Loyalty to our Team

 Feast of Christ the King
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Yesterday there was a big game, at least if you’re a college football fan in the State of Michigan.  Undefeated University of Michigan Wolverines, ranked 6 in the US, played the undefeated Michigan State University Spartans, ranked 8 in the US.  While there are other universities and colleges in the State, there does seem to be a general division between Michigan and Michigan State.  In fact, that was one of the first questions Bishop Boyea was asked when he was announced as the newest bishop of Lansing back in 2008 (to which he demurred).  

    It is interesting that we put so much weight on loyalty to a particular football team.  Some have loyalty because they attended that school.  Others like a winning record, or the history of a particular program.  I must admit that I have supported both schools in the past, as my parents both went to Michigan State, but I have some very good friends who attended Michigan.  Some, like me, go back and forth, or try to split their loyalties, especially if you have kids who go to either university.
    But today, as we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King, and the thirty-second anniversary of the Traditional Latin Mass community in Flint, we deal with something much bigger than college football.  We are invited to renew our loyalty to Christ the King, to a King who will suffer no rivals, at least not in the end; to a King who is head and ruler of His Mystical Body, the Church; to a King who has myriad of angels waiting on His command; to a King who suffered and suffers our rejection patiently, hoping for us to convert.
    Those may seem like contradictions, but in Christ what would normally be a contradiction is held in the tension of the truest reality that exists.  Christ is both King who has no equal, but who also humbles Himself.  We see it in His exchange with Pontius Pilate.  St. John is very clear in His Gospel that Christ is always in control.  And yet, He engages in a kind of dialogue with Pilate, sometimes responding, sometimes in silence, which propels Christ to the Cross, which is His perfect throne on earth.  He admits that He has angels who would protect Him from any harm.  And yet, a chapter later, He will allow His sacred hands and feet to be pierced so that our rejection of our King could be healed and forgiven.  
    Christ is a patient king, and that should give us hope.  He allows us time to turn back to Him after we have turned away, because we are part of Him, and He wants us to be a part of His Kingdom.  This is not an excuse to be lax, or to presume on His mercy, but it does encourage us that, when we are not the subjects that we are supposed to be, because Christ wants to be generous with His mercy.  
    Further, since Christ is the Head of His Mystical Body, and we are members of that Mystical Body by baptism, Christ wants us to remain part of Him, reigning in heaven, just as we would like to retain all of our body.  Only those parts of the body that are dead need to be cut off, so Christ does all He can to nurse back to health ailing parts of the body.  So we should never be afraid of running to Christ for mercy when we have sinned.
    But at some point, both individually and collectively, our opportunity for mercy will come to an end, and our decisions about which kingdom we are loyal to–the kingdom of darkness, as St. Paul says, or the kingdom of light–will be a final decision, with no chance of turning back.  For many, that comes after death, when our loyalty or disloyalty to God will be locked in for all eternity.  Or it could come when Christ returns in glory at the end of time.  But we don’t know when that will be, in either scenario.  And that calls us to prepare.
    As we enter into November, we can spend especially the next month (and every day of our life) we call to mind the four last things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell.  We shouldn’t be neurotic about it, and so concentrated on death that we lose the joy of life and the blessings Christ our King gives to us.  But, as we are faced with temptations, when we consider that we are choosing our loyalty to heaven or hell with each choice, it helps us to make better choices and become more and more each day a part of the Kingdom of Christ.  
    Yesterday, before the game at noon, no one knew who would win: Michigan or Michigan State.  People had their loyalties based on their own reasoning.  But when it comes to the Kingdom of Christ, our Lord has already won; there is no competition or challenge left from the enemy.  But while our Lord has won, we are still in the last seconds of the contest of eternal salvation, and these last seconds will decide, not who wins, but whether or not we’re on the winning team.  Choose your loyalty carefully.  Be sure you know which kingdom you’re trending towards.  Long live Christ the King!  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Both...And Not Either...Or

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

One of the first things Bishop Boyea was asked in 2008 when he was introduced as the newest Bishop of Lansing, and one of the things that priests are often asked in their first weekend as they begin at a new parish is the four word question: Michigan or Michigan State?

We often tend to put things into an “either…or” category.  In academia we all this a dichotomy, a choice between two different things.  In our politics: Republican or Democrat; in our fountain drinks: Pepsi or Coke; in our schools: Catholic or public; in our housing choice: rent or own; in our cars and beer: domestic or foreign.  Maybe it’s easier for our mind to operate this way, but we tend to put people in one of two camps.

So today, given our predilection for dichotomies, perhaps we think of it as love of God, or love of neighbor.  We probably don’t think of it that way, exactly, but we tend to focus on one, and perhaps we don’t focus on the other.  Maybe we like going to church, we love a beautiful liturgy, we love learning about our faith; or we like serving the poor, working at food pantries, promoting social justice.  

But to the scribe who comes up to Jesus and asks him the first of all the commandments, Jesus doesn’t try to pigeon-hole His answer into simply one or the other.  He says both love of God and love of neighbor.  Love of God is from the first reading we heard today in the Book of Deuteronomy.  Love of neighbor as oneself is from the Book of Leviticus.  Both are the most important commandments.  Both are part and parcel of following Jesus.

One could rightly point out that serving God is more important than anything else.  Part of what is radical in Jesus is that He demands total obedience, even above family, which only God could claim.  Being a do-gooder is not the same as being a disciple.  There are people who serve the poor, and yet reject God, and while I’m not the judge, rejecting God on this earth, especially in a purposeful way, is probably more on the road to Hell than Heaven.

But still, St. John, in his first Letter, says that we cannot serve the God that we don’t see, if we do not serve our neighbor (he uses the word brother) that we do see.  Being a philanthropist does not assure us of heaven.  But ignoring Jesus in the least of His brothers and sisters (to paraphrase Matthew 25) is also not helpful in us receiving eternal salvation.  St. John Chrysostom, one of the saints in our icons, says it this way: 

Do you want to honor Christ’s body?  Then do not scorn him in his nakedness, nor honor him here in the church with silken garments while neglecting him outside where he is cold and naked.  For he who said: This is my body, and made it so by his words, also said: You saw me hungry and did not feed me, and inasmuch as you did not do it for one of these, the least of my brothers, you did not do it for me.

Jesus instructs us of the great Catholic principle: both…and.  Both love of God and love of neighbor, not either or.

Most people focus on one or the other, love of God or love of neighbor.  So today Jesus challenges us to make sure that a focus on one does not mean the exclusion of the other.  Do you love worshipping God here in the church, being formed by the Mass and by our faith formation groups, learning more and more about what God has revealed through Scripture and Tradition?  Wonderful!  But remember: those clothes that you never wear in your closet or dresser: those belong to the poor; they have a right to them.

Do you love being with people and bringing them the love of God through your actions?  Do you feed them, clothe them, work for justice on their part?  Wonderful!  But if you skip worshipping God at Sunday Mass to serve the poor, then you are making an idol of the poor and worshipping them rather than God.

St. Theresa of Calcutta, Mother Theresa, is an embodiment of both…and.  Yes, most of her day was spent working with the poor, the outcast, and the dying.  But she never missed her opportunities for daily Mass and a Holy Hour of Adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament.  That was the most important part of her day, and it gave her the strength to serve the poor, the outcast, and the dying.

Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati is another embodiment of both…and.  He loved being outdoors, enjoying the beauty of God’s creation, being sustained by the Eucharist in Mass, but he secretly did work with the poor, contracting and dying of polio that was so prevalent among the poor he served.  And his secret was so well kept, that his rich parents had no idea who all the people were who attended his funeral, though the poor knew Pier Giorgio as a person who cared for them and their needs.  

Life is too complicated to be simply divided into two things.  Our faith is too rich to be simply divided into two things.  It’s not Scripture or Tradition, it’s both Scripture and Tradition; it’s not faith or reason, it’s both faith and reason; it’s not Word or Sacrament, it’s both Word and Sacrament; it’s not love of God or love of neighbor, it’s both love of God and love of neighbor.

Signs of Fall

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

There are some tell-tale signs that we are in the Fall: Friday night high school football, college football Saturdays, less daylight each day, cooler evenings and mornings, young ladies are starting to break out their uggs and ordering pumpkin spice everything.  Fall is upon us!  And it can be tough with less darker mornings and evenings.  Even during the days, it seems like there is more and more dreariness.

It can also feel darker and darker sometimes in terms of our city.  As you might have guessed, when I told people I was going to Flint, most people quickly responded with, “Don’t drink the water.”  Our water crisis, though we have started to address it, rages on.  As of April 2015, the unemployment rate in Flint was still 9.7%; city-data.com still lists Flint as a high crime area.  It seems like there is little good news for us!

In spite of this, the Word of God gives us some encouragement.  The Book of the Prophet Habakkuk, written likely in the 7th century BC, is written shortly before the Babylonians sack Jerusalem and exile the Chosen People to modern-day Iraq.  There was not very much good news for them, either.  In fact, the prophet says, “How long, O Lord?  I cry for help but you do not listen!  […] Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery?”  Perhaps this is our prayer as well.  But the Lord does not remain silent.  He responds, “the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.”  God promises not to abandon his people, even if things look very dark.  What are the people to do in the meantime?  “The just one,” Habakkuk writes, “because of his faith, shall live.”  

Faith is hard, because, as the Letter to the Hebrews states, it is the “evidence of things not seen.”  We see darkness around us.  The light is not visible to our eyes.  It takes faith to trust that the dawn will break forth and scatter the darkness.  When our experience is negative, it’s hard to know there is any positive at all.  And we can sometimes rationalize not having faith by saying that we’re realists.  

But if we wish to see better times, then faith is necessary.  And we don’t need a large amount of faith, but only the size of a mustard seed, one of the smallest seeds around.  If we have faith that small, then we can command trees to move to their death, and they will do it.  Now, I’m pretty sure the Lord is not telling us to have faith that so we can landscape differently.  But he is saying that if we have a little bit of faith, anything can happen.

Having faith has made a difference in my life.  When I was a parochial vicar in East Lansing, there was a young man I knew who was attending Michigan State.  I had taught him a little at Lansing Catholic High School.  One day he contacted me and asked for prayers because his bike, which was locked on a bike rack, was stolen, and the police had very little hope of getting it back.  He relied on the bike to make it to class and to football practice.  I prayed, through the intercession of St. Anthony and St. Dominic, and had faith that God would answer my prayers according to His will.  I pleaded with God that this young man needed his bike to be a good student, and that getting his bike back would strengthen his faith.  A day after I prayed, the bike was found and returned to its owner.   This definitely did help to increase that young man’s faith.  This young man had been sure that he would never see his bike again.  The police were sure he was right.  Faith made the impossible happen.  

If we have faith, what we see is not what will always be.  That’s true for our spiritual lives: the struggles we have, if united to Jesus, can one day lead to glory in heaven.  It’s true for our city: I see signs of hope that Flint is coming back, and if we follow God’s will we can once more have a thriving city.  And I am excited to be a part of that renewal right here in our parish.  If we have faith in God’s will, and trust in God, we can be major contributors to the flourishing of Flint.  Things may still look bleak, but the Lord invites us to follow Him and trust in Him.  “For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.”  Trust that being obedient to God’s will will give us things that we never thought could be.  Have faith!

Michigan or Michigan State?

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

            As I have been assigned, first as a seminarian, then later as a deacon, and now as a priest, at any parish that has a school, there is one early question that can change the effectiveness of my ministry.  It’s always asked by at least one student in every school, and the question can be simplified into four words: Michigan or Michigan State?  Generally, the question refers to athletics, and if I answer correctly, then that young man or woman has a connection, because we like the same team.  Now, as far as athletics goes, for the most part, we have been teaching our “Older Brother,” (their words, not mine) a lesson.  But, as happens, coaches change, teams improve or get worse, and that’s what feeds a good, competitive spirit.

            Problems happen when the rival mentality that feeds a University’s student body and the alumni creeps into the Church.  And, unfortunately, the United States is no stranger to this phenomenon.    While it is certainly fine to connect to certain causes more than others because of a similarity in personality of one of the leaders, or a focus in an area that is near and dear to our hearts, the Church is not the NCAA, made up of opposing teams that, while keeping good sportsmanship, are trying to destroy each other on the field, court, ice, or any other venue.

            This problem is not new.  We hear about the exact same problem in the second reading from St. Paul’s first letter to the people of Corinth.  Paul writes, and we heard, “I urge you, brothers and sisters…that there be no divisions among you…For it has been reported to me…that each of you is saying, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas.’”  Paul wrote this letter from Ephesus somewhere between AD 52 and 57, which means that not 20 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, his followers were already finding ways to attack the unity that Christ desired of His Church.

            The problem continues today, with some claiming, “I belong to this cause,” or “I belong to that movement.”  Again, while it is fine to look up to these causes and groups and to admire them as much as they promote causes that we find important and give us the true faith, we cannot treat our allegiance as to one camp over and against another in the Catholic Church.  Truly, none of you belong to any one cause.  You belong to Christ!  As much as those bishops help you to belong to Christ and follow the true faith, they are to be followed.  As much as they divide you from Christ and the true faith, they are to be avoided. 

            At the end of today’s Gospel, we heard about the call of the first of the Twelve Apostles.  And already we begin to see some of the diversity in unity.  Peter was no doubt a little different than Andrew, as are any set of brothers.  The same probably went for James and John, the sons of Zebedee.  And then among the four of them, there were probably many differences, even though they were all fishermen.  And yet, they were unified in following Jesus and obeying Him as He preached the Gospel and cured the infirm.  One can only imagine the diversity of personalities when all Twelve were gathered together.  And yet all, minus Judas, were first and foremost concerned with following Jesus.  And then you add Paul into the mix, Paul who chided Peter, not for his teaching, but for his lack of action that followed his own teaching of saying that Gentiles did not have to keep kosher law. 

            There is no problem with true diversity.  It is a gift of the Holy Spirit to the different cultures into which the Gospel has been preached.  It is a gift to those who take seriously the teachings of the Church, and seek to make those teachings a reality in the world.  We see diversity in unity in the 21 different rites of the Catholic Church, who have legitimately developed certain traditions that vary among the rites.  But they are all unified by their basic structure and their fidelity to the legitimate authorities who guide how the Mass develops in their rite.  We see diversity in the many ways that Catholics try to bring their faith in the public sector and decrease the social evils that plague us: abortion, poverty, racism, and many more.  But that diversity is also bound in unity to teaching which is in harmony with what we have first received from Christ and have developed over the centuries in harmony with Scripture and Tradition.  Just like an orchestra, we are made up of many instruments that play individual parts, but those instruments and parts must be united by a common score of music, lest we are left with a cacophony.  

This Tuesday ends the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  And while we certainly pray that all who bear the name of Christ, all Christians, may be drawn together into the one Church that Jesus Christ founded, where the fullness of grace and truth are found, the Catholic Church, we cannot neglect the real need for unity in the members of that same Catholic Church. 

This cause and that movement are not Michigan State and Michigan.  We are all a part of the Body of Christ, the family of God’s adopted children in Christ.  Follow those causes who draw you to a closer relationship with Christ as they pass on the authentic faith of Jesus’ one Church.  But do so only to the extent that they promote unity and charity in truth and in fidelity to the Gospel of God.  May Jesus’ prayer in the Upper Room be fulfilled soon: “ut unum sint”: “that they may be one.”