Rest and Good Food

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Doing the will of God can sometimes be tiring.  Elijah, in our first reading, feels fatigued, even enough to die.  Why he feels this way comes from the chapter before the one we heard today.  Elijah had just challenged the prophets of the false god, Baal, to a test on Mount Carmel, and they lost, and he slew the prophets of Baal.  King Ahab and his wife, Queen Jezebel, were none too thrilled, since they worshipped Baal, so Elijah had to run away.  In fact, Queen Jezebel had said, “‘May the gods do thus to me and more, if by this time tomorrow I have not done with your life what was done to each of [the prophets of Baal].’”  So Elijah is tired from running, and from running for his life while the king and queen of Israel try to capture him to kill him.  

    And it is here, underneath the broom tree, that an angel instructs Elijah to eat from a hearth cake.  Elijah eats, regains his strength, and then walks for 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, which was another name for Mount Sinai.  This food must have been pretty good stuff to have him go from wanting to die and napping to walking for over a month.
    God knows we need rest.  He knows that we go through some awful things sometimes.  Even when we’re doing His will, we can get tired, especially when not everyone wants us to follow God’s will.  So what does God do?  He gives us the Mass as our time of rest.
    Now, I’m not advocating that you all fall asleep right now, and for those of you who already fell asleep because of the dullness of this homily, wake up!  But God gives us a day of rest, which for the Jews was Saturday, but which Christians almost immediately transferred to Sunday, so that we can regain our strength.  He Himself teaches us, as Jesus quotes in the Gospel today.  And He gives us the Body of Christ, under the appearance of bread, to satisfy us to go as long as we need to throughout the following six days, until we reach our next day of rest on the following Sunday.
    I think most people know they need rest, at least deep down in their heart, but how often people find excuses not to rest.  They will fill their Sundays with all sorts of other things, things which wear them out and make them more tired, but they won’t spend around one hour at Mass and they won’t take the rest of the day to just take it easy with family or friends.
    Mass is supposed to be restful.  It’s not meant to be frenetic and boisterous.  This doesn’t mean that Mass should put us to sleep.  But it is meant to be restful.  We rest intellectually when a church looks like a church.  We may not think about it much, but our minds constantly seek to understand the world around us.  They are constantly taking in pieces of information to help us interact with reality.  When everything makes sense, our minds are at ease; when something is off or not the way it’s supposed to be, our minds tend to focus on that.  So with this beautiful church, part of the draw is not just that there are expensive things, but that our minds understand that this place leads us to the worship of God and draws us out of the fallen world towards the heavenly Jerusalem by the precious materials and its orientation towards where God rests, in the tabernacle.  When a church looks like a church, no matter how ornate or simple it might be, it helps our minds to rest.
    God also teaches us in the Mass as we hear His word proclaimed to us and hear it explained in the homily.  Sometimes the Bible does not come so easily to us, because it is complex and God has inspired it to sustain us until Christ returns.  So it applies to AD 400, and AD 2024.  Sometimes it gives us historical facts, sometimes it gives us poetry, sometimes it gives us analogy, sometimes it gives us apocalyptic literature.  Some we can easily understand passages, sometimes we need help understanding what God is saying.  But there is a rest that comes from listening to good stories.  I remember in third grade that, right after recess, my teacher would read to our class a chapter of a small book, and that helped quiet our bodies and our minds down after the frenzied pace of recess.  Or think of a parent reading a bedtime story to kids as they try to get them to fall asleep.  Hearing helps us rest, and hearing the inspired Word of God gives rest to our souls.

    Lastly, God gives us Himself as food, which strengthens us.  The Eucharist is the source of our strength to live as Catholics in a world that increasingly opposes Catholicism and the teachings of Jesus.  The Eucharist is to Catholics what spinach is to Popeye.  Without it, we cannot be the people God wants us to be.  But how often do people skip Mass because there’s a sports tournament, or because they’re up north, or simply because they were out too late on Saturday night?  People bemoan that there are youth sports played on Sundays, but then they take their kids to the games and tournaments anyway.  If you want Sunday sports for young people to stop, stop taking your kids.  Let your coach know that you don’t participate in games on Sundays.  If enough people do it, they will stop having games.  Sandy Koufax, a Jewish pitcher who played for the Brooklyn, and then Los Angeles Dodgers, refused to pitch even in game one of the World Series because it was Yom Kippur.  
    We need rest, and God has given us a day of rest, where we can rest with Him in a place that helps our mind to rest and worship, while hearing the truth given to us through the Scriptures, and being sustained by the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist.  Don’t skip your rest.  You will need it for the road that God will lay out for you over the next six days!

Living the Paschal Mystery

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]  Sometimes we use words in the Church that are very important, but whose meaning is not always clear.  For example, in December we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  But many Catholics think that it refers to the Annunciation, when Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Mother, while it really refers to our Blessed Mother’s conception without original sin.  Another phrase that is especially important today is Paschal Mystery. 

The place from which Jesus ascended in Jerusalem

    The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the Paschal Mystery as, “Christ’s work of redemption accomplished primarily by his Passion, death, Resurrection, and glorious Ascension.”  Today, as we celebrate the Ascension of our Lord, we celebrate the closing out of the Paschal Mystery.  Paschal means related to the Passover, and Mystery, in this sense, means the great work of God that is invisible, but which was manifested in visible ways (the suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord).  Christ’s Passover saved us from death and brought us from slavery in sin to freedom in the heaven, just as the Jewish Passover saved them from the angel of death wiping out the first born in Egypt by the blood of the unblemished lamb, and inaugurated their flight from Egypt, that place of slavery, into the Promised Land.
    But while the Jewish Passover happened some 3,450 years ago, and the fulfillment of that Passover in Christ happened some 2,000 years ago, God does not relegate the Paschal Mystery to the past.  No, we celebrate it each time we come to Mass, and especially each Sunday, the Lord’s Day, as we enter into the moments of our redemption in a mystical way, and participate, as it were, in our own redemption because we join ourselves to Christ’s Passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension at each Mass.  We do not simply remember what Christ did for us; God through visible signs, allows us to join in what Christ did for us so that we can share the fruits of that Paschal Mystery, which is resurrection and glorification. 
    But as disciples of Christ, God calls us to live that Paschal Mystery each day of our life, and not just in the church building.  Each day we have the opportunity of living out in ourselves what Christ did once for all some 2,000 years ago.  This is what St. Paul means when he says in the first chapter of Colossians: “in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church.”  So how do we live each day in the Paschal Mystery?  How do we participate in Christ’s Passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension?
    We participate in the Passion and death of the Lord in our daily lives through the sufferings that come to us.  We don’t have to seek out suffering.  It readily makes itself available to us.  Suffering, by itself, is a lack.  But suffering united to Christ’s becomes redemptive by participating in His Paschal Mystery.  We all have various sufferings each day.  Maybe we hate our job; maybe our family drives us up a wall; maybe our sports team lost; maybe gas is more expensive than we would like it to be; maybe we lack trust in our political leadership.  However we experience it, we suffer daily.  But when we unite it to Christ, when we suffer in obedience to the will of the Father and seek not to do our own will, but “the will of the one who sent me,” we participate in redemption, both of ourselves and of the whole world.  This is what the sisters meant when they would say, “Offer it up.”  Now, I know we can use that phrase to basically mean, “stop whining,” but in its truest sense, that phrase reminds us to live out the Paschal Mystery, to suffer (the passion) and die (the crucifixion) to what we want and offer that pain to the Father, who receives it as an offering of love. 
    We participate in the Resurrection when we see God change our suffering that we have offered to Him into new life.  This is when we offer up that bad driver and find that our heart actually grows in love and mercy for whoever he or she may be.  This is when someone at work commends us and maybe even gives us a raise when we think they don’t notice the work we do.  This is when the child who has brought you to the brink of insanity and tested your patience to its last limit runs up to you, smiles, and gives you a hug saying, “I love you, mommy.”  When we offer our sufferings to the Father through Christ the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit, God transforms them into something which gives new life, just as the Father transforms ordinary bread and wine into the Body and Blood of His Son through the power of the Holy Spirit when we offer them to Him. 
    Our participation in the Ascension is something finds its fulfillment when the end of our earthly ministry is over, just as it did the same for Christ at the end of His earthly ministry.  Christ’s Ascension is His glorification, because the Father raises Christ up into glory at His right hand.  For us, the fullness of the ascension happens when we have done everything we can to offer our lives to the Father, when He has given us new life through those sufferings united to Him, and when He welcomes us into glory in heaven.  Christ led the way for us, but He wants us to follow Him–in His suffering and death; in His resurrection; and lastly, in His Ascension.  God does not keep glory for Himself, but shares it with us, according to our nature.  What a joy to allow God to raise us up to the fullness of who we are meant to be, a reality which can only be completed in heaven. 
    But that’s our hope, a hope based in following Christ, not just in His teaching (but certainly those), but also in His Paschal Mystery.  May we rejoice in this Paschal Mystery each time we assemble for Mass, and especially on the Lord’s Day, but may we also live out that Paschal Mystery every day of our lives, suffering and dying with God, allowing God to raise us to new life, and waiting for God the Father to glorify us with His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Giving Up

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When we think about giving up stuff as Catholics, probably our mind first turns to Lent.  That’s the season when we specifically give up particular foods or practices in our life.  If we were to think about it even more, we might think about religious sisters and brothers, nuns and monks, priests and bishops who give up certain things through their vows (for consecrated men and women) and promises (for priests and bishops). 
    And Jesus talks about giving stuff up in the Gospel today.  He says, “‘Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,’” and “‘Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’”  He says this to His apostles, and so it can be easy to think that lay people don’t have to give up any of that stuff.  That’s for those people who take vows and promises.
    This is not to say that the life of a consecrated man or woman, or a priest or bishop is nothing but denial.  Our first reading may be the first example of inviting the priest, er, prophet over for dinner.  But getting back to giving up stuff, it’s truly for everyone, not just me, Bishop Boyea, or the sisters.  The call to follow Christ and to abandon certain things is for all who call themselves disciples, not just those who have made a special commitment through vows or promises.  Now, it’s true that not everyone vows or promises to abstain from marital relations (otherwise we’d never have any children); or to obey a superior (though some husbands may argue that, for all intents and purposes, they have a vow of obedience to their wife, with very harsh penalties for disobedience!); or to live simply (like priests and bishops) or not have their own bank account or grasp on to personal possessions (like sisters, nuns, brothers, and monks).  But when we were baptized, we all committed to, or our parents committed us to, give up certain ways of life and certain practices which are inconsistent with being a follower of Jesus.
    That’s why St. Paul can say that we died with Christ in baptism.  Yes, His Death was given to us, so that we could have life, but we also died to anything which is contrary to Him.  And by dying to anything contrary to Him, we live by all the things which are united to Him: life, joy, peace.  Death, which comes from sin, no longer has power over us who are baptized, unless we invite death and sin back into our lives through our individual choices.
    There are two ways that I would invite us to think about living for Christ and dying to that which is opposed to Him this weekend.  The first is thinking about our relationship with Christ in a consumerist mentality.  Almost everything we do today is touched by the reality we have in our economic life, where I get what I want or I go somewhere else.  I am the judge of what is best, and I get what I want, when I want it, how I want it.  That’s not horrible when we’re talking about a restaurant, or a clothes store.  But when it comes to our faith, that approach is an approach of death and the antithesis of what it means to follow Christ.
    We do not follow Christ on our own terms.  We do not get to decide exactly where I want God’s grace, when I receive it, or how I receive it.  That consumerist mentality makes us the master and Christ our lackey.  Or, to use another analogy, the Church is not a country club to which we can belong, where, if we don’t get the service we want, we end our membership and go elsewhere.  Christ offers us eternal life, but He offers it to us in His way, because He is the way.  And if we do not like how Christ offers us life, we cannot find it anywhere else.  When we seek to make Christ and His Church change to our fleeting whims and fancies, we are trying to find our life, but will lose it.  But when we lose our life to conform it to the way Christ shows us, then we actually find eternal life. 
    [Especially here at St. Pius X, we know that there will be changes in the near future and the coming months.  It is fine and natural to mourn a Mass time that we loved and a parish that we loved that has declined in population.  But if we allow that pain to say uncharitable things, to pout like toddlers, and to abandon our practice of the faith altogether, then our desire for what we want has actually become an obstacle to Christ and the grace He desires to give us, especially the grace that comes from suffering with Him patiently.]
    The second way to think about living for Christ and dying to that which is opposed to him is how we view Sunday.  Growing up, there was, for me, two parts of the week: weekdays, and weekends.  But for a follower of Christ, each week usually has two parts: Sunday and every other day.  Sunday is the day that belongs to the Lord, that we assemble to worship God at Mass, that we spend time with family and friends, or doing works of charity, and that we rest.  Our day of rest as followers of Christ is Sunday.  God wants us to rest in Him, to give Him fitting worship, and to build up the relationships of love among ourselves, especially on His day.  But too often it’s just another day of the week, another day of work, another day of sports. 
    Don’t get me wrong, some have to work on Sunday, either because of their field of work, or because of a shortage of workers.  But, to the best of our ability, do we accomplish our chores on the other days of the week?  Do we take time to get off our phones and spend time not with the FaceTime app, but with face time with our family and friends in person?  I am convinced that if we treated Sunday as the Lord’s day, if we died to this secular idea that it’s just another day for work, and rose to the idea that it’s time that we get to eat together as family and friends and share how life is going, many of our problems would go away.  There will always be work to do; there will always be chores that need finishing.  Let Sunday be a day that your worship God at Mass, and relax with each other and with God. 
    When we were baptized, we died with Christ.  The rest of our life is following-up on that dying to everything which is not of Christ, so that we can live for Him.  All of us are called to give up something for Christ.  Will we find eternal life by giving up the works of death?

The Draw of a Baby

 Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord–Vigil Mass
    Special Masses like the Sacred Tridduum, Easter, and Christmas, often have special rituals associated with them for priests.  At Holy Thursday and Good Friday we have special rites that remember the Lord’s institution of the Eucharist and the Priesthood, as well as His Passion.  At the Easter Vigil we hear the great hymn of the Exultet.  And tonight, at Christmas, we placed the baby Jesus in the creche for the first time this Christmas season.  There is something that is truly awesome (filling me with awe) when I take the baby Jesus and kneel down to put Him in the manger.
    There is something special about children.  Even the gruffest, stone-faced person can become a pile of mush in the presence of a baby.  Yes, babies are a lot of work, but their simply, loving presence can fill a room with warmth and joy.  And when a baby cries, everyone wants to make sure that the child is ok.  Mothers, in particular, seem to have special hearing when it comes to listening for the cries of a little one.

    Tonight we celebrate our God-made-man, but not yet fully a man, but a little baby.  Mary and Joseph, who knew their child to be God must have had reactions to Jesus in two different ways.  On the one hand, Jesus was Mary’s child and in the paternal care of Joseph.  He was theirs, and depended on both of them for all of His needs.  In some ways He was like any other child, filling the Holy Family with joy and warmth, and yet also calling for their attention as He cried for whatever needs He had at each moment.  On the other hand, He was also God, and so took on special attention and adoration of Mary and Joseph.  
    To outsiders, too–the shepherds and maybe the neighbors in Bethlehem–Jesus must have drawn their attention.  Perhaps they didn’t quite recognize that Jesus was God, and yet He was a baby, who draws people in by their innocence and dependence.  And this is the genius of God: that in coming to us, God did not choose to become a powerful ruler with great strength; God did not appear as an angel full of light and power; God chose to become, in Jesus, a little baby, who depended others for His safety and basic needs.  He was vulnerable in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Annunciation, and remained vulnerable especially throughout his childhood.  Did God choose to become a baby because He knew that we would be drawn by a little child, or are we drawn to little children because God wrote within our very being a desire for everyone who appears like the Christ-child?  In either case, God appeared to us not in strength, but in weakness; not in power, but in fragility; not as a grown warrior, but as a defenseless baby.
    Many saints have imagined themselves being at Bethlehem when Jesus was born.  Perhaps you have, too.  You have wondered what it would be like to hear the angels singing, “Glory to God in the highest” in the night sky over Bethlehem.  You have wondered what it would be like to go to the cave, where Jesus was born (though many of you probably think of the barn-like structure that St. Francis of Assisi made popular).  Perhaps you have imagined yourself standing next to Mary or Joseph, and maybe even asking to hold baby Jesus for a moment, and just looking at Him and smiling, as He smiles back to, or sleeps soundly in your arms, swaddled in a cloth.  
    But in this time of waiting for Christ to return, Christ is still vulnerable to us.  While He is King of kings and Lord of lords, reigning from His throne in heaven, He still does not force Himself on us in power, but waits for us to come to Him, to be filled with His joy, to listen for His voice.  And we are free to care for Him tenderly, to hear His voice, or to ignore Him and be deaf to His cries.
    I carried at this Mass in my arms an image of baby Jesus, small and fragile.  But I hold the true Jesus, not just an image, every time I celebrate Mass.  Each time I hold in my hands the sacred host, made the Body and Blood of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit and my ministry, unworthy though I am, I hold Jesus who was born for us in my hands, and He is vulnerable.  Each time I proclaim the Gospel, I hear Jesus’ cries of love for us as He shares who God the Father is, how much He loves us, and how beautiful the Kingdom of Heaven is, for those who are willing to follow Him.  
    And the same is true for everyone here.  God makes Himself vulnerable for you.  He cries out for you.  Each Sunday and Holyday He cries for us to come and spend time with Him, not to attend to His needs as much as to fulfill our own need for God, to fill the empty hole in our hearts that can only be satisfied by God.  Each Mass Jesus allows Himself to be received in the Eucharist, to be fragile on our tongue, or in our hands.  We can receive Jesus lovingly in a state of grace, if we are unaware of any serious sins that have separated us from God.  Each Mass Jesus speaks to us of how much He loves us, and how He desires us to live in accordance with His will, and not our own; to live in the light, and not in the darkness; to be people of peace and not of hatred, prejudice, and violence.  Jesus cries out to us to live according to His pattern of life, and not the selfish life that the world proclaims.  And we can heed His cries and His invitation, or we can ignore it.  We can care for Him with the way we live our lives, or we can abandon Him and pretend He doesn’t exist, or that He is not important to us.
    Tonight God draws us in, as a little child, innocent and vulnerable, as we celebrate Christmas.  Like a baby, God makes Himself small for us that we can approach Him and love Him.  We are invited to see the warmth and joy of the Christ-child’s face, and to listen attentively to His voice, not only today, but every day, week, and month of the year.  “What child is this /who laid to rest / on Mary’s lap is sleeping?”  “O come, let us adore him Christ the Lord!”

Worldly vs. Catholic Wisdom

Third Sunday of Lent

Have you ever noticed that there is never a shortage of people who are willing to give you advice?  I suppose I might be cutting out my legs from under me, as most homilies are supposed to help people find practical way to apply the Gospel to their daily lives.  But, just think about it: how many TV shows or commercials are basically trying to give you advice on how to diet, how to learn, how to understand what’s happening in the world, in politics, in sports?  Maybe it’s “Dr. Oz,” maybe it’s “The View,” maybe it’s a commercial with your favorite celebrity on a political or social issue, maybe it’s a talk show on your preferred cable news station, or maybe it’s even the way the news is presented by individual networks.  But advice seems to be everywhere from people who want to tell you how to live your life.

This is, of course, nothing new.  Different groups have always been trying to influence the way people think, trying to get people to live their life based on a particular view of reality.  And with the advent of social media, that has only increased.  You can’t scroll Facebook or Twitter without seeing pithy quotes that are supposed to help you be a better person.  Sometimes the phrase sounds good, but in fact, isn’t really Catholic or Christian.  For example, I saw a post on Facebook the other day that said, “There is no turning your back on God.  There is only turning your back on yourself.”  Sounds profound, deep, insightful, right?  It’s rubbish!  Of course you can turn your back on God!  There are so many quotes like this that are from non-Christian or secular websites or pages that may sound amazing, but, in fact, are contrary to Scripture.  And we should be wary about giving our minds and our will to any wisdom that doesn’t come from God through the Scriptures or the Church’s teaching.  I’m not saying it’s all bad, but much of it is, and we don’t want to be poisoned by something that we think might be good.  Imagine picking mushrooms, not knowing which ones are good and which ones will kill you, and leaving behind the guidebook to which ones to consume.  That’s what it is to take wisdom from a non-Christian or secular source without running it past what God has revealed to us.

And what is the wisdom that God gives to us?  The wisdom of God is Christ crucified.  It seems like foolishness and maybe makes people stumble, but our crucified Christ is “wiser than human wisdom,” as St. Paul said in our second reading.  The life of Christ is not only a story, it is a pattern, a guide for all those who want to find happiness.  I know, it may not look like Jesus’ life had a lot of happiness: He was poor, wandered around, most of His best friends abandoned Him when He needed them the most, and He died mostly surrounded by His enemies in a most shameful way of dying.  Sign me up for that, right?

But God raised Jesus up, and, in fact, we have no evidence that Jesus ever seemed to want for anything, or lack any happiness.  He felt sorrow for those who couldn’t or wouldn’t follow Him, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that the Gospels paint Jesus as a happy Person.  He didn’t have money; He didn’t have power (in the way the world sees power); He didn’t have sex (do people really do that?!?).  But Jesus was happy; truly happy.  And He was happy because He lived by God’s Word, the words of everlasting life, as our Psalm response said this morning.  

The Ten Commandments that we heard in our first reading seem like a long list of nos that cramp our style: no idols, no taking God’s Name in vain; no work on the Sabbath; no murder, no adultery, not stealing, no lying, no coveting; the only really positive commandment is “Honor your father and your mother.”  And yet, that wisdom from God which seems so negative, opens us up to a larger ability to say yes.  By not doing menial work on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, the day of the Resurrection, we are saying yes to enjoying time with our family, maybe even with a family dinner; to serving the poor; to worshipping God and being fed by God’s word and the Body and Blood of Jesus.  And all that because we take a break from work that will always be there.  Think about the people who say yes to taking whatever they want, even if they don’t have the money to pay for it: they may get away with stealing a candy bar or maybe something more, but eventually it catches up with them, and they end up being prosecuted, maybe even going to jail.  And I don’t know many, if any people, who are happy and in jail.  So by saying no to stealing, they are saying yes to freedom, to more opportunities, and to a happier life.

Sometimes living by the wisdom of the Word of God may seem like simply a lot of nos.  But in fact, the ways that God asks us to say no actually allows us to say yes: yes to God, yes to love, yes to peace, yes to happiness.  May our Lenten observances also encourage us to say no to all the things that bring us death and slavery, to our sins, and say yes to all the things that bring us life and freedom, to God’s grace.

Today

Easter Sunday

Today.  We use the word so often that it can sound like a small, insignificant part of conversation: how are you today? what are you doing today? what is the weather supposed to be like today?  But for the Church, the word “today” or the phrase “this day” has power with it, a power that helps us understand what is happening today.

Our opening prayer today, the Collect, said, “O God, who on this day, through your Only Begotten Son, have conquered death and unlocked for us the path to eternity….”  The preface, the prayer that anticipates the Eucharistic Prayer, begins, “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, at all times to acclaim you, O Lord, but on this day above all to laud you yet more gloriously when Christ our Passover has been sacrificed.”  There is something about this day.  But what is it?

Of course, the easiest and most common answer is that today, this day, is Easter, when we celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection.  But this is more than the annual commemoration of a past event.  When the Church prays using the phrase “this day,” she means to remind us, as a loving Mother, that the redemption achieved by Christ in the Resurrection, is not removed from our present, but is, or should be, a part of our lives today.  Today, in our midst, eternity breaks into time, and the power of the Resurrection is given to us for new life.  This day, 27 March 2016, is the day that the Lord has made, the day that we rejoice and are glad in it.  This day Christ has risen from the dead, hell and Satan and death are defeated, and Christ appears in our midst to offer us His peace.  

We have forgotten about today, so often because we are plagued by what happened yesterday, or anxious about what will happen tomorrow.  We do not live in the present, but constantly oscillate between the past and the future.  But the Church invites us to live in today, because it is the day of the Resurrection, and Jesus Christ wants to offer us new life.

We need new life; all of us.  We need a today where Christ shows us that death is ended, sin is conquered, and hell is no longer our destiny.  We need this day to refresh us and inspire us to be the new creation we are called to be as Christians.  We need to be resurrected.  It is too easy to live as zombies, the walking dead, who go day-to-day without thinking about the death of sin that is so prevalent in our own lives.  We need the new life that Jesus gives us, a life free from the shackles of those sins.  Our old selves, which look upon others, or even ourselves, with distrust, disdain, and despair, need to die, so that our new selves, alive in Christ, look upon others and ourselves with love, respect, and hope.  You need new life; I need new life; Adrian needs new life; the United States need new life; our whole world needs new life.

That new life is accessible, because the resurrection is today; it is this day.  The resurrection was not only accessible almost 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem; it is accessible today.  And you can take hold of it and make it your own.  And, as Christians, those who follow Jesus who is not dead, but alive, we recall each eighth day of the week, each Sunday, to grab ahold of the resurrection and bask in the glow of new life, a new life which transforms us into the people God has called us to be.  From the very beginning of the Church, those who followed Jesus gathered on the eighth day, the Lord’s Day, the dies Dominica, because they realized that the Resurrection made everything different, and was a chance to recall and receive the new life Jesus had given them.  It wasn’t Saturday (that was the Jewish Sabbath); it wasn’t Wednesday.  The day for Christians was Sunday, and it was a day that they put on the back burner all other commitments, even sports, and all assembled to worship God, to give Him their death (their sins) so that they might receive back their resurrection.  

If we truly want to be great again, then it starts with going to Mass every Sunday, except in cases of ill health, extreme distance from a church, or dangerous weather conditions, and being renewed in mind, body, and spirit by the power of Jesus’ Resurrection.  Only by taking hold of the gift of new life that Jesus offers us and putting aside the old self, the old leaven, will this world be transformed into the place that God has created it to be.  This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.  Today Christ Jesus has risen from the dead; may His Resurrection transform us into the saints we are called to be by our baptism.

Car, Cash, or Caribbean

Easter Sunday

           

What if I told you that if you sat in the front row, on the aisle seat, you won a car valued at $4 million, no strings attached, no taxes, no nothing.  Or that if you sat in pews to my right, you won $300 million?  Or that just by coming today you had each won your own island in the Caribbean with white, sandy beaches, a fully furnished house, and a private jet to get you there?  I’m willing to bet you would be pretty excited!  I know I would be.  After this winter, what I wouldn’t give for my own Caribbean island just to relax in the sun!!

            Now, the bad news is that I’m not actually giving those things away (no surprise there!).  The good news is that we have received something better, something upon which no price can be put.  And that, of course, is eternal salvation.  What we celebrate today, along with every Sunday, is that sin and death, which had ruled ever since Adam, was defeated by Jesus Christ.  How on God’s green earth is that better news than cars, millions of dollars or our own tropical paradise?  All those things will pass away.  But life after death is forever, one way or another.

            How do we live so as to show that we treasure this gift of new life?  How does Easter make us different?  If I had a $4 million dollar car, there are things I would do differently in my life: I’d probably spend more time caring for my car than I do now; I would certainly never drive it in the snow, which means that in Michigan, I wouldn’t drive it from November until May, it seems like.  If I had $300 million dollars, my life would be radically different, too.  Besides friends I haven’t talked to since high school coming out of the woodwork to hit me up for a little financial help, I’d have to spend a lot of time trying to decide how best to use my new fortune to take care of my own needs, and to share it with others.  If I had my own Caribbean island with private jet, you can bet that I would spend my time there…a lot…especially in the winter!!  Having those things changes the way we live our life.  So sharing in the great gift of the Resurrection should change the way we live our life.

            Part of that change is celebrating the Resurrection.  In the earliest days of the Church, Christians, who were mostly Jews, celebrated two days: Saturday (the Sabbath) and Sunday (the Day of the Resurrection).  They rested on the Sabbaths and early on went to the synagogue, because that’s what they were used to, and then on Sundays they gathered to celebrate that Jesus was risen from the dead, and would read from the prophets and celebrate the Eucharist.  They were so appreciative for the gift of eternal salvation that they wanted to celebrate, each 1^st day of the week, what happened on that momentous 1^st day of the week, when Jesus rose from the dead.  As Christianity split from Judaism, they stopped observing the Sabbath.  But they still held on to Sundays as a day of rejoicing in the Lord and fulfilling the Lord’s command at the Last Supper, to “do this in memory of me.”  Just as the first day in the first creation story was the beginning of creation, so the first day of the week, when Jesus rose from the dead, was the beginning of a new creation.

            I am overjoyed that we have a full church today!!  It is so much easier, and so much more invigorating to preach to a full church, even an overflowing church!!  With as many Catholics as there are in East Lansing, including the MSU students, each Mass should be full with Catholics celebrating the Resurrection!  I’m glad that you’re here with us to celebrate today.  Come back next week when we celebrate the Resurrection again.  And then a week after that we’ll celebrate it again!  And so on for each Sunday.  And even if you don’t quite have the same enthusiasm that you do today, I can promise that we’ll do all we can to help you, each week, to delve deeper and deeper into the great gift that we received from Jesus.

            But, of course, being a Catholic does not stop at these doors.  St. Paul, in our second reading, invites us to be a leaven for our world, not with the “old yeast of malice and wickedness, but the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”  Having come to the empty tomb like Mary Magdalene and Peter and John, we are then called to spread that news to others.  We do that by how we live our life in our actions.  We do that by telling people about Jesus, so that they come to join us.  If you had a $4 million car, or won $300 million dollars, or a Caribbean island, even if you were guarded with whom you told so as not to be taken advantage of, you would want to tell others.  Again, our gift is greater than all of those, and yet you’d think we’d just received the worst news ever, so bad that we don’t even want to acknowledge it to others and try not to let it affect us.  Tell people about Jesus.  Live according to the Gospel.  Those are signs that you are glad in the gift Jesus gave you.  And people need it, because they’re hungry for God and Good News and new life, and we’ve got it!  They are as hungry now as when St. Peter preached, what we heard in our first reading.  And thousands of people were baptized at the preaching of St. Peter!  God has given us the greatest gift in the Resurrection of Jesus.  This is the day the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad it in!!

Do You Smell Good?

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            A couple of weeks ago I went out to lunch with a guy named Joe.  Joe graduated from Lansing Catholic this past May, and was getting ready to move down to Ave Maria College in Florida, where he will play football, and he wanted to catch-up a little before he left.  While Joe and I were eating lunch, the waitress, a 45-50 year old women came over and said, “I just have to say, one of you smells really good.”  There we were, left with the option of a woman liking the smell of either a young priest (dressed in clerics, mind you), or an 18-year-old. 

            A few days later, playing volleyball with some friends on a Thursday evening, my teammate tells me as he’s about to serve, “Father, you smell really good!  What type of cologne do you wear?” 

            We each have our own smells.  Some are highlighted (or hidden) by deodorants and/or cologne or perfume.  But our “scent,” if you will, helps to communicate who we are.  St. Paul, in our second reading, tells us to “be imitators of God…as Christ loved us and handed himself over…as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.”  So if we are to be like Jesus, we must smell like Jesus, not in the sense of our musk, but in the way we live.

            When a person is baptized and later confirmed, Sacred Chrism is put on his or her head.  The Chrism is a mixture of olive oil and a special perfume.  Parents of baptized babies notice the smell of the Chrism.  Those who are confirmed certainly notice the smell, especially since most of those who are confirmed around here are in adolescence and are very concerned with how they smell.  But Sacred Chrism smells for a reason.  It reminds us that we are to have a special smell, the aroma of Christ, the odor of holiness.

            How do we smell differently?  How do we have the odor of holiness?  There are a lot of ways, but based upon our first reading and our Gospel, I want to suggest one very practical way: the way we treat Sundays.

Sunday is a Christian’s day, because it is the day that Jesus rose from the dead.  That’s why we set it aside every week for worship.  It is the new Sabbath, fulfilling the rest that God commanded we take in the Ten Commandments.  It is a day to be given over to the worship of God, charitable works, family and friends, and relaxation.  And it used to set us Catholics apart, just as Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, set Jews apart.  But we have fallen away from the sacredness of the Lord’s Day.

Why do we need the Lord’s Day?  Frankly, we need the rest.  I’m sure I could ask any one of you how the past week went, and you would have myriad events that took place that, whether simply required or even recreational, drained your batteries.  We need rest, just like Elijah, working for God, needed rest.  In fact, he was running away from King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, who were going to kill him, because he had demonstrated the power of the true God, and put to death the false-prophets of Baal.  But, Sunday is not just about sleeping all day.  Even Elijah is told to take bread, because He will need it for the journey to the mountain of God.

Sunday is also about worship, and for us as Catholics, that worship means the Mass.  We are not fulfilling the Sabbath Commandment if we just sleep all day and vaguely think about God.  We need to come to Mass because it is only in the Mass that the Bread of Angels, the Eucharist, is given to us.  We come to Mass because it is there, in a special way, that we are taught by God through His Word, read to us to strengthen us to live out our baptismal call to holiness.  Jesus promises us that, if we are not conscious of grave sin, which makes us unworthy to receive His Body and Blood, than we will live forever, because the bread that He gives is his “flesh for the life of the world.”  The Eucharist is precisely what we need to have strength to do those million things that naturally arise in life between Monday and Saturday, from work, from family, from sports, etc. 

Now, there are lots of people, even Catholics, who do not go to Mass on Sunday, who do not receive the Eucharist, and we may think that they’re doing just fine.  But “just fine” is only a shadow of the “great” that God wants for them, if they would only come to Mass to worship and receive, in a state of grace, the Eucharist.  Without the Body and Blood of Christ that we receive at Mass, we are only a shadow of who we can truly be in Christ.

For the rest of the day, as a way of having the aroma of Christ, let’s say no to almost everything else.  That will be hard, without a doubt.  And some of us have to work, especially in emergency response jobs or the service industry like in restaurants or gas stations.  But, many of us can say no to anything which is not truly relaxing and God-focused.  Many of us can say no to sports practices and menial work which can be done on other days.  If we pledge to each other that we will say no to lesser things, which allows us to say yes to God, family & friends, assisting the poor, and relaxation for one day per week, then our families will be able to worship God and find strength in the Eucharist, and will be able to enjoy each other’s company and strengthen their familial bonds, and we’ll have the strength and energy we need to do the work that lies ahead of us from Monday through Saturday: at work, at school, on the field, in the gym, and around the house.  And in this one way, we will have the aroma of Christ, the odor of holiness, so that we will smell good, not for a waitress or a friend, but for God.