Entering the Paschal Mystery (Precept #1)

 Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Part of my hope is that, as you listen to the Scriptures being proclaimed over these weeks where I’m preaching on the Precepts of the Church, you’re trying to guess, as you hear the different readings, which precept I’m going to talk about, or how I’m going to talk about a precept based upon these readings.
    This week is precept number one: You shall attend Mass on Sundays and on holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor.  I especially want to focus on why the Church would tell us that we need to attend Mass.  

    What is the Mass?  We often think of the Mass as the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, presented for us in an unbloody manner (and that is certainly true).  But it is not only Good Friday that is made present for us each time the Mass is celebrated.  When we participate in the Mass, we are participating in the entire Paschal Mystery, that is to say, the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ.  And that is what St. Paul proclaimed in the epistle today: “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; …he was buried; …he was raised on the third day…”. What St. Paul proclaims to us is precisely that in which we participate.
    Notice that it’s not simply a memorial, either.  I didn’t say that we remember the Paschal Mystery; we participate in it.  It’s not a bad thing to remember.  We have lots of memories that connect us to the past, whether our own, our families, or even the members of our Church.  But we do more than remember: we enter into the very mysteries that we also recall.  Sundays are our days as Christians because it is the day that our Lord rose from the dead.  So on those days we enter into all that proceeded the Resurrection (the Passion and Death), and the consummation of the Resurrection (the Ascension into heaven) as our primordial day of celebration, the day that we assemble as a community of faith to give thanks to God for what He did for us, saving us from sin and death and allowing us to be able to enter into heaven.  On the holy days, we honor other special parts of our Lord’s life, or parts of our Lady’s life, or All Saints.  
    And while we can remember the Paschal Mystery, or we can remember our Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, or All Saints from the comfort of our living room couch, or by a lake, or another outdoor setting, we cannot enter into that Paschal Mystery in any of those places without the Mass because the Mass connects us to an historical and eternal event, which is something we cannot do on our own, but must be gifted us from God.  Going to Mass is not so much that we go to God (though it’s important that we do), but that God comes to us and allows us to participate, even in a limited way, in His eternity, and in the eternal offering of our Lord to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit.  That is why not even watching Mass on TV or on the Internet is the same as going to Mass (though it could be a good second option if we are sick or otherwise unable to attend Mass through no fault of our own).  
    In the Mass, we also have a chance to be healed in a way that doesn’t happen anywhere else.  In our Gospel, we heard about Christ healing the man who was deaf and mute.  Other than the Sacrament of Penance (which should be a regular part of our life as Catholics anyway), the Mass is the ordinary place where our venial sins are forgiven.  Our lack of hearing the Gospel (like deafness) or our failure to proclaim the Gospel by word and deed (like the speech impediment) can be forgiven and we can be restored to the fullness of the relationship that God wants for us.  When we receive the Eucharist, our venial sins are forgiven (as long as we don’t have any mortal sins), as the culmination of those times of asking for the Lord’s mercy.  At the very beginning of Mass, I, as well as the servers, who represent you, confess that we have sinned through our own fault, and ask God to be merciful to us sinners.  And throughout the Mass we continue to approach God, recognizing that we are sinners, even right before the reception of Holy Communion, we we acknowledged, “Domine, non sum dignus,” “Lord, I am not worthy…”. But God makes us worthy and unites us to Himself through the Eucharist.
    Again, this aspect of forgiveness is not something that we can receive sitting by ourselves, no matter how comfortable or how beautiful it may be.  Only when we come together, as God’s holy people, and receive the Bread of Life, the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Son of God, do we have that level of access to the mercy of God.  Yes, God can forgive our sins outside of Mass, or even outside of the Sacrament of Penance.  But He certainly forgives our venial sins in the Mass, and all our sins in the Sacrament of Penance.  

    God wants His grace in us to be effective, and so He gives us a sure way that we can approach Him, be strengthened by Him, and enter into the very realities–the mysteries we call them–that save us.  What a beautiful gift to us, a gift that we should want to have access to each and every week.  But, for those times where we need a little extra encouragement, Holy Mother Church reminds us in the first precept, that we are to attend Mass each Sunday and holy day, so that we can participate in the Paschal Mystery, and be healed from our deafness and muted voice.  May God help us always to hear His voice, and proclaim what God has done for us: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

How Much to be a Disciple?

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
    How much?  We’ve probably all asked that question, usually buying something.  How much?  Maybe we’ve asked it when we were ready to start haggling over the price, whether listed on the product or told us.  How much?
    So it might seem weird for Jesus to talk about the “cost” of discipleship.  He invites us to ask ourselves if we have enough to be His disciple, using the image of a builder about to construct a tower, or even a king about to attack another kingdom with his army.  In both cases, the individual has to ask: do I have enough? 
    I would hazard a guess that the questions, “How much?” and “Do I have enough?” are probably not questions we readily associate with discipleship.  After all, we can all come to Jesus as we are, right?  How do those questions make any sense?
    And that’s exactly what Jesus wants, and what Jesus deserves.  God gave us everything.  Everything we have in life comes as a gift.  Even that for which we toil is indirectly a gift, as our ability to work is itself a gift from God.  So what does the One who gave us everything deserve back?  Everything. 
    That may seem like a lot, but there are probably some people in our life to whom we wouldn’t mind giving our all.  While married couples may not give their all perfectly, they certainly try to give their spouse anything he or she needs.  Parents, even if misdirected to things of lesser importance, sacrifice just about everything for their children.  Sometimes even simply good friends are the ones from whom we would sacrifice anything: time, effort, money. 
    Think about how foolish it would be to barter when it came to a person we loved.  Imagine a husband saying to a wife, “I’ll give you everything that I am, but you’re going to have to let me keep my weird habit of (fill in the blank).”  If he loves her, and she says that he has to give up whatever for her, he will do it.  The same could be said vis versa.  And if we’re not willing to give that whatever up, then it’s safe to say that we don’t fully love that person.  Of course, a person who truly loves us won’t make us give up anything which is good for us.  But a person who truly loves us does insist that we give up things which cause us harm.
    So, now think of Jesus.  How often do we say, “Jesus, I love you, but if you make me give up (fill in the blank), then I’m going to leave you”?  We may not say it directly, but it’s what’s in our mind at times.  For young people, it’s often the Church’s teaching on sexual morality.  For some families it’s the Church’s insistence that we gather each Sunday and Holyday to worship God at Mass.  I think for others, it has to do with our convenience.
    Right now there’s a committee with representation from across the Diocese looking at how many priests we’re going to have retiring and being ordained in the next 5-10 years, and what that will mean for parishes.  I’ve mentioned this before, but over the next four years, we have around 20-25 priests who will be eligible for retirement, but will only be ordaining around 5 priests.  That’s a net loss of 15-20 priests.  So expecting that each parish will have the same amount of Masses in the same number of places is simply unrealistic.  I’m not clairvoyant when I say that some churches will likely close, others will merge, and Mass times will be different.  And, I know that when Mass times change, people leave; that happened here.  And while for some people, Mass at a particular time is not possible because of a work schedule, and for others it’s not practical due to getting children ready, there are no small amount of cases where I’ve heard and been told that if it’s not the time that person wants, he’s leaving.  Which is to say, “Jesus, I’ll only give you everything if it’s not too inconvenient.” 
    This is also a great reminder for us to pray for vocations.  Sometimes parents are open to having priests, as long as it doesn’t come from their family.  But all young men should be open to a vocation to priesthood.  Maybe that’s how a young man is to give his all to Jesus.
    I’m have no plans to change our Mass schedule.  But if we, in the future, went down to one Mass, would you stop going altogether?  What’s most important is not so much where we go, but that we go.  Changes to parish structures all across the Diocese of Lansing are bound to happen.  Will we stick with Jesus no matter what the configuration is?  No matter what the future holds, are we willing to give Jesus everything?  Are we willing to take up our cross, and give our all to Jesus?

Jesus doesn’t do “gotchas.”  He lets us know that following him has a cost, and that cost is everything.  That’s what He means when He says that we have to “hate” family, and even our own life, and have to take up our cross and follow Him.  On the cross, a person lost everything.  You were separated from family, not being able to join them, but being fastened to the wood of the cross.  You were separated from any dignity, not only because you were killed as a criminal, but, as most scholars say, you were naked as the day you were born.  And of course, you were separated from life, as you slowly asphyxiated, where your lungs filled with fluid and your breaths became more and more shallow until you could breathe no more.  Being on the cross meant giving your all.