The Most Important Invitation

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    As we’re in the midst of our October Counts, when parishes across the Diocese of Lansing count the number of people who attend Mass each weekend, it may seem self-serving to preach on the importance of going to Mass.  For the past few years, St. Matthew has been seen the largest per capita growth of any parish in the Diocese of Lansing since 2019, or pre-Covid.  But, while I love to see us grow, the importance lies not so much in our numbers, but in making God a priority.
    Even those who do not have a degree in nuclear engineering can understand the meaning of the parable heard today: God’s call to the banquet, to His Kingdom supersedes everything else.  We hear about some people ignoring the invitation to the banquet; others make excuses because of farm work or other business.  In a similar passage in Luke, chapter 14, three excuses are given: examination of a newly-bought field; evaluation of newly-purchased oxen; a new bride.  Indeed, Deuteronomy 24:5 stated that a newly married man could not even be called up into service in the military for the first year.  His excuse took precedence over the defense of the nation.  Deuteronomy 20:5 also talks about how a person could receive an exemption for a new house that was not dedicated, or a vineyard that hadn’t had a first harvest.  So these excuses not to come would have been understandable to the Jews to whom Christ preached.
    But the banquet has such import that event these excuses do not negate the importance of showing up to the banquet.  When the invited guests demure, the master makes sure that the banquet will be filled with people, even if they were not the original invitees.  And at the end of the parable, we hear about the importance of showing up to the banquet in proper clothing.
    But each week, the Lord sets before us a banquet, His wedding feast to His Bride, the Church.  He gives us His very self on which to feast, the fruit of the sacrifice He made for His Bride when He gave up His life willingly and lovingly on Calvary, which the Holy Spirit makes present for us in an unbloody manner at each Mass.  And not just Calvary, but also the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus all become present for us on this altar.  And if we are in a state of grace, and have kept the communion fast of no food or drink except water and medicine for one hour before receiving Holy Communion, then we even get to receive Jesus into our very selves, to strengthen us to live as His disciples.

    St. John Vianney, the holy priest of Ars, France, told us that if we truly understood the Mass, we would die from joy.  All the angels and saints are here with us in this Mass, though we cannot see them unless God gives us a special grace, worshipping God in the banquet which anticipates heaven here on earth.  
    Does merely going to Mass make you a good Catholic, a saint?  No.  Our call as Catholics, as disciples, has to break out beyond these walls in the way we talk, the way we act, the way we think, the way we vote, the way we rest, as a witness to what happens within these walls.  But you cannot be a good Catholic and skip Mass, skip the banquet, because you feel you have more important things to do.  Notice I used the word skip, because sometimes people are ill and cannot make it, or are caring for the ill and cannot make it, or sometimes people are homebound and cannot make it.  They would if they could, but they can’t.  That’s a big difference from prioritizing something else over the Mass, whether it be sleep, sports, or simply one’s own will.
    And frankly, what has more importance than Jesus’ very presence before us?  The choice of virtue means choosing the highest good at each moment.  Sports can be good; sleep can be good; your own desires can be good.  But when we put those lesser goods over the greatest good of worshipping God, we disorder goods, which is one of the ways St. Augustine talks about sin.
    Mass anticipates heaven.  So if we ignore the Mass for some lesser good, we ignore heaven, and make the choice to reject God in a serious way.  Skipping Mass, if we know it’s wrong, and freely choose to skip Mass anyway, is a mortal sin.  It tells God that we don’t want to be in heaven, and God will respect that choice.  He won’t force us to be with Him if we don’t want to.  
    The other part of this Gospel is the evangelical push: the push to invite others to the banquet.  People can reject God and His invitation.  And yes, we should still work on them as best we can to invite them back, because God always welcomes us back if we repent.  But as the Master’s servants, we, too, should be going out to invite others to Mass.  When was the last time you invited a non-Catholic to Mass?  I know it can seem intimidating if you aren’t Catholic and go to Mass, but if you’re inviting them, then you should also join with them to show them the ropes.  Help them understand the different parts of the Mass, and why we sit when we take instruction, stand when we pray, and kneel in adoration.  Help them understand why we believe that what looks like bread is actually the Body of Christ, and why only those who fully believe and live their life in conformity with Christ’s teachings can receive it.  Help them understand the beauty of singing the Scriptures in our antiphons during the procession of the ministers and the procession of Holy Communion, chants which hopefully stay with us and help us to familiarize ourselves with Sacred Scriptures, especially the psalms.  
    It’s not about the numbers.  It’s about bringing people into a fuller relationship with God by helping them attend the wedding banquet of the Son of God, the anticipation of heaven on earth.  “Many are invited.”  Few choose to attend.  Don’t let lesser good keep you from the banquet, lest your find yourself cast outside.  Blessed are those called to the Supper of the Lamb.

All Are Welcome, but We Need to Prepare

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    How wonderful to receive an invitation!  I don’t mean the incessant invitations to subscribe to this, or buy that which we seem to receive every day through email or text.   I mean invitations to some celebration or to become a part of a group or club that means something.  Invitations make one feel desired, appreciated, even treasured.  Especially when not everyone can join, due to cost or space, invitations have a way of stroking the ego in a healthy way.

    And so our Liturgy of the Word, the first main part of our Mass today, begins with an invitation.  “All you who are thirsty, come to the water!  You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; Come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk!”  And when paired with our Gospel and the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, we certainly understand this banquet to point towards our Eucharistic celebration, the Mass.  I’ve mentioned before the beautiful mosaic at Tabgha at the place of the miracle in the Gospel, where there's a chapel, and underneath the altar is a mosaic with two fish and four loaves, signifying that the fifth loaf is the one on the altar, and that the miracle points to the Eucharist.
    What we see in both the prophecy from Isaiah and the miracle that we hear from Matthew, but which is in all four Gospels, is that everyone is welcome.  God invites everyone to come to him to receive proper drink and food.  And Christ feels compassion for the crowd of 5,000 people who have nowhere to go without being quite hungry.  They were certainly all disciples, as they stopped to listen to Him for an entire day, but we don’t get a sense that they were equally knowledgeable of Christ, or faithful to Christ.  Some may have simply been curious and become quite intrigued with the words Christ spoke.  Others may have been dragged there by friends and simply didn’t want to be rude and return home without the host who brought them.  So we see a certain universal call, a call to all people, to Christ’s banquet where He feeds them.
    However, Isaiah’s prophecy and the feeding of the 5,000 are not the Mass, even though they point to it.  We don’t use bread and wine and milk in the Mass.  Nor do we use bread and fish.  Milk doesn’t really agree with my digestion (though I’ll suffer through it for ice cream, pizza, and lasagna), so I’m glad we don’t use milk.  And imagine trying to keep fish and distribute it at Mass: we’d have to use incense just to mask the smell of aging fish!
    So even within the universal call to the banquet of Christ that we hear issued, which, in some sense, is true of the Mass, we also have restrictions on who partakes of the banquet.  In another parable, Christ speaks about how he invites the unlikely to the wedding banquet after the original invitees demure and do not come, but how the master expects the guests to come to the banquet in proper clothing.  So a universal invitation and guidance on how we carry ourselves in responding to that invitation is not foreign to the Gospel.  Imagine thinking that because your friends invited you to their wedding, you could show up in your pjs, because that made you feel the most comfortable.  Your friends may not mention your attire to your face, but I assure you everyone would be talking about it.
    So how do we come to this Eucharistic banquet to which we were invited?  I know it was vogue to say that clothing doesn’t matter when you come to Mass, but that’s simply not true.  I’m not saying everyone has to be in suit and tie or best dress, but there’s a reason why we call certain attire “Sunday best.”  Your Sunday best may be different than others, but do we give our best and show that this banquet means something to us, at least as best as we can muster as a college student, or parents with an infant, or established adults, or senior citizens?  Again, as long as we can say we’re giving our best to God, that’s what counts, not as much of what type of clothing we wear (though, if you’re over the age of 5, pjs should never be considered one’s best).
    Another consideration on the invitation to all is what we believe.  St. Justin Martyr, writing in the mid-second century, says that only those who have been baptized and believe in what the Church teaches receive the Eucharist.  That’s why we generally don’t have intercommunion, even for baptized non-Catholics, because they don’t believe in the fullness of what the Catholic Church teaches.
    Likewise, in order to receive the full graces of the banquet, we should prepare for receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist.  If we are aware of grave sins, like skipping Mass, using God’s Name in vain, improper use of our sexual faculties, etc., we need to go to confession first.  If we receive Holy Communion in a state of grave sin, we add the sin of a sacrilegious communion to our previous list and damage further our relationship with Christ.  We fast from all food and drink except water and medicine for one hour before receiving Holy Communion in order to prepare even our bodies, which are united with our souls, to receive Christ into us.  We might even, on Saturday or earlier in the week, read the Sunday readings ahead of time so that we’re more ready to hear them proclaimed at Mass, or if our kids are distracting us, as kids do, we still know what God is saying through the Scriptures for that day.  This doesn’t mean God doesn’t want you to come at all to His banquet, but that while attendance is open to all, the full participation in the banquet does require certain actions and forbids others.
    There is room for everyone in God’s kingdom and at the wedding feast of the Lamb.  God invites each of us to union with Him and attendance at His banquet because of His great love for all of us.  But He expects that we will prepare ourselves for the banquet, because it is such a joyous occasion, just like we prepare ourselves for a wedding.  Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb!

Finding Love in God

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  A few years ago, after visiting Boston and the bar that served as the model for its self-named series, I had a hankering to re-watch “Cheers,” the 80s sitcom about a bar owned by a washed-up, Boston Red Sox pitcher who is not a paragon of moral virtue.  It turns out the series wasn’t as good as I remember it being when I watched the show (probably because I was young enough that most of the topics the show dealt with flew over my head).  But one part that many people know, even those who haven’t watched a full episode, is the theme song, or at least the lines, “Sometimes you want to go / Where everybody knows your name / and they’re always glad you came…”. There’s a couple more lines, but for the purposes of this homily, that’s enough.
    What made me think of “Cheers” is the Most Holy Trinity, whom we celebrate today.  When it comes to our God, He always knows our name.  And He’s always glad we come to spend time with Him.  Our Trinitarian God, St. John the Apostle and Evangelist tells us in his first epistle, is love.  And love affirms, to paraphrase Bishop Barron and quote a country music title from Dan and Shay, “I’m Glad You Exist.”  There is something especially good about having another person affirm your existence and affirm that they treasure you.  
    There’s nothing “soft” about wanting to be wanted.  God, who is Himself a Trinitarian Communion of Divine Persons, made us in His image, which means that He made us for union with others, whether that be the union of friendship or even, for many the union of Holy Matrimony.  But likewise, God made us for union with Him, which can happen in any and all states of life.  So many people try to mask over that desire with goods which will never truly satisfy.  Maybe, as Luke Combs sings, beer never broke your heart, but it also doesn’t support a healthy self-esteem and a feeling of desirability.  You can buy a lot of things, but as Paul McCartney sings, you can’t buy me love.  
    So many young people, and I’ll admit that I got a little caught up in this too, think that social media affirms them.  And maybe, in some small way, it does.  But a like, or a share, or a snap-streak cannot compete with true love.  The trouble is that social media seems to be set up to give some good feelings, feelings of acceptance and desirability, but ones which quickly fade.  So you post more to get more attention.  But that still fades.  So you post more and more, until you find yourself addicted to social media reactions.  Or, on the flip side, as much as you post, people don’t like or favorite or share your status or pics or posts, which only reminds you more of the lack of true love in your life, sometimes leading to depression or even suicide.  
    God made us for love.  God made us with the desire to be in a communion of human persons and divine Persons.  We need love, just like we need God.  And nothing else will fill that hole in our heart.  Nothing else–not riches, power, fame, or sex–will ever fill up the tanks in our hearts that love can.  
    “God showed His love for us,” St. Paul says, “in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”  Or, to quote John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  Love does not equate simply to an emotion, but requires action.  And Christ demonstrated in a way we could understand just how far the love of God would go to reclaim us for Himself, to remind us that nothing earthly thing could ever truly fill our need for love.  God the Father showed His love for us by creating us in His image and likeness.  God the Son showed His love for us by dying on the cross for our salvation.  God the Holy Spirit shows His love for us as we get those God moments, of various types, that remind us just how much God loves us.  The action of love, from the beginning of all time until the consummation (very much a love word) of all time at the return of Christ, is a work of the entire Trinity, who is Himself a Communion of Love.  
    Our role is to accept the invitation into that love that truly makes us whole, and to invite others into that love, too.  The command of Christ at the end of Matthew’s Gospel to baptize all nations is a command to invite the entire world into the love which truly fulfills us.  Baptism, by uniting us to Christ, gives us entry into Trinitarian love.  And everyone needs that, even if they don’t recognize it.  Otherwise, they’ll try to find it in a bottle, in a paycheck, in notoriety, or in power.  And while those will satisfy for a little while, they will leave people feeling even more empty than before, because the thing they thought would fill their need for love abandoned them and lied to them and did not give them what they wanted.  
    We have a God who knows our name.  We have a God who is always glad when we come to Him.  We have a God who is love and who wants to embrace us with His love.  So many other things cry out and pretend to love us.  But in the end, only God’s love, and any true loves connected to God’s love, will last and sustain us.  Through Holy Baptism God joins us to His love.  Through the Mass, we see that love in action as God allows us to join in to the sacrifice of Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, made once for all on Calvary.  Through our daily lives the Holy Spirit helps us to respond to that love that God first offered us.  Don’t search for love in a bar, not even a famous one in Boston.  God’s love is here, ready to be shared.  And God wants us to share that love out there, outside of this church, so that all people can experience the fullness of love, from the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

All that Baptism Entails

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord
    I’m not the biggest fan of cheese.  Yes, I’ll eat pizza, but it usually has to have some meat toppings on it.  The same goes for lasagna: I’ll eat it, but if it’s meat lasagna it’s much more enjoyable.  Some of my dislike for cheese is taste, but my body also doesn’t agree with it.  So if I go out to eat, I usually have to check if there is cheese, for example, on a salad, or in a particular dish where it can be removed.
    While picking and choosing at a meal does not mean a big deal usually (after all, Burger King ran with the slogan “Have it your way”), when it comes to the sacrament of baptism, the same does not hold true.  Baptism does come as a customizable sacrament.  One cannot pick and choose which parts of baptism one wants, and which parts one would rather not come with the meal.

    Perhaps not as much at this parish, but always a perennial danger, is picking which parts of baptism we want, and ignoring the others.  As a reminder, baptism washes away original sin, opens for us the path to salvation, makes us an adopted child of God, and make us a member of the Church.  Everyone takes seriously the first two effect of baptism.  In my fifteen years of being a priest, parents know that their child has original sin, which is not a personal sin but a state of being opposed to God.  As St. Paul says, before baptism we were enemies of God (see Romans 5:10).  That is what we mean by original sin.  Another effect is that baptism also opens the possibility of salvation, by granting us, for the first time, sanctifying grace: the grace that makes us holy, which allows us to stand in the presence of God who is Holiness Himself.  Before baptism we lack sanctifying grace.  While God can choose to grant sanctifying grace to whomever He wishes and however He wises, the only way we know that God gives us the grace that makes heaven possible is baptism.  Again, parents want their child to go to heaven, and realize that we never know what can happen, so they make baptism a priority.
    But part and parcel with the washing away of original sin and the opening of the possibility of heaven is becoming an adopted child of God and a member of the Church.  These two effects connect with each other because, when one becomes an adopted child of God, one becomes a part of the Mystical Body of Christ which is the Church.  To belong to Christ means to belong to the society He formed which helps us live out the call to continue in sanctifying grace.  Even those who receive baptism outside the Catholic Church (as long as their baptism is administered validly) are connected to the Catholic Church and only need to be received into full communion, rather than baptized.  
    Receiving adoption from God entails trying to live a Godly life.  St. Paul also says, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”  That is the goal, or should be, of every Catholic.  Our actions should be the actions that Christ would take were He in our circumstances.  They way I work, the way I rest and recreate, the way I live in a family, the friends I choose, what I eat and drink: all should be what Christ would do in my circumstances.  St. Paul talks about putting to death the old man (sinful man), and setting our minds on what is above (the new man, Christ) so that heaven is the natural consequence that follows the way we lived our lives.
    The last effect, becoming a member of the Church, also entails certain rights and responsibilities.  We have the right to the other sacraments, as long as we are well-disposed to receive them.  We have the right to expect the Church to help us form children in the faith (though as an assistant, not as a surrogate parent).  We have the right to make our needs known to the pastors of the Church–from me, your local pastor, to the bishop, and even to the pope, should it be necessary.  But every right carries with it a responsibility–the duty to support the Church financially according to our means; the duty to attend Mass each Sunday and holyday unless sick, caring for the sick, or work necessitates our absence; the duty to grow in our understanding of the faith according to our God-given intellectual gifts.  This last part is what parents usually ask to exclude from the sacramental meal, or at least to set it on the side so they can add it if they want it, and only in the amounts they want.
    But baptism is all or nothing.  Either we choose all the effects of baptism, and all that those effects entail for the person and, in the case of infants, for his or her parents, or we should not choose it at all.  A parent’s eternal salvation does not depend on his or her child remaining Catholic after adulthood, but is impacted by how much the parent raises the child in the faith while the child is still under the parent’s guidance.  Skipping Mass on a Sunday or holyday for no good reason not only harms the parent (skipping Mass is a mortal sin), but compounds when a person also has the responsibility of getting a young person to Mass on those days who cannot go on his or her own.  
    And the judgement of my soul connects to how I make sure that you understand what baptism means and how it affects you.  I do this through baptism formation classes before you have your firstborn, and occasional homilies like this where I remind you just how weighty a choice it is to have your child baptized.  Baptism is so beautiful, and I was honored to celebrate 32 baptisms last calendar year, but it is also my hope that each of those whom I baptized continue to practice the faith to the best of his or her ability.  

    Baptism is not a customizable sacrament.  We cannot ask the Divine Chef not to include certain parts that we don’t like, or set them to the side.  Baptism means new life and sanctification, and is the ordinary requirement for salvation.  But it also means making the life of Christ our own and living up to what it means to be a part of the one Church Jesus Christ founded.  May our celebration of the Baptism of the Lord today remind all of us just how important and weighty baptism is, so that we live up to the call that each of receives in baptism: to turn away from sin; to make choices that lead us to heaven; to live as a child of God; and to live as that child of God in the Catholic Church.

Silence and Stillness

Sunday with the Octave of the Nativity
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  “When peaceful stillness encompassed everything and the night in its swift course was half spent, Your all-powerful word from heaven’s royal throne leapt into the doomed land.”  This is the translation of our Introit today, and it’s one of my favorite verses connected with our liturgical celebration of the Nativity of our Lord.  Which is funny, because it comes from the Book of Wisdom in the Old Testament.  And it forms part of a pericope about the Chosen People, while they were still enslaved in Egypt.  In the New American Bible, the title of this particular passage is: “Fifth Example: Death of the Egyptian Firstborn; the Israelites Are Spared.”  That may seem very fitting as we also commemorate the Holy Innocents today, but this Introit is not for the Holy Innocents, but for the Sunday within the Octave.
    But, the Church reads these two particular verses, numbers fourteen and fifteen, in light of the Nativity, when the All-Powerful Word, Jesus Christ, came to us from heaven in the middle of the night, into the land of sinners doomed to eternal death.  Like so many passages from the Old Testament, we didn’t come to know the true meaning, even though we could understand these verses in light of the plagues of Egypt, which is how the human author, no doubt, intended it, while the Divine Author intended so much more.

    Msgr. Romano Guardini, a magnificent Catholic teacher and author from the mid-twentieth century, has a beautiful Christmas meditation precisely on this passage.  And he makes the point that the great works of God happen in silence and stillness.  We can point to the creation of the universe, which happened without anyone else other than God there.  We can point to the Nativity of the Lord, which happened in a backwater part of the Roman Empire without any great human celebration.  We can point to the Resurrection of Christ, which happened without any human witnesses, except the guards at the tomb.  The great works of God happen in silence.  We can even point to the creative cooperation in human conception.  While the act which brings about children might not be so silent in terms of the spousal union, the moment the sperm fertilizes the egg happens in silence, without the parents knowing for some weeks after.  
    So if we wish to see the great things of God, we need to cultivate periods of silence in our lives.  Now, I’m saying this to a group of families who, each in their own way, have taken seriously God’s call to be fruitful and multiply.  Whether you have one child or ten children, you probably dream about silence for any amount of time, rather than the din of one or more children crying, screaming, or just making noise seemingly for noise’s sake.  Some of you parents may be thinking: “yeah, right, Father, I don’t get silence in my life; I have kids.”  
    But the silence in which the great things of God happens cannot simply equate with the lack of noise.  I love that we have so many children at Mass, and applaud you parents for bringing them to Mass, even when it’s very difficult and even when you spend half or more of Mass trying to keep them quiet, or keep them from crawling away, or taking them to the bathroom, etc.  Do I notice the noise?  I’m not deaf.  But it’s a great blessing.  St. Pius X, which closed in 2024 while I was pastor, had no noise because it had practically no kids.  If you don’t hear cryin’ your parish is dyin’.  
    But the noise generally doesn’t distract me.  As I’m celebrating Mass, I may hear it, but I can still stay focused on what’s happening and how I’m leading the worship of God by His Church.  And I don’t mean the way a husband says he’s listening to his wife while he’s watching a football game (because, generally speaking, he’s not really listening to you at that point).  I can create an atmosphere of silence even with the noise of children, bells, crashing kneelers, etc., by focusing on God.  And I think that’s not impossible for parents, either, though it does take practice.

    But even if you don’t feel you can find silence there, I know that there exists moments of silence that you can take advantage of each day.  The question is do we protect that time for God and prayer, even if it’s only the five minutes between a child starting to sleep and a child waking?  Or do we decide that doom scrolling, or finding every funny cat video on YouTube, or catching up on Facebook, or seeing what political parties are up to seems better to us than a quick five minutes of prayer?  As a parent, your vocation does not consist in praying like a monk or nun in a cloistered monastery or convent.  But God does want you to take even the few minutes you have throughout the day, or at the end of the day, after the kids are asleep, for Him, rather than simply looking to social media, the Internet, or the television to numb your minds.  It doesn’t mean we can’t find a funny cat video at all, or that we can never watch our favorite episode of “The Office,” but do we capitalize on the time that we have and utilize it for growing in our relationship with God?
    When God appeared to Elijah, He didn’t come in an earthquake, a fire, or a storm.  He came in a whisper.  God so often works in silence, an reveals Himself in stillness.  If we distract ourselves with noise (and I’m not talking about kids), we won’t attend to what God wants to say to us our wants us to do.  Take time for silence, as you can according to your vocation and circumstances, as often as you can.  Because in that silence and stillness, the All-Powerful Word will leap down from His royal throne in heaven and enter your heart, Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Buddy and Jesus

Nativity of the Lord–At the Vigil Mass/At Night

    One of the newer Christmas movies that has become a staple of most people’s Christmas movie watching is “Elf” starring Will Ferrell.  It’s hard to believe, but it came out in 2003!  For those who are not fans of Will Ferrell and didn’t watch the movie, “Elf” follows Buddy the Elf, a human child who was raised by elves at the North Pole, even though he is much larger than they, and Buddy’s quest to find his real dad, who works for a publisher in New York City.  Buddy goes from the innocence of working with the elves for Santa to the Big Apple and all that New York City entails.  One of the many classic lines from the movie is said by a narwhal who looks like the animals from the 1964 Christmas movie, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,”: “Bye Buddy, hope you find your dad!”  
    In many ways, Christmas is the opposite theme of “Elf.”  Instead of humanity, represented by Buddy, searching out his dad, the true meaning of Christmas is that our heavenly Father, through the Incarnation of His Beloved Son, sought us out.  God did not abandon us, like Buddy’s father, Walter, did.  Instead, we ran away from God by sinning.  Adam and Eve rejected God in their pride and by their disobedience, and created a chasm between us and God that only God could close.  Throughout the centuries God our Father sought us out in love, and showed us ways that we could approach him and reject sin.  But time and time again we returned to sin because it felt better, or because, in our own pride, we didn’t want anyone else telling us what to do.  God gave us the Law to teach us, and the prophets to clarify how God had created the world and how to live justly.  But we disobeyed the law, and ignored or even killed the prophets so that we didn’t have to hear the voice of God.  But God did not leave us to the death that comes from sin.

    God came to us in a way that would disarm our pride: through a tiny baby.  Jesus took flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and was born for us [tomorrow,] Christmas Day, as the beginning of the way that God the Father would reconcile us to Himself.  Buddy the Elf, though naïve, did not always endear himself to Walter.  Christ, born in the humblest of conditions from the humblest of parents, was not naïve, but truly innocent, and, especially in His infancy, we couldn’t help but love Him.  Throughout the rest of His life, He would show us just how much the Father loves us, even to the point of shedding His Precious Blood on the cross to remove the chasm between God and us and open for us eternal salvation in heaven.  There is no greater love that God could have shown than humbling Himself to take on our human nature, and then, though innocent, laying down freely his life for us so that we didn’t have to endure eternal death in Hell.
    But while the Incarnation, God-made-man, is the greatest Christmas gift of all, we still have to accept that gift.  And like the Central Park Rangers who try to stop Santa, there are those who don’t want to see us accept the gift of eternal salvation, within and without us.  Outside of us, there are fallen angels who do not want to see us reunited with God.  They send us temptations and try to get us to fall into the same trap Adam and Eve fell in as they rejected God’s rules because they wanted to do it their own way, and disobey God.  Inside of us, even after we’re baptized, we still have concupiscence, that drive to disobey God.  We would rather be our own boss, our own god, even, than serve the true God.  Whether from within or without, when we tell lies, even small, white lies; when we skip Mass out of laziness or lack of interest; when we fail to pray every day; when we allow our desires to take control of us; when we use others as means to an end, no matter how good our intentions, we show God that we do not want Him as our Father.  We show God through our actions that we don’t want to receive the best Christmas gift ever: the gift of eternal life.  And God, because He loves, us, respects our free will; He will never force His salvation on us.
    But, as a loving Father, He will also never stop searching for us, seeking to draw us to Himself.  And even if we do claim God as our Father and avoid rejecting Him through mortal sin, He works each day to draw us closer and closer to Him, through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, so that we can receive all the good things He desires for His children.  
    So today let us recommit ourselves to our heavenly Father.  We don’t have to travel from the North Pole to New York City to find Him.  He is right here, in this church, offering His love for us.  Accept that love that so wanted you that He humbled Himself and truly became for us a little baby.  And show that acceptance by the choices you make each day, the love you give back to God through obedience and love to Him, which is the only gift He desires from you.  O come, let us adore Him. 

Repeating

Fourth Sunday of Advent

    I used to have SiriusXM Radio in my car, but I got tired of having to verbally fight with them to get the lowest rates, so I decided to try streaming music instead.  And because I’m frugal (others would use the word cheap), I wanted a free source.  I tried Pandora at first, but then everyone I know encouraged me to get Spotify.  I like the idea of being able to like certain songs, and have what I’m sure is an algorithm suggest other songs like it to which I can listen.  
    But what I have noticed is that, with occasional exceptions, it tends to play the same songs over and over again in any playlist I have.  Even when I get a rare new song and like the song, it still tends to take me back into a rotation of about 30 songs, so I feel like I’m hearing the same songs over and over again.

    You may have the same feeling with today’s Gospel reading, though maybe not as strongly.  This Gospel passage, from the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, was the Gospel for the day on 18 December; it’s the Gospel today; and it will be the Gospel for the 4:30 p.m. Christmas Eve Mass.  I can imagine what your mind goes to when you hear the words, “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.”  It’s probably something like, “Didn’t I just hear this?”  
    Beyond the Gospel, Catholicism is built on ritual.  The Mass is, substantially, the same every week.  The readings change, the preface sometimes change, and I generally alternate between different versions of the Eucharistic Prayer week by week, but not that much changes.  I will admit that I even sometimes check my blog with all my homilies to make sure that I’m not preaching the same thing year after year, especially with these seasons and days that have similar themes.  
    And some will criticize the ritual nature of Catholicism.  Our evangelical brothers and sisters might have a different service every month, even if there is a similar format.  There’s much more sense of inventing something new and exciting every year, probably because it appeals to our desire to be entertained.  And entertainment is, generally speaking, putting out new things that delight the fact that we’ve never seen it before.  While Hollywood has leaned on remakes of past releases, generally they are always making new movies.  Singers tend to include some old favorites at concerts, but more so tend to focus on the latest album they released.  
    But, as much as we find ourselves drawn to what is new and exciting (or, to use a newer word, bussin’), the human person has a need for routine and things that do not change.  Routine creates a certain calm or stability that we need.  Even in the hectic mornings when you’re getting yourself and/or your kids ready, your routine, even if interrupted, of putting on deoderant, brushing your teeth, combing your hair, shaving, putting on make-up, using cologne or perfume, probably gives you some sense of stability, even if the rest of the day is anything but stable.  And it opens up success for the future that chaos tends not to support.  Imagine that, to keep things new and fresh, you decided not to wear deodorant or brush your teeth.  It probably wouldn’t help you out in your day, and would create more stress.
    Ritual in the Catholic Church creates calm because our encounter with God is not meant to be a flurry of emotions, though we sometimes do get an emotive response.  Our worship of God should create a peace and quiet in us that allows to hear God, who often works in the stillness and silence.  An emotive high is like a drug: it’s exciting (for you younger folk, it slaps) when you experience something new.  But then, as you get used to new and ever-changing, the level of new and changing has to increase because your tolerance for new has increased, and the old new and exciting doesn’t give you the same high.  That’s why Catholic Masses are not and should not be like rock concerts.  There’s a place for that kind of music, in our devotional life, but in the Mass, we need to create a quiet space to encounter God, who didn’t come to Elijah in an earthquake, fire, or storm, but in the stillness.
    Routine and ritual also allow us to do what novelty never allows: go deeper.  When I’m just concerned about getting something new each time, I remain that the surface level, because I’m adjusting to stimuli I haven’t experienced before.  When I hear the same prayer or the same Gospel passage again and again, God desires that I do go deeper than just the surface.  It was only after a while of praying the fourth Eucharistic Prayer (which I use during Ordinary Time), that I recognized the words, “Look, O Lord, upon the Sacrifice which you yourself have provided for your Church…” could refer back to Genesis, when Abraham was on his way to sacrifice Isaac, his beloved Son, and Isaac asks where the sheep for sacrifice is, that Abraham says that God Himself will provide the sheep for the sacrifice.  As I grow in my understanding of the Scriptures, I see how they intertwine with the Mass, something we can miss if we only stay at the surface level.
    So, yes, we will hear again (if you go to the Vigil Mass of Christmas on Wednesday afternoon), “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about,” a passage that we have likely heard countless times.  But, as with this Gospel, so with the Mass: don’t stay at the surface.  Allow the calm of the ritual to push you into deeper meanings and connections throughout the rest of the Mass, the Scriptures, and the Church’s other teachings.  Don’t miss the depth God wants to reveal because you want something new and exciting each time.  Remain with God, the source of beauty, ever ancient, ever new. 

Not the King We Expected

Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
    A bishop I know once had a meeting when he was a priest with his diocesan bishop.  During that meeting, the diocesan bishop said to this priest, “You know, you’re not everything I would want in a priest.”  Talk about demoralizing!  But this priest who became a bishop then used this story to transition to talking with his priests, and admitted that he knows he’s not everything his priests would like to see in a bishop.  But he does his best to follow God’s will and be the best bishop he can be.

    As we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King of the Universe, the Gospel presents us with perhaps a different version of a king than we were expecting or want.  When we think of kings, we probably think of pomp and circumstance, fine robes, jeweled crowns, and amazing power.  Instead, our Gospel presents us what looks like utter failure as Christ hangs on the cross as a common criminal, and those around Him mock Him.  In place of pomp there is jeering.  In place of fine robes Christ had his cloak torn off His Sacred Body before they put the nails in His hands and feet.  In place of a jeweled crown He wears a crown of thorns.  And in place of amazing power Christ allows the powers of the world and Hell to rush upon Him, seemingly powerless to stop any of it.
    But the best king the world has ever or will ever have is Jesus.  And yet, His kingship is a tension of seeming paradoxes.  Christ is King on the cross, and Christ is King in heaven.  Christ is King naked in suffering, and Christ is King robed in majesty.  Christ is King in His agony, and Christ is King in His glorification.  But often times, if we’re honest, we prefer one over the other.  We might say, like that bishop said to his priest, “You’re not everything I would want in a king.”  
    We try to keep that tension as Christ’s faithful on earth.  We should both venerate Christ as King in glory and Christ as King in the earthly way He manifests Himself.  Both have value and importance.  Both help us to be faithful subjects of Christ our King.
    As far as glory, we do our best to demonstrate that in our Mass.  This temple uses precious materials like stained-glass, marble, beautiful paint, and precious metal vessels to show that we give our best to Christ our King.  Christ is worthy of all of our best materials, and we give that to him.  I wear special vestments which cost a fair amount of money.  We use special books to convey the Word of God, especially the Book of the Gospels.  We use a special instrument, the organ, which both mimics the human voice, but also brings with it the sound of trumpets and strings.  So much of what we do is wholly unnecessary and superfluous, but yet fitting for a king, just as DaVinci’s “Mona Lisa” or Michelangelo’s “David” is not, strictly speaking, a necessary part of the world, but adds wonder and awe and glory to the world.
    But our best is not just in reference to the sanctuary or the different ministers.  You should also bring your best to lay at the feet of the King.  Do we come as attentive as we can to Mass, not drowsy from the night before because we stayed up too late watching college football or drinking?  Do we take a look at the readings a few days before so that we can more deeply appreciate them as the reader proclaims them to us?  Do we do our best to dress better for the King than we do for our usual daily tasks?  Do we fast one hour before receiving our heavenly King, the Body and Blood of Christ, to prepare our bodies for so great a guest?  Do we exteriorly respond to the prayers and sing, to the best of our ability, the hymns and sung responses?  Do we unite all that has happened since the last time we came to Mass with the bread and wine offered on the altar so that we truly give ourselves to God, as He desires?  Certainly, some of these are tough, especially with young children, but can we say that we’re doing our best?
    On the other hand, Christ is King from the cross and in His suffering that continues in His members.  Do we allow the beautiful, glorified encounter with Christ the King to transform us so that we can meet Christ the King as we meet Him in our day-to-day lives?  There was a chart that I received when I studied liturgy in Chicago, and it broke up the Mass into three parts.  It was based on the pre-Conciliar Mass, but easily translated into the post-Conciliar Mass.  The first part of the Mass was what used to be called the Mass of the Catechumens, or the Liturgy of the Word.  The second part of the Mass was called the Mass of the Faithful, what we now call the Liturgy of the Eucharist.  But the third part of the Mass was called the Mass During the Day, not reflecting the time of Mass, but demonstrating that what happens at Mass is supposed to affect how we live our lives outside the church walls.  Another term for this was Catholic Action, or how we work, rest, eat, drink, play, and treat the poor as Catholics.  It is in our homes, in our jobs, on the roads, on our vacations, in our encounter with the poor that we also encounter Christ the King.  And how do we serve that manifestation of Christ in His Kingship?  Are we ready to serve Christ the King in the more mundane and messy parts of life?  
    Christ is King both in the aspect of glory here in this church as well as in the beggar, the co-worker, the family member, the immigrant, the police officer or firefighter, the politician, and any other person we encounter each day.  May we recognize Christ as King not only in His glory, but also in His suffering.  And I’ll end with a prayer that can help us serve Christ our King, not only as we want Him to be King, but as He truly is King:
 

Almighty and ever-living God,
Author of Light and Life,
enlighten our minds and strengthen our wills,
so that we may practice in our lives 
what we have celebrated at your holy altar 
and received into our hearts.
Through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Busting Myths

Feast of the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]  Sometimes we hear things that sound good or make apparent sense, which, in the end, do not hold up.  I’m the sort of guy who generally fills up my gas tank when it’s half full, and I started doing this because, when I was young, someone (I can’t remember for sure who) told me that gas could freeze in the tank in the winter if there was room in the tank.  I recently mentioned that, and the other person challenged me on the factuality of that claim.  And it turns out, gas freezes somewhere between -40º and -200º Fahrenheit.  So it’s not going to freeze.  And even if the temperature at which gas freezes is higher, it would freeze whether they tank was half full or entirely full.  So, myth busted.  
    We might have heard another myth: that I can worship God just as well outside a church as I can inside a church.  People may say that they feel closer to God in nature.  Or they feel the comfort of God’s presence best in their home.  Or, in a post-COVID world, some will say that they prefer to attend Mass via livestream.  Certainly, God is present everywhere, indoors and outdoors.  Certainly our homes are places of comfort.  And, for a while, many people’s legitimate only access point to the Mass was through a computer screen.

    But as we celebrate the Dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran today, if those statements about worshiping God that I just mentioned are true, then why do we celebrate a church, albeit beautiful and awe-inspiring, in Rome?  And why even bother coming here?  If we can access God, who is omnipresent, anywhere, what’s the point in going to church on Sunday or any other day?
    The tricky thing about bad teachings is that something which is false tends to include something that is true.  If it had no truthful aspect, we would reject it outright.  But if it has some truth to it, we might choose to believe because we recognize some aspect of truth.  So yes, God is present everywhere.  Yes, people can easily experience God in nature.  Yes, God does sometimes give us comfort, and our homes can remind us of that comforting presence of God.  And yes, what churches broadcast through the livestream is the Mass, and for the sick or those who cannot drive to Mass, that is a better way to celebrate Sunday, the Lord’s Day, rather than just watching the NFL or playing Yahtzee.  
    But just because God is everywhere doesn’t mean He is equally present everywhere.  God can be experienced through a beautiful sunset, or a powerful storm.  But the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, brings God’s presence to us in a way that occurs no where else outside of a church.  I promise you that the Eucharist will not materialize before you in your hunting blind on Saturday.  Saints like St. Clare have had visions of the Eucharist (which is why she is the patron saint of television), but the unique presence of Christ in the Eucharist comes with a church building.  God makes Himself present to us in a special way and even wants us to receive the Body and Blood of Christ so that we can have God within us.  And receiving the Eucharist generally happens during Mass.  We may not always feel different from receiving the Eucharist, but we are different.  St. John Vianney said, “If we really understood the Mass we would die of joy.”  Extreme joy may not be your experience at Mass every week, every month, or even yearly.  But just because I don’t experience an emotional response doesn’t mean that the most beautiful union between God and man isn’t taking place.  
    Just because we feel comfortable in our house doesn’t mean that we are experiencing the consolation of God.  The comfort that God came to give was at a much deeper level than just physical comfort.  He came to heal our souls.  There are many ways in which we can be opposed to God and yet feel physically good.  Maybe it’s drinking too much, sleeping when we should go to Mass, or engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage.  Those things all feel physically good, and yet do not mean that God is with us our supporting us.  Also, the Lord reminded us that following Him may often include suffering of various kinds, which means that we are not made for comfort.
    Plus, while we all should have a personal relationship with the Lord, it’s not just me and Jesus.  Being baptized means that God joins us to the entire Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, and we are connected to each other.  That cannot be fully picked up simply by staying at home, even with other family members, because the Church is not just one family or even just one ethnic group or nationality.  To be Catholic means that we embrace all who want to follow Christ.
    Lastly, watching the Mass on the computer or on TV never means nor meant that we attended Mass.  One can watch the Mass as a lesser way of sanctifying the Lord’s Day, but to truly attend Mass one must be physically present.  My earlier words also apply: you cannot receive the Eucharist through livestream, and you cannot fully participate in the larger Mystical Body of Christ on your own through livestream.  If one is sick or homebound, then it helps us remember what we would want to attend if were were able.  But watching does not equal physical participation.
    We celebrate a church building today because it is a kind of sacrament.  It is a physical reality, instituted by Christ, which conveys invisible realities and causes graces that flow from the Paschal Mystery.  The physical building reminds us that we are part of something bigger than ourselves, each having a role to play to create the temple not made by hands in heaven, where all the elect are joined together, each fulfilling a role.  May we not accept the myths that we can worship God on our terms (often guided by our own laziness or preferences), but give ourselves to the worship that our Lord told us would be acceptable worship: worship in spirit and truth.  [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.] 

Properly Dressed

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of my first funerals as a priest was for a man named Marshall Reid, who was the founder and co-owner of the men’s clothing store, Holden-Reid.  As I often do in my homilies, I try to relate something spiritual to something common, which in this case talking about the phrase, “clothes make the man.”  As the funeral liturgy so often draws us back to baptism, I was able to talk about the baptismal garment and how baptism makes us who we are.
    Today in the Gospel we hear about a man who came to a wedding but without the proper clothes.  The servants cast him out from the wedding, to which all were invited, because the man didn’t come prepared for a wedding with proper vesture.  The master welcomes all to his banquet, and yet there are still expectations.  It reminds me of what the late-Francis Cardinal George said about the horrible hymn, “All Are Welcome,”: all are welcome, but on Christ’s terms, not their own.
    At each Mass we come to the wedding banquet of the Lamb, to use terminology from the Book of Revelation.  The Mass is a sacrifice, first and foremost, but is also a meal that celebrates the full union and reconciliation of God and man.  But we have to wear the proper clothes.

    I’ll begin with me.  You’ll notice I don’t wear street clothes to celebrate Mass.  I don’t even wear an academic robe to show that I have the qualifications to preach.  In addition to my priestly cassock, I put on all sorts of vestments, each with a different meaning: the amice, the helmet of salvation; the alb, a reminder of our white baptismal garment; the maniple, a reminder of the labor in the mission field of the world; the stole, the sign of my authority as a priest; and the chasuble, which represents love, a love that covers all other vestments.  Some churches, not our Latin church, but others even give those who serve in the sanctuary special shoes, so that they are entirely covered with symbolic vestments to make clear that Christ is present, not just the minister.
    What should you wear?  Our severs also have special vestments–a cassock and surplice–which remind us of poverty (the black cassock) and the baptismal gown (the surplice).  But what about the laity in the pews?  I think we owe God our best, or at least better than what we give our daily life.  I think less of a specific dress code, and more of an external way to show that we are giving God more than we give our work or our recreation.  And that varies for every person.  For the poor person it may mean simply trying to have clean clothes for Sunday Mass.  For a college student it may mean jeans or slacks, rather than sweatpants, shorts, or pajama pants, and a nicer shirt our blouse.  For others it may mean a button up shirt and tie, along with dress pants.  For others it may mean a full suit.  But I think the point is that God wants, and deserves from us, that we would give Him our first fruits, our best, not just our leftovers.
    But Christ also reminds us that the externals have to match the internals, otherwise we’re just like the hypocritical pharisees who washed in the outside of their cup but were filled with filth on the inside.  God wants our baptismal garments to be clean, not just in what we wear but at the level of our soul.  Many of you try to go to confession regularly, and oftentimes will try to have it on Saturday before Sunday Mass.  We also offer a short time of around 45 minutes after the 8 am Mass until 9:30, when I start getting ready for the 10 a.m. Mass.  Others will come after Mass, which is also good to do.  Regular confession helps us stay “dressed” properly for the wedding banquet of the Lamb.
    I would also challenge us to see how we welcome people to Mass each Sunday.  No, I’m not going to have us start greeting our neighbor before Mass.  The Mass is not about us and or pretending that we gave God the gift of our presence.  But how do we make others, who may be strangers to St. Matthew, or even strangers to this beautiful form of the Mass, feel like they belong?  Recently we welcomed a number of families from Lapeer who no longer have access to the Extraordinary Form at Immaculate Conception.  Have you made them feel welcome and a part of our parish community?  Do you keep your eyes out for people who don’t look familiar, not as threats, but as opportunities to help them to understand how we pray in this form?  I studied the Mass and its history in seminary and in post-graduate work, so I didn’t find this form of the Mass too strange or complex.  But others, even Catholics who attend the Ordinary Form each week, can sometimes feel lost.  Do we give them a hand missal, or maybe even sit next to them so they can follow along with us and know when to kneel, sit, stand, and what prayers to say?  People are much more likely to stay at this form of the Mass if they know how to join in the prayer, rather than seeming like a stranger in a Mass which is part of their patrimony as Catholics.
    God wants us to dress properly for the wedding banquet of His Son.  That applies to me as a priest with my vestments, and to you as far as giving God your best.  But it doesn’t only mean externally.  God wants our entire person, body and soul, to be dressed appropriately to join in His great celebration of sacrifice and love.  May we not be thrown out of the banquet, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth, but dress our lives in a way that shows that we are grateful for our invitation and attendance at the wedding banquet of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Repaying God

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    For many young people, what got them through the COVID pandemic and the isolation that came with it was the sitcom “The Office.”  In one episode, Dwight, the Assistant to the Regional Manager, decides that he wants people to owe him, so that he can get his office frenemy, Jim, fired.  In the ubiquitous one-on-one interview with the camera crew, Dwight says, “Can’t a guy just buy some bagels for his friends so they’ll owe him a favor which he can use to get someone fired who stole a co-manager position from him anymore?”  Unfortunately another salesman, Andy, hates to be in debt to anyone.  So he starts finding ways to return the favor, thus not owing Dwight and thwarting his plans.  In Andy’s interview, he says, “You give me a gift, BAM! thank you note…You do me a favor, WHAM! favor returned.  Do not test my politeness.”  They both then go back and forth trying to give and return favors in pretty comical ways.
    In our first reading and Gospel we hear about people giving thanks for what God has given them.  Naaman receives healing from God for his leprosy, and one of the ten lepers whom Jesus healed returns to Jesus to thank Him.  Naaman even goes so far as to take with him “two mule-loads of earth” so that he can offer sacrifice to God on holy ground, even back in his home country of Assyria.
    While we’re not quite at the Thanksgiving holiday, God reminds us today that we owe Him thanks.  He reminds us, not as a Catholic guilt trip, but because He made us and He knows that we have a built-in desire to thank those who have given us gifts, and most especially the one who has given us everything.  Gratitude helps us live up to our potential as humans.
    But so often we pretend as if what we have comes from our own doing.  Yes, we do cooperate in our own excellence, but all that we have comes as a gift from God.  It starts with our life, which we do not arrange.  Even if a couple seeks to conceive a child at a time when they suspect conception could happen, it only happens by God’s will.  Then our family forms us, but they are also a gift from God.  And we naturally have some gifts and talents, which are also from God.  Some of those we choose to develop, but our ability to develop them is also a gift from God.  And we often take advantage of certain opportunities that come our way, but that also is a gift from God.  The only thing that God does not give us is sin; that is only from our making.  Everything else is either given to or allowed for us from God.  But do we thank God for those things?  Do we thank God not only for the big events and opportunities in our lives, but also for the things that we so often take for granted?
    Our attendance at Mass on Sunday is one way that we give back to God.  The word Eucharist, the sacrament which Mass makes possible, comes from two Greek words meaning “to give thanks well.”  In the Mass we give thanks to God for all the natural things He gives us, but especially for the supernatural gifts He gives us, like the possibility of salvation, and the grace to say yes to His will and live in a way that make us truly happy and prepares us for heaven.  God, strictly speaking, owes us nothing, and yet gives us all we need for eternal happiness.  Certainly that deserves some means of thanks.  
    The virtue of religion, the virtue by which we offer service to the Divine (to use the definition from the Roman writer, Tully), is the acquired habit, the repeated purposeful good act, of giving back to God for all He has given to us.  St. Thomas Aquinas notes different etymologies of the word religion, but connects it to the Latin word religare, to bind together (think of ligaments which bind bone to bone), and quotes St. Augustine who writes, “May religion bind us to the one Almighty God.”  God binds us to Himself, not because of any need, but because of His great love and generosity.
    And yet, how our sinfulness and ingratitude manifests itself when it comes to attending even just weekly Mass, which is part of the way that we fulfill the third commandment to keep holy the sabbath.  Obviously, you are all here.  And yet the numbers are pretty atrocious in the general Catholic population counting those who attend Mass each Sunday and Holyday.  How sad that so many cannot give one hour to the God who has given them everything, and even gives them the Body and Blood of His Son (presuming they’re in a state of grace) to sustain their spiritual life!
    But let’s go deeper so that we’re not just pointing out the splinter in our neighbor’s eye or casting stones at others when we ourselves are not innocent.  How do we treat the Mass?  With young children this can be difficult, but do we try to arrive five or ten minutes early for silent prayer with God?  Do we look forward to Mass as my opportunity to spend time with God, or do we begrudgingly go so we don’t go to Hell (and yes, you can go to Hell simply from skipping Mass on Sundays and Holydays)?  Do we do our best to pay attention and participate interiorly and exteriorly through silent prayer and responding when appropriate?  Are we upset if Mass is one second longer than the usual Sunday 60 minutes?  Do we leave Mass, having just received the Sacred Body and the Precious Blood of our Lord, and think to ourselves, ‘I didn’t get anything out of that Mass’?  Living the virtue of religion goes beyond simple attendance.  God deserves our best each Sunday, which, granted, is slightly different for everyone.  But there are probably ways that we can all grow deeper in gratitude to God.
    God has given us everything, even those things that we cooperate with God’s grace and the talents He gave us to earn.  Are we like Naaman and the Samaritan leper who insist on thanking God?  Or are we like the nine lepers who walk away without any acknowledgement of the one who gives us gifts?  God grant that we thank Him, not only with our voice on Thanksgiving Day, but with our voice, mind, and heart each day of our lives and especially every time we come to Mass.

What Makes You Follow Him?

Solemnity of St. Matthew
    Whenever I think about the apostles following Jesus, I wonder what it was about the Lord that made a group of men leave everything they knew behind and follow a rabbi who had, from a worldly perspective nothing.  Now, in some cases there were miracles that helped.  Think about Peter, who participated in a miraculous catch of fish when Jesus told him to go out into deep waters to fish.  Or Nathaniel, to whom Jesus said that He had seen Nathaniel sitting underneath a fig tree.  And maybe we might even suggest with Andrew, Philip, James, and John, who had been disciples of St. John the Baptist, that having your rabbi basically say, “Follow him,” would make it easier when the Lord invited you to follow Him.

    But with St. Matthew, our parish patron whose solemnity we celebrate today, as with other apostles, there doesn’t seem to be any miracle or direction given by another.  Jesus simply says, “‘Follow me,’” and St. Matthew follows Jesus.  What was it in the look or the tone of voice or maybe simply the way Christ carried Himself that made St. Matthew want to leave behind the lucrative, albeit despised, job of collecting taxes for Rome?
    No matter what it was that drew St. Matthew to Jesus, what made Matthew a great evangelist and a martyr was the witness to the Resurrection.  He knew that Christ had died, even if he didn’t see it with his own eyes.  St. John, his fellow Apostle and later fellow Gospel writer, did see it with his own eyes, and certainly reported it back to the group.  And then, three days later, they saw Jesus, all Eleven of the Apostles (because Judas had killed himself), risen from the dead, but with the marks of His crucifixion.  And then, fifty days later, the Apostles received the gift of the Holy Spirit so that they had power to spread the Good News that God, in Jesus, had conquered sin and death, and that no one needed fear anything, because God had shown His power over all things and would raise up those who followed Him and were baptized.  Matthew took seriously the last words that he recorded in his Gospel account, that the mission of the followers of Jesus was to go and make disciples of all nations and baptize them in the name of the Trinity.
    What makes us follow Jesus?  Many, if not all, of us were likely baptized as infants.  Our parents chose to configure us to Christ to give us the grace we needed to live a truly happy life.  Just like they chose, before we could choose, what foods to eat, what clothes to wear, what activities we could or could not do, as a sign of their love for us, so they chose to claim us for Christ.  But at some point, we have to also accept our call and follow the Lord.  Being a disciples is not something to which we default.  It has to be a choice, and a choice that we make after encountering the Lord.  Christ invites us, too, each day, to follow Him, but we have to actually get up and follow Him, or risk missing out because we would rather have the mediocrity of the known rather than the sometimes uncomfortable and dangerous adventure of leaving all behind to follow Jesus.
    So where have we encountered the Lord?  When did we hear His call?  It’s important to reflect back on a moment where we encountered the Lord, because it gives us strength for the often hum-drum ways we live our lives, the times where the Lord does not appear to us as powerfully as He sometimes does.  
    And if we’re afraid that we haven’t had a chance to encounter the Lord, do not fear!  Because each time you come to Mass, you encounter the same Lord who called St. Matthew; the same Lord who died on the cross; the same Lord who rose from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit to strengthen His disciples and give them what they needed to share the Good News.  Each time you come to Mass, Jesus proves His love for us in giving us a taste of His Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, which gives us eternal life within us.  God knows we need Him and so He gives Himself to us to be closer to us than any other person could ever be, even a spouse. Even in these simply, 8 a.m. morning Masses, the God of all glory comes down on this altar to make Himself present to us and to invite us to follow Him.  And if, perchance, you doubt this, as can sometimes happen, then during the Eucharistic Prayer, ask the Lord in the silence of your hearts: “Reveal yourself to me, Lord, and call me to follow you.”  I promise that if you ask in sincerity of heart and make those few words your own, Christ will answer you.  He will reveal Himself to you and call you to follow Him.  Again, all you have to say in silence is: “Reveal yourself to me, Lord, and call me to follow you.”  Especially as you first see the Body and Blood of the Lord, as I turn to you and say, “Behold the Lamb of God,” God will be revealing Himself, and may even grant you a miraculous appreciation of this through a special gift, if that is what you need to deepen your faith and relationship with Him.
    God calls you today to follow Him, just like He called St. Matthew.  God has filled you with the Holy Spirit through the Sacrament of Confirmation, so that you have what it takes to share with others the good news of the Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Lord, and that He has freed us from sin and death.  What will you do?  Will you stay at your customs post?  Or will you get up and follow Him?

Seeing the Risen Jesus

Solemnity of Easter

The entrance to the aediculum

   [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]  One of the most memorable things that I experienced when I went to the Holy Land for the first time in 2007 as a seminarian was attending Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the place where Jesus died and rose from the dead.  At the place where the tomb was, there is a small building inside the church called the aediculum, and inside that aediculum is where a slab of stone rests that held the dead body of our Lord.  The Franciscans gave us permission to have Mass there one day.  The way Mass works in that space is that the Liturgy of the Word/Mass of Catechumens happens outside the aediculum.  For the Liturgy of the Eucharist/Mass of the Faithful, the priest enters the aediculum and says the Eucharist Prayer inside there, which you can hear, but not see, because of how small it is inside.
    The great moment is when the priest gets to the point where he says, “Behold, the Lamb of God,” because the priest leaves the aediculum, and, holding the Body of the Lord above the chalice says, while showing the Eucharist to the people.  Part of the power is that this is the same risen Lord, coming from His tomb, alive for us to see, though of course under sacramental signs.
    As we celebrate Easter today, we remember the event that changed the course of human history.  While the Prophet Elisha had raised a person from the dead in the Old Testament, and our Lord had raised the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus from the dead, the resurrection was altogether different.  Our Lord’s Body no longer suffered under the restrictions of the physical world, as we will hear next Sunday when we hear about Him entering a locked room through the door.  While the Body was certainly His, and bore the marks of His crucifixion, in a glorified state there was something different about it.  I often imagine it as having a slight glow to it, though maybe that was not the case.  It was different enough that the disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize Christ as He walked with them, until He broke bread in a room with them.  
    But that event that changed everything, starting really with Good Friday and culminating with Easter Sunday, we celebrate and enter into each Sunday in particular, and each time we come to Mass more generally.  At the Mass, we begin by acknowledging that we are sinners and that Christ suffered for us and because of us.  We stand at the foot of the Cross and nail our sins there with Christ so that they can be forgiven.  We offer our lives–the joys and sorrows, pain and comforts, work and leisure–since the last time we attended Mass united to the perfect offering of Christ to His heavenly Father on Calvary.  We stand there at Calvary and hear God’s word proclaimed to help us understand what work God does in our lives.  And then, during the Eucharist Prayer/Canon of the Mass, we enter into Christ’s offering of Himself on the cross, and His burial in the tomb.  In fact, the Catechism of the Catholic Church references how the altar, besides being symbol of Christ Himself and the Cross, also symbolizes the tomb.
    And that is perhaps a bit clearer as we celebrate Mass facing the Lord together, or ad Dominum.  During the three days between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Christ’s Body laid in the tomb, unseen by all others.  After the elevations which follow the words of institution, the words that Christ Himself spoke (“This is my Body”; “This is my Blood), Christ is not seen by the faithful in the pews until the priest shows the Body of Christ while saying, “Behold the Lamb of God.”  This is, as it were, Christ breaking forth from the tomb, and appearing before His disciples after the Resurrection.  The same experience I had in Jerusalem, of seeing Christ in the Eucharist come forth from His tomb you can experience as I remove the Body of Christ from the tomb of the altar and He rises so that you all can see Him and His glorified Body, which is not limited in the way our bodies are limited.
    And the Lord does not just show Himself from afar as I show Him to you.  At the time for the reception of Holy Communion, He comes near to you, as He came near to Mary Magdalene at the tomb or as He came near the Blessed Mother, the Apostles, and the disciples in the Upper Room.  He stands right before you, and then even enters in to you to bring that power of the Resurrection into your individual lives.
    And what is our response, then?  The same as the disciples who realized that Christ was risen: they had to tell other disciples, and, after Pentecost, everyone.  Knowing that Christ had died, but that He was truly risen, they could not remain silent, but shared that joy and the transformation of their lives that the Resurrection made.  Death no longer had the last say.  Sin no longer could hold them in slavery.  They could not contain the joy of that revelation, but had to tell others.  And so should we.  The joy of this day should cast away all sorrow and fear and lead us to greater holiness of life.

Inside the aediculum

    Christ has risen from the dead.  It is not just a past event, but a reality that we get to join every Sunday, which the Church calls a “little Easter.”  May we recognize the Risen Christ as we see and receive Him in the Eucharist, the Lamb of God, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, live and reign for ever and ever.

Remembering the Reason

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Routines, while generally beneficial, can also lead to a certain amnesia about their purpose.  And in an age where we seek out something new and exciting, routines can make less and less sense, especially when the routine calls something out of me, and I don’t see the immediate returns on my investments.  

My JV Soccer Team Photo

    When I was a freshman at Lansing Catholic high school I played JV soccer.  We were bad.  We lost a lot of games.  Some of the cause of our losing record one could trace to the league in which we played, with much larger schools like Okemos and Mason.  But, speaking honestly, we also didn’t have a lot of skill, and I would include myself in that assessment.  We were all ok athletes, but not of us excelled at soccer.  And the routine of going to practice, which I rarely enjoyed, or playing games, where we rarely won, got old.  So, after my freshman year, I quit soccer.  I lost sight of why I played, so I quit.  And it’s a choice I regret to this day.
    In our Catholic faith, much can seem like routine.  Take even where you find yourself today.  I would bet that, for at least some of you, you come to Mass out of routine, out of habit.  What we saw before, but especially after COVID, were people who no longer found that routine helpful, or at least they didn’t appreciate what they could get out of practicing one’s faith (which cannot be limited to attending Mass on Sundays, but definitely needs to include attending Sunday Mass as a minimum), so they quit.  Only now, some four years later, do some parishes find themselves with a similar number of people attending as in 2019 (though St. Matthew actually grew during COVID).  
    So, in our second reading today, St. Paul gives us a reminder as he writes his first letter to the Corinthians.  Some, even then in the first fifty years of Christianity, when the Catholic Church was all there was, had already forgotten the importance of what they had first received.  They had not seen the resurrection, and they started to doubt those who had.  So they started to reject the resurrection of Christ, even while still keeping some loose connection to the Church.

    But St. Paul takes them to the heart of the issue: “If the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins.”  People knew that things were not the way they were supposed to be, that they were not the people they were supposed to be.  They missed the mark for which they were aiming (the Greek term 𝛼𝜇𝛼𝜌𝜏𝜄𝛼 means missing the mark, but is also the word for sin).  And St. Paul preached that there was a way that they could not only hit the mark, but that they could enjoy eternal happiness in heaven.  They knew, as we do, instinctually, that death was not normal, which is why we fight against it so much.  And St. Paul told them how they could live for ever.  They did have to die, symbolically, in the waters of baptism, but if they did, they would live forever if they followed the way of life Jesus set out for them.  And Jesus was worth following because He showed us the way.  He showed us, in His resurrection, that death did not have to have the final word.  At first it looked like sin and death conquered Jesus, on Good Friday, but on Easter Jesus showed us that He conquered sin and death; they could not keep Him down.  
    And that is what the Church has continued to proclaim for some 2,000 years.  For 2,000 years the Church has reflected on the life of Jesus and told us what is consistent and what is inconsistent with following Him.  We can reduce all the dos and don’ts of Catholicism to how we live for Christ and according to His teaching: from going to Mass every Sunday to not having sex before marriage; from serving the poor and the needy to being honest in all our words and dealings; from not idolizing money or power or fame to choosing to love and be kind to every person, regardless of their money or power or fame; from teaching that marriage is only between one man and one woman for life to helping to us to know that our bodies are a gift from God and reveal, even in our God-given gender, something important of who we are.  All of this, and all that the Church asks of us and teaches us, comes down to following Christ in the way He showed us.
    But when we forget this, either due to the routine nature of the faith or for any other reason, we easily walk away.  We forget what a precious gift God gave us in giving us the opportunity of new and eternal life.  If the resurrection is false, then we are “the most pitiable people of all.”  Not only because we have all these rules that often require real sacrifice and giving up what comes naturally to us, but especially because if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then we are still trapped under the oppression of sin and death, and no matter how hard we try to avoid or cheat death, it will be the end of us.

The empty tomb in Jerusalem

    But, I can tell you, that Christ is alive.  I have been to His tomb in Jerusalem, and it is empty.  I trust the eleven apostles who saw the Risen Christ, with the marks of His crucifixion, in the Upper Room.  I trust St. Paul, who saw the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus, where Paul was going to arrest Christians and persecute them for believing in the Risen Christ.  I trust the people who, for two thousand years, have received that good news from the apostles and passed it down to us, because if they lied, they would have no reason for joy, especially when giving up their lives.  But especially those who died for the faith, the martyrs, joyfully accepted death rather than deny what they knew to be true: that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and has saved us from sin and death.
    Gentlemen on the hockey team: I am willing to bet there were people last year who got sick of practicing, who hated the drills that coach put them through, and who wondered if it was even worth it.  Maybe there were people who even decided not to play last year, because how much practices called them to sacrifice the year before.  But for those who stuck with it, who pushed through the routine, a big, ole’ ring and a beautiful trophy became their prize, a prize I know you hope to duplicate this year.  Heaven is better than a championship ring and trophy, infinitely better.  Yes, sometimes the faith may seem routine, and may call for sacrifices that you would rather not make on given days.  But keep your eyes on the prize.  Keep eternal life and joy in your mind.  And you will not be disappointed.