both times to look forward, as well as times to look back.  And looking back at our last liturgical year, it had its ups and downs for me.  Now, I’m not usually a guy to share struggles; I don’t want my burdens to become the burdens of others.  But, as the father of this parish community, I have to be vulnerable at times, as all parents do.  It’s important for me to be a pillar of strength for you and with you, but sometimes even parents communicate the struggles.

As I said, last year had its ups and downs.  There were some very good things that happened in my life (in no particular order): I continued to develop a good relationship with Powers Catholic High School, and boys and girls soccer both won State Championships; we had my first 8th grade graduation as pastor of St. Pius X Catholic School; I became a Michigan State Police Chaplain; I had my first Christmas and Easter here at St. Pius X, which is always a special time in the life of a priest; I have developed friendships here and strengthened others from elsewhere; I enjoyed a nice trip to Nashville and heard some great country music; I have welcomed new parishioners to St. Pius X, both by baptism and by transfers in.  

But there were also challenges, both personally and professionally: I buried my first grandparent; I had the sad duty of attending the Line of Duty Death of a State Trooper and an Oakland County Deputy; I had five parishioner funerals in 15 days (last year was apparently a year for funerals); our parish Mass attendance continued to shrink, mirroring trends across our diocese; we currently have a number of parishioners who have very serious illnesses and who are in hospice care; collections continue to be lower, which stifles the amount of ministry we can do as a parish; some parishioners, for a variety of reasons, continue to move to other parishes, and even with a majority of the ones that come to mind being because of changing residence or changing health, I still feel the pain, as I know you do.  The challenges seem to pile up faster than the joys.

Now, I don’t bring these up to make you feel bad for me, or for yourselves.  I persevere by the grace of God, who increases my joys and lessens my sorrows.  And certainly all those challenges are precisely challenges because of my love: for my biological family, my blue family (law enforcement, not Smurfs), and especially for my parish family.  If I didn’t love you, and all the others, I wouldn’t feel the pain that comes from those challenges.

But I bring these up because it is easy to get discouraged with those challenges, but God does not want us to despair.  Advent is precisely the season of hope, and the main character of our first reading and Gospel, St. John the Baptist, is precisely a prophet of hope.  Isaiah tells us that God wants to give us comfort, and St. John the Baptist shows us how.

St. John the Baptist is almost always depicted as pointing.  Whether it’s a painting or a statue, St. John the Baptist usually has his pointer finger pointing somewhere.  But not to somewhere, to someone.  And not just any someone, the Lamb of God, the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit: Jesus.

Things weren’t great in the time of St. John the Baptist.  Israel was under foreign occupation by the Romans.  Herod, not the one who tried to kill baby Jesus, but another Herod, was a puppet king who was no winner, either.  There were religious sects that didn’t associate with each other for various reasons.  And few seemed to have much hope that things were going to get better.  And the ones who did think things were going to get better, were convinced it had to happen by a violent, military uprising.  Now those are some challenges.

In the midst of all this, St. John the Baptist points out Jesus.  We don’t quite hear that today in the Gospel, but we do hear about John preparing a way for Jesus, so that when Jesus did appear, John could point Him out.  And that is the key for us today: we need to point to Jesus.  In the midst of all our challenges, for me, for the parish, for you as individuals and families, we need to point out Jesus.

Is Jesus going to take all our troubles away?  Not on this side of eternity.  Ask John: he was beheaded because of the dance of a pretty girl.  But the challenge with challenges is that they can demand our attention, demand our focus, and can become all-consuming.  Before long, the darkness surrounds us, and it seems like life is nothing but a challenge, and we can despair, we can lose hope.  But when we point to Jesus, we point to the light, and we direct our attention to the greatest thing we have: God who loves us, God-with-us, Emmanuel.  Instead of darkness, the light increases, and while the challenges still remain, they are not overwhelming.  

No matter what my challenges; no matter what our parish challenges; no matter what your personal and family challenges are, allow me to point you to Jesus.  Allow me to lead you in focusing on the Lamb of God, who fills us with the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.  And if you feel like Jesus has helped you to escape the darkness of despair and brought you into the light of hope, then be a John the Baptist with me.  Point out Jesus to those you live with, work with, and play with, so that they, too, can see the light.  

There is only one Person who knows what this new liturgical year holds for me and for us: and that Person is Jesus.  He is the Lord of all, and everything is in His care, and nothing happens that He does not allow for our holiness.  Focus on Him; focus on Jesus, the one who brings comfort to His People.  Be like St. John the Baptist: point out the Lamb of God.

Spiritual Sicknesses

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Many people, when hearing what the book of Leviticus said today in our first reading, have a very negative view of the rule that was set out when someone had some sort of skin disease.  Many shudder at the idea of a person being ostracized, sent away from the community, because of an illness which, in most cases, was beyond that person’s control.  But, even today there are some illnesses which cause separation from the community.  The community does not want to become infected, and so people are quarantined, or at least told to stay home.  We do not want sickness to be mingled with health.  We need a doctor to heal the person before they can resume their normal duties and be joined once more to the community.

In our Gospel today, Jesus, the Divine Physician, goes right into the middle of that illness to heal that person of their illness and restore them to the community.  Jesus does not condemn the law separating lepers from the greater community.  In fact, He even upholds the law that the leper was supposed to show himself to the priest and offer what Moses prescribed, fulfilling the law.  Jesus cures the man, thus eliminating the separation that the illness created.  Jesus wants to make us whole, and He goes into the very heart of our illness to do so, so that we can once more worship and be united with the community.

Besides physical illnesses, there are also spiritual illnesses.  These illnesses we call sin.  Now, it’s no longer popular for priests to talk about sin.  It’s no longer popular for people to hear about sin.  But it’s a reality in our lives.  It is an illness, and one that can kill our souls!  What kind of a doctor of souls would I be if I didn’t tell you about the current illnesses that are spreading?!?

Just like all illnesses weren’t leprosy and didn’t separate a person from the community, so not all sins separate us from sanctifying grace, the grace which saves us from eternal death.  In the first letter of St. John, we are told, “All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that is not deadly.”  All sin is bad, but not all sin severs our relationship with God.  These may be sins like gossip, ill-thoughts against another, little white lies, etc.  We should not ignore these and pretend they have no effect on our spiritual health, any more than we should ignore small illnesses.  Sometimes, if not treated, they develop into or make us more susceptible to bigger illnesses.  So certainly we need to deal with them.  One way to deal with them is simply by receiving the Eucharist.  When we receive the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Jesus which saves us from sins, Jesus washes away our venial sins (St. Ignatius of Antioch calls the Eucharist the “medicine of immortality) and strengthens us to not commit those sins again.  Another way is by confessing them in the Sacrament of Penance.  When we confess venial sins, even if they have been previously forgiven through reception of the Eucharist, we are strengthened and receive more grace to avoid sin in the future.

But there are also sins which are deadly.  We also use the term mortal.  Mortal sins are the sins we commit that are gravely wrong (they are grave because they cause spiritual death), we know they are wrong, and we freely choose them anyway.  These sins, like murder, missing Mass on purpose, stealing, major lies, pornography, and unchastity with ourselves or another, etc., deprive us of God’s sanctifying grace, and sever our relationship with God.  We are cut off like the leper in the community.  

And because we are cut off from God, we cannot simply receive the Eucharist, the very Body and Blood of Jesus, and have our sins cleansed.  When we sin mortally, we tell God that we want no part of His rule in our life.  To receive the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin is uniting our sinful state, our deliberate rebellion against God, with God Himself in an act of sacrilege.  St. Paul clearly teaches this in chapter six of his first letter to the Corinthians.  He corrects those who are Christians but who are committing sins of immorality with prostitutes because they are joining prostitution to the Mystical Body of Christ.  St. Paul also says in chapter 10: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and also the cup of demons.  You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons.”  He also says in the following chapter, “A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.  For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.”  For that reason, the Church has held, from the time of the apostles, that no one who is conscience of grave sin is to present himself or herself for the Eucharist.  

But just like in the Gospel, Jesus wants to heal us.  He does not want us to be cut off.  In the Sacrament of Penance, with sorrow for our sins and an amendment to avoid those sins in the future, we cry out like the leper, “‘If you wish, you can make me clean.’”  And through the ministry of the priest and the prayer of absolution, Jesus also says as He did in today’s Gospel, “‘I do will it.  Be made clean.’”  Through the Sacrament of Penance, the ordinary way to have mortal sins forgiven, our rejection of God is healed, and God restores sanctifying grace to us, so that we can live forever.  We are returned not only to spiritual health, like the leper, but are also, like the leper, restored to full worship with the community.  God does not leave us in our sins, but seeks us out to heal us.  But He will not force His healing upon us.  Inspired by His grace, we have to respond and reach out for His help in the Sacrament of Penance.  And God heals us and strengthens us to avoid those sins in the future.  

And we can then proclaim to others how good God is to us!!  We can be like the leper who cannot contain, even though Jesus tells him to, the good news that God has healed us.  What a powerful witness to those who are afflicted with the disease of sin: to know that there’s a medicine which can heal them!  Right now I hear confessions every Saturday from 3:30-4:30 p.m. and by appointment.  What a great blessing it would be if I had to add another hour on a different day of the week to be able to handle all of the people coming to the Lord to be healed, either from small sins or big ones, and restoring those who are mortally ill to full health and the ability to receive the Eucharist.  Don’t doubt the extent of God’s mercy.  Don’t limit the exercise of His healing on your soul.  Celebrate God’s healing in the Sacrament of Penance.  Be made clean!